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From the way Dabi had been looking at him earlier, Keigo wasn’t expecting things to take this sort of turn.
When he’d felt his phone buzz in his pocket that morning, he figured it was Dabi texting to meet up again in some back alley, or on an abandoned rooftop. Somewhere discreet to exchange info, give updates— completely impersonal. Instead, he had found himself staring at the words u wanna have dinner with us in the little grey bubble on his screen.
Us. Not me. He would’ve liked it to be just the two of them, but the more he interacted with the entire League, the more intel he could deliver to the Commission. What was good for Them was rarely what was good for Keigo.
sure, he responded after the requisite five minutes of waiting time. He didn’t want to seem too eager.
Dinner wasn’t out, it wasn't in public , which he’d anticipated. He had sat snugly between Twice and Toga on an old leather couch as they all swapped takeout containers back and forth.
It was all so normal. Shigaraki, the most wanted man in the country, had been lounging in an armchair, wearing a pair of sweatpants. Spinner’s hair was down, and Compress’ mask had been discarded. Twice left his on, though, only pulling it up to the nose so he could eat. Keigo hadn’t had a family in a long time, but he imagined it was something like this.
Dabi had been quiet as everyone else chatted, seemingly content to sit back and observe. He was used to Dabi talking his ear off whenever they met up; seeing him take the backburner in conversation was odd. His eyes had been on Keigo the entire time. It wasn’t scrutinizing, though.
This, Keigo realized about halfway through the evening, wasn’t a test. Or if it was, it was a different kind.
“I’ll walk you home,” Dabi said at the end of the night. Not a request. Dabi didn’t make requests.
“Uh.” His face felt hot. “Yeah, okay.”
They had walked together in silence for the most part, both of them with hoods drawn up and Dabi with a mask covering the lower half of his face.
“Was that okay?” Dabi asked. “I know they’re all pretty intense.”
“Are you asking me if I like your friends, Dabi?”
“They’re not my friends,” Dabi protested, which Keigo didn’t believe for a second.
“Well, I liked them,” he said. He could have imagined it, but he thought he saw Dabi’s shoulders slump just the slightest bit in relief.
The air between them had changed once they got to the door. Dabi tucked his mask into his pocket and fixed his gaze on him again. Keigo couldn’t bring himself to put his hand on the doorknob. Dabi’s eyes were so blue .
“So,” he said after clearing his throat. Excellent, well said.
“Yeah,” Dabi had replied.
Keigo thought he’d read the signals correctly, thought he’d picked up a telltale glint of wanting in Dabi’s face. But all of that want, that desire, had dissipated somewhere between getting through the front door and where Dabi was now— nearly hyperventilating on Keigo’s bed, looking naked without his black trench coat that had been abandoned in a heap on the floor.
“We can keep going,” Dabi insisted, even as he locked his hands between his knees to keep them from shaking.
“Uh, absolutely not,” Keigo said. “Not when you’re like this.”
His wings fluttered anxiously, one gracing over Dabi’s back in an attempt at reassurance. A small corner of his brain not occupied with the immediate situation at hand registered that Dabi was rail thin. It was hard to tell when he had that coat on, but the white t-shirt underneath gave Dabi nowhere to hide. With the ripped jeans and studded belt, he looked like a coked-out rock star.
What confused him was that Dabi had initiated the kiss; he’d pushed him up against the door and didn’t let up even as Keigo blindly groped for his keys. They’d gone in hot and heavy, stumbling into his apartment with their hands all over each other, kissing and panting and touching, months of tension finally finding release. Dabi had been the one to push Keigo down onto the bed, Dabi had gotten on top of him, Dabi had pressed one hand to his chest, pinning him to the mattress. His heart had throbbed underneath Dabi’s palm. Dabi kissed him like he was starved for it.
Then they’d started to strip, and something behind Dabi’s eyes shifted when he shrugged his coat off his shoulders. It shifted again when they pressed together, Keigo hard and flush against Dabi’s thigh through his boxer shorts— if he didn’t know any better he’d have called it panic, but it was so brief he couldn’t call it anything with confidence, wasn’t even sure it had been real. Besides, Dabi had chosen that moment to bite down on his neck, so all coherent thought had gone out the window along with the blood leaving his head.
He needed Dabi’s clothes gone, pronto.
He looped his fingers through Dabi’s belt and tugged. “Don’t you wanna take these off?” He gasped between kisses.
It was when Dabi’s fingers trembled as he tried to undo his belt that Keigo had brought things to a screeching halt. He shouldn’t have asked, he scolded himself. It had just seemed weird that he was the only one in his underpants. And he’d wanted to see Dabi, wanted to feel him. He hadn’t been thinking.
Look where that had gotten him.
“Are you okay?” He asked. He touched Dabi’s arm and found him clammy and cold.
Dabi didn’t answer, instead mumbling a low “fuck” and hiding his face in his hands.
“Hey, hey.” His grip on Dabi’s arm tightened. “You’re freaking me out. Talk to me.”
Dabi did not. Keigo nudged him forward to rest his head between his knees.
“There you go, you’re okay.” What was he supposed to do? For all his charm, he was a stranger to comfort— taking and giving it. He could fake it like the best of them in a fight, assuage the worries of any onlookers or reassure the injured, but that was Hawks. This was Keigo. He’d never had to stop midway through a hookup to comfort someone, let alone a wanted felon who could burn him to a crisp at the drop of a hat. Lots of uncharted waters here. It made the backs of his knees sweat.
