Archive of Our Own

Keigo didn’t mean to summon a demon.

Truly, he didn’t.

It was an honest mistake, something others would consider an accident. Something that cannot be his fault because he should know better—does know better—than to let this happen.

And yet, for some reason that is still unexplainable to everyone (mostly himself), he stands in the expensive kitchen of Rumi’s equally expensive cafe, the two coffee makers on the side whirring as they go through the process of cleaning themselves and the broken sink steadily dripping as the pressure in the room tightens enough that it almost squeezes the breath right out Keigo’s lungs.

Somehow, in the second before the pressure pops in a similar way a balloon would if it were to be poked with a needle, Keigo is certain that this has to be Rumi’s fault.

He’d never say this out loud, of course, because he’s not particularly suicidal, but the truth weighs heavy on those words. On most of them, at the very least. If Rumi hadn’t asked him to dish in the favor he owed her after one too many nights spent bent over memoirs and spells that describe all kinds of locator magic, he wouldn’t even be here.

Except… yes, he would. After breaking free from his ex-coven (a very glorified word to describe the place that ruined him from ages five to twenty-three), Keigo has been handed a lot of free time and he doesn’t have that many friends. The number is sad, something he doesn’t want to think about yet still does. It stands as one of the many reminders of what—who—left a person shaped hole in his heart five years ago.

But that is a road he doesn’t particularly fancy going down (unless he’s had several drinks and a horribly day) and much less in Rumi’s spacious kitchen. That is also not the point.

The point is that he might have been in Rumi’s shop anyway, but not behind the counter to face customers and instead sitting on the other side of it with his laptop and the show he started a couple weeks ago playing quietly. Or with his phone in hand, ignoring all the notifications that come from people who just swear they need his help.

It’s like no one wants to let a warlock enjoy his early retirement.

The truth Keigo doesn’t want to acknowledge is that it’s partially his fault; he’s unable to step away from bets he shouldn’t take—even when he knows there’s no way for him to come out on top. But there’s just something about Rumi when she turns to him, her eyes sparkling and grin sharp, and says, “Bet you can’t replicate that latte art Tsunagu drew up two days ago.”

Of course he can’t. No one can replicate any of the things Tsunagu comes up with just like that. Tsunagu specializes in drawing things—on paper, in memoirs, skin, and all the like. Keigo and Rumi very much do not.

Intead of admitting what both of them know, his mouth formed the words, “‘Course I can,” before he hopped over the counter, snatched the utensils needed, and made his way into the kitchen.

And then he, predictably, fucked it up big time.

Keigo stares down at the mistake a momentary distraction caused and pushes out a soft sigh, shoulders slumping.

He maybe… perchance… might’ve missed that the latte art he’s attempting to replicate kind of, sorta looks just a little but like one of the several sigils he knows not only by memory, but also by heart. It’s only when it begins to glow, which latte art definitely shouldn’t by any stretch of the imagination—not even when he sprinkles the occasional drop of requested magic into it—that he gets the distant feeling that this might be wrong.

Terribly so, even, when he begins to take note of a dark blob in his periphery. A dark blob that hasn’t been there before, and is vaguely human shaped. A dark blob that shouldn’t be there.

Keigo doesn’t have as much experience with demons as he probably should have, what with him being part shape-shifter and a relatively well-known warlock, but he thinks he once caught pieces of conversation from someone who did, and they said that pretending they’re not here is one way to make them leave.

Luckily for Keigo, he’s excellent at ignoring what others might consider problems until they eventually grow an arm and leg and use those limbs to strangle him into paying attention before he can make use of his legs (or wings) to run (or fly) away. Which won’t happen, because this demon will leave.

Surely.

It has to.

…

It does not.

Keigo doesn’t know why he still thinks he can delude himself into an easier present when nothing in his life has ever been easy. Still, he puts away all the utensils used, accidentally knocks over the caramel bottle and nearly drops the milk onto the tiles. He hums to himself, keeps his eyes to himself, but is aware of the gaze hooked into the side of his face, burning a line to his neck and back up.

“Are you just gonna keep ignoring me?”

The demon’s voice is deep, raspy in all the ways that sends a confusing wave of tingles down Keigo’s spine. It’s almost familiar, the way the demon shapes letters, but Keigo has no time to concentrate on that.

“That’s the plan,” he answers softly. He wipes away some of the caramel that dripped onto the counter, careful to only use the rags Rumi has set out for the sensitive material to make sure there won’t be any stains left. There’s a snort from the figure and Keigo purses his lips. “Look,” he begins, “I didn’t exactly mean to summon a demon today.”

Another snort.

“That so?” the figure rasps. Something about their voice makes Keigo’s chest constrict in a way that only be described as painful. He rubs at the spot with a frown. “That’s convenient, then. Because I’m not a demon.”

“And that,” Keigo says, “sounds like something a demon would say. Look,” he says again and turns to the side, hip meeting the cool counter, “I drew a sigil by accident and you appeared, so there’s nothing else you could… possibly… be…”

Keigo’s voice loses its volume with every word until there’s nothing of it left, and his sentence cuts off like a pen that streaks over paper until it eventually runs out of ink. His mouth drops open and stays that way as his eyes fall onto the person standing on the other end of the counter.

Because that’s what it—he, the demon—looks like. A regular person you could see walking down the street at any time of day to follow their day to day business. A regular person if the average guy is attractive, that is. Because the demon is hot, extremely so.

He’s taller than Keigo by a couple centimeters. Lankier, with long arms that are folded across his chest and long legs that are crossed at the ankles as he leans against the counter in a way that’s almost casual. Dark, messy hair sits on top of his head and equally dark lashes frame brilliant blue eyes. Scars crawl up the side of his neck, reach for his jaw, sit right below his eyes like bruises. Golden marks swirl between scars and healthy skin, sitting on his skin like jewelry crafted just for him.

Worse than this demon being hot is that he’s definitely Keigo’s type to a frightening degree, and that, in turn, leaves him with only one logical explanation: not only has he summoned some demon, but he’s somehow managed to summon an incubus, of all things.

Keigo’s so very fucked.

The demon cocks his head to the side, an action that shouldn’t be attractive and yet. “What? Cat got your tongue?”

“Demon, more like,” Keigo says.

“It’s Dabi, not demon.”

Keigo arches his brows. “Dabi?” he repeats. “Okay, cool, that’s like… Real nice and super edgy and very awesome, but it’s also borderline demonic sounding. I mean… cremation?”

Keigo, for good measure, drags the rag one more time over the stain that isn’t there anymore. The counter sparkles up at him and he puts it away, clearing his throat.

“I’m being creative,” Dabi says. He musters Keigo, then adds a quiet, “And I’m still not a demon.”

“And I still don’t believe you,” Keigo says, jerking his chin into the direction of the foamy caramel sigil that is… currently in the process of vanishing into thin air. Awesome. “You appeared when I drew this, and regular people usually don’t really do that.”

Dabi hums lowly, blue eyes narrowing. Keigo realizes that he’s very, very fucked when a pleasant shiver runs down his back. “Did it feel like you were summoning a demon?”

Now that he thinks about it, there weren’t any of the horribly oppressive sensations involved before Dabi appeared in the kitchen. Usually, when one summons a demon and is talented enough to succeed without shredding either one’s humanity or human shell, using the magic it takes to pull a demon into the human realm leaves a very, very sour and bitter taste in the back of someone’s mouth. Kind of like blood if it were mixed with raw lemon juice.

The kitchen also doesn’t smell like sulfur, which should’ve been the first indicator to Dabi may be truthful about his nature, but maybe demons have become advanced in masking the scents of their homes. Or something. There’s also the fact that Dabi hasn’t attacked Keigo on first sight and just… stands there. In a very non-demon-like manner.

And, sure, one might argue that Keigo doesn’t know best after he only summoned a demon once (twice now, technically), but that’s still a lot more than others can claim to have managed it.

Still, even with all the signs pointing to the direction of the sign saying “Not A Demon” Keigo remains cautious. He hasn’t survived the last year by being careless about his safety.

Perhaps Rumi’s cafe isn’t the right place to deal with this.

Nowhere is probably the right place to deal with it because Keigo doesn’t want to—deal with it, that is. Maybe he won’t have to.

“That’s entirely besides the point,” he says, waving a hand. A spoon comes flying at him and he uses it to break apart the sigil, just in case. He uses the very same spoon to point at Dabi, who look supremely unimpressed. “Okay, we’ve covered that I didn’t mean to summon you, and I have absolutely nothing to offer you. Sooo…” he drags the word out, letting the spoon circle in the air. “You can leave now. Sorry for wasting your time, let’s not do this again.”

Dabi blinks at him, slowly and a little cat-like, and does not leave.

“I’m serious,” Keigo says. “I’m sure there’s better things on your schedule than…” he loosely gestures at himself with the spoon. “So… shoo.”

“Did you genuinely try to shoo a demon away?”

“Maybe.” After putting the spoon down, Keigo crosses his arms. He uncrosses them when he realizes he’s subconsciously mirroring Dabi. “Thought you’re not a demon?”

“I’m not.”

“Right, then go ahead and, like, leave?”

“Say “please.””

“… Please?”

Dabi snorts at him.

Heat crawls up Keigo’s neck and he turns his face away. “Okay, fuck you.” He shakes his head when Dabi mutters something that… he’s definitely not going to repeat when he’s already getting hot. “You’ve proven your point: you’re very funny, very edgy, very cool. Can you do me a solid and go now?”

“No,” Dabi says.

“No?”

“That’s what I just said.”

Keigo narrows his eyes. “What do you mean “no”?”

Brow arched, head cocked to the side, Dabi asks, “The meaning of the word lost on you?” When Keigo shakes his head, Dabi pushes away from the counter and says, “Watch.”

His boots smack loudly onto the tiled floor as he steps away from Keigo and the counter completely. He crosses the kitchen, his strides long and confident, steps turning quiet, barely audible. From one moment to the next, he turns from a simple demon into a predator on the hunt.

Good fucking lord, Keigo thinks, gaze rising to the ceiling for one desperate moment.

Something inside of Keigo’s chest pulls tight and grows tighter, almost painful, the more distance Dabi puts between them. It’s as if someone hooked their claws into Keigo’s being, and keeps pulling at his bones and skin and muscle, waiting for something to rip and give as he’s stretched into the direction of Dabi.

Dabi takes one more step and the pressure snaps, breaks like a rubber band that smacks your fingers sharply. Instead of going forward, it’s as if Dabi is yanked back a couple steps, until he’s close enough again that Keigo could touch him if he only reached out to do so.

Keigo puts a hand to his chest, rubs the spot right above his heart, seeks out Dabi’s bright gaze. The demon (not demon?) frowns at the ceiling for a moment, corner of his mouth twitching before he turns his head to follow the movement of Keigo’s hand with keen interest.

Keigo drops his hand as if burned.

Steam escapes from between Dabi’s parted lips as he exhales deeply.

“And that,” Dabi says, forehead smoothing out when he steps closer, “is what I fucking mean.”

“Fuck,” Keigo says. He feels like that’s an insane understatement—no, he knows it’s one. Accidentally summoning a demon? Yeah, that’s not… great or ideal, but being unable to get rid of said demon, being unable to separate from him, put more distance than, what, six meters between the two of them? “Fuck.”

Dabi rolls his eyes with a scoff. “No kidding. And—”

“Hold up,” Keigo says, holding up a finger, and for some reason Dabi does pause and wait. This, he thinks again, is not the place to deal with a demon. If Rumi knew he was, what, having a normal conversation with one, she’d kick his fucking ass. “I’ll just—wait a second.”

When Keigo sticks his head out of the kitchen, Rumi is mid-conversation with a man whose messy dark hair half hangs into his tired face. Ears twitching, she turns her head and begins to grin when her eyes fall onto him. “And if that isn’t the man of the hour!” she calls. “So, how’d it go?”

Keigo purses his lips. “No comment.” He ignores the way she whoops and holds out her hand to the man, accepting the bills he slaps into her waiting palm. “Gonna head out, I can hear my bed calling my name from all the way over here.”

“I think that’s just the chicken nuggets you have stuffed into your freezer.”

“Wasn’t aware you took up necromancy.”

Rumi grins. “I’m full of talents, Kei, we all know that.” She wags her fingers at him, ears twitching when the bell above the door chimes softly. “Now get outta my face. Your ugly mug is ruining business for me.”

“I dunno, I think the people like ugly mugs. They’re becoming vintage now.” Keigo waves back at one of the regulars approaching the register, snorting when Rumi jumps up from her seat to cover the customer with her body.

“Leave,” she tells him.

“Already way ahead of you,” he says and turns only to stop at the entrance to the kitchen. “Oh, and Rumes,” he calls over his shoulder, brows arched when she turns to him one more time, “stop cheating poor Aizawa out of his god-awful salary.”

“Never!” Rumi replies with cheer before she slams down a cup in front of Aizawa and their regular at the same time, the smirk she’s wearing promising nothing good.

┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈

When Keigo makes it to his apartment twenty minutes later, Dabi—who dematerialized from Keigo’s side a couple meters before they reached the house—is already waiting for him inside.

He closes the door, the lock triggering all of the extra barriers and security measures woven into the structure of the building. They snap to life with a quiet hum that immediately takes some of the weight off Keigo’s shoulders. A wave of his fingers and his curtains and blinds shut before his lights turn on and his personal seal flares brightly from beneath the floorboards.

Dabi is polite enough to wait until Keigo slips out of his shoes before he comments on it. “Someone’s paranoid.”

“Someone’s in here when he definitely shouldn’t be,” Keigo gives back as he kicks off his shoes. “Breaking in’s kinda a dick move, y’know?”

“Sure,” Dabi says with a shrug. “Gonna call the police on me?”

Keigo huffs out a breath. “Maybe the handcuffs would suit you,” he says with a shake of his head. “And you’d be too, if you were me and knew what’s good for you.”

He presses his hand to the wood of the door to activate his final barrier, eyes narrowed and trained on the sigil that slowly becomes visible the more magic he pours into it to make sure it’s still complete and not suffering from any fractures. It takes longer for it to be activated than the rest; it’s a new addition, something he’s been forced to added after a Commission created creature tried to slip into his home.

It was loud and ugly and Keigo caught it before it even entered the neighborhood. He sent it back in parts and half pulverized—an act of kindness, truly.

Once he’s certain nothing is out of the ordinary, Keigo stretches, back muscles screaming as he lets go off the thin layer of glamour he wraps around himself and his wings are allowed to pop into existence. He steps into the middle of the room before he allows them to expand as wide as they’re able to, feather tips brushing the walls on each side of the living room.

“Fuck,” he says with a groan, feathers rustling as they quickly set themselves into the correct spots.

“They’ve gotten bigger.”

“Huh?” Keigo feels a little dazed when he turns to spot Dabi glancing at the few pictures that line his wall. The one he’s looking at is showing a younger version of Keigo, perhaps at five or six. His wings are barely big enough to show over his narrow shoulders, a flash of red half-wrapped around his thin arm—young Keigo looks as dirty and unkempt as he had been, back then. Heat crawls up Keigo’s neck. “Oh,” he says, voice coming out higher than he intends for it to as he moves closer to flip the picture around and away from Dabi’s prying eyes, “you mean from how they were in that pic? Yeah, they’ve, uh, they’re sure come a long way since then.”

Especially since Keigo left the place that he used to call home, and they’ve finally been allowed to recover from the constant pulling and clipping they had to endure. They regrew as if nothing ever happened to them, their color richer, the feathers fuller than Keigo ever knew was possible. He supposes that was half of the point of what the Commission called Disciplinary Measures and was really just abuse—make him incapable of leaving, and perhaps he never will. Something along those lines, for sure.

