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“Boo!” Hawks yells as he jumps down from the roof of the building next to Dabi, scaring the absolute shit out of him. He even jumps, though he’ll deny that to the day he dies. Hawks catches it and breaks down into hysterical laughter.
“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up birdbrain,” Dabi growls, throwing his cigarette to the ground with vengeance. “It won’t be so funny next time when I burn a hole through your head. You’re lucky I didn’t kill you – you’re lucky I’m not killing you now.”
“Nah,” Hawks says with a sharp grin, wiping a tear of mirth from his eye as he stands, “it’ll still be funny. Besides, you couldn’t kill me! Not on purpose, anyway. You like me too much.”
“I wouldn’t count on it,” Dabi threatens, but he knows he’s just talking shit. Three months ago he would have made good on his threat, and most likely burned a few of the hero’s feathers to get his point across. Now, he doesn’t even make a move to threaten him. Hawks knows too, because he grins again and leans into Dabi’s space. Dabi does his best to ignore him, and the way his wings crowd Dabi against the wall. “Do you have the information, or not?”
“Don’t get your panties in a twist! Of course, I’ve got it,” Hawks exclaims, pulling a small USB from his pocket and pressing it into Dabi’s hand. It’s a butt ugly shade of piss yellow, and Dabi scoffs at it before putting it in his pocket. Typical Hawks.
Business over with, Hawks’ gaze shifts to something less jovial and more predatory, and the intent in the way he presses Dabi against the alley wall becomes more obvious. He must not have anything else to do tonight, then. Dabi hopes he has someplace for them to go, because he just got kicked out of the latest shithole he’d been staying in and he doesn’t fancy having sex in the construction site he’s been squatting in.
When Hawks leans in to kiss Dabi his wings move with him, although they carefully stay just off of Dabi’s shoulders. He wishes sometimes that they’d come closer so he could fist his hands in them, tug on them like he does the hero’s hair. Dabi settles for sliding his hands under Hawks’ jacket and tweaking the base of his wings, grinning at the way Hawks shivers at the touch.
“Well, hotstuff?” Hawks drawls, leaning away. His eyes are half-closed, and he looks at Dabi like he’s something to be eaten. “What do you say we get out of here?”
Next time Dabi sees Hawks, he has an impossible mission for him, one that he knows (hopes) Hawks won’t complete but hands out anyway. Hawks agrees, and flies away like every other meeting they’ve had, even though Dabi kind of wishes he would stay. It’s the last time that things make sense. The next time they meet, they’re something different, and Hawks is a dying man.
Dabi doesn’t really remember what happens between killing Hawks and being grabbed by the police. It’s all blurry, filled with the scent of burnt flesh and the feeling of feathers between his fingers. When he shoves his hands in his pocket looking for something that isn’t there, he finds the note instead, and can’t make sense of it in his head. It’s white, and thin, like a receipt, and it crumples in his fist when he shoves it back into his pocket as the police round the corner. He doesn’t fight back, doesn’t even think to until they’ve stabbed a needle full of something in him and shoved him in the back of a police van.
What was that? He thinks, and he’s not sure if he’s talking about the note or –
Dabi remembers the kiss. He remembers Hawks leaning in, pressing their lips together, and a pressure in his pocket before Hawks had placed his warm hand on Dabi’s chest.
Warm, because he was alive.
Dabi retches, and the armed guards sitting beside him in the van swear at him. One even reaches out to kick him in the side, like that would stop him vomiting on them if he really wanted to. He should want to, but Dabi isn’t even aware enough to really feel the pain from the kick in the first place.
After what feels like a lifetime of driving Dabi’s dragged from the van into a nondescript concrete building. First thing they do is strip him of his clothes without even the courtesy of turning around before giving him a white jumpsuit and a pair of slippers to wear. The only reason his shaking hands manage the jumpsuit is because the zipper has been replaced with Velcro. There are dark stains in the shape of fingerprints around the closure when he finishes, and it takes Dabi a moment to realize what they are.
That’s Hawks, he thinks distantly, I just smeared Hawks onto my shirt.
Before he can think twice about it he starts scratching at his skin, tearing at the unscarred flesh on his fingers and the edges of his scars with unbridled ferocity. Desperation fuels his every movement, and this time he fights back when the police grab his arms. An elbow to the back stops that, though.
“Let me wash my fucking hands,” he manages to croak, and for some reason they listen to him. Sort of.
The consensus they silently seem to come to is that one police officer restrains Dabi while the other shows his hand under a tap. The water is freezing and the officer is no where near gentle as he scrubs Dabi’s arm, but it’s not enough. Dabi’s skin isn’t even burning when they’re done, his scars aren’t even bleeding. He can still feel the ash on his skin.