He scooted closer and extended his wing more, curling it around Dabi’s shoulders. He took it as an encouraging sign when Dabi didn’t push him away or set him on fire. The less flames involved, the better.
“Did I, like.” Jesus, his dick needed to chill out so he could speak in full sentences. “Did I do something—?”
“It’s not you.” Dabi sounded thready and weak, like talking was a struggle.
“Okay.” It was kind of hard to believe when Dabi wouldn’t even look at him. He watched Dabi go ashen, his purple scarring standing out against the grey pallor of the rest of his face.
“I, uh.” Dabi swallowed hard. He slipped out from under Keigo’s wing and off the bed. His legs buckled and Keigo had to bite down on the urge to reach out and steady him. “I’ll be right back…”
He let Dabi go, at a complete loss. The bathroom door down the hall slammed, and there were a few beats of silence before the unmistakable sound of retching made Keigo wince.
Dabi would probably want him to stay here. He knew Dabi’s ideal scenario was both of them forgetting this ever happened in the first place, or burning the apartment building down to erase any evidence. But maybe what Dabi wanted wasn’t what he needed.
Keigo tugged on his pants and padded quietly down the hall, then came to a stop in front of the bathroom.
“Hey man,” he spoke to the closed door, and cringed at his own voice. Wish you weren’t so fucking awkward, bud. “You doing okay in there?”
He received nothing in response. Had he killed him? That would entail one hell of an awkward conversation with the police.
“I’m gonna come in. Don’t incinerate me.”
It was hard to reconcile his abstract concept of Dabi— a dangerous, vindictive criminal with a penchant for arson— with the actual Dabi in front of him, sick on his bathroom floor and looking oddly small. This was the same man who’d had to lean down to kiss Keigo at the door, whose thick black boots thudded with malice against the sidewalk.
Dabi hated heroes. That included him. He needed to remember that, regardless of a heated kiss and near-fucking.
He took a knee next to the curled up ball of a villain slumped over his toilet. “You alright?”
Dabi didn’t answer. Keigo would have loved an indicator on whether fire was a contender for how the night would end, but that wasn’t something you could just ask . Instead he let Dabi be, standing back up for a moment to rummage around in the cabinet behind the mirror. When he rejoined Dabi on the floor, he presented him with an elastic headband.
“To hold your hair back,” he said when Dabi’s brow furrowed in confusion. “I use ‘em sometimes— it gets pretty windy when I fly.”
Dabi sat back on his heels, accepted the offering with a shaking hand and pulling the elastic over his head. He looked cute like that, with his hair out of his face, but it probably wasn’t the right time to tell him.
“How’re you feeling?” Keigo asked. “Any better?” It was a stupid question, but it earned him a reply.
“No,” Dabi croaked. He closed his eyes, and he took a deep inhale through his nose. His brow furrowed and his jaw clenched.
“Hey, c’mon.” Keigo ran his wing up and down Dabi’s spine in slow, soothing motions. “You gotta try to relax.”
Dabi’s whole body shook. His breath came out labored and steam seeped between the staples on his cheeks.
“You don’t have to stay,” Dabi managed.
“Shut up,” Keigo said, and scooted closer for good measure. “Where am I gonna go, huh? It’s my apartment.”
Dabi’s face crumpled and he drew his legs to his chest, curling in on himself and burying his head in his arms. “Fuck, I’m sorry, I just--” he broke off into what was way too close to a whimper for Keigo’s comfort. More than that, Dabi was not one for saying sorry.
“You really don’t have to apologize,” he said. “I’d actually prefer if you didn’t.”
“It’s embarrassing,” Dabi ground out through his teeth.
“It’s just me, hot stuff,” he tried his best to soothe. “It’s just you and me. You got nothing to be embarrassed about.”
Dabi tipped his head back to rest against the wall. “I don’t feel well,” he said on an exhale, more like a frightened child than a convict, and it broke Keigo’s heart.
“I know.” Was he doing this right? Was he making it worse? “But you’re gonna be alright, I promise.”
Dabi screwed his eyes shut, his nails scraping against the bathroom tile. His chest heaved as he struggled for breath, and sweat dripped down his temple. Something red trickled down the side of his nose.
“Ah, okay, uh, your eyes are bleeding.” Keigo hoped he sounded calmer than he felt.
“Fuck.” Dabi pressed the heels of his palms into his eye sockets. “ Fuck , I can’t--”
Keigo decided to forgo the wing in favor of his hand and prayed that Dabi was out of it enough to not realize he was flying by the seat of his pants. He was scared . Not of Dabi— this was the least intimidating the villain had ever been— but of what was happening to Dabi and what it was doing to him . Dabi was vulnerable and it tugged on something far too real inside him, far too akin to caring.
He couldn’t care. It was an expense he couldn’t afford.
Dabi choked on a sob and blue sparks licked his fingers. Not good.
“You gotta breathe, man.” He combed through Dabi’s hair in what he hoped was a comforting gesture, and noticed the slightest hint of white peeking through at the roots. He filed that observation away for later. “We’ll do it together, yeah? Like this.”