He clears his throat, pushes down the memories threatening to crawl to the forefront of his mind, and, in an attempt to change the topic, says, “I’m actually surprised you don’t have any. Wings, I mean. All the folklore that gets handed around this realm is full of stories in which demons get depicted with leathery wings.”

“That’d be because I’m not a demon,” Dabi comments. He scrunches up his nose, something Keigo catches before he walks past the man and flops onto his sofa, wings stretching out on the backrest. “And leathery, really? I think people should come up with better looking wings.”

“Like mine?” Keigo asks. A wave of his hand brings a spell book out of his shelf and into his lap.

“You sound awfully full of yourself.”

“God forbid a warlock is a little confident in himself,” Keigo mumbles. He thumbs through the first couple sections without really looking at them. “And that’s what humans usually pair with demons, don’t go putting the blame on me. Besides, it’d suit you.”

When he looks up, Dabi is frowning at him. For someone who appears like a grown man, it’s an awfully cute expression. “What?”

“I mean,” he says, gesturing loosely at Dabi’s get up—tight black pants, a black shirt with a wide collar, heavy black boots. “It’d fit your whole… emo-goth get up.”

“That ain’t an emo get up.”

“And my wings are blue.”

He holds out his hand for another one of his books and abandons his current one on the table. It thunks heavily as it lands, but Keigo pays it no mind. He’s done a lot worse to them, a little heavy handling won’t hurt them now.

Dabi hums. He trails a finger along the shelf attached to the wall above the TV, nudging one of the crystals Rumi kept hiding in his pocket until he finally accepted it. “You’re awfully cool with this entire thing. Having a demon in your house, I mean,” he purses his lips, the golden swirls on his face glinting, “Not that I am one, of course.”

“Takes a lot more than a ho—some demon,” Keigo corrects, face heating up when Dabi sends him a small smirk at his almost slip-up, “to ruffle my feathers, dude. Believe it or not, you’re not the weirdest thing that has ever happened to me.”

“You care to share?” Dabi asks.

“If you’re nice to me, maybe.”

Dabi snorts loudly, boots loud on the floors as he keps wandering through Keigo’s living space, nudging things here and there and poking the few plants Keigo has been gifted… some time ago. Eventually, he makes it to the open kitchen and dining room to the right, and he throws himself into one of the chairs with a sigh. “Why the fuck does this place this look like an IKEA showroom?”

He’s not wrong, Keigo’s apartment is barely stocked and personal items and trinkets are a recent addition to the place. It does look more like several show rooms stitched together, and it used to be a thing of logic; keep your space minimal, don’t have too many belongings and don’t grow attached to the few ones you do have in case you have to drop ship and leave at a seconds notice. For several years, this used to be protocol for Keigo, and though it isn’t anymore, some habits are harder to break than others.

At least there’s pictures and plants and some things.

Still, he clicks his tongue and turns another page in his book—he didn’t read the last one, but he basically knows these books by memory. “Why don’t you mind your own business?”

“Your business is kinda my business for now, tweetie, since I can’t really leave your side. Have to be glued to you or we’ll both lose life force and die.”

Keigo eyes go wide. He straightens up, feet smacking to the floor loudly. “You’re not being serious.”

Dabi stares at him for one, two seconds. A smirk tugs up the corner of his mouth. “Course I’m not.”

 Keigo’s phone, trapped between Keigo’s ass and the sofa cushion, begins to ring. As he gets up to pull it out, Keigo says, “You’re right, you’re not a demon. You’re a villain.”

Dabi looks delighted. “Guilty as charged.”

As soon as Keigo accepts the call and lifts his phone to his ear, Rumi’s voice booms out of the speakers. “Okay,” she says, “spill.” There’s the clatter of porcelain in the background, accompanied by the faint murmur of muted conversation—her laptop, probably, playing one of those documentaries on wildlife she likes to watch until her girlfriend comes home.

“Thought that’s the exact thing you’re telling me not to do whenever I come by?” Keigo walks up and down the length of his room before he stops by his shelves, scanning the books taking up the entire space swiftly. There’s no writing on them, because he’s not an amateur and stupid, but he doesn’t need it. He knows them by heart. “I need more context here, Rumes.”

“What happened earlier that got you to leave like that?” she asks. “And don’t you dare say it was nothing; you looked like you saw a fucking ghost. Just couldn’t say that considering the company.”

“Probably not the wisest thing to mention that phrase in front of a retired hunter, no,” Keigo says, “and close, but no ghost.”

“No demon, either,” Dabi comments, smirk turning into a wide grin when Keigo immediately turns to shush him.

Thankfully, Rumi seems to immersed in whatever she’s doing on the other side of the call to hear Dabi’s voice or register it fully. Keigo would never hear the end of it if Rumi thought he was having a man over without telling her about it—and he gets it, really; the last time that happened, Keigo almost ended up dead, but that’s a story for another time.

Rumi clicks her tongue. “Takami Keigo.”

“Usagiyama Rumi.” Keigo only holds out for two seconds before he folds. A couple of years ago, this would’ve been an utter disgrace. “Okay, fine, I, uh. Might have a little bit of a problem, here.”

Rumi snorts into his ear. “Oh, Keigo, I reckon you might have more than one of those.”

“The hell?” Keigo’s mouth drops open and Dabi grins as if he perfectly heard Rumi’s answer. Considering who (and more importantly what) Keigo’s dealing with, he probably did. Great. “What the—what’s that for, aren’t you supposed to be my best friend?”

Blue eyes narrow into a mild glare. When Keigo flips Dabi off, Dabi gives him the finger right back. Lovely.

“Oh, I am,” Rumi says. “Friends are supposed to be honest to each other. And you know how much I love to tell you the truth.”

Keigo’s eyebrows tug together. “Yeah,” he says, eyeing Dabi as he tips his chair back, balancing on the hind-legs as if it’s nothing. Then, because a demon will be a demon, he puts his feet on Keigo’s dining table. Heavy boots and all. “But that’s mostly because you’re a shitty liar.”

“Am not.”

“Uh, yeah, you are. Remember when you tried to pretend you didn’t know who Fuyumi is right before I introduced you two and—”

Dabi’s boots drop to the floor with a loud thunk. “What?”

What? Keigo mouths back, frowning at the wide-eyed expression on Dabi’s face.

On the other end of the call, something clatters. “Shut up,” Rumi says. “Not you. I’m talking to my fork. No, shut up. Yes, that was for you.” She clicks her tongue. “That’s not the point, though, Kei. What is going on? Don’t tell me the latte art fucked you up so bad you had to haul ass.”

“Okay, I won’t tell you,” Keigo says, then shakes his head. “Of course not. I mean, I did fail—”

Rumi snorts.

“But I, ah… kind of succeeded in another department? Look, don’t get mad,” he starts, “but I might’ve accidentally summoned a demon in the middle of replicating Tsunagu’s art.”

Silence.

The weird looking frog shaped clock in the kitchen ticks loudly with every second that passes. Dabi’s quiet breaths mingle with the noise, almost lulling Keigo into something awfully close to a trance that he snaps out of when Rumi quietens her videos.

“I’m sorry, can you repeat that?” she asks. “Thought I heard you say you accidentally summoned a demon in my kitchen?”

“You absolutely did hear that,” Keigo says. When she’s quiet again, he adds, “I’m sorry.”

“Keigo,” Rumi mumbles. Her voice wobbles, and Keigo realizes that she wasn’t silent because she’s pissed (which Keigo would understand because summonings—accidental or not—without prior discussion about them are kind of a dick move), but because she’s laughing. At him. “How the fuck does one accidentally summon a demon?”

Keigo purses his lips. “Yeah, see, that’s the thing I’m stuck on. No fucking idea.”

Accidental summonings are in no way unheard of, but usually they’re done by a… less magically gifted person than Keigo is.

“Okay,” Rumi says. Laughter carries over the line, but instead of the mockery that had been a day-to-day occurrence for Keigo once upon a time, it’s warm. Affectionate. “And then you left through the back, presumably with the demon attached to you, went home and… what? Performed an exorcism him?”

“Exorcism?” Keigo and Dabi ask at the same time.

And that answers Keigo’s question if Dabi can hear what’s happening on the other side of the call.

“I—yes? You know, the thing that usually gets rid of demons, poltergeists, and your usual house ghost alike? You did attempt one, right?” Rumi grows silent when Keigo doesn’t say anything, trying to come up with a way to say Well, nowithout just saying that. “Keigo, babe, don’t tell me the demon is still there with you.”

“Uh,” Keigo says.

“Keigo. What have you been doing since you left? Stop twiddling your thumbs and exorcise the demon! Don’t call me for help if you’re not even trying to help yourself. I’m putting a shift in for you tomorrow. Don’t even try to sweet talk your way out of it.”

With that, she hangs up on him and Keigo stares down at his phone for a couple moments.

Exorcise him?

That sounds easier said than done, and Keigo has absolutely no experience in the art of exorcising anything, much less a demon. Hell, until earlier today he wasn’t even aware he could summon one without trying. How’s he supposed to get rid of one just like that?

Not to mention that he has no idea how to go about that, and all of his books aren’t specified for that department of life—or death, whichever one believes in, really. He’s a warlock, not a necromancer, or priest. He’s not going to attempt this and then get himself into more shit than he’s already in.

Knowing his luck, after being shown just earlier how great it is, he’d end up summoning something worse. Like Satan. And that’d genuinely ruin his day for good.

Still holding his phone, Keigo turns to Dabi. “What was that?”

“What?”

“That,” Keigo says. “Your reaction when I mentioned—”

Dabi puts his boots back on the table, placing them in the same spot once more as if he never took them off. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He crosses his arms, the perfect picture of nonchalance if one were to ignore the tight set of his shoulders.

Keigo doesn’t ignore it, but he recognizes the signs as what they are: putting up walls. Might be a sensitive topic for now. He looks at Dabi for two more seconds, then turns. He’s no idiot, but he’s also no asshole: he won’t push for a conversation when there’s nothing to be said freely. There’s always time for that later.

“I’m hungry,” Keigo says as he wanders into the kitchen, flicking on the lights on his way to the fridge. He only remembers that he forgot to go shopping once he’s greeted by a single avocado, some ketchup, soy sauce, and a bottle of water. “Hey,” he calls over his shoulder, phone back in hand after he closes the fridge, “can you eat?”

“Why wouldn’t I be able to?” Dabi asks.

“Well, I don’t know. You are demon, and—”

“I’m not.”

“And demons generally eat souls, don’t they?” Keigo holds up his hands. “Which is really cool, totally fine by me, but you can’t have mine. I kind of need that.”

Or, Keigo adds mentally, whatever’s left of it by now, at least.

Hand waving in the air, Dabi says, “Fine, I’ll eat whatever.”

Luckily, Keigo has his favorite fast food place on speed dial. Other people might see it as sad, because the regular person has the police or their loved ones on there, but Keigo isn’t regular. He’s a retired warlock, a trained weapon. He deserves some fatty food being his first choice.

Placing his order doesn’t take long, and he adds Dabi’s after a long glance at the guy with ease before hanging up.

“You still into fried chicken?”

Keigo snaps his head around to seek out Dabi’s gaze. “What was that?”

“Nothing,” Dabi says.

It doesn’t sound like nothing, and neither did the comment, but Dabi closes his eyes and his shoulders go tight again. Keigo turns back to the sofa, to his books, and drops it, but the question, the way it was asked, remains in Keigo’s head.

“You still into friend chicken?” As if Dabi knows Keigo’s favorite food had been fried chicken for as long as he can recall. The thought is ludicrous, because Keigo’s known Dabi for all of one day—barely even that—and yet the question carried over something that was awfully close to familiarity.

How would a demon like Dabi know Keigo?

┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈

When Keigo trails into the kitchen the following morning, woken up by the unmistakable scent of something cooking and  the sound of electricity flowing into the room, it’s to find Dabi standing at the stove and fiddling with something.

Something that, upon closer inspection that’s Keigo just standing there and—staring, he supposes—turns out to be some vegetables. Vegetables Keigo’s certain don’t belong to him.

Dabi peels an onion, long fingers quick, precise and practiced, then halves it with one of Keigo’s sharper knives held comfortably in his left hand. After, he starts dicing it, movements quick and sharp, before he slides the onion off his cutting board and into the pan waiting by his side.

The sun chooses that moment to breath through the small space left open by the curtains, illuminating his form. His skin shines, golden marking radiant and glowing.

Keigo finds himself momentarily frozen to the spot.

Dabi is mesmerizing.

Beautiful.

I am, he thinks, swallowing when his mouth runs dry, so incredibly fucked.

“You can cook?”

“You can’t?” Dabi throws a look over his shoulder, then does a double take and turns completely, his task abandoned as his eyes drag down Keigo’s front. “Where the fuck’s your shirt?”

Keigo follows Dabi’s gaze and looks down at himself, at his naked, golden skin and the faint white scars all over his chest.

Due to the warmer temperatures in summer, and thanks to his wings and the extra heat they provide only in summer instead of during winter when Keigo actually needs it, Keigo has taken to sleeping without a shirt and his blanket kicked to the side to avoid overheating.

There used to be a time when Keigo could latch onto a cooler body next to himself amidst annoyed grumbles, a time where Keigo could attach himself to the same body during winter as it heated up carefully, slowly.

Keigo doesn’t say this; admitting the simple fact that he overheats feels a lot like being openly vulnerable. Perhaps this has something to do with the late Madame beating it into his system that it is one of his many weaknesses.

Ugh, he thinks with a frown, good riddance.

So, Keigo definitely doesn’t say that. What escapes his mouth without permission instead is, “Where’s yours?”

They both pause to look at Dabi’s upper body.

Dabi’s covered upper body because he is, in fact, wearing a shirt.

“Where it should be. Oh, unless,” Dabi muses, head tipped to the side as he plays with the hem of his—Keigo’s, actually, upon closer inspection—shirt and pulls it up slightly, “you want me to ditch this, too? Wanna match, tweetie?”

“No,” Keigo says, perhaps a tick too fast. “That’s unsanitary.”

“Right,” Dabi says with meaning, eyes running down Keigo’s chest again. He turns with half snort. “Well, don’t just stand around. Make yourself helpful and cut the rest of the onions.”

After staring at Dabi’s back for a moment, because how dare he command Keigo around in his own kitchen, Keigo comes closer and pulls out a second cutting board and another knife. He grabs one of the onions laid out on the counter and peels it, then tries to replicate what he’d seen Dabi do to the best of his abilities.

Which is to say, it’s not very good at all.

Despite Keigo wielding his feather like the tiny knives and swords they are for all kinds of things—mostly fighting, when he needs to—he’s actually pretty shit at using actual knives for mundane things, like cutting vegetables and anything else you usually need them for. He tried, only once a couple years back, to use his feathers for food related reasons, too, but had to find out that that didn’t change much about the situation. The sensations had been weird, too; meat being pulled apart was slimy and gross.

It’s fine, he accepts it for what it is: a universal truth. Keigo is a shit cook. The sky is blue. It’s that kind of thing.

Heat gathers at his back a split second before Dabi glues himself to it—slowly and lightly, as if he’s taking extra care not to pinch Keigo’s feathers as he slots himself right between his wings as if it’s practiced, and easy. His arms come around Keigo to take hold of his wrists, grip loose enough that Keigo could break free if he wanted to.

His wings flutter and his heart skips a beat at the sudden proximity—at the… hug?

“What are you doing?” Keigo asks through half a gasp.

