Work Text:
Keigo lets himself into the League’s most recent hideout. Spinner and Shigaraki don’t even so much as look up from their game as Keigo speeds past them to Dabi’s room. He doesn’t bother knocking, doesn’t need to risk Dabi slamming the door in his face. He looks up from his phone when Keigo enters.
“Got hit with a truth quirk,” Keigo says and immediately regrets it. But he can’t do his usual dance around the truth this time.
Dabi looks back down at his phone, bored. “Why can’t you go to the Commish?”
“You know why. They’ll love this. They’ll ask me everything they’ve ever wanted to.”
Dabi puts his phone down next to him and cocks his head at Keigo. “What? You’re not up front with your precious Commission?”
“I—” The quirk stops him. “No.”
Dabi pushes up off the bed and walks over to where Keigo stands, fists curled tight at his sides as if he could hold all his truths there in his palms. Dabi leans in and his breath is warm on Keigo’s cheek.
“What kind of things do you hide from them, birdie?”
“You know–”
“Say it.”
“Us, mostly,” Keigo says and he wishes he could bite his own tongue off. “Let’s just say my extra-curriculars aren’t sanctioned.”
“Us.” It’s not a question so Keigo isn’t compelled to answer him. There is some question there, though, some unknown.
Keigo wants to say something, to fill it in with some color. But who knows what will come out when he opens his big mouth.
“You have to answer anything,” Dabi says. Not a question, but a realization.
Keigo nods.
“Do you love me?”
Keigo can feel the answer–the truth–in the back of his throat. Dabi throws a hand over Keigo’s mouth.
“Don’t answer that.”
Keigo swallows the words down. He’s grateful. He’s not sure he wants to know what he would’ve said.
Dabi doesn’t move the hand from Keigo’s mouth. Instead, he steps in so that they’re chest to chest. Dabi’s hand smells like smoke. The rest of him does too. But it’s always strongest on his hands, like he’s just finished smoking a cigarette.
He doesn’t move his hand until his lips are hovering right above it. He holds Keigo’s chin between his thumb and forefinger.
“Do you want to kiss me?” Dabi asks, raspy and breathy and Keigo thinks maybe he would always be honest if Dabi asked him like this.
“Yes,” he says. Because it’s the truth and he has to.
A smile plays on the corners of Dabi’s lips. Keigo can almost taste it.
“I could ask you anything,” Dabi whispers. “I could ask who you’re working for or what intel you’re hoping to get from me.”
Keigo watches Dabi’s mouth. He still wants to kiss him.
“You could,” he says and waits for one of those questions to come, waits for Dabi to ask him something that could take him down as a hero.
Dabi smirks and Keigo braces himself.
“So, then, what about me is so irresistible, birdie?”
Keigo groans. He’d rather divulge trade secrets than indulge Dabi in whatever power trip he was on.
Nothing , he would say. You’re the scourge of the earth , he would say. Instead, Keigo rips his chin from Dabi’s hand. “Your voice is attractive.”
Dabi looks genuinely surprised for a moment. “You always told me I sound like a smoker.”
“I lied,” Keigo admits. “You sound…nice.”
Dabi softens for a moment. It’s a symptom of the truth that he hadn’t been expecting. His hand falls gently along Keigo’s jaw, his thumb rubbing a circle against Keigo’s cheek.
“What? Talking isn’t fun anymore now that you know it doesn’t get on my nerves?”
“No, I–” Dabi drops Keigo’s gaze. “What else do you like about me?”
“You can ask me anything and this is what you want to know?”
Dabi nods, and if his skin wasn’t so scarred, Keigo thinks he might have been blushing. Keigo takes a deep breath, the truth like a knife in his side. He knew not to remove it, but he’s compelled to anyway. He hopes Dabi doesn’t let him bleed out.
Keigo takes Dabi’s palm in both of his hands and presses it to his lips. “I like your hands and how they touch me.” He leans in and kisses him. “I like your lips and your piercings.” He kisses Dabi’s neck and Dabi inhales sharply. “I like the sounds you make.”
Dabi hums. “You like a lot of things about me.”
Keigo could try to fight it, but what was the point? It was all true. It had to be true.
Dabi cups Keigo’s chin, pulls him into a languid kiss. Dabi’s piercings are warm and damp beneath Keigo’s tongue. Dabi bites at Keigo’s lower lip and Keigo whines.
“Watch it, birdie, I’ll start to think you actually care about me.”
Dabi doesn’t ask him again if he does. The answer would be detrimental to them both. No strings attached. That was the agreement. Keigo was there to infiltrate the League–a fact that Dabi had decided to remain ignorant about for the time being. On his better days, Keigo would believe that it was because he was a good enough fuck.
Keigo can feel the quirk fading, his tongue loosening. He could breathe again. Dabi laces their fingers together and Keigo almost regrets it. The truth has made him soft, has opened him up in ways that they aren’t used to.
“Do you love me?” He asks again.
Keigo meets his gaze, drowning in the blue of it.
“No.”