He took one of Dabi’s hands and rested it on his bare chest, just like before, but now his heartbeat was steady. Dabi tried to copy his inhale, ragged and stuttering.
“Atta boy,” Keigo murmured. “You got it.”
Dabi hates heroes , he reminded himself even as Dabi’s fingers curled against his skin, pressing into the muscle. He hates you.
They sat in silence for a few minutes; the only sound was Dabi’s wavering breaths and occasional hiccups. Keigo considered getting him some water, but he didn’t want to leave him.
That was the problem: Keigo didn’t hate Dabi. Not even a little.
Eventually Dabi pushed away from him and unfurled a little, stretching his legs out. He was covered in a fine sheen of sweat, and blood was smeared over his face, but he wasn’t gasping for breath anymore.
“Sorry,” he mumbled. He pulled off the elastic headband and set it beside him.
“It’s really okay.” Keigo offered Dabi some toilet paper to clean up, hoping the task would keep him from apologizing anymore. The scarring that ran across his cheeks had reopened around his mouth too, blood beading at the corners of his lips. Dabi wiped the bloody tears from his cheeks and blotted at the scars, and then tossed the soiled tissue into the toilet.
“I’d love to know what the hell is going on with you, though,” Keigo added. “What just happened?”
Dabi fidgeted with the staples circling his wrist, nails digging in deep, and Keigo gingerly touched his arm. A silent way of saying please, look at me. And Dabi did.
“My, um.” He coughed. “My stomach gets fucked up when I’m nervous.”
“You…” It took Keigo a moment to process. He’d known that Dabi had a sensitive stomach from the first and last time they had gone flying, but that had been funny. This was decidedly not funny. Endearing though, if he let himself go there. He wasn’t supposed to let himself go there. “You were nervous?”
Dabi ducked his head. “You asked me to undress and I— I felt sick. I couldn’t do it. And then it… got worse.”
Guilt washed over him, making his own stomach twist. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.” Dabi glanced at him. “I wanted to, but. I don’t know. I hit a wall.”
Keigo’s brain itched, like a lost memory was trying to dig its way into his skull with a plastic spoon. As hard as he focused, it refused to fully take shape.
Just squeeze right here, and you’ll feel better. His own hands, so small, enclosing someone else’s. Pressing on the wrist’s pressure point. You’re gonna be amazing. I’ll be watching you the whole time!
Thank you, Keigo.
When was the last time someone had used his name?
He pushed the fragment of memory down. Whatever can of worms that was, he was fine leaving it unopened. At least, that’s what he told himself.
Dabi shuddered, goosebumps breaking out over his unscarred skin, and Keigo was yanked back into the present. The last thing he wanted was for Dabi to relapse.
“What do you usually do?” He asked. “You know, when you get like this.”
Dabi hesitated before admitting, “It hasn’t happened before.”
“What do you mean, it hasn’t—?” The tile floor beneath him disappeared and his heart jumped into his throat. Oh. “You’re—?”
“I should’ve told you,” Dabi said. “I didn’t know I’d freak out like this.”
Keigo waved him off. “No, hey, your body count isn’t my business.” His mind was reeling; Dabi was a virgin? Walking around like that? “I’m just… surprised.”
Dabi snorted. “You really thought I was hooking up regularly when I look like this?”
Keigo found himself bristling on Dabi’s behalf. “Look like what?”
“Don’t bullshit me, Hawks.” Dabi’s tone took on a dark undercurrent. “Don’t pretend.”
God, why was he getting angry? His chest burned, white hot and impossible to ignore. Getting involved like this wasn’t part of the plan, and yet he had no way to stop. He kept feeling around for the breaks and could only find the accelerator.
“I’m confused, where exactly were you when we were about to fuck—?”
“ Stop .”
The force of Dabi’s voice was so sudden that Keigo obeyed.
“You would take one look at me,” Dabi said, “and you’d tell me to get lost. I’m-- I’m really fucked up, okay? Like, all over.”
Keigo didn’t know what to say— if there even was anything to say. Dabi wouldn’t believe him if he continued to push back; he’d only get angrier. It was so much easier to be angry than to be vulnerable. Keigo knew that.
“This was all because you were afraid of me seeing you?”
Dabi scowled and pushed himself to his feet. “Screw you. I’m going home.”
“Hold on, wait.” He scrambled to stand. One of his feathers detached and circled around Dabi’s wrist.
Just squeeze right here.
“I’m not trying to make fun of you. I— I’m sorry.”
Dabi’s hand froze on the doorknob and he focused intently on a spot on the floor. Keigo wished he’d look at him; he wanted it more than anything. He stepped closer and Dabi stiffened.
“I think you’re incredible.”
“No you don’t. I’d repulse you.”
“Don’t tell me what I think.” He reached for him, and this time he caught it— the look on Dabi’s face. The flinch. The fight-or-flight. The instinct to attack.
Not for the first time, he wondered what the hell had happened to Dabi. Every other villain had a file, an origin, a story. Dabi was a phantom. But questions like where he’d come from or who’d hurt him weren’t things he could ask, not yet. Maybe not ever.
The pads of his fingers grazed Dabi’s scarring, and he slowly deepened his touch until he had Dabi’s face cradled in his hand. His thumb ran over the staples on his cheek.
“You could never repulse me,” Keigo said.
Dabi grit his teeth. Keigo could have sworn he caught the almost imperceptible wobble of his scarred lower lip.