“What are you doing?” Dabi asks back. “That ain’t how it’s done. That is how you’re gonna end up with one or all fingers short by a couple centimeters or them cut off completely. No, shut the fuck up,” he says, voice deep and raspy and right into Keigo’s ear, “and watch.”

Dabi leads Keigo’s hands, helps him peel a new onion and then half it, becomes a puppeteer with ease. He mutters quiet instructions as he does—like “don’t just slam the knife down, let the blade do the talking,” and “curl your fingers a little, don’t put the tips close to the sharp ends.”

Keigo only listens with half of his attention span, the rest caught on the sight of their hands moving together. After the onion is perfectly cut and diced, and when Dabi tells him to try it himself without moving back, chin almost brushing Keigo’s bare shoulder, Keigo has no idea how he manages to actually do it.

(Except that he does.

This is exactly the kind of thing Keigo was trained for; function under a ton of stress, flawlessly and without complaints. He might’ve left his coven and the poisonous surroundings he had been trapped in behind, but the training that had fused with his being doesn’t seem keen on separating from him at all.)

“Good job,” Dabi says into his ear once he’s done, voice almost a purr.

Wings puffing up, Keigo finally finds the strength to break out of Dabi’s not-hug, and takes a couple steps away. Heat climbs up his neck, settles on his cheeks. His heart races, slamming against his ribcage as if it’s trying to break free.

“I, uh, I’m gonna…” He jerks a hand over his shoulder, then turns and waves, face growing hotter at the chuckle Dabi lets out. “Shower! I’m gonna take a shower!”

“Smooth,” Dabi comments lowly, thick amusement clinging to the singular word.

“Thanks!” Keigo calls back, feet slapping onto his floors. He closes the door to the bathroom harder than he intends to and then takes a moment to lean against it, breathing deeply. After pushing away from it, he walks to his mirror and points at himself—at his red face, traitorously glowing eyes—and says, “Get your fucking shit together, Takami Keigo. Now.”

When Keigo comes back into the kitchen after a cool shower, Dabi is gone.

There are no traces left behind that would point to his existence being real and not just something Keigo imagined; no dishes, no trash, not even a crease in the chair he’d occupied the evening prior. He didn’t even leave the food he was preparing. Keigo doesn’t know if he’ll come back or not, but he doesn’t have time to focus on it; more important than that is one thought alone: he thought they couldn’t be separated. Dabi proved they couldn’t.

It’s probably a good thing; showering would most definitely become a little awkward if the problem wasn’t miraculously resolved.

The thought pops up out of nowhere, and it manages to catch Keigo off guard enough that he almost trips over his own feet and eats shit right in front of Rumi’s shop. He catches himself at the last second, shakes his head to get rid of that, and pushes inside, ready for a distraction.

A distraction that, of course, isn’t granted to Keigo because his life chooses to become insanely more difficult. Because of course it does. Because of course retirement is something relaxing and freeing for other people, but stressful and absurd or him for something he must’ve done in his past life.

For some reason that is genuinely unexplainable to him, Dabi the demon is standing behind the counter, dressed in a dark shirt and with a name tag attached to his chest.

Keigo rubs his eyes, pinches his arm, and when Dabi is still standing by the counter, grinning at him like a—well, like a demon, Keigo’s mouth drops open. “What the fuck?” he asks once he’s close enough, mindful of his volume around their loyal customers. “What are you doing here?”

“Working,” Dabi answers.

“What?” Rumi glances up from handling a customer before turning back to her work. “Y’all know each other?”

“You could say that,” Dabi says, voice low.

Keigo ignores the shiver that runs down his back as he says, “Remember how I mentioned that demon I summoned?” He waits for Rumi to nod and then continues, “Because you’re standing next to him. Dabi’s the demon.”

“Hm?” Rumi continues… taking money out of the register to count it one by one. “What are you talking about? A demon? Dabi’s been nothing but an angel.”

“A what?” Keigo asks. He doesn’t think he heard that correctly just now.

“An angel,” Dabi repeats. His soft looking mouth curls into a grin that’d be almost boyish and cute if it weren’t for the sharp flash of teeth. “You get that or do you want the textbook definition of the word to understand better?”

“What?” Touya asks with a scoff, his eyes sharp and his smirk sharper. “Want me to grab the dictionary for you before we continue, or?”

Keigo, mindful of the customers around them, mumbles a quiet, “Fuck you,” before he turns back to Rumi. “I’m serious,” he tells her. “He is what—who I summoned yesterday.”

Rumi lets out a quiet laugh as if Keigo just told her a great joke. When he doesn’t grin back at her, her red eyes narrow. “Keigo, babe. You think this guy is a demon?”

“Yeah,” Keigo says.

Without breaking eye contact, Rumi, apropos of nothing, makes a grab for the pink rag by her elbow and smacks it against the naked skin of Dabi’s arm. It thwacks loudly, droplets of water spraying the counter.

“What the fuck?” Dabi mutters. It’s the only reaction he shows. Keigo refuses to acknowledge how weirdly attractive that is.

He should not find that attractive, like, at all.

“Oh, yeah, he ain’t one,” Rumi says. Her shoulder lifts in a shrug when both Keigo and Dabi turn to her. “Tsunagu keeps dipping this one,” she nods to the pink rag that now drags down Dabi’s arm before it smacks to the floor, “in the blessed water he keeps carrying around. He’s a little paranoid, but meticulous, so it didn’t hurt to try. If you,” she tells Dabi, “were a demon, this would’ve hurt like a bitch.”

“Still did,” Dabi says.

“Well, fuck me,” Keigo says at the same time. He puts his elbows on the counter, leans his cheek into a palm as he scans Dabi slowly. The shirt is a different one than the rag he appeared in the day prior; it’s tighter, hugging his slim waist and accenting his chest. He looks good. “You might actually not be a demon.”

But, Hawks thinks in the privacy of his mind, then what—or who—are you?

“Now that you’re done with.. that, can you please attempt to be normal—” Rumi stops herself with a squint, then corrects, “can you attempt to be something close enough to normal to fit into the criteria before the love of my life pops by?”

Keigo takes offense to that. “Huh?” he asks. “What are you talking about, I am normal.”

Both Dabi and Rumi snort.

What the hell? Keigo thinks.

Rumi turns a sharp look on Dabi, white teeth flashing. “Y’know what,” she says, elbow finding Dabi’s side, “maybe you’re really not all that bad. Angel, I tell you,” she tells Keigo and he over-exaggeratedly rolls his eyes. “As I was saying, though, my girlfriend will be here in a few and I need you to not look like you’re about to throw up when you see her for once.”

“But,” Keigo says, glancing to the side, “I don’t look like I have to hurl when I see her.”

Keigo definitely looks like he’s going to be sick whenever he sees her.

It’s not Fuyumi’s fault, but Keigo’s. The similarities she shares with her twin brother have always been impossible to miss—the white/red hair, the depth of their blue eyes, the same stubborn chin, the slopes of their noses, the same eye-shape. Keigo found comfort in how much they resembled each other; there’s something undeniably precious and nice about someone else being so much like you without being you, carrying around a part of you and reminding people of your presence whenever you’re not around.

Unfortunately, Keigo’s positivity wavered over time. All happiness he felt is replaced by something cold and slimy, uncomfortable and almost nauseous. Being reminded of his best friend after he disappeared, and then being avoided by his siblings when Keigo spent day and night searching for any trace of Touya he could find, has always left a sour taste in his mouth.

He doesn’t like thinking about it much, because every single time he’s left with more questions not a single Todoroki sibling is willing to answer.

“Kei,” Rumi says. She uses the same tone she used back then, when she stayed up with him every single night he couldn’t sleep, plagued by the image of blue eyes and white hair tattooing itself on the inside of his eyelids. Her hand brushes his forearm. “It’s okay if you don’t want to see Fuyumi, but—”

“Fuyumi?” Dabi’s face looses the little color it possesses.

Eyebrow arched, Rumi turns to him. “You know her?”

“No,” Dabi says, voice breaking. He might just be a worse liar than even Rumi is.

Keigo leans more into his hands, right eye almost sliding shut. “He heard me mention her when we were on the phone last night, is all.”

There’s more to this entire thing, Keigo’s certain of it, but Dabi looks as sick as Keigo feels whenever he stumbles into any of the Todoroki siblings, so he decides to drop it. Dabi, bright eyes almost glassy when they find his, almost looks relieved when Keigo gives him the perfect out.

As if summoned by the mention of her name alone, the bell above the door chimes two seconds later. A gust of magic, icy and familiar, creeps over the floor like frost and claws at Keigo’s skin when Fuyumi steps into the cafe. Her red streaked white hair is half tied up, long bangs brushing the sides of her face and the red glasses on her nose. The light brown shirt she wears sways with her steps as she walks closer slowly.

Rumi jumps over the counter, her leg catching Dabi’s biceps in a show of miscalculation that is completely out of the norm. Dabi hisses at the contact and Fuyumi glances up at the sound, her eyes catching Keigo’s right before Rumi swoops in and lays a fat kiss on her girlfriend.

They’re as blue and bright as he remembers, a perfect match to the pair he hasn’t seen in so long other people would’ve started to forget what exact shade they are. They’re, coincidentally, as blue as the pair Keigo looks into when he turns to the side and accidentally bumps into Dabi, who must’ve rounded the counter without Keigo noticing.

Dabi arches an eyebrow at him, a muscle in his jaw jumping. The mug he’s been cleaning is clutched tightly between his hands, knuckles white.

“I’m so sorry I’m late!” Fuyumi, a dusting of pink on her cheeks, says. “I had to wrestle some of my kids out of my class after they refused to leave with the rest and wanted to stay longer.”

“Don’t ever apologize for being the coolest teacher on the block, babe.” Rumi’s ears twitch.

“I don’t know about cool, Rumes,” Fuyumi says.

 “Oh, come on now,” Rumi says. She hooks her arm through Fuyumi’s and leads her to the counter that starts to dig into Keigo’s back when he leans against it harder. “Even Tsunagu agrees, and do you know how hard it is to have him agree to stuff?”

When they’re close enough for another wave of frosty magic to roll over them like a wave, the mug that Dabi’s been holding slips out of his hand. Luckily, Keigo is able to intercept its path and catch it before it has a chance to meet the floor and shatter.

Rumi whistles. “Good save, Kei. And, hey, what was that? Don’t go around wasting my good shit after I spent so much time defending you from this guy.”

“My bad,” Dabi says, voice faint. “Won’t happen again.”

Rumi isn’t the only one who pays attention to them now. Fuyumi looks as if she’s seen a ghost when her eyes fall on Dabi, and Keigo discards his gaze when her blue eyes flick to the side. He musters Dabi, the marks on his skin, the burns and the golden swirls, and frowns. He understands being taken back by Dabi’s appearance, but it’s not like he’s hideous or anything fear inducing.

“Who are…”

A sudden, and strange, sense of protectiveness overcomes Keigo at the sight of Dabi being speechless. He lets the toe of his shoe bump against Dabi’s boot, then says, “That’s Dabi, the demon I accidentally summoned while doing latte art. Please don’t ever make me do latte art again,” he tells Rumi.

“He… doesn’t look very demonic to me,” Fuyumi says.

“But Dabi-the-demon has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?”

“Thought you were on my side?”

“Oh, I am,” Rumi says, “but small jabs for comedic relief are very cool and allowed. And something everyone has to go through, if I like them or not.”

Keigo leans to the side, his shoulder meeting Dabi’s biceps. A jolt goes through his system at the light contact. “She is until she can look cool in front of her girlfriend.”

A wet rag comes flying his way, and Keigo manages to duck just in time for it to miss him and smack against the fridge on the other side on the counter instead. “And you,” Rumi cheerfully says, “are a fucking traitor.”

Well, that’s something Keigo’s heard more often than he’s honestly comfortable with.

It’s thanks to the small bit of physical contact that Keigo notices it before anyone else does. Dabi, and the air around him, starts to heat up—quickly, with an intensity that is almost staggering, and undeniably caused by magic. From one blink to the other, Dabi turns warm enough that he’s practically steaming.

Keigo, after having more contact than he’d like to with elemental magic woven into emotions, only needs one look at Dabi’s face, at the steel that puzzles itself together in his bright gaze, to know that they have to get out before this escalates.

Later, he will have no recollection of what, exactly, he tells Rumi (something along the lines of them having to leave to some appointment, a lie she doesn’t buy if the look she sends him is any indication), but it’s only two minutes later when they exit the shop with their tails tucked between their legs.

They’ve barely made it further than a couple of meters before another familiar face crosses their path. Todoroki Natsuo is in company of Shimura Tenko when they happen to cross paths; luckily for Keigo, they don’t go out of their way to talk to him—they haven’t in years, this isn’t out of the norm. But they do stare at him, and Dabi, with expressions on their faces that Keigo doesn’t want to decipher.

It would hurt too much, to analyze them properly and find out the disgust he imagines is actually disgust when there had been times when all three of them got along.

The memories cloud Keigo’s vision, enough so that the only thing saving him from falling into the literal street and being taken out by traffic (of all things) is a warm hand gripping his arm and pulling him along.

Dabi, when Keigo glances at him, looks furious, blue eyes flashing. “Don’t,” he says when Keigo just stares at him, at the frown nestled between his sharp brows and his down turned mouth. The scrunch of his noise that seems so familiar for reasons Keigo, irritably, cannot place.

Heat, startling and close enough that Keigo’s feathers, though hidden, puff up in surprise and alert. When he glances to the side as they round the next corner and cross into a narrow alley, his eyes go wide.

“Uh.”

“I said don’t,” Dabi says.

“Oh, no, I got that, but—”

“No buts.”

“Nah, all butts.” Keigo manages to snort at his own joke, then clears his throat. “No, seriously, there’s, uh.”

Dabi stops to whirl in his direction. “There’s what?”

“Your sleeve.” Keigo points down at said sleeve. “It’s kinda, like, on fire.”

Dabi lets out a curse as he looks down. A few smacks later the small flame is gone, leaving singed fabric behind as it turns into blue sparks and then disappears completely. Keigo watches, chest tight, until the sparks are gone.

He waits one, two seconds before he bumps his elbow against Dabi’s. When those startlingly bright eyes snap to him, he asks, “Okay?”

“You shouldn’t concern yourself with a demon’s well-being,” Dabi says, voice rough.

“I know,” Keigo replies with a simple shrug. “Good thing you’re saying you’re not one, then. Hey, what are you, then?” Dabi’s mouth opens and closes as if he’s about to speak, yet no sound escapes him. He does it a few more times until Keigo frowns. “Stop avoiding my question.”

“I’m not.”

Keigo wordlessly raises his brows.

They stand there, in the middle of the alley as another moment passes, eyes locked. Then Dabi turns his face away with a soft scoff. There’s a twist to his mouth; it’s amused, almost soft. “You’re so fucking annoying,” he mutters through a sigh. “Yeah, yeah. Okay.”

“Good,” Keigo says. “Let’s go, then. I’m starving.”

“Aren’t you always?” Dabi asks.

“For someone who’s known me for less than two days, you speak as if you’ve known me for years.”

Dabi hums. The sound makes Keigo’s hidden feathers shiver with something that is dangerously close to pleasure. “Yeah,” he hums, “wonder why that is. Maybe I have good character judgment since you’ve been eating like a pig.”

“Hey,” Keigo says, “I’m a growing boy.”

Dabi gives him a long, considering look. “Yeah, clearly.”

“Hey,” Keigo says again, “I detest that.”