“Fucking hell,” one police officer says as they finally manhandle him back into the other room, “you literally have a fire quirk. You should be able to handle a little bit of ash.”
That’s true. Dabi’s been incinerating things since he could walk, and he’s burned his fair share of bodies as well – he should be used to the dark stains of death on his hands. This isn’t ashes, though. It’s Hawks.
After, the police check his belongings right in front of him while a pair of heroes Dabi doesn’t recognize attach cuffs to his wrists. At least one of them must have a water quirk – Dabi tells himself that’s why he doesn’t try anything as he watches the bastards tear through his things. There’s not much on the table, just his clothing, some loose change, and the pocketknife he kept in the back pocket of his pants. They come to the jacket, and Dabi remembers the note again. When the police pull it out they don’t even spare it a second glance.
“Please,” Dabi blurts before he can think about it, “please don’t throw that away. It’s mine.” What a stupid thing to say – of course it’s his. Even more stupidity dribbles from his lips, and Dabi can’t stop any of it. “Hawks gave it to me.”
Somehow those are the magic words – well, not the magic words to get his note back, but at least to stop the police from throwing it out. They treat it with more caution after, and they even put it in its own special little baggy. Dabi watches it on the table until he’s led from the room and into his cell, until it disappears from view.
I’m never going to see that note again, he thinks, and he can’t decide how he feels about it.
Then, Dabi is alone. The cell they put him in his dingy, although nicer than Dabi ever would have expected. Maybe this is just a holding room for him, until they ship him off to Tartarus, or whatever worse prison they’ve made to keep Shigaraki’s sensei in. There’s a toilet in the corner with a mirrorless sink, and a bed with a cleaner mattress and sheets than Dabi has slept on in a decade. Pity, that they would waste all of these things on a villain with a flame quirk. It takes him only a second to decide that he's going to make them regret their generosity. Finally, his hands have stopped shaking – it’s time to put them to something useful.
When he tries to burn the bed, though, his fire never even reaches the metal frame. As soon as his quirk has a chance to grow hot enough, the smoke reaches the sprinklers in the ceiling and water rains down on everything in the room for about a minute, if Dabi had to guess. Not even Dabi’s fire is immune to water, not for long. He stares up at the ceiling in surprise before breaking out into laughter. It’s a smart security measure, he’ll give them that. Guess this cell was made for him, after all.
A few stupid sprinklers aren’t enough to stop him trying, and Dabi spends most of his first day in the cell drenched as a result. The clothes they’d given him aren’t very thick, and by the tenth drowning he’s shivering so hard his teeth chatter. When he complains about the treatment to the guards, all they do is laugh and turn up the AC. Yeah, he’s definitely not getting that note back.
Fuckers, see if Dabi leaves them alive when he escapes. If Hawks were still alive, he’d be coming for his ass, too. It’s all his fault Dabi’s in here.
Even if I only have to spend one day in this shitty cell, Dabi swears, I won’t forgive him for it.
The blame falls only on a corpse who’s unable to do anything other than continue to be dead, but it makes Dabi feel better to be angry at Hawks. He should be angry at Hawks, and he tries to gather that familiar burning hatred he’s used to at the thought of Endeavor, but this time aimed at Hawks. He isn’t quite successful – he’s never been good at making fire. Just ask his father. Still, something burns in his chest, and Dabi chooses to call it rage.
What did that fucker think would happen, when he flew in front of Dabi’s flames? If dying was his plan well then good fucking job, he achieved it. He achieved it, and now he’s dead and Dabi is stuck in this cell, wanted for the murder of the number two hero.
That thought settles in Dabi for a moment, now that there’s nothing more to burn, and the Earth tilts back onto an angle that’s lets everything come back into focus.
Hawks is dead. Dabi killed him. And now Dabi is here.
He laughs, long and hard and desperate until his stomach hurts, head thrown back to the ceiling. He hopes he looks crazy to the guards.
Some of it starts to come back to Dabi now, the parts that let it start to make sense. He remembers Hawks’ last words – planting trees, he’d said. What a stupid fucking vague thing to say, as if it means anything. As if it’s a justification for Dabi killing him. For all he knows, it isn’t even fucking true.
It’s better that he doesn’t have that stupid note, Dabi decides. He doesn’t want to hear whatever bullshit it was Hawks wanted to tell him. If it was that important, he could have said it to Dabi’s face. Instead, Hawks decided he’d rather die. To think Dabi had wasted so much time overthinking that morning, trying to figure out what the pair of them were, and how he felt about Hawks. He’d had to stop himself from setting Hawks on fire, he’d been so nervous about crossing that line and kissing the hero. And here Hawks had been planning on fucking using and discarding him all along.
