Work Text:
Love is burning
It's all burning
Memories are all burning
Daisy - Pentagon
There is something very familiar about Dabi. It’s not a feeling Keigo can put a finger on, not when he spends as little time as possible around the other, but it’s a feeling that doesn’t go away.
It’s as unshakeable as his first impression of Dabi, when Keigo had come back from a mission and been introduced to his newest partner. Dabi’s eyes had shone in that dimly-lit meeting room, and what remained of his skin was pieced together with steel staples and half-hearted prayers — like a zombie-cat badly cobbled together with scraps and ill intent, all jagged lines and heavy with the stench of death.
The way Dabi picks fights as easily as he breathes and only ever smiles with his skin makes that impression stick more in Keigo’s mind. Dabi calls him pet names that nobody else uses, ones that drip with derision and dark laughter, but Keigo can’t help seeing the ghost of another man in his partner.
(Except Dabi is nothing like Touya. Touya had been kind in a gruff sort of way, short on praise but willing to nurse a stranger back to health during an apocalypse, and Dabi is the furthest thing from kind. Were it not for his burnt skin and piercing blue eyes, Keigo would have never compared Touya to someone as sadistic and sarcastic as Dabi.
Touya had given Keigo a reason to smile, for all that Keigo could never pay back his kindness. Dabi only gives Keigo chills, like a ghost walking over his grave, and it is a feeling that does not fade with familiarity or time.
No, Dabi could never measure up to Touya’s ghost. Better than Touya be left to rest, a regret Keigo will never be able to let go of or make up to, than have him dragged out and stuffed into Dabi’s skin.)
“Spacing out again, Hawks? Whatever will we do with you?”
Dabi smirks, shoves hands into his pockets, and watches Keigo watch him back. “Gettin’ sentimental over the trash we’re gonna burn up?”
“You and your fire puns,” Keigo mutters. Louder, he says, “Like you said, they’re trash. What’s there to get sentimental over?”
“You’re asking me.” Dabi leans over and raps on Keigo’s head. “You sure your brain’s all there?”
“Should be better than yours — mine doesn’t have to worry ‘bout getting fried.”
Dabi laughs, a grating sound that Keigo wishes he could block out, and shoves his hands into his pockets. Keigo smiles in the way Dabi expects him to, then turns his gaze to the place they’ve been staking out for the past few days.
They’re standing on a cliff overlooking one of the last secure human bases — it’s well-hidden, and Keigo wonders how the humans carved themselves a stronghold in such a place, but no place exposed to the sky is unreachable to him. His kind had allowed them their resistance, though the armistice was long-over and they had firmly taken over the earth, because it had been interesting. Like watching a caterpillar struggle against a songbird in the moments before it was eaten, except the songbird had always known the caterpillar could never escape.
(It wasn’t like this was the first world their kind had parasitised and stripped bare. It had always been a matter of survival, of choosing between letting their kind die or killing off another race to prolong their lives that much longer, and nobody would actively choose to let their kind die.
Even if it meant washing their hands with blood, what else could a race as useless and destructive as theirs do? The Earth is not the first world to be destroyed by their desperation and greed, and Keigo suspects it is nowhere near the last.)
His kind might have let them continue resisting, Keigo thinks, but their children had gone missing and Inui had tracked their scent to this place. The children’s, Inui had said, were still fresh enough to stink of pain and fear.
As though aware of Keigo’s thoughts, Dabi says, “We should’ve smothered the fires of their rebellion long ago.”
“You’d think killing most of their people would make them wisen up, but they’re humans — I’d compare them to cockroaches, but that would be offensive to cockroaches.” Keigo stands, dusts his pants off, and extends a hand to Dabi. “Well, whatever. Let’s put them out of their misery.”
The touch of Dabi’s hand against his is warm and skin-crawling, a sensation that Keigo is (sadly) familiar enough with to ignore. Dabi’s breath is hot against his cheek when they press together, and Keigo knows it is only so he can carry Dabi easier… but Keigo is reminded, for a moment, of another warm body he had once held.
For a moment, Keigo thinks of Touya again — the feel of Touya’s lips against his, the joy that bled to anger and hatred when Keigo had betrayed him.
“Oy, birdbrain? You thinking of thievin’ my staples or something?”