“You really are a hero, aren’t you?” Dabi said. He almost sounded disappointed. “Making promises you can’t keep.”
Keigo stomped out the anger threatening to envelop his voice of reason. He wished he could sit down with Dabi and explain, make him see . Wasn’t heroism worthwhile? Didn’t the effort to keep a promise count for something?
His finger caught on one of Dabi’s staples and they both winced. Keigo let his hand drop.
Dabi had been crossed before; Keigo didn’t need a file on him to know that. No one came out of the womb this way; Dabi was a product of suffering. As desperate as Keigo was to find out, there was a part of him that didn’t want to pull on that thread. He had a feeling the skeletons in Dabi’s closet would unravel everything.
It wasn’t like he could tell Dabi that he was different, or that he was honest. For all Dabi’s secrets and deception, his hatred for heroes went hand-in-hand with his hatred for liars, and Keigo had built up this whole rapport based on lies. (Except sometimes when he was with the League, Dabi in particular, the things that came out of his mouth tasted truthful. He refused to think about why.)
But liars didn’t lie all the time. From the moment Dabi had kissed him at the door, it had been painfully real. Right here, half-dressed and with a villain in his home, was the most authentic Keigo had been in ages.
There was a comfort in the certainty that things would fall apart once everything came out into the open. This wasn’t built to last; that’s part of what made it so easy.
“Well,” Dabi said, breaking his train of thought, “I’m gonna go. Let’s not do this again.”
Keigo trailed behind him into the bedroom, wracking his brain for what to say that would make Dabi stop.
“Did you watch the Hero Billboard Chart event in Kamino Ward?”
Dabi paused, one arm in his coat. “What?”
“Did you watch it?” He repeated.
“... Shigaraki wanted us to, but I bailed. Why?”
“If you’d watched it,” Keigo said, taking a tentative step closer, “you’d know one of my coworkers is a washing machine. ”
That did the trick; it shocked Dabi out of his bitterness, startled him to the point of laughter, which was when Keigo realized with a jolt that this was the first time he’d heard Dabi laugh— not a snicker or a scoff, a real laugh. It was a little raspy like his normal voice, but it wasn’t evil or menacing.
He could save this. This was salvageable.
“You know Kamui Woods too, right?” He pressed. “You’ve met him?”
“Under unpleasant circumstances,” Dabi replied.
“So you saw how he’s made entirely out of tree bark.”
Dabi sighed and let his arm slip out of his coat. The levity in his expression was fading. “Make your point, Hawks.”
“All I’m saying is, it might be a tiny bit arrogant of you to assume you’re the weirdest looking person I’ve ever met.”
Dabi gaped at him. “ Arrogant?”
He raised his hands in fake surrender. “I’m just putting it out there.” He lowered into a softer tone. “I hate to break it to you, hot stuff, but you aren’t nearly as weird as you seem to think. Scars don’t scare me.”
Dabi’s lip curled. “I don’t believe you.”
Keigo took the plunge. “Then show me.”
Dabi faltered. “Sorry, what?”
“You heard me.” He sat on the edge of the bed. “Show me. Either you’re right, which I know you love, or I’m right and it doesn’t bother me. A win-win for you.”
Dabi’s eyes narrowed. Just as Keigo began to worry he’d gone too far, Dabi said, “alright, fine.”
Keigo hadn’t actually planned for this part. It had been more of a think-on-your-feet situation. He’d just known he couldn’t let Dabi walk out.
They’d lacked the presence of mind to take their shoes off at the door when they’d come tumbling in; Keigo had taken his off when he’d stripped to his boxers earlier, but Dabi was still fully dressed. Keigo had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing when Dabi sat down on the floor in order to pull off his boots.
“If you laugh at me, I will burn this place down with both of us in it,” Dabi threatened. He tossed his boots off to the side. His socks had holes in them, which he yanked off unceremoniously before standing back up.
“Are you gonna perform for me?” Keigo asked, feigning scandal. Dabi seemed to respond well when he poked fun at him-- not well, exactly, but it distracted him. As long as he kept the atmosphere light, Dabi’s anxiety wouldn’t kick in. Or, that was his working theory.
“I’m gonna roast you on a spit is what I’m gonna do,” Dabi said. He crossed his arms at the waist and pulled his t-shirt over his head in one fluid motion, then threw it at Keigo.
Immediately he was greeted with a mess of staples and, if he was honest, more scarring than he’d expected. The purple on Dabi’s neck snaked all the way down to his wrist, encasing his entire right arm. The strip of healthy skin that wrapped around Dabi’s chest and over his left shoulder was bracketed by a graft on his torso; it crept up towards his armpit before sloping down again, like the peak of a mountain. He was thin, but with a lean sort of muscle that reminded Keigo of a greyhound, or a wild animal in the winter. Both his nipples were missing, but his belly button was unharmed. His hip bones peeked out above his belt.
Keigo’s grip on Dabi’s shirt tightened, the soft cotton bunched up in his lap. He resisted the temptation to bring it to his nose and smell it. His pulse throbbed in his neck. Dabi watched him, clearly looking for any traces of revulsion. Without his shirt, Keigo could make out the rapid rise and fall of his chest, like a frightened rabbit.
