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“Jesus,” Keigo breathed as Dabi rolled off him. The hero’s chest heaved and his eyes slammed shut. “I haven’t been fucked like that in years.”
“Oh, yeah?” Dabi smirked, letting his head fall to the side so he could look at the man lying next to him. “That good?”
“Better than good,” The corners of Keigo’s mouth twitched upward, too exhausted to form a full grin. “Actually, I changed my mind. I haven’t been fucked like that ever.”
Dabi studied Keigo’s rapidly rising and falling chest, which was bare and shockingly unscarred for a hero. His red wings pooled to the side like rivers of blood, soft and silky and so, so good on Dabi’s marred skin. The first time Dabi took Keigo apart, he thought he’d feel disgusted with himself. Ashamed and horrified at his purple, puckered skin next to the tan expanse of Keigo’s flawless porcelain body. But when Keigo threw his head back and interlaced their fingers and cried out in pain and ecstasy and pleasure, all of Dabi’s familiar, frightening insecurities fell to the wayside. It would be a crime to focus on anything other than the hero during these moments. His shaking and moaning and earnest eyes. The way he threw his arms around Dabi’s neck and kissed him hard like he cared. The privilege of seeing such a brazen hero fall apart with a twitch of Dabi’s fingers.
And besides. Keigo’s immaculate perfection looked kind of good next to Dabi’s stitched-together façade.
“Glad I could make it worth your while,” Dabi said, and sat up to reach for a cigarette. He held up a single finger and watched his flame for a moment before speaking again.
“When was the last time you were fucked, anyways?”
He wasn’t sure what made him ask. He sure as fuck didn’t care about Keigo’s life – who he’d been with, what he did with them. When he figured out that he liked men. What he was like as a child. Dabi couldn’t possibly care less, and yet there was that question, past the curling smoke of a cigarette all the way to the hero’s ears.
Keigo’s eyes moved underneath his eyelids but he didn’t open them. He smirked.
“Last week, by a super-hot pyro.”
“Tch.” Dabi scoffed and rolled his eyes. “By someone other than me, Pigeon.”
Keigo opened his eyes but kept them trained on the ceiling. His feathers ruffled, as though a breeze rolled through them. He shrugged.
“Dunno. Can’t remember.”
Okay, that set Dabi’s alarms off.
Not the idea of Keigo forgetting who he’s fucked last – Dabi had had enough one-night stands and drunken, drug-fueled fucks in alleys to not be a prude about that shit – but the fact that it was a blatant lie. Keigo hadn’t even tried. His voice pitched up about an octave and he didn’t meet Dabi’s eyes. Keigo was usually a good liar – he’d had Dabi and the League going for some time – so why not now?
“Bullshit,” Dabi spat, harsher than intended. He grit his teeth. “Why are you lyin’ to me?”
“I don’t know,” Keigo groaned, “It doesn’t seem important.”
“Important enough for you to lie to me.”
Christ, he sounded like a slighted girlfriend. Dabi would have been embarrassed if he wasn’t so mad. His chest tightened with the telltale sign of rising anger and his skin burned hot. Fucking hero traitor gets to lie to Dabi again? He shouldn’t be surprised. He shouldn’t be this angry, but he fucking is.
“Jesus, it’s not a big deal. What, you wanna be exclusive? You wanna put a ring on it?”
Dabi’s cheeks burned, a shade of angry red seeping into purple scars.
“You’re makin’ me real mad, Birdie.”
“I don’t know what the big deal is,” Keigo mumbled. “It’s been years.”
“Years?” Dabi blanched. “You’re kidding.”
“Nah. I’m not allowed to sleep with anybody that the Commission can’t keep silent.”
“Shit, you’re breaking the rule just for me? I’m flattered.”
“I’m breaking a lot of rules for you, Hot Stuff.”
Dabi snorted and took a drag from his cigarette. He didn’t miss the way Keigo inhaled deeply at the burning scent. The Commission didn’t approve of cigarettes or weed or alcohol or anything that would inhibit Keigo’s decisions – their decisions – but Dabi saw how the hero craved it more than anything. The first time Dabi held out his cigarette for Keigo to take a drag, sheer panic flew across the bird’s face. Dabi waved it off with a snide laugh and a they got to you good, didn’t they? and a searing kiss. He didn’t like to think about how Hawks was made. He didn’t like to think about Keigo in their clutches.