I hate him, Dabi swears, and I’ll never forgive him.
The memory causes fire to jump back into Dabi’s veins and his fist clenches on his jumpsuit to prevent him from setting it on fire again. He’s wet enough already, and tired enough that he finally might be able to sleep. He even manages a few hours, before it proves to be his undoing.
Dabi wakes from a dream (or maybe it’s a nightmare) with the feeling of Hawks’ wing draped along his shoulder. There are feathers tickling his neck, all the way up to his ear, and Dabi brushes them away with an annoyed groan. Hawks is always a pain in the ass the morning after he accidentally stays over, chirping about food and being late and -
Hawks is dead.
Dabi leaps out of bed with a curse, throwing off whatever’s on top of him in rage. It’s only the sheet, the stupid, cheap sheet they’d given him. He scratches at his neck, like that will erase the memory. It doesn’t.
Dabi would rather forget that he and Hawks ever met, but suddenly all he can think about is every part of him that Hawks had touched. Every brush, every caress, every rough fuck and gentle fuck and everything in between - every kiss, even the last one. Especially the last one. Hawks has left his mark on Dabi, and all of his scars burn. Dabi curses the hero for it with every thought, every memory. Dabi is already full of scars, he doesn’t have room for these ones, too. It strengthens his resolve to hate the hero, even as every memory shakes it.
Fuck Hawks. I won’t forgive him.
For his first full day in custody, it’s practically a party up in his cell. There’s a minimum of three heroes with him at all times, flinching every time he sneezes and watching him take a shit like it’s reality TV. And that isn’t even mentioning the constant rotation of police officers filtering in and out, asking questions Dabi can’t answer. Very few of them have to do with the League, which Dabi doesn’t understand, but that doesn’t stop the police officers from coming. They might as well install a revolving door and be done with it.
On the second day they bring him a new jumpsuit, and Dabi has to resist the urge to press the old one to his nose after he changes. The dark stain of ash is still there, untouched by the water from the sprinklers, and Dabi hands itch to rub it from the fabric. From there he’d rub the dark stain into his skin, or maybe on his tongue, somewhere he can keep it forever – except, he won’t do that, because it’s fucked up, and weird, and he hates Hawks. Yet, his fingers linger on the stain.
Dabi hates Hawks, but it seems that his hands haven’t got the memo.
It’s hard to remember sometimes because Dabi is never truly alone in his cell. Hawks is everywhere, in every flicker of flame and lingering scent of burning smoke, Dabi’s smoke. It’s the scent of smoke, of ash, and the scent of burning flesh that should be familiar but instead just smells like death.
They let him shower on day four, and Dabi is glad to wash the stink from his skin. He knows the task is fruitless, because he will always smell like smoke, and the smell of his smoke will never change, but he revels in the few moments of peace he gets in the shower, anyway. There’s a hero in the room with him, watching from the corner, and can feel his gaze crawling on his skin. Dabi hopes his scars disgust him.
As he turns his head to sneer at the guard the water from the showerhead hits his cheek and suddenly Dabi is reminded of the many times him and Hawks had fucked in the shower at Dabi’s shitty apartment. The water pressure here is somehow better than in that shithole. Those phantom touches come back around, then, and Dabi forgets about the guard as he scrubs every inch of his skin until he’s red and bleeding under the scarred flesh. They haul him from the shower at the first sign of blood in the drain and drag him laughing and naked back to his cell, throwing his clothes in behind him. When he finally catches his breath enough to stand and dress, he can already smell the smoke back on his skin.
It's his own quirk, he should be used to it, yet the smell burns his nose. He won't forgive Hawks for that, either.
Time escapes him, after that. Dabi has the vague impression of days passing but he doesn’t bother counting them, not when he can’t even see the sky. Instead, he tests how long his fire can burn before the sprinklers puts it out, how many swears he can fling at the guards before they come to bang on the bars, how many times he can rip up his sheets before they stop bringing him new ones. It’s when nothing is left in his cell but Dabi and the furniture bolted to the floor that he gets his first interesting visitor.
“Hey, fuckface!” he calls, staring at the ceiling while lying on his back. “I’m bored!”
It’s intended to agonize the hero on duty today – he’s an older hero, probably retired, with some sort of mutation quirk that Dabi can’t quite figure out. He’s the hardest to rile up of all the guards, and the least likely to take a swipe at Dabi when he’s being annoying. This means, of course, that Dabi has made it his goal to piss the fucker off. This time, though, the guard doesn’t respond.