Luckily for them, the next corner store is only a couple of minutes away. There’s something very mundane, almost domestic, in the way Dabi grabs a cart and shoves it around the store before he chucks several items (vegetables, fruit, produce) inside. It’s practiced, as if he’s done this a thousand times before. And not at all demonic.

“Y’know,” Keigo says, “I was under the impression that you couldn’t move away. You demonstrated that you couldn’t.”

“Suppose I did, didn’t I?” Dabi glances out of one of the huge windows and at the cloudly sky, a muscle in his jaw jumping. His Adam’s Apple bops as he swallows; Keigo’s gaze is drawn to it, scanning his scars before he can think better of it. Blue eyes slide to him, narrow as Dabi smirks almost knowingly. “You don’t know as much about magic as you should. You gotta fuck up real bad to get tied to any entity like that, without it being a neat little party trick to show off every now and then.”

Keigo hums. “You lied to me.”

“Suppose I did,” Dabi says with a snort. He grabs some mandarins and adds them to the cart.

“You look like you know what you’re doing,” he comments, moving out of the way as an elderly woman passes by. “You actually can cook, then?”

“And you obviously can’t.” Dabi snorts. “You can’t survive only off fried chicken, tweetie.”

“Oh, try me.”

Dabi looks at him for a long moment before he mutters, “Maybe I will,” and neatly rolls over Keigo’s toes with their cart.

┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈

The following day finds Keigo sitting at his dining table, magical books littering the wooden surface in front of him as he finally commits to doing serious research.

It’s something he should’ve done right away, something his past version would’ve done immediately, but Keigo is no longer the version of himself that he was molded into, ink spilled over the lined carefully drawn for him. He supposes late is better than never.

He pulls out the books he needs with the help of a few feathers and spreads them over the empty spaces on the huge table before he drags over a couple of chairs and drops the books not able to fit on the table onto the cushions.

Dabi approaches a few minutes in, hovering at the edge of Keigo’s vision but not sitting down in the only free chair. “Why’re you doing that?” he asks. “Using those dusters instead of your magic, I mean.”

“Because I feel more comfortable and more like myself when I do,” Keigo replies.

There was a point in time in which Keigo wasn’t the biggest fan of his wings and saw them as more of an inconvenience instead of a part of himself. His old coven wired him this way, rewrote his nature to make him despise using his feathers for anything because they thought his shifter features made him unsightly and unworthy of the magic he possesses.

Touya, on the other hand, always liked them and let Keigo know at every turn. Perhaps Keigo, in secret, started to like them before he escaped, too.

Dabi’s lets out a chuckle but doesn’t comment as he drops into his chair, arms crossed loosely, eyes trained on Keigo with an air of expectancy around him. “So,” he eventually speaks up, voice quiet as if he’s attempting not to disturb the moment, “what do you have so far?”

Keigo taps the page he’s on, moving his finger as he reads the list of creatures he found a couple minutes prior. “We know you’re not a demon…” he squints until Dabi gives him a dry look, “and you’re definitely no ghoul. Hm… ghost?”

“I’m alive, and I have a pulse,” Dabi says. Keigo is well aware of that—he can hear Dabi’s quiet, steadily beating heart—and yet he keeps quiet until Dabi sighs, grabs his wrist and pushes his hand against his warm chest. Below his palm, there’s the quiet, unmistakable beat of a heart. Real, and undeniably alive just like Dabi said. “Feel that?”

“I do,” Keigo murmurs. The warmth of Dabi’s fingers around his wrist leaves, and yet Keigo doesn’t take his hand away—not immediately, at least. When he glances up, he catches Dabi’s gaze. It’s warmer than his skin before Keigo pulls back. “Not a ghost, huh?”

“Far from it,” Dabi says. His blue eyes flicker down. The heat in them is like a physical caress on Keigo’s skin.

Keigo tries very hard to keep his voice, his entire being, steady when he clears his throat and says, “Okay. Okay. So those can be ruled out. You’re no celestial, golem, beast, or eldritch horror.”

“Why the fuck not? I could be an eldritch horror.”

“No,” Keigo says as he keeps tapping the page, “you’re too cute.”

“You think I’m cute?”

“Adorable, really.”

Dabi shakes his head with a huff. “Yeah, yeah, sure. What else’s there?”

“Well.” Keigo glances down, finds the place he was at. “Fae?”

“I’m not a fucking fairy.”

“Well,” Keigo says again, drawing the word out. He snorts when Dabi just gives him a look, palms facing him when he holds up his hands. “I mean, hey, don’t look at me like that. It wouldn’t be that surprising—you do have the looks for something overworldly like the faefolk.”

True, that. There’s something extremely beautiful about Dabi, and it’s not only the way he looks, though it contributes to it; it’s the way he carries himself, the way he just is. Keigo hasn’t known him for even half a week, and he’s noticed this. He would’ve been stupid not to.

Dabi’s mouth drops open. “What the hell? You do realize flattery and lying ain’t getting you anywhere?”

“Who the fuck says I’m lying? And who says I’m trying to get anywhere?”

For a moment, Dabi looks at Keigo as if he’s crazy. It’s a look Keigo’s seen countless times, mostly from Touya. The similarities between their expressions is staggering. “I’m not a fairy.”

Keigo shakes his head to clear his thoughts. “Fae,” he corrects, “and fine. No fae for you. You could just tell me what you are.”

“I can’t,” Dabi says. He opens his mouth as if he’s about to contradict himself but no sound comes out of his mouth. It’s exactly the same as it had been in that alley the night before—it’s as if something is fully preventing Dabi from talking. Keigo makes a mental note of it. “See,” Dabi says, then nods down. “What else’s there?”

“The next thing is…” Keigo trails off as his eyes slip down and then… keep slipping down because the section that should’ve continued with the rest of the possible creatures and other beings possible of being summoned just kind of… ends. “Huh.”

Puzzled, Keigo turns a page, then another one. Instead of following the topic of summons, how to prevent them, how to successfully wrap one up and everything that entails, Keigo finds himself dropped off in the middle of a completely different topic. He keeps turning the pages, scanning the text to see if any other topic just… stops in the relative middle of it, and finds that… no, they don’t. They follow their respective topics until the end, as it should be with any magic book, but especially the one he’s holding.

It’s old and pretty much untouched—or it should be, at the very least.

“That’s not supposed to just stop,” Dabi, who’s been reading over his shoulder, comments.

“No,” Keigo says. When he turns his head, their faces are closer than he thought they’d be and he finds himself staring directly into Dabi’s eyes. “Definitely not, and this is the best—almost the best source of information around.”

Dabi hums. The sound makes Keigo’s wings twitch. “And you, what, think someone tinkered with the book?”

“Someone must have,” Keigo says. “Someone who’s good at it, because the book looks physically undamaged and there’s no traces of anything left behind on it.” He lets the book drop onto the table with a sigh. “That sucks, that was my best bet.”

“It did sound more comprehensible than the rest of your shit,” Dabi comments, grunting when Keigo blindly kicks his ankle. “You don’t happen to have a copy of this one?”

Keigo shakes his head. “This is the only of two editions around, and the information gathered in it is second only to—” he cuts himself off with a groan, hands coming up to drag down his face with yet another groan. “Fuck,” he says as his next moves become clear to him just like that. “I have to get the information from the source.”

“And the source would be what?” Dabi asks, voice quiet.

A deep breath, then another one. When Keigo glances to the side, catches the blank and almost bored expression on his face, he says, through half a sigh, “The Commission.”

┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈

Keigo can’t go to the Commission immediately.

Actually, technically he could, but it’s not like he’s planning on walking into their quarters or anything of the sorts without planning it properly. He can’t do anything without planning it beforehand. He expects having to explain this much to Dabi, but when he brings up having to take it slow and steady, Dabi just looks lost in thought for a moment before he hums and goes, “Huh. Yeah, makes sense, I guess.”

If one wants to get even more technical, Keigo isn’t even planning to go to his ex-coven directly, and instead to one of the many safe houses scattered all over the country. Every single one of them happens to house a USB drive filled with information that could bring the magic world as they know it to their knees—and a hard copy of every single document the members ever came in touch with, updated and filed alphabetically.

It only takes half a day until Keigo can gather his confidence and leave the house, Dabi hot on his heels as they start to make their way through the back alleys of the city, using the cover of shadows to stay hidden as they become a part of them.

“Why am I coming along?” Dabi mutters as they slip right past a group of young mages hurling insults at each other. “Getting anywhere near Commission property is an insanely bad idea.”

“Aw,” Keigo says as he immediately snaps to attention. “Wanna tell me why that is?”

“Not really,” Dabi says.

Keigo supposes this is yet another instance of Dabi being incapable of sharing information and not just being stubborn and driven by the need to be mysterious. There’s quite a lot that Dabi can’t go into depth about; Keigo’s secretly started to make a little list in his head, figuring it’ll help in the long run with figuring out just what—and perhaps who—Dabi is.

Anything personal is off the market, as is anything that comes even close to the being he is. What happened to him to get him into the state, and who is responsible for it is taboo. As are some relationships between Dabi and potential strangers.

If Keigo was blind to the irritation that plasters itself across Dabi’s pretty face whenever his voice gives out on him, he’d believe Dabi is a world class actor.

They’re a couple minutes from their destination when Keigo nudges Dabi. “Hey, I have a question.”

“I might have an answer,” Dabi says. “Maybe.”

“Y’know how some people have dreams and aspirations? Something they want to be, something that doesn’t necessarily have to be realistic or close to being attainable.” Keigo leans into Dabi’s space as they round another corner. “You had one of those? Something you wanted to be before you became… this?”

Keigo doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry when Dabi’s face scrunches up and no answer lifts the air between them.

“Sorry,” Dabi says. “Can’t say.”

“Not your fault,” Keigo is quick to reassure. “Thought the answer would be vague enough, but I suppose not.”

“Maybe the next one will be,” Dabi says.

“Maybe,” Keigo agrees.

“What about you?”

“Me?” Keigo doesn’t have to think on it for long. “Easy, really. I’ve always wanted to be someone who help people, and makes their days easier when they need it the most. To be someone people can turn to.”

Dabi kicks a pebble with his boot. It collides with a trashcan a couple meters ahead, clattering loudly. “And are you?”

It’s funny; Touya asked a similar question right before he disappeared. Back then, Keigo hadn’t been sure of the answer. All he had been to this point in time had been fabricated, mostly untrue and an act that his coven wanted him to play without ever straying from the script they carefully wrote down every single day for him. He deviated from that path after getting to know Touya, after seeing how he fought against the cards given to him by his father.

People do turn to Keigo now—friends and strangers alike. He supposes he achieved his goal to some degree. He just wishes he manged to reach it sooner, to help Touya when he presumably needed it the most.

A disturbance in the seal Keigo carefully laid over the air around the small, unassuming house at the end of the next street they enter tells Keigo that something is amiss. Someone, by the feels of the barrier, attempted to enter but couldn’t go further than the literal entrance.

“You’d think they’d stop trying at one point,” Keigo says as he repairs the seal and then modifies it enough to let Dabi through.

“You ain’t worried they’re gonna get through at one point?”

“Not in the slightest,” Keigo says. “And even if, their next step is going to be their last. This seal,” he continues as he steps inside and taps on the floor to light up the magic underneath, “is kinda like a spiderweb. Gets more difficult and complicated the closer you get to the middle.”

Dabi lets out an impressed whistle and the sound goes straight to Keigo’s ego. He glances around, from the outside to the middle of the seal, then asks, “You not stupid enough to actually hide shit in there, right?”

“Please,” Keigo says, “who do you take me for, Dabs?”

Keigo uses the tip of his shoe to kick up one of the several loose footboards littered all over the room, close enough to the middle to require extensive knowledge about Keigo’s power, but not close enough to to make the hiding spot obvious. The USB drive sits comfortably under yet another hidden mechanism, and Keigo quickly lets it disappear on his person.

Three fake ones take its place before Keigo puts the board back into place. He doesn’t let it fuse completely with the floor, makes sure to put it on a little crookedly before he stands back up and walks back to where Dabi’s waiting, blue eyes curious.

“Done?” he asks and Keigo nods.

“I am,” Keigo says as soon as the door falls into the lock behind them. “The person I wanted to be, I mean. Not fully, because it takes time to grow into that kind of role, but… I’d like to think I’m getting there.”

Dabi hums quietly. “That’s good, then. I’m glad.”

Keigo doesn’t know what to say to that, so he keeps quiet. And it’s only because of the silence between them that he picks up on the presence slinking in the shadows close by long before his feathers would’ve alarmed him of it. It’s not human, far from it, but shaped close enough to trick someone’s brain if they’re untrained. It moves slowly but with an odd sort of purpose, tracing their every step, getting closer with every turn they make that brings them further away from the safe house.

At one point, a horn blares loudly enough that Keigo loses focus for only a split second, and it turns into an almost fatal mistake when the creature seemingly vanishes into thin air. Thankfully, he’s not alone.

“Hey, bird. Move!”

After spreading his wings, Keigo leaps into the air and moves just in time to escape the blue fire that explodes out of Dabi’s palms.

It catches the slimy creature that materializes in the same spot Keigo had been standing in completely off guard. As such, it has no means to defend itself before it’s too late. Keigo hovers close by, shoes brushing the top of the trash can close by, the heat blowing over his face, brushing his bangs to the side, intense enough that his wings shudder and breathing becomes difficult for a short moment.

He watches, mesmerized, as the creature explodes into blue glitters that get carried away with the next breeze. The fight, if it can even be called that, is over before it really starts, the clang of the knife—a weapon almost too juvenile for any supernatural creature to carry—clattering to the ground almost obscenely loud in the dark and otherwise silent alley.

Dabi shakes out his hand, blue sparks raining onto the asphalt below. His eyes are glowing when he catches Keigo’s gaze. “Still don’t think I’m a demon?”

“You said you aren’t one,” Keigo replies. He sends Dabi a grin as he lowers himself back to the ground, wings tucked tightly to his back. “But, no. I don’t,” he continues, the truth in his voice so strong that it almost catches him off guard. “Not even a little bit.”

┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈

Rumi calls him the second Keigo unlocks his front door.

After waving Dabi inside and taking a seat on his porch, Keigo answers with a quiet, “Rumes.”

“Ah, look who finally came back home,” Rumi says on the other side of the call. “Do you know how crazy it is to check your location and see that you’re somewhere you definitely shouldn’t be at?”

Keigo chuckles. “I didn’t give you that so that you could glue yourself to your phone and follow my every step, y’know?”

Technically, this is the exact reason he gave his live location to Rumi at first. Right after he successfully left his former coven, agents hired by them came to hunt him down—either to drag him back or kill him, since the knowledge of the inner workings that he carries can and will be their downfall one day—and locator spells, even if performed by the strongest person, can only do so much. One can say the same about modern technology, and be completely right, but it’s easier to keep check of someone’s location without running risk of exhausting yourself like this.

“Oh, please, I don’t watch your every move; you’re not that interesting, and a girl has hobbies.” Rumi clicks her tongue. Fiddles with something in the background. Then says, “But now that I did check and saw you weren’t where you’re supposed to be, like, at all… What the hell were you doing all the way over there?”

“Grabbing something for research,” Keigo replies. “Look, I’ll… I’ll tell you about it later. I need to check in on Dabs because he came with me, and…

“And?”

“You were right,” Keigo admits, “he’s definitely not a demon.”

Rumi snorts loud enough that Keigo has to momentarily pull his phone away from his ear. “Yeah, no shit. What gave you the final hint? The fact that you’re attracted to him?”

“I,” Keigo says, blinking. “You can be attracted to demons, but… what? What the hell makes you say that?”

