"So how does one...approach...dyeing hair?"
Dabi offered while Midoriya was immersed in his sketchbook (his new go-to past time. Buying the thing was seriously paying off).
Last night had been like all of the bad nights before, save for the fact that Dabi had to carry an emotionally exhausted Izuku all the way home instead of being able to just leisurely tuck him and keep him warm. Also newsflash, the distance from the apartment to their hideout felt much longer when you're lugging an extra 60 pounds.
It had been hard falling asleep that night. They had problems; lots of them. Problems that Dabi hadn't and really should have thought about long before now. His brain had managed to supply endless ideas for ways he was fucking everything up, and Dabi took advantage of it. He kept a mental note on all of the rational things he needed to keep up on. Like hygiene, food containment, clothes, entertainment (the sketchbook wouldn't keep him occupied forever), clocks, heaters (for the future when Dabi wouldn't be there), and communication methods, to name a few.
For now, Dabi would just make sure the kid stayed happy. Happy and alive. The two kinda came in a package deal.
He would start with spicing up his day with something new, and hopefully exciting.
The kid, as it turns out, was thrilled about the idea when it was asked yesterday.
Then, this morning, he asked if he could do it himself. On his own.
First instinct? Hell to the fuck no.
"Wait, kid, where does it even say that you're supposed to get it wet—"
"They don't have to say it, cuz it's obvious. Hasn't anyone ever cut your hair before? They always get it wet before they start. I know what I'm doing—!"
"That's cutting hair kid, not dyeing it—"
"Uh uh uh! You said that I could do it all on my own! You promised!"
But you can guess just how well that panned out.
"Just to be absolutely clear, we're not cutting my hair today. Just dyeing. That's it." Dabi clarified. He didn't want to end up with a mullet by the end of this.
"I know that! But it's the same people who cut hair that dye it right?"
"Um," Dabi actually didn't have a solitary clue what people did when they cut your hair. He'd always gotten his done by his mom to avoid 'being infected by the outside world', and after that, his old man never gave him so much as a second of his time. I mean, who has time to take their oldest to get a trim when you're too busy beating the shit out of your youngest?
"I take that as a yes, so wet it is!"
Before Dabi could even think about objecting, he felt the kid pour an entire bottle of water over his head, effectively soaking it.
"I believe that was a tad too much water." Dabi deadpanned through gritted teeth.
"But you have so much hair! Seriously, when's the last time you've even cut it—"
"A while. And no, that is not me giving you permission to cut it, in case you were wondering. Dyeing it one thing, shaving my head is another."
"But—"
"No buts kid. I am drawing the line in the sand on this one," he said bluntly, because although Dabi was certainly a pushover, letting the kid use cheapass scissors to go hog-wild on his hair was on a whole new spectrum of bad ideas.
Izuku huffed defeatedly but didn't say anything to push the subject further.
While Dabi waited for him to get started, he could hear suspicious commotion from behind him that sounded very much not like the sounds you would expect someone who was getting stuff out of a package. It was the last straw when he heard what sounded like something ripping.
"What in the world are you doing over there?"
Honestly, Dabi would consider it a win if he didn't end up half-bald by the end.
"Are you reading the instructions? Clearly?" he questioned, hearing ruffling from behind him.
"Uh...what instructions?" Izuku tittered.
Oh boy.
"What do you mean, what instructions ?" Dabi was certain that when he'd picked out the dye he'd made sure it was starter pack with clear steps because, frankly, he had no clue where to begin when it came to doing hair.
"I mean there aren't any—oh." his words cut off mid-sentence. Dabi didn't like the sound of that.
"Kid? Everything going alright back there?"
"I think that the instructions were on the inside of the box."
"And?" a growing sense of exasperation grew inside him.
"Well...when I was opening it, I couldn't peel off the tape, so I ripped it? And, and now I can't really read the instructions, cuz they're ripped, n' stuff," he said bashfully, but also snidely. The little shit was enjoying himself.
"You have got to be kidding me." Dabi groaned, putting his hands up to his face.
The kid tried to suppress his giggles, and Dabi reached his arm over the fold-up chair to snatch the pack from him.
"Gimme the box. This is a big kid job," he said bluntly, reaching around. When he finally felt something cardboard, it was pulled away from his reach immediately.