Keigo eyes Dabi. “My name is Hawks, not Magpie.”
Dabi only has enough time to roll his eyes before Keigo launches them off the cliff. It makes Dabi yell into his ear and dig his fingers into Keigo’s neck, in the seconds before Keigo flaps his wings and steadies their descent, but it’s petty revenge that barely offsets his thundering heart.
No matter how much Keigo tells himself they’re not the same, Dabi feels so familiar it hurts. His hands are cruel around Keigo’s neck and Keigo has to elbow Dabi’s side to make him loosen his grip, but he can’t muster enough bite to make it snappish. That Dabi meant to almost choke him for his petty revenge only makes Keigo’s heartache more ironic — as though fate, aware of the trick he’d played Touya, turned it back onto him.
“Save the violence for the humans!” Keigo yells above the whistle of the wind.
“Your feathers are so red — a little blood won’t hurt it any!”
If only that were true.
Keigo forces a laugh, pushes the thought away, and keeps his eyes fixed on the resistance stronghold. If he focuses enough on his mission, then perhaps the image of red feathers dyed redder with blood will stop haunting him.
(It doesn’t.
It never does, but Keigo is too stupidly hopeful to stop trying.)
“Another resistance stronghold down… good, good.” The scarred, eyeless being Keigo only knows as ‘Master’ clasps his hands together and nods slowly. “You’ve earned yourselves a break, Dabi, Hawks. Let’s see… three days should be enough to rest and recuperate. Now off with you two, and call Spinner in on the way out.”
“Gonna go for a night flight again, Hawks?” Dabi asks, when they’ve left Master’s office. “Admire the stars and the vast wasteland below while you’re at it?”
“It’d make for a prettier sight than your face, that’s for sure.”
“Wow. Who knew your pretty lips could say such savage words?”
Keigo shrugs. Dabi might be sniffling with a hand pressed to his heart, but there’s no sign of tears in his eyes. It’s not like Dabi would actually be hurt by Keigo’s sarcasm, not when they’ve insulted each other with worse (and meant it most times, in Keigo’s case), and the fact that they’re chatting without raising their voices is friendly enough for Keigo.
The fact that they’re in each other’s company outside of a mission is friendly enough — so friendly that Keigo wants to distance himself immediately. “I’m gonna head off for a shower, actually, so I’ll get going before the hot water’s used up.”
“Even a pretty bird like you’s gotta put effort into looking pretty, hm? I would’ve never guessed.”
“Yeah, so I’ll go and pretty myself up now. See ya, Dabi.”
Keigo waves lazily and turns into a corridor that leads to the communal showers (among other places). He does feel a little dirty after their mission, and a shower would be just the thing to get all that ash out of his wings, but the shower’s not the place Keigo has in mind right now.
Usually, Dabi wouldn’t care about what he says or does. It’s not as though he keeps tabs on Keigo or tails him like an attention-starved puppy — Keigo’s lied to him lots of times, and Dabi’s likely done the same to him.
Usually, Dabi wouldn’t care about Keigo at all, but Keigo looks back and sees Dabi walking right behind him.
“Hey now,” Dabi drawls as their eyes meet. “Didja think I’m some sort of barbarian? Let’s head to the showers together, buddy old pal!”
“Since when did you think of me as your pal?”
Seconds later, when Dabi continues to stare at him, Keigo does his best not to wince. That was not supposed to have left his mouth, though it’s too late to laugh it off or take it back.
“Man, I’m hurt! We’ve been together all this time and you don’t think of me as a friend?” Dabi brings a finger to his eyes and pokes at the skin beneath them. “I’d cry but, y’know, ‘s hard to do that when my tear ducts are burnt to hell. Oh well, guess I’ll settle for a little chat instead.”
“Should I break out the tea and biscuits, then?”
Dabi laughs his grating laugh and puts an arm around Keigo’s shoulders. “I’m more of an energy drinks and munchies sorta guy, but weren’t we headed for a shower? I wouldn’t want to keep ya, birdie.”
Yet here you are, sticking to me like melted taffy. It sure does look like you want to keep me, doesn’t it?
For a moment, Keigo considers voicing his thoughts — they aren’t pals, no matter what Dabi says, and Keigo has places to be that don’t involve him. Why Dabi is choosing now, of all times, to act friendly, makes no sense to Keigo. That Dabi even has a concept of friendship makes no sense.