“Uh, the fact that I have eyes and I know when you’re into someone? I know it’s been… a while, but I’m not stupid.” Rumi is quiet for a moment. “It’s okay to have feelings for someone else, you know? And to admit that to yourself.”

It’s not like Keigo doesn’t know this, or like he’s avoiding it. He’s attracted to Dabi, terribly so. Sure, fine, yes, he’ll admit that any day—he’d be stupid not to when everything about Dabi practically pulls Keigo in as if they’re two magnets chasing each other, desperate to be as close as they can be.

Still there’s a part of Keigo that hesitates, that resists this attraction, that screams at Keigo to recall what happened the last time he felt something this intense for another person. As if Keigo could ever forget what happened with Touya.

“I know,” he settles on saying.

“So you’re agreeing that he’s hot?”

“I’m saying that he also has ears.” Keigo throws a look over his shoulder and the closed door. “Are there any other things about me that you’d like me to know about?”

Rumi hums. “Let me thiiiink… Yes, actually. How about the fact that you definitely owe me some money?”

“I don’t owe you shit,” Keigo replies.

Eh, he definitely owes her money.

After lightly kicking a pebble from the bottom step leading up to his porch, Keigo tips his head up to look at the cloudy sky. “Hey,” he says, “is… she doing okay? Looked like she saw a ghost when she came into the shop.”

“Fuyumi?” Rumi asks before she goes completely quiet. “Yeah,” she eventually says, tone softer, “yeah, she’s… okay. Dunno what that all was about, but seeing Dabi left her pretty shaken up for some reason. She couldn’t explain it to me when I asked, just said something about… how’d she put it again… feeling as if she’s seen him before. As if she somehow knows him.”

Keigo considers this for a moment before he says, “I get it. I feel the same.”

“Well, I don’t,” Rumi says. “Y’know I’m actually still pissed I never got to meet your loverboy.”

“You’ve met Dabi,” Keigo almost says before he remembers that that’s not who that nickname is reserved for.

It’s a little funny, how Rumi, despite being Keigo’s oldest friend to date, never met Touya even once. Probably for the better; Touya has always managed to get on people’s last nerve without trying—something Rumi excells in. Imagining them in one room has given Keigo more than one headache. If Keigo didn’t know better, he’d almost call Touya’s tightly packed schedule something of a blessing since this is the one thing that stopped them from ever being introduced to one another in person.

At one point, once Rumi noticed Keigo’s feelings for Touya (before Keigo identified them himself), she started calling him loverboy instead of Touya. They never dated. Keigo never even got to confess. But the name sticks anyway.

“You will,” Keigo replies, voice gone quiet. He’s unable to hide the tightness of it as his heart squeezes in his chest.

Rumi is equally quiet when she says, “Oh, Kei…”

Keigo clears his throat. “At least you’ve met Dabi,” he says. “I think one demonic guy is more than enough for now.”

“Dunno what you’re talking about, I think he’s great. Hey, do you think those two would get along?”

Keigo honestly doesn’t even want to think about that being a possibility, like, ever. They’re too similar to one another—their humor, their sharp grins, their magic, the way they make Keigo feel as if he’s one touch away from shooting lightning out of his chest—and they’d either be great friends or try to kill each other. Equally terrifying options, in Keigo’s humble opinion.

He settles on a quiet, “No idea,” before he gets up and stretches. “Hey, speaking of… I should probably head back inside and make sure he’s not raiding my freezer. Talk to you later?”

“I don’t think anyone is as interested in your frozen bird food as you are, babe. But sure, talk to you later when I remember another thing to kick your ass for.”

When he finally steps inside after hanging up, the door to his bathroom opens and Dabi steps outside. The sight of him—towel low on his narrow hips, steam trailing from his skin, white happy trail disappearing into the towel, tons of naked skin exposed—causes Keigo to freeze in the entrance.

Fuck me, Keigo thinks, eyes dragging over Dabi’s skin to take note of more scarring, more healthy skin, more golden swirls and—oh.

“Earth to tweetie?”

Keigo blinks a couple of times, swallowing against the sudden dryness of his throat as he attempts to get himself back under control. Something thrums under his skin, itching, trying to get out. He pushes it back.

“You want him,” Rumi’s voice tells him. “You think he’s hot.”

Yes, well.

Keigo has eyes.

“You, uh, took a shower?”

“… Evidently.”

“I didn’t think you could… do… that…” Keigo trails off, stares unashamedly at Dabi’s chest for a little longer. Way longer than is appropriate or polite, for sure. He traces the golden swirls with his eyes, completely misses what Dabi says in answer as the sense of them being familiar, something he’s seen before, fills him. They’re twirly, a little splotchy as if someone hand drew them on with a small paint brush after dipping them into molten gold—a practice that is only used for—oh.

Oh.

“Oh,” Keigo breathes, “I’m so fucking stupid.”

Dabi, who is in the middle of saying… something, crosses his arms. His towel slips down by a millimeter. “Hope you’re not fishing for compliments here because you’re not gonna get them.”

“You’re so sweet to me, Dabs.”

The smile Dabi flashes his way is anything but nice. “What’d you get that bug eyed for?”

“Realized something. Those aren’t tattoos, or random marks.” Keigo steps closer, his hand in the air as he reaches out. He doesn’t let himself make contact but still traces the line of one sigil. “Those are runes. Binding runes, if I’m correct.”

“Yeah,” Dabi says. “That ain’t news to me; I know.”

Keigo’s head snaps up. “Then why didn’t you—oh, right.”

“Say something?” Dabi cocks his head to the side. “Yeah, I fucking wonder.”

His towel slips down a little further, exposing more pale skin, and the trail of white hair leading downward before it vanishes into where the towel sits… extremely low. Two feathers snatch it on both sides to yank it up before it exposes more, or falls away completely.

Keigo clears his throat, heat crawling up his neck, before Dabi has the chance to do something catastrophic, like comment on it. “Anyway,” he says. “Those could potentially be binding runes, and if they are, this might be a good thing for us.”

He doesn’t know when, exactly, he started thinking of them like this—when he started making them an “us” instead of “Keigo and Dabi” as two separate people—but it doesn’t matter much.

“Right.” Dabi leans against the doorframe, almost causal. His shoulders move up and down rapidly. “And what,” he continues, taking a short breath, “makes this shit anything other than completely irrelevant and less than a dead end than it already is?”

“The fact that I know the exact person who possesses more knowledge about my books than I do. And that I happen to know Yagi Toshinori personally.”

“Yagi?” Dabi asks. His voice wavers and Keigo snaps to attention, Dabi’s nakedness forgotten for a moment.

“You know him?”

Dabi, for some reason, looks faintly amused at the question. “Something along those lines.”

“Okay, well, then I suppose it’s unnecessary for me to explain how much of a genius in all things rune-binding he is. If someone knows about the missing pages, and what was written on them, it’s definitely him.”

Genius is perhaps the wrong word for what—for who—Yagi Toshinori is. He’s been well known in the magic world when Keigo had been nothing but a kid playing with mud figures in his mother’s hut, and even back then, when Keigo hadn’t known all that much about the world beyond the four walls he knew, he knew of Yagi.

Youngest warlock to ever climb the ranks in the world, helpful and kind and powerful enough to banish their most evil threats into the next realm. His path to success had been steep, and instead of crumbling under the pressure of having the world’s eyes on him, he stood on top, carried the weight on his broad shoulders and flashed a confident smile that never wavered no matter the situation he had been in.

If heroes were a thing in their reality, Keigo is certain Yagi would be one—the hero, probably, that many of their youngest minds look up to, desperate to chase the traces he left behind, to follow in his footsteps to become like him, in whatever way possible.

After having known him personally for a handful of years, and having received his help when it counted the most after he broke free, Keigo can attest to the fact that he’s not only a genius. He’s probably the closest thing to being the personification of the word “legend.”

He also happens to be someone Todoroki Enji despises for reasons unknown to Keigo. That fact alone would make him into someone Keigo admires if every other reason didn’t exist.

Dabi clicks his tongue as he leans more against the wall—slumps against it, really, with a slow blink. “Right,” he says, “but ain’t you supposed to be a master in magic, too? Or something like that?”

“Sure,” Keigo agrees, “but Yagi’s got a couple years on me. In comparison to him, I’m just some freshly hatched warlock chicklet and—hey, are you okay?”

Shame presses down on Keigo’s shoulders when he realizes just how long it took him to notice that Dabi doesn’t look alright at all.

Steam rises from his skin, dances in the air before it dissipates. His forehead is plastered to his forehead, sweat—something Keigo assumed to be water from his shower—clinging to the thick strands and coating his cheeks, neck, and shoulders. As he watches, some of it evaporates. The healthy skin sitting his on his cheeks and forehead is drained of healthy color, and an unnatural, rosy red flush accents his cheekbones. His eyes, usually clear and strong, are glassy and half absent as Dabi keeps blinking and squinting, almost as if his vision isn’t clearing.

“Shit, Dabs,” Keigo says, finally allowing himself to step even closer, intrude Dabi’s personal space to reach out. “You look sick.”

Dabi’s chuckle sounds more like a rattle of his lungs. “You know how to sweet talk a guy, don’t you?”

A hiss leaves Keigo as soon as the back of his hand makes contact with Dabi’s forehead. He pulls his arm back, brows tugging together before he lets his hand hover over Dabi’s shoulders, the side of his neck, his arms. “Fuck, you’re hot.”

“Flattery ain’t getting you anywhere, tweetie,” Dabi mumbles.

“Do I look like I wanna go anywhere? You’re hot stuff, literally. You’re burning up.”

“Yeah, I might feel…” Dabi grunts. “… A little hot.”

Keigo scans Dabi, then says, “Stay here, I’m getting some ice. We have to… I don’t know… put you in an ice bath or something.”

He should have more than enough in his freezer for that—he keeps it stocked, has been doing it for years in case that… well. Just in case.

“Waste of fucking time. Way ahead of you.” Dabi sways in place and Keigo puts his hand to Dabi’s hot biceps to steady him. “Might’ve taken all your ice cubes.”

“What?” Keigo blinks. “My entire freezer is full of them.”

“Yeah,” Dabi says, “and I’m a big boy.”

“And you look like you’re about to bowl over,” Keigo says. He tugs Dabi closer, pulls the arm he’s holding over his shoulder, carefully places his free hand on Dabi’s waist with a grimace. “Fuck, you’re, like, really hot.”

Dabi’s fingers brush his shoulder in what’s probably supposed to be a pat. “Can you hit on me when I don’t feel like I’m fucking dying?”

“You’re not dying,” Keigo says. “I’m not going to let you.”

He means it, too. The truth in his words takes him off guard, but Keigo’s been trained too well in concealing his emotions to let it show. And so he starts thinking about what other options they have—elemental magic is out of the question; if Dabi’s internal temperature is spiking due to him having used his own elemental magic just an hour ago, the two would cancel each other out completely. Getting another ice pack (or twenty) would take too long; Keigo might be faster than a fighter jet, but he wouldn’t feel comfortable leaving Dabi’s side. The only other thing Keigo can think of, the ace up his sleeve reserved for special occasions, is—

“I need to get you in my bed.”

Keigo realizes way too late how that sounds like, and Dabi pushes out a snort. “Your bed?” he asks, glassy eyes amused. He grunts directly into Keigo’s ear when they start moving through the hallway slowly. “Awfully forward of you; at least take me to dinner first.”

“I buy you dinner almost every day, don’t I?”

“You don’t actually consider KFC and other fast food places as something that can be called actual food, do you?”

“Let’s not make you feel worse by telling you the answer to that.”

Once they’re almost right in front of his bedroom door, Keigo stretches out his leg to kick the door open and reveal his private quarters. He pulls Dabi inside, leads him past the door to his personal bathroom, and to his bed before he carefully helps him to get horizontal in the middle of the big mattress. As he’s fluffing up some of his extra pillows, two of his feathers zip off his back and throw his blanket to the side. Then they rip open his closet and dig through his things.

It only takes seconds before they return with the one item Keigo has been guarding like a dragon with its treasure for years now; it’s a blanket made out of blue and white fabric, and infused with Keigo’s very own magic. There’s so much of it stuffed inside that it’s practically spilling out of it and dripping onto the floor. It had been a present for Touya, who is prone to overheating—always has been—and something Keigo keeps on hand just in case. Has had it on hand for years, just in case.

The magic inside of it comes to life with a quiet hum once Keigo carefully covers Dabi with it and tucks the corners in to make sure everything apart from his head is tucked underneath. Cool, soothing magic radiates from it in an instant and Dabi sighs, shoulders loosening and face relaxing.

When Keigo turns to close the door, warm fingers wrap around his wrist and hold him in place.

“Stay?” There’s something oddly vulnerable, a stark contrast to how Dabi’s usually behaves, tucked into the endless blue of Dabi’s eyes when the question leaves him.

Keigo doesn’t bother with an answer, just slips into bed beside Dabi, watching Dabi’s long lashes flutter before he closes his eyes. His hand lifts almost of its own accord, finding Dabi’s hair and carding through the sweaty strands as the picture of Dabi asking him to stay fits itself over one of Touya from years ago. He’d asked Keigo to stay when they’d been in a similar situation. He’d told Keigo he felt better with Keigo by his side after a flare up—a nasty thing to deal with when the magic you carry is stronger than you can handle.

The similarities between then and now are staggering, and they let his chest tighten. Something tugs at his brain, begs him to pay attention, but Keigo doesn’t. He can’t. Not when he doesn’t know if he folded quickly because Dabi reminds him of Touya, or if it’s because of something entirely different.

He tries not to think about it, tries not to think about anything at all, until Dabi falls asleep.

And only then, when Dabi’s breathing evens out and steam stops rising from his skin, does Keigo allow his thoughts to run wild. They repeat that moment in the alley, when Dabi saved him without a second thought. When heat blew over Keigo’s face, let his feathers rustle, let his skin coat with sweat, let his chest tighten.

Keigo only knows one person capable of wielding flames of that temperature, of that color, and he’s been missing from Keigo’s life for years.

And he’d know, Keigo’s absolutely certain that he’d be aware, if there was someone with the same exact power—this is something he’s been looking into for the past years, it’s impossible Dabi slipped through a crack when Keigo had thousand eyes on everything.

But when why, and how, is Dabi able to use these flames? How has he been able to escape Keigo’s watchful gaze?

The last time he looked, the records didn’t mention a single thing about someone who holds powers this immense, this similar, anywhere on their planet. Perhaps, he thinks grimly, feathers stilling at his back, the only way to get answers (before Yagi inevitably contacts him) is to look for them in the one place he’s loathe to revisit. Everything inside of him recoils at the thought, the image of a big, dark house flashing across his eyes, but it’s not like Dabi is allowed to speak freely.

Just who, he thinks as he slumps against his headboard, fingers stilling, are you?

┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈

The most peaceful sleep Keigo’s had in years gets rudely interrupted by the sun shining directly into his face. Before he musters up the strength to open his eyes and greet the new day, and with it the realization that he let himself be comfortable enough to fall asleep with Dabi, he spreads out his senses to check his apartment; he hears the dripping sink he hasn’t fixed yet, feels the steady thrum of his magic running through every single one of his seals and runes, the heartbeat pressed against his back and—

Hold up.

The what.

Keigo’s eyes snap open as his hand presses against the mattress by his head to help pushing himself up, scanning every corner of the room. He attempts to push himself up, twice, only to run into a little problem. Heat rushes to his face when he looks down and realizes, way too late, why he can’t move.

Dabi—a very much half naked and fully asleep Dabi—is wrapped around Keigo like some sort of human octopus. Or, well, like a human shaped octopus. He is, Keigo realizes as he tries to move and finds himself unable to, one hell of a lot stronger than he looks.

