Chapter Text
Sometimes, Keigo wonders if he should be worried by how easily he’s grown used to this.
He lands on the balcony of his high-rise apartment; body aching from a long day of patrolling, mouth tired from smiling, wings drooping from the weight that they bear. It’s close to one a.m.; he’d left the office much later than expected, and has made his way home.
The light inside is already on; and it doesn’t surprise him anymore, not the way it once did.
He walks inside to the aroma of something delicious. He’s not entirely sure what it is, but already the scent is soothing him; bringing him down from his high-stress state.
He sheds his clothes as he moves; wings flapping listlessly as he maneuvers them around his jacket, kicking off his shoes somewhere (he’s not sure where, but he’ll find them later). The halter top of his skintight spandex is sticky and hot, so he strips that off too, until he’s left in nothing but boxers.
When he gets to the kitchen, he sees the covered bowl of food waiting for him. He removes the cover and sniffs it; chicken katsu curry, gone a little cold; but the scents from when it was cooked still surround him. The aroma is the only remnant of the cooking; all the pots and utensils used are drying on his dishes rack, having been scrubbed until they were spotless.
He considers the merits of trying to microwave it, before putting it on a tray and heading to his bedroom.
There are no lights on, but the moon is coming through the windows, so he can see well enough.
The lump under the blankets of his king-sized bed gives a low groan when he pokes it; eventually a pair of brilliant blue eyes, bleary with sleep, make their way out and glare at him. Their owner produces a noise that could possibly be construed as a greeting, before a scarred hand appears and gives him the finger.
Keigo pouts, making sure to widen his eyes as much as possible. “But it’s faster if you heat up my food than it is for me to microwave it!”
Another groan, that sounds more like a growl, makes its way out of the blanket lump. “It would have been hot if you’d been home at midnight the way you were supposed to be, birdbrain.”
Keigo ignores the thrill that races through his chest at hearing the other man call his apartment home, but his wings betray him, fluttering excitedly. “I got held up at the office.”
Dabi eventually pokes his entire head out of the blanket lump, spiky black hair looking like even more of a mess than normal. The villain glares at him before sitting up, still cocooned in blankets, and leans forward. Keigo makes sure to give the most beguiling grin he can, holding out his bowl of food.
Dabi eyes him, before rolling his eyes. “Go take a shower, birdy. You stink.”
He opens his mouth to refute the statement, but he really can’t; even he can smell how ripe he is, after a hard day’s work. Still though, he makes sure that his voice is as pleading as possible. “You’ll heat it up for me after, then?”
“Fuck off.” The villain falls back onto the bed, wrapping the blankets tighter around himself. For someone whose skin and quirk run so hot, Dabi has a fondness for being warm; likes to surround himself in soft heat and nap, like a giant, highly dangerous house cat.
Keigo wonders when it was that he stopped thinking of Dabi as being a monster, and started noticing the little things like that.
He tries to shower as quickly as possible; it’s hard with his wings, but he does his best to keep them out of the spray, instead wiping them down gently, and removing all the smells that have clung to him over the course of the day.
He can’t towel his wings when he gets out, so he settles for flapping them, trying to air-dry as quickly as possible.
When he pulls on another pair of boxers and gets back out into his bedroom, the chicken katsu curry is merrily steaming away, and Dabi is once more a lump under the blankets. Keigo picks up his spoon and chopsticks and gets into bed, trying to maneuver himself to steal a few blankets and spread his wings out against the pillows. The villain lifts his head and frowns at him. “Why the hell are you trying to eat in bed?”
Keigo shrugs. “It’s right here, and I don’t want to eat by myself in the kitchen.”
“You’ll make a mess.”
“No I won’t! I’m a very clean bird.”
The other man snorts. “Sure you are.” Surprisingly enough, Dabi is the neat freak of the two of them; always cleaning the apartment and never leaving a mess. Even his clothes, despite their generally ragged appearance, are usually clean and he likes to wash himself often. It’s something Keigo wouldn’t have expected, given the other man’s…life. But the one time he asked, Dabi had muttered something about needing to keep the staples clean, and helping with chores as a child; he’d left it at that.
(Dabi has only recently started talking about his childhood; and Keigo never pushes him to talk, though the stories he hears of adorable younger siblings and an abusive father are little pieces of the man that he treasures, as much as they sometimes horrify him).
