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The horizon is beautiful, just as he’d promised.
No more buildings to block the view. No more flashing city lights to hide how many stars are in the evening sky. No drone of traffic to keep the silence at bay. No swarms of people maintaining a hopeless sense of futility. It’s all crumbled to rubble. Ceased. Fled.
Dabi never truly understood how big the world is until this moment. Until he stands in its ashes, hand in hand with the man who’s ended it.
Toga, Spinner, Compress—all that’s left of the League—stand with them. They stare as bright-eyed and open-mouthed as children, slowly coming to grips with the vast space that now belongs to them. The freedom that comes with it. The possibility.
Suddenly, they all have a future.
Cool fingertips alight on his cheek. Dabi turns his head to find Tomura looking at him. Though his eyes are still wound-red, and the bones under his cracked porcelain skin the same shape as ever, something about his face has shifted. It takes a minute for Dabi to identify the changes. Tomura’s stare remains as intense and focused as ever, but the lines of his expression have relaxed. Despite the streaks of blood and dirt and soot, he looks calm. At peace. Dabi would gladly kill anyone or anything to see him stay this way.
Tomura’s fingers slide down to the seam in his cheek. Gently, they grip the staple closest to his lips.
“Do you trust me?” he asks.
“Completely.” The answers comes as effortlessly as blinking.
“Do you love me?”
“To death.”
Tomura smiles and, one by one, begins to pick Dabi apart.
“Let me help, let me help!” Toga skips forward. Bouncing on the balls of her feet, she holds out cupped palms.
Dabi snorts. “You just want the blood.”
She sticks her tongue out at him. “So? I’m still helping.”
He offers no further objections as Tomura drops the staples into her waiting hands. Soon, his face is free of them. Only little stinging holes, like insect bites, are left as reminders. Several bleed weakly, but it won’t get bad unless he moves too much.
“Take off your coat and shirt.”
Dabi does as he’s told. He forgives Toga and Compress for their shocked gasps—they’ve never seen the charred ruin of his back or the how far the scars on his arms go. Tomura resumes unfastening his seams until he comes to the staples across his hands. The metal has warped, melted from overusing his quirk. Tomura frowns, deliberating. Dabi opens his mouth to tell him it’s okay, rip them out, he won’t mind.
Clearing his throat lightly, Spinner steps in. “Here. I think I have the tools for this job.”
He hooks the tip of a claw under a troublesome staple before meeting Dabi’s gaze. After a nod, he pries the bit of misshapen metal up with surprising delicacy. The damage is just as minimal with the others, only flecks of the top layers of skin coming away. Once he’s placed the last staple from Dabi’s hands into Toga’s, Spinner lets Tomura take over again. Dabi’s sides, shoulders, chest, and back prove less troublesome. At last, he’s held together by nothing but scabs and staying very, very still.
“Let’s take care of these then, shall we?” With a flick of Compress’s wrist, the scrap in Toga’s palms become a blue marble.
“Hey!” she whines.
The magician snatches it away, palming it up his sleeve. “Now, now. Dabi deserves to have a souvenir, and I doubt he’d appreciate you licking it first. We’d all rather you didn’t, I think.”
“Spoil sport.”
Tomura, oblivious, taps his chin with blood-stained fingers, eyeing his handiwork. “Take your piercings out. Just to be safe.”
A grin scrawls itself across Dabi’s face against better judgement; fresh rivulets seep down his cheeks. “All of them, boss? With everyone watching?”
That earns him a look. “I meant the ones in your ears, dumbass, and you know it.”
Despite his continued smiling, Dabi complies with shaking fingers. Because he does know. Knows exactly what Tomura’s up to but can’t bring himself to believe it’s happening. Can’t figure out how he feels about it either. Well, frightened is a given. What if this doesn’t work? What if his injuries are too old? And what if it does work? Won’t his quirk bring him right back to square one?
He’s about to find out, ready or not. As soon as he’s passed the last earring over to Toga, Tomura’s hands come up to cup his cheeks. All Dabi can do is trust like he said he would as parched lips gently press against his.
The change hits him immediately. Power slips down his throat and into his veins, cold and swift. He hisses and pulls away from the kiss, but that doesn’t stop the sensation from spreading. It’s not painful, not exactly, but it’s every-fucking-where. It slithers through him, invasive and alive, as if seeking something. Finally, it finds whatever it’s after.
Temperature spiking, it disperses and swells up under his leathery, scarred flesh. Panic sinks serrated teeth into his heart when his skin squirms. It itches. It stings. It covers him in millions of spiny, skittering legs. Dabi rakes his nails down one forearm, desperate to make it stop.
Skin tears under his fingers. Rubbery. Slick. Like uncooked bacon. His throat clamps shut around a hammering pulse.
There’s pink and white beneath the purple.
The terrible crawling sensation fades. Eyes too big for his face, Dabi wipes away blood and serous fluid. Twitches as the feel of his touch registers to nerves once dead. Frantic for altogether different reasons now, he scratches, pulls, and peels.
No pain. Only more and more new skin revealed as the old falls away. It has the same rippled, raised scars, but it’s alive. Healed. Healthy.
He’s not quite Dabi anymore. Not quite Touya either. He’s whole. Remade.
He still belongs to Tomura, though. That’s one thing that will never change.
Legs giving way, Dabi falls to his knees. Throws his arms around Tomura’s waist. And buries his face against him as the first tears streak down his cheeks.