“You don’t have to keep going,” he said, breaking his own rule of staying lighthearted. He didn’t want Dabi to cross an internal line just to prove a point.
Dabi didn’t respond and began working on his belt. His hands didn’t shake this time; there was a determination in them now, even as his breathing picked up. Had Keigo pushed him too far?
When Dabi ripped the belt from its loops with a resounding snap of the leather, heat coiled tight in the pit of Keigo’s stomach— even tighter when he saw the denim of Dabi’s jeans straining over his crotch. Suddenly his throat was very dry and the room was very warm.
He was pretty sure this wasn’t what the Commission meant when they said to win Dabi’s trust.
Dabi paused, fingers poised over the button of his pants.
“Hawks.” His lips had thinned into a line and for a moment Keigo was afraid he was going to be sick all over his floor, or pass out.
“Yeah?”
“I want you to do it.”
Keigo was confident he misunderstood. Why was it so hot in here? “Sorry, uh, I don’t think I follow?”
Dabi let out a grunt of frustration and gestured to himself. “Help me,” he muttered. “Please.”
He must have been hit in the head during a patrol. That had to be it. This whole night had been a concussion-induced dream, and in reality he was lying unconscious on the sidewalk somewhere while one of his sidekicks called for backup. Dabi did not ask for help, and he definitely did not tack on a “please” at the end.
“Are you sure?” But Keigo was already on his feet and bridging the distance between them. Dabi would change his mind if he was given the chance to overthink it.
Dabi met his eyes and guided his hands to his hips. A shiver ran through Keigo’s wings from the rush of adrenaline; Dabi’s skin was soft where it wasn’t scarred, with the slightest bit of give. He was touching him, finally touching him. Not the desperate fumbles or rushed groping when they’d first collapsed on his bed, no, time slowed down here. He was touching Dabi, and Dabi was feeling it.
“You’re not gonna puke on me, are you?” He asked, maintaining eye contact as he undid the top button.
Dabi glared, but it wasn’t as effective as it might have been if Keigo hadn’t just seen him in the throes of a panic attack on his bathroom floor. “If you tell anyone about that, I’ll kill you.”
“C’mon, who am I gonna tell?” Keigo grinned while his heart pounded liar, liar, liar in a painful rhythm. He found the zipper without looking and pulled.
Nothing.
Dabi closed his eyes, looking like he was contemplating the logistics of setting the entire apartment complex on fire. “Is it stuck?”
“No,” he reassured, and pulled again. No luck. “Maybe a little bit.”
Dabi dropped his head to Keigo’s shoulder. “I think it’s an omen.”
“I think you have a shitty pair of jeans.” Without thinking, he pressed a kiss to the crown of Dabi’s head. “Or the zipper got warped by this big —”
“ Do not. ” It was probably because of his quirk, but Keigo could feel Dabi’s face getting hot where it was pressed into the crook of his neck. Was Dabi liable to burst into flames if he riled him up enough?
Finally the zipper gave way.
“See?” He hooked his thumbs over the waistband and began shimmying the jeans over Dabi’s hips. “I got it. Nothing to worry about.”
Dabi raised his head. His cheeks were pink . Fuck, he was cute. He was a wanted felon and he was cute. Keigo was so beyond screwed. Might as well go out with flying colors.
He was tempted to ask Dabi why he was letting him do this, but he was afraid to hear the answer. If the words I trust you came out of Dabi’s mouth, that would be it. He wouldn’t know what to do with himself.
“You want me to go slow, or are we ripping it off like a bandaid?”
“Slowly,” Dabi answered. “I have… There are staples on my legs. If they get caught—”
“Gotcha,” Keigo said, relieving Dabi from having to finish that sentence. Tearing off a hookup partner’s skin was never part of the agenda. “Slow and steady it is.”
He slipped his hands between Dabi’s thighs and the fabric of his pants, which was a little uncomfortable for his wrists, but he didn’t mind. He slid down and hit the line of staples. The contrast in texture between Dabi’s healthy skin and the scarring was even more stark when he was only relying on touch; he maintained eye contact with Dabi the whole time, even as he knelt to bring the denim all the way to Dabi’s ankles.
“Anything come loose?” There were scars on Dabi’s calves, too. How many parts of Dabi’s body did he use as a firestarter?
Dabi shook his head and stepped out of the pants, then kicked them off to the side. His toes curled against the carpet and he crossed his arms over his chest. His legs were long and lean like the rest of him, with an anxious energy like he’d bolt at any moment. Legs like a deer, or a gazelle. Someone who had learned to run fast for survival’s sake.
Keigo wasn’t sure if it was weirder that Dabi stripped down to his underwear in a hero’s bedroom, or for himself to have encouraged a villain to get naked. But weird didn’t mean wrong.
He tugged off his sweatpants and tossed them aside with Dabi’s jeans.
“Now we’re even,” he said, but he couldn’t shake the desire to remove that last piece of Dabi’s clothing. There was no tent in Dabi’s boxers anymore— nerves shot that sort of thing down quick.
Right. Because Dabi was waiting for his disgust. Dabi’s eyes roamed over him, drifting across his body, searching for… Keigo didn’t know what. An imperfection, maybe. A blemish, a scar. Keigo had plenty of those, but they were faint and blended into his skin unless you looked closely.
“You’re like a Ken doll,” Dabi said, but it was without any malice or scorn. On the contrary, if Keigo had to give the tone a name, it would be closer to envy. It made him squirm.