Keigo understands the value of maintaining appearances though, and keeping his true intentions hidden. “Who said I wanted to chat with all my bits hanging out?”
“Naw, is the little birdie feeling shy? What, you never showered with another guy?”
“Who hasn’t in this day and age?” They might be living in a secure facility their kind had built after they’d razed a few human buildings to the ground, but Keigo’s not high-ranking enough to have his own shower, or even a room to himself. “It’s just, when I wanna bare all, I don’t wanna bare all — you get me?”
Dabi throws his head back and laughs more gratingly than before. “Who would’ve pegged you as the conservative sort? Well, whatever — if you’re that uncomfortable with me then you shoulda just said so. There’s no need to be so roundabout when we’re partners, y’know.”
It’d be easy to think Dabi was okay with splitting off, Keigo thinks, if he couldn’t see the dark glint in Dabi’s eyes. For some reason Keigo can’t understand, Dabi seems determined to hang around him… and something tells Keigo that Dabi won’t take ‘no’ for an answer.
Darn it. Stupid, persistent zombie-cat — there goes my well-laid plans.
“Hey now, I just meant we shouldn’t get to know each other when our bits are out and dangling about. What kinda impression would that make for our first bonding session?” Keigo slips out from beneath Dabi’s arm and makes for the corridor he should’ve been taking alone. “A conversation like this is best had elsewhere. Gotta get the mood right and all, if we wanna hit it off.”
Keigo misses the flash of something that appears on Dabi’s face, but he turns back in time to catch a smirk. “Hit it off, hm? If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were playing hard to get!”
Keigo knows better and Dabi likely does, too, but Keigo smirks back and leads the way outside. They’ll never be friends when Keigo keeps seeing another person in Dabi’s face… but if this is what it takes for Dabi to be less of an asshole, then Keigo will try and meet him halfway.
“This is nice and all, but didn’t you wanna chat?” Keigo asks, minutes into their silent rain-viewing party. If he had known that there would be an acid storm raging, or that Dabi would be happier sitting in silence than talking, Keigo would have gone for that shower, Dabi’s intentions be damned. “I was hoping for something… more, y’know.”
Like actually chatting, and not whatever this is.
Dabi gives him an unreadable look. Keigo looks back, shrugs, and gets up from his crouch with a loud sigh.
“Look, Dabi — if someone’s been telling you that partners have to be best buddies, you don’t need to listen to them.” You sure don’t listen to me half the time. “We’re getting along just fine without all the team-building exercises. Spend your break doing something you wanna do.”
“But what makes you think I don’t wanna chat?”
Keigo gives Dabi the look he deserves, for that. “If you haven’t noticed… we weren’t chatting before.”
That, for whatever reason, makes Dabi double over with laughter. It’s just another indicator of how messed up Dabi is… and how little he resembles Touya, for all Keigo’s mind thinks otherwise.
“Did I forget to mention I was messing with you? My bad.” Dabi lounges back on his elbows and smirks up at Keigo. “But y’know, it wasn’t like you weren’t chatting either, were you?”
Keigo thinks he’s justified in smacking Dabi’s face with a wing. He also thinks he’s justified in laughing when Dabi squawks and falls onto his back — at least, until a hand hooks Keigo’s ankle and topples him to the ground. His nose isn’t broken, Keigo thinks, but the pain tries to tell him otherwise.
“I changed my mind — there is something I wanna chat to you about.”
And you couldn’t have told me without faceplanting me?
In the end, Keigo shakes off Dabi’s hand, but crouches back down beside him instead of walking away. Maybe Mirko’s right and he’s gotten soft since (Touya) his infiltration mission on earth. It is the only explanation that makes sense, without bringing to mind questions Keigo doesn’t want to answer.
“So?” Keigo asks, staring out at the rain. If Dabi’s looking at him, Keigo doesn’t know (and doesn’t want to know).
“You ever think about whether aliens and humans could co-exist?”
Keigo turns his head so fast that his neck cracks. “What did you say?”
“Humour me, Hawks. It’s a simple yes/no question.” Dabi pauses at the look on Keigo’s face, but smiles a lizard-like smile when Keigo continues to say nothing. “Or… do you have something to hide from your buddy old pal?”