“And what would you like me to do about it?” an unfamiliar voice answers, and Dabi wrestles down the urge to jump. Instead, he sits up slowly, arching his back with a stretch and a yawn, doing his best to look uninterested.
When he finally makes eye contact with his visitor, though, he can’t quite hide his surprise. It's the teacher – Eraserfuck, or something, standing at the edge of the cell with a folder tucked under one arm. He looks tired, deeply so. For the life of him Dabi can’t figure out what the fuck he’s doing here. None of the stupid kids had been involved, so what gives?
Rather than doing anything so polite as greeting Dabi, the teacher gestures to the table outside the cell and slumps down into the chair without a word. When Dabi fails to move, Eraserhead gestures for him to come closer. The silence stretches for a moment before Dabi rolls his eyes before grudgingly settling on the edge of the bed closest to the cell. It’s not like they’d given him a chair.
“Well?” Dabi asks expectantly, folding his arms. “To what do I owe the pleasure? You should have told me you were coming; I would have cleaned.” Eraserhead’s eyes dart around the cell, taking in the soaked floor and remains of the last bedsheet Dabi had received. Dabi grins like a shark when they make eye contact again.
To the teacher’s credit, he doesn’t beat around the bush.
“We’re prepared to make a deal for your freedom,” is the first thing Eraserhead says, and Dabi nearly busts a rib laughing.
“Sure!” he barks, “and make sure to throw in a spa day pass, while you’re at it. My back’s getting a bit sore.”
Eraserhead doesn’t laugh – he just looks at Dabi with the same expression that he’d walked in with, eyes steady, mouth thin. If Dabi didn’t know better, he’d think the hero was being serious.
“Fine,” he says when his laughter finally peters out, “let’s pretend I believe you. What do I get out of this deal, hero? Am I really supposed to believe you’d let me what, run free?”
“That depends on your definition of freedom. House arrest, weekly check-ins, trauma counselling, and quirk counselling will all be mandatory, most likely for the rest of your life,” Eraserhead lists, “but yes, you will be free. As much freedom as could possibly be afforded to you, given your… past.”
“…What for?” Dabi asks, because fuck him, it sounds like really good deal, and not one he deserves. Since when was the law so lenient?
“You will give us all the information you have on the League of Villains, as well as any and all organizations you’ve worked with in the past. Should we ever need expertise on the League in the future, you will be called in. And,” Eraserhead hesitates, “you will be summoned as a witness to testify in an upcoming hero trial. None of that is negotiable. If you refuse to cooperate in any aspect, the deal is off.”
At this point, Dabi doesn’t give a shit about the League. He’s been in here for weeks, and he has no doubt that his arrest is all over the news. There’s no reason for them not to have staged a rescue by now, other than that they aren’t going to. Makes sense, really, even if it stings a bit. But betrayal is old hat to Dabi by now, so he shrugs it off with only a bit of lingering itchiness on his skin. Sure, he’ll tattle on the league, if that’s what they need him to do.
If it was only that, he’d agree, but Dabi doesn’t like the way Eraserhead hesitated. Why on earth would they need him to testify against a hero, and why is Eraserhead the one offering this deal? Surely, the police could have handled it. Dabi sucks on the back of his teeth for a moment, feigning disinterest until Eraserhead’s blank mask finally cracks and he starts to look annoyed. Then, Dabi leans back in his chair, the image of nonchalance.
“Well, teach,” Eraserhead flinches; Dabi notes the reaction, “that’s quite the deal. Except, one thing doesn’t quite add up. Why would you need lil ol’ me to testify in a hero trial? Who’s it against?”
Eraserhead swallows, and when he finally replies the answer is carefully blank. It’s not enough to soften the name.
“Endeavor.”
Dabi’s hands burst into flame as soon as Eraserhead’s done speaking. The hero activates his quirk as soon as the blue fire licks Dabi’s hands but it doesn’t stop the smoke from reaching the ceiling. No one comes rushing in but the sprinklers do go off, and Eraserhead swears as they’re both soaked. It’s the only sound behind the water as they wait for the spray to shut off.
“Why the fuck would I have anything to do with Endeavor?” Dabi hears himself asking, even as he knows that his first reaction has given everything away. “You must be stupid, to think my testimony would help you take him down.”
Rather than replying, Eraserhead hands over the folder he’d been carrying. After a moment of hesitation, Dabi leans forward to take it, flipping it open to the first page. All the papers are a bit soggy but the sprinklers hadn’t run long enough to run the ink so it’s all still painfully legible.