“Do I need to prove I’m not smooth plastic under here?” He joked, patting the crotch of his boxers.
Dabi snorted. “You just wanna show off more.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Dabi was practically hugging himself, arms wrapped around his torso. Trying to hide. No wonder he wore that dark trench coat and those big black boots; his body screamed weak, screamed vulnerable .
“C’mon,” Dabi said, gesturing to all of him. “Look at you, you’re perfect.”
Keigo didn’t take that as a compliment. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Use me to insult yourself.” He wanted to close the distance between them, press their bodies together until they became one— but Dabi seemed so far away. “What’s that do, huh? It doesn’t make me feel good, and I know it doesn’t make you feel good.”
Dabi dropped his gaze to the floor. Keigo could see his ribs as he breathed.
What happened to you? He fought the desire to ask. Who did this to you?
“Come lie down with me,” he said, extending his hand in invitation.
Dabi’s eyes flickered to the bed, then to Keigo. He didn’t say anything.
“I’m not gonna jump your bones, man,” he promised. “Nothing you don’t want.”
Dabi turned his palm upright, allowing Keigo to lace their fingers together and guide him to the bed.
“My hand is sweaty,” he muttered.
“That’s okay.” Keigo spread his wings, the tips of his feathers grazing the mattress as he sprawled out on his stomach. Dabi took the other side of the bed but didn’t lie down, instead drawing one leg to his chest and folding the other inward. His eyes continued to trace paths over Keigo’s body.
“You can touch me, you know,” Keigo said, to which Dabi responded with a sharp exhale through his nose. “Not like that-- well, like that if you want , but I meant anywhere.” He lifted a wing and nudged Dabi’s shoulder. “Get a feel for me, you know?”
Dabi looked skeptical, but not entirely opposed. “... Sit up.”
Keigo did as he was asked. They faced each other, both cross-legged in their underwear. He found it difficult to let himself slouch the way Dabi did; his spine was accustomed to being military-straight, at attention. Dabi curled in on himself like a browning leaf in the fall. He wanted to push Dabi’s shoulders back and straighten him out.
Dabi started at his hand, and it was then that he realized how manicured Dabi’s nails were. No dirt under the nails, no cuticle overgrown. His fingers were nimble, bordering on skeletal, the slightest bit rosy around each knuckle.
“You’re very well groomed,” he found himself saying.
“I like to do what I can,” Dabi said. “There’s only so much in my control with the way I look.” He trailed up Keigo’s arm, making the faint blond hairs prickle.
“You’re tickling me,” he said with a grin. Dabi found the curve of his shoulder, studied the freckles he’d gained from time in the sun, dipped into the hollow of his collarbone. His thumb rested over the pulse in his neck, just beneath his jaw. Dabi could kill him right now, he thought. Ignite his hand and that would be it. But he couldn’t locate any real fear.
Dabi’s free hand found Keigo’s chest, brushing over one of his nipples and slipping down to his ribcage. His touch had grown more confident, the bare ghost of his fingertips growing to the full use of his palm.
He’d never been this close to him before, not when things were this quiet and he could really pay attention.
“When’d you pierce your nose?” He asked. The three studs kept catching his eye.
“A long time ago,” Dabi said. A perfect non-answer. “Before I became the menace to society that I am today.”
“You get less menacing the more I know you.”
“You should stay on your toes, hero,” Dabi said with a faint dark glimmer of warning. “Can’t get too comfortable.”
“I think I’ll be alright.” His hands fidgeted in his lap, restless, determined to reach out and--
“You can touch me too, if you want,” Dabi said.
“You sure?”
At Dabi’s nod, he reached over and cupped Dabi’s face. He’d felt the scars when he’d taken off Dabi’s pants, but he hadn’t been able to linger like this. It was leather-adjacent, like a cured animal hide. It didn’t have the elasticity of healthy skin, probably couldn’t stretch much at all. No wonder Dabi had to staple himself together.
“Can you feel this?” He touched Dabi’s forearm, and Dabi shook his head.
“Not really.” He paused. “I guess I sort of can, since I’m looking. It’s hard to tell what’s real sensation and what’s my brain filling in the gaps. It’s like… the memory of a feeling.”
He returned to Dabi’s face, focusing on the staples. He wondered if they only held the skin together or if it was muscle, tendons, everything— if Dabi was so delicate that he was liable to split open with one wrong move.
“Can you smile?” At the raise of Dabi’s brows, he immediately backtracked. “Sorry, that’s a fucked up question.”
“It’s okay.” Dabi thought for a moment. “I can, a little. Not as wide as you, probably. The smiles that make your eyes crinkle, you know. I can’t do that.”
His expression must have betrayed him, because Dabi flicked him on the forehead.
“Ow!”
“Don’t pity me,” he said.
“I wasn’t,” Keigo protested, rubbing the spot where Dabi had flicked him. “I was… I don’t know, I wish--” His mouth formed a knot. “I wish you didn’t hurt all the time. I wish I could take that from you.”
“Do you ever stop being a hero?” But Dabi’s tone was soft, no mockery or judgement. “It’s okay. I’m on a lot of painkillers. Prescribed, ” he added at Keigo’s look of alarm. “They take the edge off.”