Dabi huffs, bringing him back to the present. Keigo tenses, wondering if maybe he should go eat in the kitchen after all, but eventually the villain simply rests his head against Keigo’s thigh.
He knows, that’s as good as a yes, coming from Dabi; and the closest Dabi gets to saying stay with me.
He doesn’t comment on it, instead stretching his legs out and bringing the tray to rest in his lap. He eats in relative silence; Dabi in a half-awake slumber against his thigh. When he’s done, he puts the tray aside on the table; he should really go put it in the kitchen, and no doubt Dabi will bitch about the dirty dishes in the morning, but right now he’s too comfortable to care.
Keigo rests his hand against Dabi’s hair and cards his fingers through it. Despite its spiky appearance, it’s softer than it looks, and he can see the hints of red roots growing in, remnants of another life. “Touya?”
At the sound of the long-dead name, Dabi shifts against him, rolling over to pin him with a blue-eyed stare. “What is it, pretty bird?”
He tries to hide the soft smile on his lips. “Nothing.”
Blue eyes squint, still foggy with fatigue. “Fuck off.”
(Keigo only learned the long-dead name recently; and all the terrifying stories that it brings with it. It’s usually only in moments like these, where he’s soft and pliant from fatigue, that Dabi can stand to hear his old name, instead of blowing up in a sorrowful rage over the things he’s lost, and what he’s become).
Dabi rolls over again, and this time Keigo joins him, rearranging his wings so that they surround them both on the bed. The villain doesn’t protest as he’s brought into the embrace of crimson feathers. Instead, he scoots closer, so that black hair, rooted in red, tickles Keigo’s side. Sharp blue eyes close again; their owner retreating further into the recesses of sleep.
Keigo has learned to treasure the times like this, because deep down, he knows that they are limited. He is a hero, and Dabi is still a villain.
But, Dabi is a villain who’s been committing less crimes lately; who spends more days lazing around Keigo’s apartment than he does doing villainous things. He’s a villain who lately, talks more about the siblings and mother he left behind; whom he still loves, even if he never admits it. He’s a villain who’s admitted that his only real purpose as a villain is to kill his father; beyond that, he’s softer than he’ll ever show or say aloud.
Conversely, Keigo is a hero whose entire life has been dedicated to the cause; but lately, finds more and more reasons to spend time with the villain in his bed. He’s a hero who loves saving people, who wants to see a world where heroes have too much free time on their hands, but finds himself wanting most of all to save the man next to him. He’s a hero who wants to watch the League of Villains crumble, but not before he drags one of its key members out of the dark.
(He’s a hero who’s supposed to be betraying a villain; but he’s sure that the villain in question is already aware of the supposed betrayal, and is still choosing to sleep next to him).
He knows that they both know that whatever they are, like this, will eventually come to an end. That one day, Dabi will probably get arrested; that one day, he’ll have to face justice for his crimes.
But lately, in the times when he’s alone, Hawks has started doing research. There are surprisingly few villain rehabilitation programs out there; and he thinks that he may have to start one soon. More than that, though, he’s been looking at the possibilities of plea bargains; of psychological trauma in determining a sentence; at the circumstances that lead to the rise of villainy, and ways he can prevent it.
(It’s not that he thinks Dabi doesn’t deserve to face justice; but he knows that Dabi doesn’t deserve to be left out to dry by a society that never gave him, or others like him, a fair chance in the first place).
For now, though, he tries to push those thoughts away; snuggles closer to the space heater that is still stealing most of the blankets. Dabi mumbles something in his sleep, but doesn’t wake up.
Whatever happens to them, they will always have the moments like these. And regardless of what happens to them, Keigo thinks that he’ll fight for them to be able to keep having moments like these.
(After all, his research has showed him that there’s a high possibility he can reduce the chances of a life sentence or worse; that with the right plea bargain, set-up, and scope for rehabilitation, he can eliminate the possibility altogether).
(Maybe it’s not up to him to determine what Dabi deserves in the eyes of the public. But privately, he knows that Dabi deserves the chance to have his family back; deserves the chance to have a life he never got).
It’s a chance that he thinks the other man might be willing to take.
So, he moves in closer; presses a gentle kiss against an unscarred forehead, and settles down.
Neither of them has said the word love; but it hangs in the darkness, tying them together as they sleep.