Not that he cared about Keigo. Their – thing – was just sex. But still.
“I mean – I can sleep with people who won’t blab, y’know? I can sleep with people who wouldn’t benefit from sleeping with a Top hero.”
“Does such a person exist?” Dabi asked, legitimately curious. In this fucking joke of a society, who wouldn’t want to sleep with a hero? Who’s life wouldn’t be substantially improved by fucking, or getting fucked by, Hawks? Not that Dabi was biased, or anything, but sex with Keigo seemed like a pretty good deal.
Keigo snorted. “You’d be surprised.”
“Okay, so, who wouldn’t squeal? Who would have something to lose by fucking you?”
“Endeavor.”
Ice filled Dabi’s veins.
He couldn’t remember ever feeling so cold in his life.
He didn’t think it was possible.
Dabi opened his mouth – to question, to accuse, to scream – but nothing came out. His fist closed around his cigarette but there was no sizzle or burn of the cigarette being extinguished in his palm.
Hawks could be lying. But, no, his eyes were open under furrowed eyebrows and trained on the ceiling, flickering with thought. He could be using this as a tactic to get under Dabi’s skin. But, no, he didn’t know who Dabi really was. He didn’t know what the fuck he was admitting.
What the fuck was Hawks saying?
“Endeavor,” Dabi rasped, throat scraped raw with the three simple syllables of his enemy. He couldn’t breathe. “Endeavor.”
“Yeah.” Hawks closed his eyes. He didn’t seem to want them open much, tonight. “Endeavor.”
“Get the fuck out.”
Hawks’ eyes snapped open. His feathers ruffled and tensed, extra muscles in his chest flexing. He looked at Dabi with painfully honest confusion.
“What?”
“Get the fuck out.”
“Dabi – ”
“Don’t you fucking say my name.”
Touya. Dabi. Hot Stuff. He didn’t have a name. He didn’t have anything. Because of Endeavor. Because of the man that his lover just admitted to fucking. Dabi couldn’t trust him. Dabi couldn’t trust anyone. Dabi couldn’t believe that just minutes ago he had been fucking into that traitor hero, that monster, that liar –
“I’m – I’m sorry, I didn’t think – why are you mad? Don’t be mad at me, come on, don’t be mad at me,” Hawks begged. He rose to his hands and knees on the bed and turned to face Dabi, who was now backed up against the apartment door, hands shaking. God, the hero looked so pathetic. Wide golden eyes and a mess of little bones and muscles in his chest that he knew for a fact the Commission hated – that’s why Hawks was never allowed to do shirtless photo shoots. They tried so many times to break those bones, Hawks had said, when he was little. To make them disappear and craft the perfect human hero. Little Keigo, screaming under the unyielding hands of doctors, probably begging them not to be mad at him just like now –
NO.
He didn’t give a shit about Hawks or what they did. Hawks probably liked it. Hawks probably wanted it. Just like he wanted Endeavor.
“How the fuck could you be with that man?” Dabi asked, voice tight and breathless with rage and fear. “How could you sleep with him? How could you let him do that to you?”
“I didn’t – it was years ago!” Hawks clumsily made his way out of bed, tugging on his sweatpants – soft, black things that Dabi loved to pull off with his mouth – and ran his hands through his sex-mussed hair.
“I don’t care how long ago it was!” Dabi growled. “You wanted him! You wanted him to fuck you! Did you throw yourself at him like you did with me? Did you drop to your knees and suck him off the moment you got him alone? Were you loud? Did you make him come?”
“Please,” Hawks pleaded, and Dabi refused to acknowledge the tears springing to the hero’s eyes. Refused to acknowledge the brief moment of raw intimacy and vulnerability that Hawks so rarely showed. “Please, I don’t know why you’re mad, but it was forever ago – I can explain what happened, if you want. It wasn’t a relationship, not like us, and I didn’t feel anything for him like I do for you – ”
“Shut up,” Dabi snarled. Relationship? Hawks feeling something for Dabi? He was a whore, a stupid Commission slut –
“I admired him, is all. He rescued me when I was a kid – took me from my home to give me a better life, he said – I had a crush! That was it! I wasn’t allowed to be gay, so I didn’t know what I was feeling, and it was all so confusing, but I thought the world of him because I didn’t know any better – he probably felt flattered and let me blow him one day, and – ”
“He didn’t give you shit,” Dabi yelled, “He whored you out to the Commission, who made you their slave. And you had a schoolboy crush on him.”