TOUYA TODOROKI the file reads, and for the first time in years Dabi comes face to a face with a picture of himself. He’s maybe sixteen, there – his hair is still white, and there’s no scars marring his face, yet. The only piercing on his face is in his nose. Endeavor had nearly torn it out himself, when Touya – Dabi had come home with it.
As he flips through the pages, there’s only more pictures. Some are from old visits to the hospital, accompanied by discarded reports of child abuse and even a psych evaluation he doesn’t remember happening. There’s a report of his accident near the end, and though Dabi is used to his scars by now the wounds in the picture are so new that he has to swallow down bile at the sight. Some parts of the report are redacted, but it doesn’t matter to Dabi. He was there, he knows what they say.
Finally, at the very end, is a collection of information about Dabi. It’s not as detailed and it reads as though the writer was feeling a bit rushed, but the reason for its inclusion is obvious. Someone has connected Dabi and Touya Todoroki, not like it was difficult to do. As soon as the link is there it’s obvious – Dabi just never thought anyone would care enough to look, not when Endeavor had covered it up. He’d counted on it.
“Who gave this to you?” Dabi asks numbly.
“Shouto, Fuyumi, and Natsuo Todoroki believed I would be the best person to handle this information. As did Hawks. It was placed in my care… posthumously.” Eraserhead says the words delicately, like he’s somehow sparing Dabi’s feelings. It doesn’t do anything to tame the rage inside him at all.
Dabi’s fist burst into flame again, and the pair are soaked for the second time in as many minutes. This time, he takes vicious delight in the hero’s cursing. He can’t hurt Hawks but he can soak Eraserhead. Maybe the hero will even get a cold after this – one can only hope.
Dabi watches the folder in his hands the water soaks through it, turning the yellow into a dark golden brown. The edges are burnt now from Dabi’s fire. He thinks about the pictures in it, remembers the descriptions of abuse, and the little biography on Dabi at the end, written by someone who clearly knew him. Hawks, apparently, knew him.
Dabi scours his memories of his time with Hawks, looking for the moment the hero found out, the moment the hero started treating him different. Nothing stands out. Hawks had been the same all the way through their relationship, right up until Dabi killed him.
And now, everyone knows. The secret Dabi had been keeping for all of his adult life, the secret that meant more to him than his life has been ripped open for everyone to see. Thanks to Hawks, Touya Todoroki’s pain has been dragged back to the surface, even though the boy in that folder should be long dead.
Dabi won’t forgive Hawks for that.
“Why bring it up now?” he manages to ask past gritted teeth, throwing the file on the floor back at the hero. Eraserhead doesn’t flinch. “He’s the number one hero already, what the fuck are you going to be able to do against him?”
“Shouto is still training with him,” Eraserhead replies bluntly, and Dabi hates that his heart drops at the words. “Given Endeavor’s status as number one hero, a solid trial is the only way to ensure Shouto’s safety. Your testimony would be the strongest foundation we could give it. Besides, don’t you think Endeavor deserves to face the consequences of his actions?” A pause. “Don’t you deserve justice?”
It’s the wrong thing to say – Dabi never cared about justice; he cares about revenge.
“None of you fucking cared then, and you can fuck right off now,” he spits. “I’m not helping you. Touya died – there’s never going to be any justice for him. Not until Endeavor is dead.”
Eraserhead is silent, and that makes Dabi more uncomfortable than anything the hero could have said. He feels like he’s being judged, and he shifts under the hero’s gaze.
“Fine,” the hero says calmy, standing from his seat. “But keep it. Think on it. You don’t have to reply right away.”
Eraserhead pushes the folder back into the cell, and Dabi makes a mental note to burn it as soon as the hero’s back is turned. It won’t erase the evidence, but it’ll make him feel better. Before he can pick it up, though, the hero speaks again.
“Oh, there’s this, too,”
It’s the note, the stupid fucking note that Dabi had already accepted that he’d never see again. His hands tremble as he takes it from Eraserhead through the bars, and he hates that he can’t stop them. The note is in a plastic slip, now, so he can’t burn it. As if he ever would. Just the thought has his heart beating faster and his fingers twitching with the need to hold it to his chest and never let go. He’d thought he was okay with never seeing it again.
“It’s technically evidence so you couldn’t keep it, but we have copies of it now.” It’s as close to an apology as Dabi will get. “If you burn it, you won’t be getting another.”
Dabi isn't even paying attention, doesn't notice as Eraserhead leaves the cell. All he can see is the note, the stupid fucking note that Hawks had left him, the one he was never supposed to see again. It seems that his guess had been right, it is a receipt, though most of the printed text has worn off. All that remains is Hawks ugly chicken scratch, smearing across the page but still legible enough for the desperation in the words to come across clear as day.