Not that he looks weak, but he doesn’t possess the muscle definition that Keigo has.

“Dabs,” Keigo rasps as he attempts to wriggle out of Dabi’s hold to no avail. “Hey, Dabs. Dabi. Wake up.” He stops, concentrates on listening, then squints at his wall. “I know you’re awake. Let me go.”

Dabi huffs quietly. “Nuh-uh.”

“C’mon, man, I gotta use the bathroom. Let me get up?”

“No.” Dabi’s voice is deeper than usual. Gravely. Hot. “And you can’t make me.”

“I probably could, but I’m trying to be nice,” Keigo says. “Can you please let me go, Dabs?”

“Nah,” Dabi says, lightly bumping his head against Keigo’s shoulder. “You’re comfortable.”

Keigo chuckles as Dabi’s arms tighten around him, press him harder against Dabi’s chest as scoots impossibly closer, almost as if he’s attempting to crawl into Keigo’s skin. Dabi’s not wrong; this is comfortable. Keigo’s wings are concealed again, yet Dabi has somehow managed to perfectly wedge himself in the space between them. He’s warm around Keigo, and the perfect mix of faintly defined muscles and soft skin is almost enough to lull Keigo back to sleep.

“You’re spooning me,” Keigo points out. You’re also half naked and only wearing a towel, is what the doesn’t say out loud. No need to make this more awkward than it already is.

“No, I’m not,” Dabi says. He sighs into the side of Keigo’s neck, breath hot enough that it sends a shiver down Keigo’s spine. A moment later, he tucks his forehead into Keigo’s shoulder. “Now shut the fuck up and go back to sleep.”

“You’re being awfully cute, but no.” Keigo reaches up and tangles his fingers in Dabi’s hair, then tugs lightly at it. “I need to—”

His phone, buried somewhere under the pillow that Keigo and Dabi are most definitely sharing, begins buzzing violently. He makes a grab for it with his free hand and answers without looking at the display first.

“Yeah?”

“Young Hawks.” At the sound of the deep voice on the other end of the call, Dabi stiffens behind Keigo. It’s enough that Keigo is able to sit up and twist to lean against the headboard, blinking against the brightness of the room. He hasn’t heard that nickname of his in years. “The spirits were telling me to seek you out.”

“The spirits are sharp as always, Yagi,” Keigo says. He taps the arm that is now kind of slung over his lap, mouthing you good? at Dabi, who shrugs. “A… friend and I are caught in a little bit of a situation that would be easier to explain in person, and I’d love to request your help with something.”

Yagi hums. “I see,” he says, “and that friend wouldn’t happen to be the being you summoned? Ah, it matters not if he is,” he continues before Keigo can ask how the fuck any spirits know that. “My door is always open for you. I would be happy to be of help.”

“Cool,” Keigo says. “We’ll see each other, then?”

“You know where to find me,” Yagi says.

The call disconnects half a second later.

Breakfast, after that, is a relatively quiet affair. The silence that Dabi wrapped himself in isn’t tight or hostile in any way, so Keigo decides not to worry too much about it for now. When—or if—Dabi wants to talk, he’ll lend him an ear. If he prefers to work through whatever seems to be going through his head as he carefully chews his rice, that’s fine by Keigo, too.

Once his own plate is emptied, Keigo spends a few seconds concentrating on the other seals he has placed throughout the city. He’s not very surprised to find that some of them carry the signs of minor corruption on them, but it’s still irritating to know he’ll have to send his feathers there to check out the physical copies of his files that he hid there.

Dabi, who seems to be able to read Keigo like an open book, takes one glance at his face and asks, “What? Something wrong?”

“Dunno yet,” Keigo says. “I gotta go and check on some of the safe houses in the area. Seems like someone was trying to get in and left their mark on my barriers.”

Usually, that alone wouldn’t prompt Keigo to leave his safe haven, but this happening after a magically constructed creature followed and planned to attack them the day prior… Keigo has learned that it’s better to be safe than sorry.

His phone, placed next to his plate, chimes with an incoming text.

RUMI: question
RUMI: can u lend me ur hot not-demon for a little
RUMI: been swamped all morning and he’s the exact shade of rude that i need

“More trouble?” Dabi asks.

He doesn’t look up until he’s given Rumi a positive answer, but says, “Not really. Rumi’s asking for your shining and radiant personality to pop by in the shop later while I go and fix the scratched sigils.”

“And I’m asking you to stop lying,” Dabi says. “You’re fucking awful at it.”

Keigo, who is a trained liar, detests that. Before he can say as much, a bright flare of magic in his garden has both of them pause, heads snapping to the back door in the second a dark figure drops into sight out of seemingly nowhere.

Without having to be told to move, Dabi jumps up, crosses the room and goes outside. A moment later, the creature lights up blue and turns into a sparkling mess that’s only slightly less intense than the move from the day before had been.

When he comes back inside and walks almost right into Keigo’s arms, Dabi asks, “Still sure that you don’t think I’m a demon when I turn those fuckers into dust just like that?”

“I’ve stopped thinking of you as a demon days ago, Dabs,” Keigo confesses, voice quiet.

Dabi looks doubtful, bright eyes scanning his face, staring into his eyes as if to look for the actual truth Keigo’s words aren’t allowed to carry. “That so? What do you think me as, then?”

“A person.”

“Real?”

“Of course,” Keigo says. He knocks his knuckles against Dabi’s chest—his warm, solid chest that can’t be anything but real. “At the very least as much as I am.”

There’s something oddly fragile in the deep blue of Dabi’s eyes as they scan Keigo’s face once more, explore Keigo’s eyes, first the left one and then the right one. It’s intense. Keigo feels like he’s been in this very position before.

I know you, something inside of him screams as Dabi exhales, minty breath fanning over Keigo’s face like a gentle caress. I know you as much as I know myself. But why?

“Alright,” Dabi eventually says. He steps back, breaks the spell that Keigo feels like he’s been caught in, a twist to his mouth that, from another angle, could’ve been a soft smirk. “Go wreck some havoc, birdie.”

Keigo bites his lips around a grin, spreads his wings and takes flight before he can do something irresponsible, like chase the hint of affection in Dabi’s voice with his mouth.

┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈

It’s only five minutes and a couple kilometers later when the impact of what Dabi said hits him hard enough that he almost drops out of the sky like a stone.

Birdie.

Dabi called him birdie, didn’t he? But how did he—that’s what Touya used to call him. How the fuck does Dabi know about that?

┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈

They make their way into the forest just a couple hours later, right when the sun begins to dip lower over the horizon and shadows stretch further over the ground, turning from normal shapes into grotesque forms with arms that seem to reach for them as they pass.

As he’s half stepping over an oddly placed, huge boulder, Keigo lightly says, “Y’know, I did tell him both of us were gonna pop by, but I’m still kinda surprised you’re actually tagging along.”

“Surprised? Why?”

“Well, you did look vaguely ill when I mentioned Yagi.”

Actually, now that he really looks at him, Dabi still looks a little sick. It’s nowhere near as bad as it had been the day prior after Dabi overused his magic, but it’s close enough to be a little concerning.

“Careful,” Dabi says in the very moment a thick branch snaps underneath his boot, “you’re starting to sound a little worried there.”

“You’re saying that as if caring is a bad thing,” Keigo points out.

Caring for people and things has always found a way to bite him in the ass one way or another. Perhaps it’s not the smartest thing to start caring for someone Keigo doesn’t know much about. Perhaps he’ll do it anyway.

“Maybe it is,” Dabi says with a chuckle. “Do you?”

“Maybe I do,” Keigo says.

Their gazes clash and hold, and the amused twist of Dabi’s mouth brings a similar on to Keigo’s. He gets the sense that they’re doing something stupid, something awfully close to flirting as they tramp through the forest together, but Keigo doesn’t particularly care.

Dabi’s elbow brushes his own after he steps closer. “You’re playing a dangerous game, birdie, you know that?”

“Maybe I do,” Keigo says again, but this time he doesn’t look away from their path.

There’s a change in the air pressure when they first hit and then walk through the massive and complicated barrier Yagi has placed around the land that he claimed as his. It’s kind of like diving and advancing into even deeper water before abruptly rising and breaking the surface of the water again.

The next steps they take feel lighter after the barriers welcomed them in, and Keigo takes a deep breath that lifts all the weight from his shoulders.

A couple meters later, branches of two trees that hang low and are intertwined like spindly fingers shiver and detangle enough to form something that almost resembles an archway for them to pass through. And once they do, they find themselves in a clearing with a perfect view of the little hut that Toshinori Yagi resides in.

From outside, it’s nothing special: it looks like the most average and tiny hut you can randomly stumble over in just about any forest. It’s about four meters wide, two meters tall, has the cutest little roof and windows the size of Keigo’s palm.

Dabi comes to a stop next to him. “You know,” he says, “I kind of expected you to call it a hut for convenience sake and not because it’s an actual hut the size of your bathroom. Why the fuck is this an actual hut?”

“Because it’s inconspicuous?” Keigo guesses.

“There’s possibly nothing more conspicuous than a literal hut in the middle of the fucking woods, birdie.”

“He’s right.”

Toshinori Yagi paints an impressive picture despite how thin and frail he appears on the outside; he’s tall, taller than your average person, and surrounded by so much magic—strong magic that pulses in time with his heart—that it builds a barrier between everyone else and himself. His blond hair is a little dull, but his blue-black eyes are blazing.

He nods at them, teeth flashing in a smile. “Hello, Keigo. And…?”

“Dabi,” Dabi says, his voice oddly stilted.

“Dabi,” Yagi repeats with yet another nod. “Interesting choice of name, I must say. It’s nice to see the two of you, and very nice to make your acquaintance, young Dabi. Come on,” he says, taking a step back, “let us not let too much of the bad air inside the hut, shall we?”

Keigo’s senses, never ones to betray him, don’t alert him of anything (or anyone) close by, but he supposes you can never be too careful with the lives they live. He dips his chin in a nod. “Of course.”

He leads the way to the door, steps past Yagi and toes out of his shoes before making space for Dabi, who frowns at the entrance, then steps inside after Keigo and frowns some more—this time at Yagi. “I’m not a fucking vampire.”

Yagi doesn’t seem to be taken off guard by Dabi’s tone; he smiles, warm and welcoming. “Yes, evidently not. But it never hurts to be careful. Isn’t that right, young Hawks?”

“Very much so,” Keigo says. He doesn’t mention that he didn’t even think about testing to see if Dabi’s a vampire. No wonder Yagi didn’t welcome them in; it’s something he ususally does. “He eats,” he comments, putting a hand on Dabi’s shoulder despite the spike in heat at his touch, and begins leading him further into the hut. “Normal food, I mean. I’ve yet to catch him stealing blood bags.”

“I’d rather starts eating those than chicken wings three times a week,” Dabi comments, but Keigo chooses to ignore him.

Yagi chuckles, the sound of the door locking and barriers sliding into place familiar and comforting. His footfalls are quiet as he follows them.

They walk through a long, narrow hallway that’s at least four times the length of what the outside would make someone believe. Closed doors shimmer into existence when they pass by them, disappearing again and fusing into the wall when no one makes any moves towards them. A steady thrum of magic lines every centimeter of the hut; it holds on to the ceilings the most, radiating lowly, turning everything into a dimly lit, comfortable space.

The hallway eventually makes a turn to the left and opens into what Yagi calls the main room, and is the space where he usually leads Keigo into for talks and everything else—it’s a huge room with huge windows that are completely dimmed and half covered with thick, red curtains. Their steps are dampened by the carpets on the floor as they approach the round table placed in the middle and just to the left of three massive bookshelves filled to the brim.

Yagi gestures to the plush chairs surrounding it, waiting until they’ve sat down until he follows suit.

“Well, fuck,” Dabi says. “This place is, like, unethically big on the inside. How the fuck’d you manage that?”

“A minor concealment spell,” Yagi explains. “It is linked to my system, and as such doesn’t need to be kept alive through respelling the place periodically. I do like to do it regardless, however.”

Dabi nods as if that makes perfect sense, leaning back in his chair and glancing at the ceiling. “Ah,” he says. “That’s cool, I guess.”

“Thank you,” Yagi says with a nod. “Now,” he looks at Keigo, “what have you come here for, young Hawks?”

Keigo spends the following two minutes trying to explain their situation as well as he can without leaving anything out. He makes sure to mention that the book he was trying to research cut off abruptly, as if a part was deliberately removed. Once he’s done, Yagi has his fingers stapled together in front of his mouth and his eyes are narrowed in thought.

He hums. “I see. And you have no idea what he could be, if not a demon? Fae, ghost, ghoul, anything in that direction?”

“I’m not a fucking fairy,” Dabi mutters.

“Afraid not,” Keigo replies. “He doesn’t fit for anything I’ve ever seen; he eats, he sleeps, he walks and talks. People can see him. I can touch him. If I hadn’t summoned him by complete accident, I would’ve thought he’s just some guy.”

Some ridiculously hot and mean guy, but that’s entirely besides the point now.

“And then what,” Yagi starts, gaze caught on Dabi, “could you possibly be, young man?”

Dabi opens his mouth, frowns, closes it again. Repeats the process two times before he slumps against the back of his chair with a sigh.

“Oh,” Yagi says with the appropriate amount of understanding. His brows knit together. “That is what that binding spell on your body is, then. Of course you’re no vampire, or any other supernatural creature you’d be able to find in a big city. You’re alive, as much as Keigo and I are.”

“No shit,” Dabi says.

“Yeah,” Keigo says, foot nudging Dabi’s under the table. “We got that far in our own research, too, but we kinda hit a dead end there. My section of summoning and rune-bindings abruptly cut off after mentioning some of the possible creatures, almost as if someone deliberately took out the missing part without actually getting rid of any pages or vandalizing the book.”

Yagi hums, waving a hand and pulling several books to the table without looking at them. “I see. Do you mind if I ask you a couple of questions?” When Dabi wiggles his fingers as if to say “go ahead”, Yagi grabs an empty note, a pen, and starts with, “Can you eat and sleep?”

Keigo pretends not to notice the look Dabi sends his way before he answers with a low, “Yeah, sure can.”

“And you’re able to use magic?”

“Yup.”

“Is it your own, or something that came with whatever binding we have on our hands?”

Dabi glaces at Keigo, something heavy and dark in his gaze when he says, “It’s entirely my own.”

“I see, that’s interesting.” Yagi’s pen flies over his paper. The pinky of his other hand lifts, and a moment later three glasses filled with water float over to them. Some of the books on the table open by themselves, pages turning fast enough that the words written on them become nothing but a blur. “Ah, my apologies. Here, have something to drink. Would you like something to eat?”

“Nah,” Dabi says.

“I’m good,” Keigo says. When both of them look his way, he holds up his hands. “Seriously. I’m not always hungry.”

A snort as Dabi leans more against the chair with his head tipped back, eyes flicking to different parts of the spacious main room. “Y’know, it’s a lot bigger in here than I thought it’d be. Kinda imagined you to be crammed into a janitor’s closet.”

Yagi blinks slowly, a twist to his mouth. “I know, it’s on purpose.”

“The best secrets are hidden in plain sight, huh?”

“Precisely. Another question,” Yagi continues, “are there any restrictions to your actions at all?”

“Yeah, I…” Dabi trails off, voice turning into nothing.

At his frustrated huff, Keigo jumps in. “He can’t talk—I mean, he can, but not about anything related to what happened to him, who he is, who he knows, anything of that sort seems to be completely off limits. Anything… personal, I suppose, robs Dabi of his voice.”