He tried to wipe the concern from his face because it was obvious Dabi didn’t like it, but it wouldn’t come off. He usually had no problem masking himself.
“Hey.” Dabi took him by the nape of his neck, pulling him close, demanding his attention. “Look at me.”
He did. He’d seen that color blue somewhere, he was sure of it.
“I’m not one of those people out there,” Dabi said. “I’m not someone you need to save.”
“What if I want to?” He whispered.
Dabi did not tease him, or sneer, or roll his eyes. “You need to learn how to spot a lost cause.”
“I’ve never met one.” He swallowed the lump in his throat and asked, “Can-- can you feel it when I kiss you?”
Dabi couldn’t smile wide, but what he could manage reached his eyes anyhow. His rough exterior had melted away, revealing something too gentle for a villain, let alone a hero. “Yeah.”
Who are you? Who were you?
He couldn’t ask those things. It was what the Commission would want, for him to pry and dig as deep as he could. That was the whole point of this-- at least it had been, at first.
If dirtying my hands can somehow bring everyone peace of mind, I'll gladly take on this task.
But this didn’t feel dirty. He’d never been held like this before; he rested his forehead against Dabi’s and closed his eyes, trying to forget himself enough to enjoy this. To let himself have it, to believe he deserved it. The Commission couldn’t make all of his choices for him; he needed to make a few, even just one, for himself.
“Can I kiss you now?” He spoke hushed, as if speaking any louder would break the moment and bring them both crashing down into reality, where it was impossible to be this. Whatever it was.
Dabi answered by pressing their lips together, noses brushing. Keigo’s wings fluttered and spread wide, unthinking, before wrapping the two of them in a nest of crimson feathers. He knotted his fingers through Dabi’s hair and felt Dabi stutter out a gasp against his mouth.
“Okay?” He breathed.
“Yeah.” Dabi’s voice fractured, and he deepened the kiss. When Dabi pushed his tongue into his mouth, he thought his heart might cave in on itself. He pressed into Dabi’s chest, the throb of his pulse drumming under his palm, as he coaxed Dabi onto his back.
This is insane, someone scolded him from a deep recess in his mind. It sounded like his handler.
I don’t care, he replied, and reveled in the truth of it. All he cared about was the man underneath him, mouth parted for him, eyes heavy-lidded as they gazed up at him. He’d managed to make Dabi feel safe.
Dabi’s nails dug into his shoulders, firm enough to leave marks but not so much as to draw blood.
“You’ve really fallen from grace, hero,” Dabi’s voice in his ear sent a shiver down his spine.
“Or you aren’t as bad as you like to think,” he said.
Dabi grinned— not sadistic or cruel, a real smile. The pull of muscle strained the staples.
“Are you saying I’m a shitty villain?”
“No.” He kissed the tip of Dabi’s nose. How wonderful, to be able to do something so simple just because he wanted to. “I’m saying, maybe I didn’t have to fall that far to meet you.”
Keigo would leave that part of him at the door if he could, but Hawks remained, stubborn and circling overhead. More like a vulture.
He kissed Dabi’s jaw, then down his neck. He knew there was no sensation left, but he wanted to love every part of Dabi the same— to convince Dabi that every part was worthy of being kissed.
He swiped his tongue along the line of staples by Dabi’s collarbone, and almost lost his mind entirely when Dabi moaned. The heat that had gathered in his hips at the beginning of the evening started to rise again and his arms shook as he supported himself over Dabi’s body. Their legs had tangled in the sheets; Dabi’s thighs trembled under him.
“Do you think—“ he swallowed, trying to combat the dryness in his throat— “you think it’d be alright if we stripped all the way?”
It sounded just as awkward as he’d expected. Dabi chewed on his lower lip, his hold slipping from Keigo’s shoulders to the line of his hips. He hooked his thumbs under the elastic and gave a light, experimental snap .
“I think so,” he decided. “But can I, um.” He averted his eyes. “I wanna be under the sheets.”
“You don’t want me to look?”
“I do , I just—“ Dabi covered his face with a frustrated groan. “I need to psych myself up.”
A grin split Keigo’s face. Cute.
“We can do that, no sweat,” he said, sitting back on his heels. “That’s not a big request. It’s okay.”
Once he dismounted, Dabi drew the sheets up to his waist. He preserved that image in his memory; Dabi in a pool of ivory cotton, looking more like a statue carved from marble than a wanted criminal.
Keigo lay beside him and lifted his hips to pull his boxers off, letting them fall next to the bed once he’d unhooked them from one of his heels. Dabi sat up to get a proper look, and Keigo pretended not to notice the subtle intake of breath when Dabi saw him.
“What’s the verdict, hot stuff?” He crossed his arms behind his head, watching Dabi for any adverse reaction. The last thing he wanted was to get this far only to overwhelm him now.
“I think it’s nice.”
“You think my dick is nice,” he repeated.
“Is there something else you’re supposed to say when the hero you’re hooking up with shows you his dick?”
Keigo snorted with laughter. “I’ve just never had someone say it was nice. ”
Dabi started to laugh too, holding his cheeks so his face wouldn’t tear, and Keigo was awash with what might have been love if he was anyone else.
“Okay, don’t look.” Dabi shifted farther under the sheets to take off his underwear.
“You’re up to your armpits. There’s nothing for me to look at.”
“Eat me.”