I love you enough to let you kill me, you bastard, so don’t fuck this up for me.
I’m sorry that you’re the one who has to do it, and I’m sorry that I’m not more sorry. But we’re just not made for anything nice, are we? It was good, though. While it lasted :)
I love you. I love you.
The last letter is smudged, but it’s legible enough that Dabi knows what it says, and he knows that he’s not making it up. There’s not much room for interpretation in the note, is there? Hawks wanted Dabi to kill him, he'd depended on it, and didn't even have the decency to feel sorry about it.
I love you. I love you. Dabi moves his thumb to cover the bottom of the note so he doesn't have to feel it's incriminating stare on him as he thinks.
The note makes it clear - Hawks had planned this, he’d sat down and planned his own suicide (and that’s what it was, Dabi can’t fool himself any longer), and he’d chosen Dabi to do it, cruelty of the action be damned. What Dabi had thought might be the start of something really only ever happened because Hawks had already accepted it would be the end. He’d kissed Dabi like it was his last time, because he knew it would be his last time. Maybe he’d been overthinking it that morning, just as much as Dabi was. Maybe, Dabi had been right about them.
Hawks had known about Touya Todoroki, while they were working, while they were fucking, while they were talking about fucked up childhoods and fucked up brains. He’d known about Touya Todoroki while he’d written this note, and it hadn’t changed anything. He’d called him Dabi the whole while.
Dabi wants to grab Hawks and shake him, wants to put his hands around Hawks’ throat and squeeze, wants to press his lips to hero’s and demands why him – why Dabi? But Hawks is dead. Dabi will never speak to him again.
Emotions war in Dabi has he struggles between hatred and something unnameable, something dark and deep that might be love or grief (or maybe they’re the same) and he doesn’t want either of them.
I can’t forgive him, Dabi thinks desperately, I won’t.
Hawks had been more than happy to let Dabi kill him. He’d left Dabi here to rot forever with that crime on his shoulders. Was that an act of love? And Dabi had burned a hole through Hawks so cleanly that he could almost see through to the other side. His fire had even burned hot enough to cauterize the wound. Yet Hawks’ note says I love you.
Tears start to blur Dabi’s vision, so he focuses on his hands instead of the note. They’re shaking, no matter how tight he clutches it, and Dabi hates them.
The hero had felt so small in Dabi’s arms, even as his wings had spread around them. Despite it all he’d looked happy to see Dabi, and that had hurt more than the sight of the deadly wound on the side of Hawks’ body. It’s hard to kill a human via burning, and it takes forever. That’s why Dabi had aimed to burn a path straight through Best Jeanist’s body. Except, he burnt through Hawks’ instead.
When the police finally showed up they’d had to fight to take Hawks from him. Dabi doesn’t remember it very well, just like he doesn’t remember the trip to the police station or anything in between Hawks’ last words and being thrown in the cell. It’s all a vague blur – he remembers Best Jeanist, standing like he was there to save Hawks, like he hadn’t already failed. He’d been the one to restrain Dabi.
Why are you still here? Dabi remembers thinking. Maybe he’d screamed it – his throat had certainly hurt after, though he doesn’t know from what. Why are you alive, when he’s dead? It was supposed to be you!
Except, Dabi was wrong. It was supposed to be Hawks – it was always going to be Hawks.
I’ll never forgive you, Dabi swears, and the note crumples slightly in his hands, not when you aren’t even sorry.
Dabi’s next visitor is even more surprising than Eraserhead, and he arrives only one day later. The fanfare around his arrival is quite dramatic – Dabi feels a bit like he’s getting a visit from royalty, so he salutes every guard that bustles in and out of his cell block with a smirk. He gets a lot of strange looks from that, but it doesn’t stop them from checking all the sprinklers and cameras in the room, or from measuring the distance between the cell and the table outside of it. It all makes sense, when Best Jeanist finally walks into the room.
Dabi’s first thought is that he wants to burn the somber look off the hero’s face. He giggles at the idea. Remember what happened last time he tried to kill Best Jeanist? Maybe this time it will be Dabi’s turn to die, instead. It certainly seems like the man just isn’t allowed to die, and there’s no one else in the room to take the blow for him but Dabi. Unfortunately, the hero never gets close enough to the bars for him to try.
“Good afternoon,” Best Jeanist says politely, taking a careful seat behind the table. It’s farther now than it was when Eraserhead visited. “Thank you for seeing me, Dabi.”
“What, are you the bad cop in this comedy routine?” Dabi asks, arching a brow. “Good luck with that. You can tell whoever sent you to fuck off. The answer’s still a no.”