"You said that I could do it all on my own!" the kid said, keeping the box away from Dabi.
"Well, you can't do it if you can't even read what to do!" he challenged, having half a mind to get up and grab it from the kid himself.
"How hard can it be? All that's in here is a packet, gloves, and two bottles. Easy."
Dabi was just about ready to strangle him.
"NO, not easy, there are rules and steps and stuff—" he daringly dove his arm in the general direction of where he thought the kid would be dangling the kit, and was lucky enough to snag it right of out Izuku's hands.
"HEY—!"
"Shush it. If we're doing this, we're going to do it right," he monotoned, surveying the damage done by the rip.
"But you said—"
"I know what I said. And you will get to do everything, I just want to make sure that you don't somehow turn my hair purple or orange or something."
"That's not even possible! It's black dye!"
"Trust me, kid, you would find a way."
After opening up the box on the seams, not scrambling the instructions further, he could read enough to gather the main idea through the tear. It was pretty straightforward, but still needed to be done carefully enough that it didn't end up smeared on his face; Dabi assumed the stuff stained skin. Izuku would sure get a kick out of that.
"Okay, so the packet apparently has bleach stuff in it that has to be done first, so-" He plucked the packet out of the box and hurled it behind him, just barely missing Izuku's face. "Begone." Izuku let out a startled 'hey' from almost being socked with a packet of bleach powder. He retorted by picking it back up off the ground and shoving it down the back of Dabi's shirt.
"What the fu-uh, freeze-dried raisins?" He shook it out of his shirt and tossed it to his side, grateful it hadn't broken open in the process.
"If that had popped inside of my shirt I wouldn't have hesitated to—" he paused, processing what he'd read.
"Why would anyone need to bleach their hair if they're just gonna dye it black?" he asked, throwing his arms into the air for enthesis.
"Are you actually reading the instructions, because it probably explains." Dabi tilted his head to give Izuku a fugitive glare before looking back down at the instructions for extra clarification.
"Alright fine. I guess it's supposed to last longer with bleach so, yeah sure let's do it. If I go bald I'm shaving your head though." Izuku shot him a loathsome look.
"Okay, so that powder packet sitting on the floor somewhere gets mixed with the stuff in the container that looks like the ketchup bottles in restaurants but clear. Shake it up and get it all evenly in my hair, let it sit for half an hour, yada yada, get the idea?" luckily the instructions had pictures to go along with the descriptions. Perfect for an idiot like him to follow.
"Yeah, got it. Told you it would be easy!" Izuku jabbered while retrieving the powder packet off the floor. Dabi could hear him unscrewing the bottle, before getting ready to tear open the pouch.
"Be careful when your opening the bleach pack—"
"I knoowww!" he insisted. Dabi refrained from pointing out that he did not seem to know earlier when he tore the kit open without a second thought.
Once the small packet was opened successfully, he focused hard on trying not to spill the substance while pouring it into the clear bottle with only god knows what in it. He finished with minor spillage and begun to shake it vigorously, jiggling up and down as he did so.
"I think it's mixed kid, get to it already," Izuku grumbled something along the lines of 'yeah yeah', before adding some bleach onto Dabi's hair and kneading it in with the gloves.
"Woah, Dabi it turned blue! I thought it was supposed to turn white? Why isn't it working?" Izuku asked while smearing the stuff around.
"One, don't ask me. I've never gone through an emo phase and dyed my hair different colors," his dad would absolutely murder him, "And two—wait. Does this count as an emo phase? Oh god, I never thought the day would arrive. Would you be mad if I bought speakers and started blaring punk rock music?" he jibed to Midoriya's utter horror.
"Ugh, do NOT please,"
"Oh come on! I could totally rock an emo look."
"Dabbiiiii…"
"Right, right. That means no emo phase for you either though. I would not be able to deal with you wanting a nose piercing." the mental image of Izuku, a bubbly innocent kid, in punk clothes and emo hair, was hilarious.
He seemed to take a second to audibly blanch,
"If I ever go through an emo phase, you have permission to wax my eyebrows in my sleep."
Dabi gasped and threw his arms up with jazz hands, whispering, "the privileges."
The kid snorted in response, and Dabi remembered what he'd been asking about in the first place.