“I was so alone,” Keigo cried, “I didn’t know who to go to. I just wanted to be with somebody. I wanted to feel something. He let me blow him, let me sleep with him, fucked me for five years and then it ended. I don’t even know why. Maybe he felt bad – he was trying to make amends with his son at the time, and didn’t want me around anymore – he hasn’t touched me in three years, Dabi, I swear.”
Keigo pulled on his dark green sweatshirt with the back cut out and crossed his arms tightly. He flexed his mangled toes but made no move toward Dabi. His face was red and blotchy as he watched Dabi expectantly for a response.
And fuck if Dabi knew what to say.
Endeavor letting Keigo sleep with him – Endeavor letting Keigo lie there and take it while he – and then just dumping him like trash after five years –
Except.
Except, wait.
Keigo just turned 23. Dabi knows because he gave him his present in bed (six hours of edging the hero to orgasm and then pulling away until the bird was shaking and crying with pleasure). Three years ago, Hawks was 20.
“How long were you sleeping with him?” Dabi whispered, afraid of the answer.
“Five. And it wasn’t consistent or anything. It was every few months – whenever he was stressed or upset or needed to take it out on something.” Keigo shrugged. “I was that something.”
“So, then…” Dabi’s breath caught. “You were 15 when it started.” He looked at the hero, so small in his casual clothing and broken-open face.
Keigo shrugged again.
“I guess. Yeah.”
“You were 15-years-old.”
“Yeah.” Keigo’s nose crinkled in confusion. “Why?”
“Why?” Dabi almost laughed. Nothing was funny, though. Far from it. “You were a child.”
“I was a teenager,” Keigo said. He reddened. “And I wanted it. I told you, I had a crush. I was probably the instigator.”
“You were a child,” Dabi repeated, finally pushing himself away from the doorframe and toward the hero. Keigo shrunk back against the movement. “You were a kid.”
“They always told me I was mature for my age,” Keigo argued meekly. Dabi shook his head violently and stopped a few feet in front of Keigo.
“You were a kid. You were so young, Jesus – Jesus, you’re the same age as his son!”
“Todoroki? C’mon, Todoroki’s nearly a decade younger than me – ”
“His middle – his oldest brother, Natsuo, idiot,” Dabi quickly corrected himself. Natsuo was the oldest brother. Not Touya. Not anymore.
“I…” But Keigo fell silent and suddenly refused to meet Dabi’s eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize to me, dipshit,” Dabi said, softer than he meant to. “I’m not – I’m not mad.”
“Hah!” Keigo did laugh at that, an incredulous look on his face. “You were about to incinerate me a second ago!”
“I – ” Dabi sighed. A few weeks ago, as they lay in bed, Keigo talked about how he takes deep breaths when he’s upset. When fans are too pushy during photo ops. When interviewers are asking him stupid questions. Dabi figured he could give it a try.
“I’m not mad at you.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
“Yeah, well, I was…caught off guard.”
“Yeah.”
Dabi held out his hands and Keigo didn’t hesitate to take them. He drew the villain in close until Dabi rested his forehead against Keigo’s. Dabi let his eyes close and took in a deep breath of fresh air rolling in through the open window. The cool spring air was wet and fresh, punctuated by the sounds of the occasional car passing through a puddle. Dabi felt Keigo relax in his arms, shoulders and wings drooping in sync. He wondered what Keigo was like after sex with Endeavor. It hurt to think about. It made him feel sick.
Like he could read Dabi’s mind, Keigo looped his arms around Dabi’s neck and buried his tear-streaked face into a scarred shoulder. Dabi hugged him back and tried not to think about the Commission or the League or heroes or villains or anything that wasn’t this moment right here.
Because Keigo was here, now, in a ratty old sweatshirt and soft sweatpants, smiling like Dabi was something to be smiled at.
And that didn’t hurt so much at all.