“I am not the ‘bad cop’, as you call it, and I’m afraid I can’t do that.” The hero actually sounds regretful, and Dabi’s interest is grudgingly piqued.
“Why not?” he asks with a sneer.
“Hawks sent me,” Best Jeanist says, and if he wanted Dabi to shut up then he chose the right words, because he can’t find any response to that. Best Jeanist takes that as a sign to continue, and he really doesn’t beat around the bush. “Though he failed to inform me of his plan before calling me to the fight, Hawks scheduled an email to be sent to me that would contain an explanation for his actions. As I understand it, he sent one to multiple other heroes, as well. In it, he asked me to ‘take it easy on you’.”
That’s… that doesn’t make any sense. None of that makes any sense.
“It wasn’t a fight,” Dabi replies stupidly, because it’s the only part of Best Jeanist’s words he can understand. “We weren’t fighting.”
Something in Best Jeanist’s eyes softens. “Yes, I gathered that.”
Silence falls as Best Jeanist seemingly waits for an answer. Dabi eyes him up and down – he doesn’t know what the hero wants him to say, and he doesn’t care.
“Well?” Dabi demands. “What are you here for? You didn’t come just for the pleasure of my company.”
Best Jeanist waits for a beat before nodding, and his expression shifts to something more businesslike again. “It has taken me much too long to visit, and I apologise for that. It’s been busy, in the hero world – have you heard any of the current news, as of late?”
Dabi looks around the empty cell sardonically, and Best Jeanist follows his gaze. It hasn’t gotten any nicer since Eraserhead’s visit yesterday, and Best Jeanist acknowledges the unspoken point with a nod.
“Hawks didn’t just email me, before he enacted his plan,” he explains. “Though I won’t reveal their identities, he sent highly confidential and highly incriminating information to several high ranking heroes.” Well, that gives credits to Eraserhead’s claim. “Most of it was centered on the Hero Commission and their treatment of himself and other young heroes, as well as the work they had been doing behind the scenes. We have been working hard to hold those responsible for the crimes accountable, as well as filling the gaps that will leave behind. Any success is coming slowly, and it’s rather all hands on deck, so to speak.”
As much as Dabi would like to reply with some insult or another, he needs a moment to absorb the news. It goes against all his previous assumptions about the situation, not that he’d been able to make many outside of Hawks using him to commit suicide. So, the birdbrain had a purpose, huh? Does that really make it any better? Couldn’t he have done it without Dabi – he shakes those thoughts out of his head.
If what Best Jeanist is saying is true, then it must be utter pandemonium out there in the real world. It’s little wonder the League, and thus Dabi have fallen to the wayside. He’s chump change in the face of a social order falling apart. Whatever Hawks had on the commission must have been dirty, and it must have been good – Dabi pictures the panic the commission must be in right now with a smirk. He can imagine at least some of what Hawks had to reveal, and yeah, it’s more than enough to paint the commission in a horrid light.
Hawks had never said anything about any abuse explicitly, but he didn’t exactly need to. Dabi was more than familiar with what it felt like to suffer under someone’s thumb under the name of being a hero, and he recognized some (if not all) of the pain in Hawks. It was enough for Dabi to believe that Hawks wanted to join the League, even as he also suspected the hero was reporting to the commission. If nothing else, Dabi had believed that Hawks was someone who wanted justice, no matter the form it took.
That was a thorn that had always stuck between them – Hawks tended towards justice, Dabi towards revenge. Dabi had never doubted that Hawks hated the commission, and the culture of heroes that had sprung up around them. He just doubted that the hero really thought the League was the way to make any changes. So, yeah. This feels like something Hawks would do.
Planting trees, Dabi remembers, and he wants to laugh. Trust Hawks to be stupid and confusing right up until the very end. That asshole couldn’t tell the truth to save his life, yet Dabi listened to him anyway. He hates that it makes sense.
“You were one of those matters,” Best Jeanist continues. “He asked me to take it easy on you, just as he asked Eraserhead to take on your case, and your siblings to look out for you. Hawks wanted you to live.”
As far as Dabi’s concerned, he doesn’t have any siblings. He doesn’t even have a last name. Touya Todoroki died a long time ago, and only Dabi remains. Most days he feels more like a walking corpse than a person. Why exactly did he come out alive in this equation? What did Hawks think he has to live for?
Beast Jeanist shifts uncomfortably in the silence that falls as Dabi thinks. He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees.
“As I understand it,” he begins, and Dabi doesn’t like the tone of this voice, “the relationship between the two of you was one of a more… intimate nature, than it might appear. I’m sure the past few weeks have been hard on you.”