"And to answer your question, I don't think you're supposed to see the effects right away? It said to let it sit for half an hour, so I imagine it won't magically poof my hair to white."
The kid hummed in acknowledgment and continued squirting the stuff over the rest of his hair until there was none left. He stepped back, as if admiring his work from a new angle.
"Oh hey, it's working! It's starting to get white at the tips!"
They didn't have any mirrors (another one of those common household items Dabi would have to add to his list), so he handed Midoriya his phone to take a picture. He was right, the bleach seemed to be working its way from the ends to his scalp.
"I'm going to set a timer for thirty minutes. Then it's supposedly safe to wash out,"
After that, they would scrub it out and start the hair dyeing process. Dabi was pretty sure that there was supposed to be a gap of time separating the bleaching from the dyeing, but neither of them was patient enough to wait another day. Dabi just wanted this over and done.
He set a timer on his phone, and they only waited about twenty minutes of the time before disaster struck.
Dabi was scrolling through the news, scanning it for anything useful or important that he should note, when he started feeling a weird hot itchiness around his head. At first, he marked it off as a small side-effect of the bleach, refraining from scratching it to avoid accidentally turning his hands white or poisoning himself or whatever. He kept to distracting himself with dumb free apps he'd never bothered to delete years ago while simultaneously trying not to let the persisting itch get to him.
But then it got worse.
Dabi had to nibble at the inside of his mouth in order not to slur curses under his breath or yell as the itch turned into a growing burning sensation spreading over his scalp and neck. It wasn't even that it was particularly painful, it's just that it didn't go away and kept increasing and spreading as it scolded his face and arms and the fire wouldn't go out it just kept growing—
Dabi stood up, startled by the intrusive thought and his not-entirely conscious movement, before caving in and heading towards the bathroom. His hands hovered over his head, not wanting to touch the bleach.
"Wh-hey, Dabi! You're not supposed to wash it out yet—!" Midoriya protested, getting up from whatever he was doing and following him to their bathroom.
"Nope, I'm uh, I'm getting it out now," he insisted, grabbing their water filter and pouring the clean water into a bucket. The bathroom was looking ten-times better than it had when they'd gotten there initially, but it still had a long way to go. At least it was clean, so that when Dabi faced the sink while he was pouring the water over his head, he at least wouldn't gag.
"What, why? There's still like, ten minutes left, right?" he asked bemusedly.
Dabi tore his shirt off in seconds to save it from getting ruined and discarded it on the floor.
"It started burning for some reason, and honestly I can't help but feel that you are the root of the problem," Dabi had supervised Izuku along the way the entire time, and they hadn't strayed from the instructions once. The box said nothing about your head catching on fire, so it was safe to assume the kid had messed something up along the way.
"Hey, I did everything right! It's not my fault your hair is toxic or something," he asserted, still clearly entertained and luckily not insulted or hurt from the assumption.
"Well, whoever's fault it is, it is getting off my head," he articulated firmly, scrubbing at his hair like a madman with one hand while pouring water from the bucket with the other.
Izuku, against all odds, stopped pestering him and started full blown cackling. Seeing Dabi with only his pants on, blond hair and acting like someone threw up on his head was too much.
In another circumstance, Dabi could've been angry at the kid's disregard for his obvious misery. This time, however, he almost felt like laughing along with him. He surely did look ridiculous, and the kid's laugh never failed to make him feel warm and proud of himself.
By the time Dabi had it all rinsed out and the pain had dulled, Izuku had melted into a puddle of giggles on the floor. He grabbed a towel, but, glaring at Izuku, instead started flinging his head back and forth like a wet dog; effectively sending water everywhere.
Izuku sobered up his giggle fit when he started getting showered with water.
"Hey, watch it—! You have a towel you heathen —HEY—STAWP IT!" He got up and bolted from the bathroom to avoid the spray, and Dabi grinned shitheadedly with satisfaction before actually drying his hair like a normal person. He got into an old shirt that he wouldn't have to worry about ruining (which he really should have done in the first place), and headed out to repeat the hell once again.
Dabi entered the room to find Izuku hanging backward off the edge of the couch, playing with his phone that he'd left unsupervised when he made his mad-dash to the bathroom.
The news had been left open when he'd left.