Yagi’s head jerks up, eyes sharp. “What happens if you try to formulate something differently? Say… if you make something as indirect or unimportant sounding as it can be?”

“No luck with that, either,” Keigo says.

“Good lord,” Yagi breathes. He puts down his pen, glances over his notes and then pushes them to the side as well. A book shoves itself in front of him and he skims one, two, three pages before pushing out a heavy breath. “All of this is pointing into a direction I wish it wasn’t.” Yagi turns more pages, eyes flying over the text written down before he just—freezes. A couple seconds pass, tense and loaded. Keigo hooks his foot between Dabi’s when he feels the other man go stiff. Then Yagi breathes a quiet, “Oh, no.”

There’s so much fear, open disgust and something vaguely horrified in those two words alone that Keigo can feel his body, his magic, respond to it. Sweat starts to gather at his hairline, his feathers twitch uneasily. A look at Dabi reveals that he isn’t fairing any better; his body is still, but his eyes are intense as he stares at Yagi.

“What?” Keigo asks. “What did you… did you find anything?”

“I… yes,” Yagi says. When he glances up, his eyes are glowing, almost feverish. “How much do you—both of you—know about rune-binding?”

Keigo shares a quick glance with Dabi, who just shakes his head. “Not… as much as I probably should, all things considered.”

Yagi hums, finger tapping on his table. “Okay, okay. This… art of rune-binding we have on our hands was originally not meant to be something to be used again after its one and only intended use. It was brought into our realm when warlocks and other magical powers joined hands to banish Shigaraki Zen from our realm.”

The name makes something cold and slimy travel through Keigo’s body; it’s a name that has been whispered in the darkness of the streets, careful and quiet as if to avoid the man hearing it and to respond to it, and then hunt the speaker down like their realm’s own version of the boogeyman. Shigaraki Zen, the only man in history able to oppose Yagi power-wise. Shigaraki Zen, the man who wanted to destroy Japan as they know it and bring it under his hold. Shigaraki Zen, the man who almost succeeded and took a piece of Yagi with him when he left their realm.

“From all realms, infinitely, as there was never meant to be a return for him—still isn’t. And there hasn’t been, luckily.” Yagi clears his throat. “The rune-binding-—this one specifically—ensures body and mind can’t fuse together ever again; the mind cannot fuse with any body ever again, and the body wastes away eventually as time passes.”

“What?” Dabi asks, voice small and almost afraid. Something in Keigo’s chest pulls at the sound of it.

“Yagi,” he starts, not knowing what he’s supposed to say.

“The binding used for you is merely a weakly bastardized version of what was originally meant to be—what originally was.”

Dabi chuckles without humor. “And how can you be so sure of that?”

“Because I am the one who helped bring it into this world,” Yagi says. Keigo’s jaw drops and Yagi lifts his thin shoulders in a helpless little shrug. “And I haven’t stopped regretting not getting rid of the traces when they were still fresh. I studied them day and night, and as such I know what they look like. You,” he tells Dabi, “don’t carry a single trace of what I had a hand in. As such, this binding isn’t irreversible at all.”

At once, Dabi sacks against his chair with a sigh. When Keigo looks at him, his eyes are closed but the relief on his face is impossible to miss. He nudges Dabi’s leg. Dabi nudges him back without pause.

“But,” Yagi says as he pushes back his hair, “it is still restricted, which would probably explain why that section of your book is missing. Luckily, I have a couple that I can lend you; usually, bringing the spirit and the body together in close quarters will do the trick, but just to be safe, I can—”

In the second he gets up, there’s a ripple in the air. It’s as if the atmosphere around them gets pulled apart, as if space and time stop as someone rips a hole into it, big enough to let oppressive, heavy magic slip through.

Immediately, Keigo’s mood sours. Out of all the days he could’ve shown up, he chooses today? Keigo’s always been aware his luck is more than abysmal, but this might be the most unfortunate thing to happen to him by far.

He pushes to his feet, eyes wide. He works with Keigo’s ex coven, he can’t know Keigo’s working with Yagi—that’d put a bigger target on his back than stepping back from the magic world did, and Keigo refuses to do that to him.

He refuses to be the downfall for another person he foolishly came to care for.

“Yagi,” Keigo says at the same time Dabi breathes a quiet, barely audible, “no,” his face ashen.

“I know,” Yagi says. A wave of his hand has some of his papers scattering into a carefully crafted mess. The thick curtains by the window pull themselves to the side, revealing a dent in the wall big enough for two people to squeeze in. “There,” he says, “behind the curtain. Now.”

“Way ahead of you,” Keigo says. He wraps his hand around Dabi’s wrist, drags him to the curtains, breath hitching when Dabi seems to come back to himself enough to reverse their positions in the last second, making sure he’s the one to push Keigo against the wall. A shadow falls over them. It’s not enough to dim the light of Dabi’s gaze. “Oh, hello.”

“Hello yourself,” Dabi says.

A loud slam sounds from the front door, the wood creaking dangerously as the action is repeated twice. The hinges squeak and groan as Yagi seems to open it.

“Enji,” he says.

“Hm,” Enji grunts. The floorboards by the entrance creak as the man pushes inside without being invited in, the picture of politeness. “You were taking your time answering the door.”

His voice is a deep grumble. Unhappy, slightly angry, and familiar in the worst way. If it weren’t for Dabi lightly pressed against his front and his woodsy, strangely ashy scent invading Keigo’s senses, Keigo’s stomach would’ve turned.

“I did, I apologize. I got caught up in some personal research.” Yagi sounds composed, steady. “And I wasn’t expecting visitors this late, or at all.”

“I was in the area,” Enji says. He stomps closer. Keigo breathes quieter, forces himself to still completely, eyes on the red fabric right behind Dabi’s shoulder. “A warlock should always expect the unexpected.”

Ah, and isn’t that just something Keigo has heard more often than he can recount?

Keigo, despite his best attempts to turn into air, blows out a soft breath, a mockery of a scoff. Dabi’s eyes snap to him.

“What’s that reaction for? You know him?” he asks. “Todoroki Enji.”

“Yeah, I…” Keigo’s voice trails off as he searches for the right words to explain the direction his thoughts immediately get steered into.

Does he know Enji? Yeah, sure, of course he does, but the truth behind the answer isn’t quite this simple.

Once upon a time Keigo used to look up to Todoroki Enji. Back when times were easier, when he was a lot more clueless, when he hadn’t been aware of the full corruption that Enji spread over his own family, letting it drip between their bonds and tainting them like poison.

He’d been a pillar to the foundation the late Madame carefully constructed under the watchful eyes of Mera, one person more corrupt than the other, and always been paraded around as the warlock in the world of magic after Yagi stepped back. He’d also always been unfriendly and unpleasant every single time he and Keigo met, first at the coven and then at the Todoroki Estate, but Keigo, at first, blamed the stress and pressure holding the dreams and hopes of the younger generations produced.

All his misplaced admiration for the man crumbled like a house of cards the moment Keigo witnessed how Enji talked to Touya. It got replaced by animosity that never wavered or weakened, and instead grew stronger the longer Keigo and Touya knew each other, the longer Keigo was allowed to be a person around Touya.

It simmered down, turned into pure dislike the moment Touya vanished and Enji carried on as if nothing was wrong in the world. As if one of the stars making up Keigo’s horizon wasn’t taken from him without explanation.

He licks his lips, pushes out a breath that softly moves Dabi’s bangs. “Yeah, I… that’s one way to say it, I suppose.” He loosens his grip on where he’d unconsciously not only held on to Dabi’s waist, but also tightened his hold. “Do you?”

“I…” Dabi’s voice cuts off in the now familiar way when he’s restricted from saying something. “That’s one way to put it, I suppose.”

Keigo’s eyebrows come together in a frown.

He’d thought about it briefly earlier, when in conversation with Yagi, but it is curious how seemingly random the list of things Dabi can’t talk about is. Personal stuff. His relationship with Fuyumi. The Commission. His magic. Now Todoroki Enji.

Keigo tries, and fails, to paint a picture with the little clues he has. It leads him directly into a dead end, and it lets him think one thing, an unforgivable one but one he cannot ignore: could Enji be related to whatever happened to Dabi?

Because he is, undeniably, the one thing almost all of those topics have in common, somehow.

A warm finger smooths over his forehead before tapping it softly. “Keep that up,” Dabi says, “and you’ll end up with a permanent line between those bushy brows of yours.”

“Aw, you wouldn’t like me with wrinkles?”

“Who says I like you now?”

Keigo huffs out a laugh.

This is dangerous, this… thing he’s doing. Letting himself be comfortable enough to lean into the tension that’s steadily building between the two of them, enjoying the teasing, the attention. Something about it pulls Keigo in, something that’s almost achingly familiar.

“And besides,” Enji’s voice drowns through the mess in Keigo’s head, and it’s only then that he realizes he hasn’t been paying attention to what he should’ve at all, “there’s also—oh, it’s no wonder you have no time to follow clues when you can barely see through this mess of papers.” Enji grunts. There’s the click of a tongue. “What is all this nonsense? This has nothing to do with the help I requested from you.”

“I know. This isn’t for you, Enji, this is for me.” Yagi’s voice stands in stark difference to the light agitation layered in the deep tones of Enji’s. “I’m researching something for my own personal interest. Which, I assume, is still something I’m allowed to do in my free time.”

Enji scoffs. “If that is what retirement calls of you,” he comments. Papers slide over each other. “This looks like a bunch of utter nonsense. It’s news to me that the great All Might would ever stoop low enough to—” He cuts off. Something heavy clunks on the table. “Toshinori.”

“Enji.”

“Why are you in possession of a note written by Hawks?”

Keigo’s and Dabi’s eyes find and hold each other. Dabi’s fingers tighten where they’re holding Keigo’s hip, pressing him deeper against the wall as if he’s trying to fuse Keigo into the infrastructure.

Keigo swallows.

Dabi’s bright gaze jumps to his neck.

Keigo doesn’t know if it’s the heat that radiates from Dabi, his imagination and lack of physical contact with someone this attractive in a long, long while, or if the air between them is actually warming up with… something.

A shiver runs down Keigo’s back when the curtain behind Dabi flutters and Dabi, in answer, presses himself further into Keigo’s space. Their chests bump. Their breath mingles.

Yagi still sounds unaffected when he says, “I have a note written by Hawks because I asked him to write it.”

“Really, now.” It’s not a question. Yagi remains quiet. “No one is aware that you are in contact with him.”

“I don’t see how it’s anyone’s business what I do in my free time, and who I send any of my attention.”

“That scoundrel does not deserve your attention.”

“No? What does a young, talented, and free warlock like Hawks deserve, then?”

“To be taught a lesson.”

Keigo arches a brow when the air around Dabi grows thicker. He focuses his attention on him, not keen on listening to what else Enji might bring up to drag him through the dirt. It’s not like any of it will be things he hasn’t heard before.

“You good?” Keigo’s voice comes out quiet, barely audible.

Dabi’s sharp brow twitches. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Dunno,” Keigo says, gaze trailing to the low cut of Dabi’s shirt. “Your heart’s racing.”

“Yeah,” Dabi replies, the tip of a finger trailing feather light over the side of Keigo’s neck before it presses into his pulse point, “so’s yours, birdie.”

Keigo hums as he leans further into the wall at his back. “Maybe I’m nervous.”

“That oaf ain’t gonna touch you.”

“Who says it’s because of him?”

Dabi’s eyes grow darker as Keigo plays with the hem of his shirt. He breathes in, deeply, chest brushing Keigo’s, and his heart stutters.

Dangerous, dangerous. But so, so thrilling. Keigo’s never been good at resisting certain things when he should, his emotions always leading him more than his logic could ever hope to.

Tap, tap, tap.

Dabi’s finger steadily drums against Keigo’s neck. “I don’t think you know what you’re asking for,” he says. “Who you’re asking it from.”

When Keigo juts his chin up, it brings their faces even closer together; Dabi’s breath lets his mouth tingle. “And you do?”

Several things happen at once.

Dabi says, “yes,” in the same second the door of Yagi’s hut slams shut hard enough that the walls rattle. And then the curtain gets pulled back, abruptly and violently, before either of them can move away and make their position look less incriminating.

Yagi, eyes wide, stares at Dabi when both of them turn to him. He slumps against the edge of the table, half of a curse on his lips. “By all that is holy,” he says, breathes, face ashen, something like disbelief in his eyes, “I know who you are.”

“‘Sup,” Dabi says, voice hoarse. “Long time no see, All Might.”

“All Might?” Touya repeats, nose scrunched up and brows pulled together. “See, now that’s a badass name. Who the fuck—”

“Language,” Keigo chides mildly, grinning.

“Who the hell,” Touya continues, “would prefer some sleazy guy called Endeavor over All Might?”

Oh.

Oh.

Keigo, staring at the side of Dabi’s face as Yagi shoves two books at them and says something that might be important, feels like he’s going to be sick as things finally, finally click together.

Later, Keigo has no recollection of their journey back home as everything around him turns into a blur. He’s aware of walking, of grunting and acknowledging Dabi saying a word or two here and there, but he doesn’t retain anything that’s being said to him, is completely out of it until the door to his apartment closes behind them and Dabi whirls to him, flashlight eyes blazing with anger that is so, so achingly familiar that Keigo can’t believe he didn’t realize anything sooner.

It’s the very same anger Keigo has been looking for, that he’s been running into dead ends for, for years.

“Okay,” Dabi says as he kicks off his boots with the appropriate amount of irritation. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“What do you mean?” Keigo asks. “Nothing’s wrong with me.”

“You’re a terrible liar.”

“What do you mean?” Keigo asks again. “I’m an excellent liar.”

Dabi clicks his tongue. “How the fuck your stupid ex coven didn’t realize you’re shit at it is beyond me. What, do you realize now how disgusting I am?”

Keigo blinks, coming back to himself at once. His gaze runs over Dabi’s face, the scars and the healthy skin and the golden runes in between. “You’re beautiful.”

“Bad liar.”

“Maybe,” Keigo says, “but I’m not lying right now.”

When Dabi looks back at him, his eyes are narrowed, a little annoyed and confused. His shoulders drop when he sighs and waves a hand in the air. “Whatever, birdie, you’re being weird as hell. Well,” he says, “weirder than usual. Go shower, take a bird bath or something while I make food.”

Keigo stares at his back when he turns, at his narrow waist and long legs, and dips his chin in a nod despite the fact that Dabi most definitely doesn’t have eyes in the back of his head. “Aye, aye.”

As soon as he’s in his private bathroom, Keigo turns on the shower for background noise but doesn’t get in. Technically, he doesn’t really need it because he knows that Dabi’s hearing is worlds away from being as sharp as his own, but old habits are hard to break.

Rumi answers her phone on the second ring. “Keigo? What’s u—”

“I found him,” Keigo says.

“Ah, yeah, sure,” Rumi says. There’s clicking in the background as she types on what sounds like a keyboard. “So glad you’re answering questions I didn’t even ask. And yes, I’m doing fine, thank you for asking. Now what the hell are you—”

“Touya. I found Touya,” Keigo says and everything goes quiet on Rumi’s end. “It’s Dabi,” he continues, feet smacking onto the tiles as he begins pacing the length of the bathroom. “Dabi is Touya.”

Saying it out loud makes it more real, and the implications of those words, the weight this scenario carries, hit him full force. He has to.. sit down. He drops on the closed lid of his toilet, strength leaving him just like that, his emotions finally going haywire now that he’s allowing them to.