Dabi doesn’t want to hear this, not ever, but especially not from Best Jeanist. He talks like he knows Hawks, like he understands anything that went down between him and Dabi. Not even Dabi is sure that he knew Hawks. The fact that Best Jeanist thinks he understands is a fucking joke, and Dabi refuses to have this conversation.
“Whatever he told you was bullshit,” Dabi mutters, looking away. “He was just an easy lay. None of it ever mattered to me.”
“Didn’t it?” Best Jeanist asks. “I suppose you’re within your rights to say that. It was your relationship, after all. But it mattered to Hawks. And I think it matters to you to.”
Despite how Dabi wants to doubt, wants to fight and rage against the words the hero says, he can only believe them.
I love you, I love you, the note had said, like Hawks couldn’t bear to only write it once. Like writing it twice communicated his love better than writing it once, like writing it twice would make up for the fact that he made Dabi kill him. Dabi won’t forgive him for that, Dabi can’t forgive him for that. Dabi hates Hawks, and he hates the note, and he hates that it almost works.
“Fine,” he gasps, looking up at Best Jeanist. The hero is watching Dabi carefully, without any of the disdain or judgement that Dabi has come to expect. He wants to look away as soon as they make eye contact. “I’ll fucking do it.”
Best Jeanist raises an eyebrow. “Do what?”
“Don’t give me that shit, I know that’s why you’re here.” Dabi scoffs. “You and that Eraser-dude want me to testify, against the league and against Endeavor. I’ll do it, you can stop fucking guilt tripping me.”
Best Jeanist goes to say something but Dabi cuts him off – he’s tired of the hero having the upper hand, and he doesn’t want to hear anything more about Hawks.
“All this, this small talk about Hawks? You can cut it out now, I get it, I know. He’s dead, I killed him, he’s not coming back, and all we have now are his fucking trees to water or some bullshit. I get it. ”
“Touya-“ Dabi flinches. Best Jeanist clears his throat before starting again. “Dabi. I didn’t tell you all of this to guilt you, I told you because Hawks isn’t here to tell you himself, and you deserve to know what he did it all for.”
That’s a nice thought, if also a totally ludicrous one. What, Dabi is just supposed to be believe that Best Jeanist is doing this for him? That he would do it for Hawks is believable – Hawks was a hero, no matter how well he played the villain, and in the end he saved Best Jeanist’s life. All Dabi has done is kill the number two hero. Dabi has more than enough reason to assume that everything the hero says is a lie.
“I’m not just going to trust -“ Dabi cuts himself off before he can finish that sentence, but he’s said enough. Best Jeanist looks at him with sad eyes, and Dabi bares his teeth at him, like a wild animal that’s been cornered.
“I can see why you wouldn’t.” Best Jeanist leans back in his chair, fingers drumming against the table. He tilts his head in thought. “Would it help to hear it from Hawks himself?”
Dabi wants to say no, but instead he hesitates, and Best Jeanist nods before he can cover it up.
“If you agree to our terms then I can see about getting you copies of the emails Hawks sent. You can see for yourself what he wanted, and why we might be inclined to help you. It’s highly sensitive information, however,” the hero warns, “so I can’t promise anything if you won’t work with us.”
Swallowing hard, Dabi nods once, then twice. Just like Hawks in his note.
“We can count on your co-operation, then?” Best Jeanist asks, and Dabi looks away.
“Don’t make me say it again,” he demands, except it’s less of a demand and more of a plea, and his voice cracks on the last syllable. There’s a contemplative silence that feels like it lasts an age before Best Jeanist nods.
“I’ll be in touch, Dabi,” he says as he stands. A thread breaks off his outfit to tap a pattern on the door and a guard enters the room as soon as he’s done. “And I’ll work on getting you access to Hawks’ emails. Thank you for speaking with me.”
Best Jeanist exits the cell and takes the guard with him, leaving Dabi alone. Except, he’s not alone, because Hawks won’t leave him alone. Hawks is there in the feeling of ash on his fingers, in the smell of smoke on his skin, and the pressure of heat from his quirk simmering under his skin. As Dabi flinches at the smell of his own quirk, he almost manages to convince himself that he hates him. But then Hawks is there in the sound of music drifting from under the door - it’s that song, that stupid song that Hawks had made them dance to on the rooftop. Dabi’s fingers twitch at the memory, and fire bursts from his hands before he can control it. The sprinklers on the ceiling go off, but Dabi is stronger than that. For a moment, despite the water, his fire remains.
I can’t forgive him, Dabi thinks, and the bed beneath him burns just like Hawks did, but I want to.