“Why do you care?”
“I think the better question here is: why do you care? You’ve lived with humans for so long. Seems unreasonable for you not to have an opinion on them, or one you can’t share with me.”
Only years of training keep Keigo from holding his breath or freezing in place. That would be a signal he cannot afford to give Dabi, whose gaze is always searching when Keigo catches him looking.
(What Dabi is searching for, or even why Dabi’s searching him, is always beyond Keigo. If he didn’t know any better…
Except Keigo does know better. No matter how much he regrets, no matter how much it plagues his nightmares, Keigo will never forget Touya’s face in the moments after Keigo had chosen his side.)
“C’mon, birdie: yes or no?”
“After everything we’ve done to them, what do you think?”
“Your word games are cute. Your evasion? Not so much.” Dabi sighs and leans in until their noses are almost touching. This close, Keigo can see how blue (and cold) Dabi’s eyes are. “Answer the question, Hawks.”
“You’re really hung up about this, aren’t you?” Keigo leans back and laughs, but Dabi doesn’t so much as smile. “If you’re gonna be all serious about this… no, not after everything we’ve done.”
“Why not?”
Since when did I sign up for an interrogation? “I just said why not, Dabi.”
“Like I said — humour me. Pretend I’m a human bargaining with you for my life.”
If Dabi’s trying to be funny, the ‘joke’ (if Keigo can even call it that) falls short. Only willpower keeps Keigo from pulling a face, and willpower barely keeps his voice steady when he says, “I’d kill them before they could bargain with me. You think I’d let them go when that decision could bite me in the ass later?”
Dabi raises his hands. “Hey now, there’s no need to get all fired up. Isn’t this just small talk? It’s not like you sympathise with the humans or rescue them behind my back!”
A chill goes down Keigo’s spine. Keigo’s stint as an undercover agent, before the apocalypse came and wiped out most of the humans, is common knowledge — what isn’t, or shouldn’t be, is the brief period when he’d spare any human who knew Todoroki Touya.
“What do you mean by that, Dabi?”
“Am I supposed to mean anything by it?” Dabi lets his hands fall back to his sides and tilts his head, grinning with his lips and teeth and nothing else. “You’re a model agent. It’s only right I learn from my superior when it comes to managing proper human-alien relationships.”
Dabi has never cared for authority — it’s a fact as well-known as Keigo’s pre-apocalypse status. That he would suddenly decide to learn from Keigo, when he rarely listens to anything Keigo says, doesn’t fit with what Keigo knows of Dabi.
Then again, what do I know about Dabi? What sort of animal did Master fuse Dabi with to give him his looks, or his firepower?
“So you don’t think humans and aliens can get along — good to know.” If Dabi can tell Keigo’s trying to puzzle him out, he doesn’t show it. “Personally, I think the humans would sooner destroy the world, themselves and us than try for peace, but it’s not like you asked for my opinion.”
“Well, enjoy your shower, birdie. I think that’s enough chatting for today, don’t you?”
Keigo twitches and scrambles to his feet, but Dabi’s waving a hand over his shoulder and walking back into the complex. “Thanks for humouring me, buddy old pal! Let’s keep killing humans until this world finally becomes ours!”
Dabi’s laughter drifts down the corridor, long after he’s turned a corner and disappeared from sight. By the time Keigo’s made his way down the corridor too, there’s nothing left to suggest Dabi had been there at all.
“That’s not the reason you would’ve given me back then, pretty bird. If there was a way to live… what were you going to say after that, I wonder?”
Dabi lies back on his bed, stares at the moonlight through his spread fingers, and smiles through the pain pulling at his stapled skin. He would’ve cried, once, but what did crying ever do for him? He, unlike Keigo, learned enough to change his ways.
He still doesn’t know why Keigo kissed him back then. He doesn’t know why Keigo didn’t finish him off, what Keigo really thinks beneath his smiles and thoughtful eyes, or whether the person he was with Touya is as real as the person he is in front of Dabi.
There are many things Dabi’s learned and many things he’s yet to learn, but with one piece of the puzzle in his hands…
“The past never dies.” Dabi whispers. “The present’s gonna change, and the future’s coming for your ass, Takami Keigo.”