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This world does not care.
It's a lesson he took to heart early. The world never truly cares – not really. It will keep turning no matter who lives or dies. Life, as it is, goes on, and even if humanity itself dies out one day who's to say they're the lifeform that truly matters?
After the League burned down the government and all those who tried so desperately to protect life as it was, after Shigaraki stood on top of the ashes, laughing, the world didn't exactly start caring more either.
In the grand scheme of things, no one truly cares that one man died in a war one time.
There are so many who do, after all.
***
'I'm just waiting for you, man!'
***
Death is weird.
Like, just. One day, someone is here, and alive. The next they're gone, and they will never, ever return, no matter what.
The finality of it is absurd.
Hawks exists in photographs and in videos. There are still posters of him hanging here and there, starting to show the wear and tear from the weather, but if Dabi picks up the phone and calls a number he still knows by heart, nothing will happen.
He can look at old interviews and hear Hawks' laugh, but he'll never hear him say something new again.
Finality. Death.
It's all such fucking bullshit.
***
So Shigaraki won, and rules the broken rubble of a country he's reduced Japan to. Dabi couldn't care less. Goal achieved – revenge fulfilled – and he finds he has little interest in playing despot with some insane dude with a fractured mind and questionable ability to plot out long-term plans.
He wanders, for a bit.
There are no cops or heroes around to stop him, so he simply does whatever he pleases.
Not everyone is dead, of course. Slowly, civilians try to get back on their feet. Businesses open, one at a time, and while resources are sparse, there's enough around for him to find meals when he wants. No one questions him. No one asks him for money.
Everyone knows who he is.
Everyone knows he took down his entire family and lived to tell the tale.
He is so fucking bored.
***
'Aw, c'mon Dabi, don't be like that!'
***
He sleeps more.
Part of it is the lack of anything he wants to get up for.
Part of it is because every once in a while, his mind grants him a fleeting look of a wide grin and red wings.
***
It's not enough.
It's never enough.
***
Toga finds him, occasionally. She drags him back 'home,' as she calls it, insisting that they spend time together.
She's loud. Manic, kind of.
Thinner than she used to be, and her eyes always seem a little too open.
He hasn't asked her whose blood is in the vial she carries around her neck. Her business. It's sealed in a way that ensures it won't accidentally open, spilling those red drops out.
First, he thought maybe it was someone powerful. A last weapon, just in case – but then she wouldn't have smacked Twice's hand away, vaulting backwards to get distance between them, when he reached for it with curious eyes, would she?
No, this isn't about some secret defence.
This is emotion.
How absolutely awful to look at someone and recognize your own ailment, staring right back at you.
***
He starts avoiding Toga, after that.
He doesn't want her to look at him and have that same moment of recognition.
***
He knows perfectly well that Hawks died slow.
Does that change anything? Would it feel different, if it had been quick and painless?
He doesn't know.
All he has left is the memory of golden eyes, filled with determination and alarm. Regret, maybe, too. Sometimes he likes to think so.
There was a moment, right before the end, where that determination bled out and was replaced with something like hurt.
Maybe Hawks didn't truly think he'd go through with it. Maybe that was less hurt and more betrayal, but fuck that. Dabi owed him nothing.
What the fuck was there to betray?
***
Sometimes when it's dark, he tries to pretend there's another body beside him, just out of reach. Someone else, breathing softly in their sleep. That the heaviness of the blanket is from a wayward wing instead.
He chooses not to dwell on how those are the only nights he truly falls asleep anymore.
***
Other countries eventually stop trying to interfere.
Of course, that also means there's even less for him to distract himself with.
It's not great.
***
'I like coming out here at night. It's quiet, y'know? No fans, no photographers, nothing at all. Kinda wish it could be like this more often. Just food, company, the wind in my feathers, the- yeah, yeah, stop laughing you asshole, so sue me for appreciating the moment!'
***
He spends some time out east, squashing some wanna-be rebellion. It feels good to flex his fire a little. To stride through streets with his heavy boots echoing and his coat flaring out behind him, and hear people scream in fear.
For a moment, he's present. For a moment, he's engaged instead of simply drifting along.
When the smoke clears and he's sure every little rebel is gone, he regrets not drawing it out a little longer. He could've gotten a day or two more out of this, if he'd missed a few here and there on purpose.
Too late now, though.
That heavy, dull feeling of apathy settles quietly over him again.
***
"You doing okay, man?"
"Yeah."
"You sure?"
"Fuck off."
"I'm only-"
"I said, fuck off."
***
"You hurt his feelings," Toga says, perching on his bed when he opens the door to the hotel room he's taken for the night.
Of-fucking-course. He only knew he would commandeer a room here ten minutes ago, but there she is, smiling brightly at him like she knows all the secrets of the universe.
He considers his options.
Toga is a tricky one. She's liable to stalk him for however long it takes, if she truly has something she wants to say.
He could simply get rid of her, of course. As quick as she is, she doesn't really stand a chance if he lets loose.
"Watch me not give a fuck," he says, throwing his coat over a chair and turning away from her.
He expects a lecture. She's never afraid to say her piece, and she's protective enough in her own way. Spinner being hurt would usually make her start brandishing knives, so clearly she has something to say since there's still no attempts at poking holes in his body.
A small hand slips into his.
"Sorry Touya," she whispers. "I'll tell them to leave you alone for now, kay?"
She's out the door before he can answer.
Apparently he started trying to avoid her too late to stop her from recognizing that same hollow feeling she seems to carry with her wherever she goes.
Dabi closes the door, and sits down on the bed where she sat. It's still warm, carrying the evidence of her existence even though she isn't in the room anymore. Does the heat she left behind mix with his? Are they part of this room now, some evidence of a strange sort-of friendship forever sunken into the mattress?
Would it be like that in other places where someone shared body heat?
It doesn't matter, of course.
Left alone, left-over body heat will cool down and be impossible to find later. He wouldn't feel it. It would only be the memories if he ran a hand over the wall where they once-
Why should it be so easy to find the traces of her, who is merely someone he worked with for a while, but not him?
***
The world is not fair.
He's known that ever since his hair started turning white and his fire started hurting him.
He's not sure why he ever expected anything else.