He immediately sprinted over and grabbed the phone, worried that the kid had seen something ugly on the news, or his account name, or something,
"What the hell, Midoriya?!? You know my phone's off limits, you can't—"
He was met with the camera app opened.
A breath he didn't even realize he'd been holding was let out.
The kid had only been taking pictures, that's all.
He looked back at Izuku, who seemed genuinely startled by the sudden outburst, and was eyeing him with confusion and slight concern.
Of course he'd overreacted. Of course.
He kept up the pissy facade, as to not come off as a lunatic being freaked out about a kid taking pictures with his phone.
"You can't, just, use my phone whenever you feel like it kid. You know, privacy and all?" He reprimanded sternly with literally no actual heat in it as he opened the photo gallery.
He was greeted with about ten to fifteen images of Midoriya, grinning and giggling mischievously at the camera. It was obvious they'd all been taken in the same ten seconds with how blurred the pictures with his movement were.
It was becoming increasingly harder to pretend he was angry at Izuku when he felt whatever was the exact opposite of anger. How could you look at those pictures and not feel an overwhelming urge to smile?
"You won't delete them, will you?" Midoriya asked, his lower lip sticking out dramatically.
"You took like, twenty blurry pictures. Of course I'm deleting them,"
He didn't.
"You're so mean! I was just trying to be nice…" he seemed to only be half-joking. Every fiber in Dabi's being wanted to tell him that it was completely fine and he liked the fucking pictures, but he instead kept to his dumb pattern and merely stuck out his tongue to tease him.
The lag in conversation that came after his gesture threatened to become awkward, so Dabi started a new one where they'd left off.
"Anyways, I honestly don't even want to see myself with blond hair, so let's get this over with."
Izuku flopped off the couch like a dead fish with a quiet 'okay' and followed him back into the bathroom. He still looked kinda deflated. Dabi only hated himself a little for that.
"Is this just like the bleach?" Izuku asked, ending their short fog.
Dabi quickly skimmed through the instructions, just to make sure, and grimaced when he saw how easily this stuff could stain not only clothes, but skin as well.
"You're supposed to do it in sections, get some dye, fully saturate it, and don't get it on my skin or you're gonna wanna turn into sonic before I have enough time to catch you. Sound simple enough?" the steps were just annoyingly complicated enough for Dabi to know that something was going to go wrong.
"What's 'saturated' mean?" Izuku took back the box and pulled on the second pair of gloves provided (that were far too large on him) as he asked. At least he'd perked up.
"Uh. It means a lot. Just add a lot. Also, you're supposed to shake the bottle before applying, it says," he added as an afterthought.
Dabi could hear the kid shaking up the bottle of dye behind him, this time hopping up and down as he did so. It was moments like these that Dabi truly grasped just how young Izuku was. How young Dabi was. Best not to think about it though, especially when they were finally having fun.
The kid opened the bottle with a pop, and immediately gagged at the smell.
"This is disgusting."
Dabi turned around again and snatched the bottle, sniffing it. "I don't know what your problem is, it smells fine. Kinda fruity, actually." Better than the bleach, at least.
Izuku gave him a disgruntled look and took the bottle back. He tentatively squeezed a glob onto his fingers and took a patch of hair, smearing it on messily.
"Grosss it's slimmyyyy!" he whined.
"You're wearing gloves, aren't you?" Dabi countered, rolling his eyes.
"But it still feels weirddd," he complained.
"And the bleach didn't feel weird? Just deal with it."
"The bleach was in a bottle, and it wasn't slimy!" he shot back.
Dabi could have come up with some other snarky remark, but settled for grumbling quietly while the kid worked.
The silence got boring after a while, and Dabi didn't want to take out his phone (the risk of Midoriya peeking over his shoulder and seeing the pictures when he turned it on was too high), so he goaded,
"Is my hair orange yet?"
"I know that you know that I have a bottle of black hair dye in my hand right now,"
"And I know that you know that I know that. Doesn't make it any less fun to bring up," he answered easily.
They bickered back and forth while Izuku finished up, doing a surprisingly clean job and only smearing a bit of dye on the back of his neck. It was so minimal, though, that Dabi didn't even mention it (the kid deserved a win).
"Nice work kid," Dabi got up, ruffling Izuku's hair on his way out of the bathroom to set the timer on his phone "And now we wait."
Chapter 5 is done~
See you next week again.