“We’ll work up to that.”
Dabi kicked him in the shin and produced a pair of black boxer briefs, balled up in his hand. He tossed them to unite with the rest of his clothes on the floor.
“I feel like I should be giving you a diploma,” Keigo said, which earned him another kick. “Really! You could’ve walked out, and you didn’t.” For some reason that was easier to say than you stayed.
“You were very persuasive.” Dabi’s hair fanned out across Keigo’s pillows. He looked like he was made to be there, like the empty space in Keigo’s bed had been molded for him. “I’ve never...” He didn’t complete the thought.
“What?”
Dabi fiddled with one of the staples on his chest, staring at the ceiling. Finally he turned to Keigo.
“No one’s ever looked at me the way you do.”
That was so damn typical of Dabi, delivering a gut-punch of a sentence that could mean a dozen different things.
He rolled onto his side and kissed Dabi’s cheek, right where smooth skin met scarring. He dreaded the inevitability of morning when they would have to go their separate ways for the time being, when he would take to the sky as Hawks and Dabi would slink into the shadows.
Hawks. He hadn’t even chosen that name. Had Dabi chosen his?
“Okay, so what’s the plan here?” He waved a hand at the sheets. “You wanna do the big reveal yourself, or should I?”
Dabi pulled the pillow out from under his head and smacked him with it. He grabbed his own and smacked him back.
“It’s a genuine question!”
Dabi returned his pillow to its place with a scowl that had no right to be so endearing. “You’re making fun of me.”
“I would never ,” Keigo said. “But I will tease you a little bit.”
Dabi rolled his eyes. How could someone manage to look pretty while they rolled their eyes?
“I feel weird, like, unveiling my own dick,” Dabi admitted.
“Then do I have the honor?” He guarded himself against another shin kick. “Okay, no more teasing, I swear!”
He went for the hem of the sheet, and Dabi’s hand came down like a steel trap around his wrist.
“Wait.”
“Change your mind?” He asked. Dabi had gone red. “You got nothing to prove. You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”
Slowly Dabi’s grip slackened and fell away.
“I do want to. But I…”
He was hitting that wall again, Keigo thought.
“Relax,” he murmured. He smoothed the hair off Dabi’s forehead and traced the outer shell of his ear. “I got you, okay?”
The look on Dabi’s face was definitely trust , or as close to it as a man like Dabi could get, and he didn’t know what to do about that.
He drew back the sheets.
He’d been preparing himself for every scenario he could think of, including but not limited to the bed erupting into flames. But there was no anxiety-induced fire, and there were no scars or staples. Just a dick, soft between Dabi’s legs and curving against one of his thighs, flushed pink at the tip. The hair here, though, was deep red. Not white like the roots he’d seen peeking through when he and Dabi were in the bathroom. He decided not to mention it. He caught a glint of silver and-- oh.
"Do you have a dick piercing?" The curved barbell that looped through the head sent heat creeping up his neck, blushing his ears, sinking into the bowl of his hips.
"Oh, yeah." Dabi had the nerve to act like he'd forgotten about it. "That's from a while ago, too."
"Didn't it hurt?"
"That's kind of the point." Dabi propped himself up on his elbows. "It's pain I can control. It's a choice."
Leave it to Dabi to make a genital piercing pull on Keigo's heartstrings like that. Dabi was, he was beginning to realize, an amalgamation of what someone else had done to him. Of course he'd do whatever he could to feel liberated from that.
Keigo wondered what that felt like, to be liberated from what others put you through.
“You know, you were right,” he said. “The only phrase that comes to mind is ‘I think it’s nice.’”
“Do you really?”
“I really do.” He caught Dabi’s lips in a kiss, guiding him back down to the mattress. Gliding his feathers over Dabi’s torso, counting the ribs in his head and feeling Dabi shiver-- there was nothing better.
“Stay the night,” he breathed, “stay with me.”
He felt the gentle rumble of Dabi’s laugh, the hum of it through his chest. “Where else would I go?”
Keigo strayed farther down, planting kisses as he went, before Dabi caught him.
“I don’t think…” He trailed off, and Keigo saved him from finishing the thought.
“We don’t have to,” he said, and pressed a final kiss into his hip bone. “Only what you want.”
It was going to take more than one night, he realized, to convince Dabi of that.
“I wanna lie here with you,” he said. “Until you have to go back out there and be a hero for everyone else.”
The ache in him was something profound and alive, with its own heartbeat; he didn’t have the words for it. Maybe that ache meant he was doing this right.
“I think I can manage that.”
-
The sun hadn’t finished its slow crawl over the horizon when his alarm sounded at six o’clock. He had to free himself from a tangle of Dabi’s limbs to turn it off, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed to sit up and wake himself. He scrubbed a hand over his face and blinked until his eyes adjusted to the brightness of the screen. There was an email waiting for him-- encrypted, from his handlers.
They wanted a status on his progress with the villain who calls himself Dabi.
He looked over his shoulder. A pair of heavy-lidded blue eyes gazed at him from beneath a mess of black hair.
“Time to go?” Dabi asked. He was hoarse and only half-awake, and the sight of him beckoned Keigo to return.
He paid his phone one more courtesy glance before locking it and setting it on the bedside table, facedown.
“Five more minutes,” he said, and eased back into the comfort of Dabi’s sleep-warm body.