Bigger than the anger, the confusion, is one single question: what happened on the night that Touya vanished that reduced him into a being in-between their realms, able to be summoned and exist and be seen like any other being?

What the fuck, he asks himself, did Enji do?

Perhaps it’s unfair to point fingers at the man and make him fit into the role of the villain he took up years ago, but he still stands as common denominator among almost every single thing Dabi can’t say. Anything else wouldn’t make sense.

“What?” Rumi asks. “Can you say that again? Because I just thought I heard you say that Dabi is Touya.”

“That’s because I did,” Keigo says. He drags a hand over his face, suddenly terribly exhausted. “Look, I just—he is. Picture him with white hair.”

The similarities that have bothered Keigo should’ve been a dead giveaway already. Keigo doesn’t think he’ll ever stop beating himself up for not putting two and two together immediately after meeting Dabi only days prior. But now, after he tells Rumi this, he closes his eyes and imagines it himself. Instead of the inky black mess on Dabi’s head, it’s white and fluffy and thick.

His heart squeezes painfully, and something wet and salty runs down his cheeks before he wipes it away.

I found you, he thinks. I finally found you.

“Oh, fuck,” Rumi breathes.

Keigo hums in agreement. Fuck is perhaps the biggest understatement of the century, but he’ll let it slide just this once—he doesn’t think he would be able to find the right words, the right curses, for this situation right no if he tried.

“Kei, that’s…” Rumi swallows, fingers tapping in an unsteady rhythm. “What are you planning to do now?”

Keigo looks at the ceiling, at the spiderweb in the corner by the window and the spot on the wall where some of the paint is beginning to chip off. He takes a breath, heart slamming against his ribcage, and says, “I’m going to get Touya back once and for all. And I’m never letting him go again.”

┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈

Keigo doesn’t inform Dabi of the fact that he knows Dabi is Touya.

He doesn’t think he needs to, not with the way Dabi looked at him after Yagi’s proclamation—scared, almost, like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car. It doesn’t matter much right now, not until Keigo frees Dabi and they can figure out how to proceed from then on. What interests Keigo more, what pushes back the euphoria of having the person most important to him back at his side, is wondering what happened to him that let it come this far.

Dabi is clearly unable to tell Keigo himself while the runes are working and still in place, but his siblings never said anything to Keigo either.

Does this mean they’re possibly restricted from speaking up, too? If yes, it’d explain the underlying guilt in their conversations—far and few as they are—and why all of them, even Fuyumi, avoid Enji. Once again, everything points in one direction: Enji being responsible.

Keigo doesn’t know what he’ll do once he finds out the truth. He doesn’t know if he wants to do something except from hiding Touya away from his father, ensuring they’ll never be in contact again. The one thing he can do is place Touya under Keigo’s formal protection through a magical vow. It’s something Keigo hadn’t been able to do when they’d been younger, the thing that might have stopped whatever Enji did to his son to reduce him to a being between life and death.

This time Keigo won’t let Touya run through his fingers again.

This time Keigo will continue to hold on to Touya in ways no one’s ever bothered to hold on to him before.

“What are we gonna do now?” Dabi—Touya—Dabi asks him.

They’re sitting at the dinning table, Dabi’s boots planted on the floor, and Keigo’s notes laid out on the wood between them. When Keigo glances up, Dabi’s gaze is trained on the ceiling, eyes half lidded and bright and so clear that they steal the breath out of Keigo’s lungs.

It’s a little weird to look at him now that he knows Dabi is Touya—when Keigo overlays the version of Touya he last knew with Dabi, who he is seems completely obvious. It makes Keigo feel stupid. How the fuck didn’t he notice?

“Well,” Keigo says, tapping the page he was just skimming, “this says to reunite you with your body. To allow yourself back in, we have to be in the presence of it.”

“So we’ll… go to my body?”

“That’s the plan.” Keigo taps on the page again, careful not to poke holes into it with his talons. He hasn’t been meticulous with keeping them filed down—the late Madame would have an aneurysm if she saw him like this. The thought alone makes him want to keep them like this, natural and sharp. “You don’t happen to know where your body is, do you?”

“I do, actually.” Dabi tries to talk but his voice cuts off twice. He snaps his mouth shut, frustration evident on his face. “Fuck this fucking shit.”

And fuck Todoroki Enji for doing this to his eldest son. To his first child. To the son that made him a parent.

Keigo glances back down at the page, finger still tapping. He skims it twice, words blurring together—all except for two. “Question,” he says, tracing the elegant letters of locator spells. “If I were to do a locator spell, would it lead me to you as you are now, or to your body?”

Dabi considers this for one, two seconds.

Locator spells, as far as Keigo’s aware, are supposed to lead you to someone’s body—regardless of what state it’s in. There are some that will gently nudge you into the direction of a person’s soul, too, but since Dabi is here and his body should be alive…

“Huh,” Dabi says then. “I think… it’d lead you to wherever my body is.”

And that’s exactly what Keigo wanted to hear.

He shoots up from his chair, the legs loudly scraping over the floor and nearly toppling over. A feather darts to the side, retrieving one of his bags and opening it before depositing a couple books and loose papers inside of it.

“Good.” Keigo grabs a couple drinks, just in case, and some leftovers from last evening. “Let’s go, then.”

“Wait, what?” Dabi sits up straighter. “Where are you—you didn’t even do a—”

“I know where you are,” Keigo says without looking up, shoving more things they could possibly need into his bag and then zipping it shut. “Have known for ages, really. If you really think I never tried to find you by locating you, you don’t know me as well as I hoped you did.”

Dabi stares at him, eyes wide. Then something in his face changes, eyes glowing brighter, before he swallows with a nod. “Okay,” he says, voice faint. “Okay, okay, yeah. Let’s—lead the way, birdie.”

┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈

The Todoroki Estate, a traditionally built Japanese building, is located on top of a mountain and rages from the ground like a fortress and not the home it’s supposed to be.

For the public, for those who don’t ever get a glimpse behind the carefully laid out front that Todoroki Enji protects like others shield their hearts from fatal hits, it’s half a mansion, expensive from every angle you look at it, with a nice little garden that wraps around the main building and a stone fence that keeps out nosy people. And keeps everything else in.

Usually, when Keigo went to visit years ago, the front door had always been opened by a servant ten times his age, politer than any adult Keigo had crossed paths with.

Now there’s no servant opening the door, and yet it takes Keigo a moment to place the face he’s looking into.

Mismatched eyes stare at him from beneath a white and red fringe, out of a face that seems familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. His face is expressionless, cool and composed. A scar mars the left side of his face, the skin red and painful looking.

It shouldn’t take Keigo this long to recognize the boy—his features are as soft as Touya’s and almost a carbon copy of their mother, and his hair is perfectly split down in the middle in a way Keigo only knows from one single person. And yet it does; he’s never much interacted with the youngest of the Todoroki siblings. He’d been too young, too sheltered from the world and even his family.

Despite this, he still knows Keigo. His head tips to the side with a little. “Keigo-san?”

“Ah, Shouto, no need to call me that,” Keigo says, hand coming up to rub the back of his neck. “Keigo’s just fine.”

“Okay. Keigo, then. Hello, Keigo, do you want to come in and—” His eyes choose this moment to slip over Keigo’s shoulder, past him and to the person standing right behind him. He blinks. “Oh. Is that… but I thought you’d be—Touya-nii?”

Well, Keigo has a moment to think as Dabi goes stiff and a flare of heat comes from him. He certainly figured that out faster than the rest of them.

Not surprising; Shouto did always admire Touya and follow him whenever he managed to slip out of Enji’s tight grasp.

Dabi sighs quietly. “Hey there, Shou-chan.”

“May we come in?” Keigo smiles a little, heart slamming against his ribcage. His wings twitch where they’re hidden, tucked tightly against his back. “It’s… it’s urgent.”

Shouto steps to the side. As soon as the door closes behind them, he turns his mismatched eyes on his brother again. “How did you—What did he do?” he asks. His fists ball at his side, his eyes are burning.

“Long story,” Dabi says. “I’ll explain it later, yeah? Shit, Shou.” He reaches out, puts his hand on Shouto’s head and thoroughly ruffles his hair. “The fuck are they feeding you? When the fuck did you grow so fucking tall?”

“When you were gone,” Shouto says. He doesn’t resist Dabi’s brotherly gesture, but he does immediately fix his hair once Dabi’s hand drops again. “You should see Natsu-nii; he’s grown taller than grandfather.”

“Way ahead of ya,” Dabi says. “Tall ain’t the only thing he is, huh? Guy looks like a fucking double door fridge.”

Shouto frowns. “He knows? Am I—am I the last one to…?”

“Oh, no, not at all.” Keigo smiles at the boy—the teenager, what the hell? “We accidentally stumbled into him when—doesn’t matter, but no he doesn’t. Neither does Fuyumi. I… can explain as we walk to… do you happen to know where…” Keigo’s voice gives out as his heart climbs into his throat.

Luckily, Shouto seems to understand without him having to say it.

“Yes,” Shouto says and beckons them to follow as he begins walking deeper into the house, through the hallways that are completely devoid of life—no pictures, no decoration, nothing. “Touya-nii is just down here.”

“Awesome,” Dabi says.

The inside of the Todoroki Estate has always seemed like something of a maze to Touya; too many hallways, too many twists and corners, too little street signs to point you into the right direction. He kind of looses his orientation as they follow Shouto and he begins to explain from the beginning, leaving out some things here and there as needed.

They don’t walk into a single person in the five or so minutes it takes to reach a room that practically screams magic at them once they stop in front of the closed door. By the time Shouto puts a hand on the wood, a blue glow surrounding the wood where he touches it, Keigo has run out of words to say and his throat is dry.

Shouto pauses before he opens the door, throwing a look over his shoulder. “You thought Touya-nii was a demon?” he asks. “But he doesn’t look like one.”

“See,” Dabi says, turning to Keigo.

Keigo meets Dabi’s gaze with a hum, then says, quietly, “No, of course he doesn’t.”

“I’m sorry,” Shouto says then. More magic pulses against the wood, and then the magic inside of the room and surrounding it backs off slowly but steadily. “It’s a lot,” he continues and then pushes open the door and steps to the side to let Keigo and Dabi enter first.

One second before Keigo glances down, he has a moment to think, hey, this room seems familiar. And it does; it’s Touya’s old bedroom, frozen in time. There are old, outdated movie posters on the wall, accompanied by band posters and a singular picture of Keigo and Touya together, taken only a week before Touya disappeared.

In it, their arms are slung over each other’s shoulders and they’re both grinning wide, joy evident on their faces. They’re not looking at the camera or whoever took the picture, instead turned to each other, eyes bright and warm and heavy with something that made Keigo’s chest feel warm then, and makes it feel hot now.

Keigo’s legs give out as soon as his eyes fall on Touya. His knees collide with the floor, and it’s probably supposed to hurt—it probably does hurt, but Keigo takes no note of it.

He’s there, laying on his bed, arms loosely folded over his chest and eyes closed, face relaxed as if he’s just asleep. His skin is paler than it should be, the scars on his face and arms seem to have lost their color as well. Fluffy, white hair thrones on top of his head, covering his forehead. Quiet breaths have his shoulders moving up and down, and his long, dark lashes throw long shadows over his high cheekbones.

He looks… older than he did the last time Keigo saw him. And peaceful, as if he’s truly just asleep and not been separated from himself for years.

Keigo’s heart hurts. His eyes feel wet.

Dabi crouches down next to him. His hand finds the back of Keigo’s neck, warm and grounding. “Hey,” he mumbles. “Birdie. Keigo. You’re fine.”

“I—” Keigo gasps, unable to breathe. His lungs burn as he tries to get air into them, shoulders shuddering, heart racing. “I can’t—I can’t breathe.”

“Yes, you can. Hey. Hey.” Warm fingers gently take hold of Keigo’s face and turn his head until all he looks at Dabi, until his world narrows down and everything but him falls away. “Here,” he says and grabs Keigo’s hand, flips it around and presses it to Dabi’s chest. “Do it with me, yeah? Slowly. In, and out.” His chest expands against Keigo’s hand, and Keigo does his best to copy Dabi. Instructions, he’s good at following them. “Good birdie. Now again, and then again.”

Slowly, agonizingly so, Keigo feels himself coming back to his body. The glamour around his wings shatters the moment Keigo briefly rests his forehead on Dabi’s shoulder.

“Fucking hell,” he rasps.

His feathers flutter, wings ruffling as the tension drains out of Keigo’s body as quickly as it appeared. He takes a deep breath, inhales Dabi’s smoky scent, closes his eyes for a second.

Dabi’s fingers tug at his hair softly. “Back with me with now?”

“Yeah, sorry, I…” Keigo shakes his head as he scoots back a little. “I just can’t believe that I finally found you.”

“Found me?” Dabi repeats with a huff. “Who says I was ever lost? No, shut the fuck up.” He puts a finger over Keigo’s mouth, then drags it over his bottom lip. “I wasn’t lost, just… displaced. Besides, I—” he grimaces when his voice cuts off, then settles on a, “I’ll tell you later.”

“Later,” Keigo agrees with a small nod. Another deep breath and then Keigo stands up, waits until Dabi does the same until he approaches Touya’s body, knees wobbling dangerously.

A ripple in the air, oppressive and aggressive, almost knocks Keigo back onto the ground. It would’ve, if not for Dabi’s steadying hand at his waist. Alarm goes through Keigo, immobilizes him. All of his feathers harden at once, somehow completely avoiding cutting Dabi, as his own magic gathers in response.

Shouto sucks in a breath. “That’s father, he’s… I will distract him,” he says, eyes narrowing. “Keigo-san, save Touya-nii and leave. Do not come back.”

“But I can’t just let you—”

“You’re not letting me, I’m volunteering to do this. I have to.” Shouto’s eyes slide to his brother. “For Touya-nii. For mother. For all of us.”

Keigo swallows, throat gone dry. “Okay,” he says, “okay, okay. We’ll—”

“Don’t tell me where you’ll be. This place has ears and eyes where you least expect it.” Once again, Shouto looks to his brother. First his actual form, then at Dabi. “I… I suppose I’ll be seeing you soon?”

“Sure, Shou-chan,” Dabi says quietly, with so much affection it nearly brings Keigo to tears. “Hey,” he calls when Shouto turns. “Thank you.”

Shouto nods, the corner of his mouth ticking up into the smallest smile known to mankind. And then he’s gone, the door closing quietly behind him.

Keigo drops his bag, pulls out what he brought. Two books, a couple pages, some water, the necklace that Keigo bought Touya years ago, the one he left with Keigo right before he vanished. Dabi hums when he sees it, but stays quiet otherwise when Keigo quickly opens the books on the pages he marked. And then he begins.

In the end, the entire process takes a lot less time than Keigo anticipated. A lot less magic, a lot less concentration, a lot less everything.

If this was about anything else, he’d almost dare to call it anticlimactic.

A simple spell, just the right amount of his magic, a touch of Dabi’s, a brush against Dabi’s skin, then Touya’s, and it’s done.

Pressure fills the room, enough that Keigo almost believes he’s no longer on land, but instead thousand of meters under water. It builds, almost becomes too much to handle for Keigo as a sharp ache enters his head. Something runs down over his mouth, drips onto the floor, yet Keigo pays it no mind. He keeps pouring magic into Touya, into Dabi, and thinks, Please. Please. Please.

And then the pressure vanishes, pops like a balloon.

A faint glow comes from his side and when Keigo turns, hand dragging over his face to catch the blood from his nose, Dabi’s entire form is shimmering. As he watches, tiny parts of him become first colorless, then almost translucent before they float over to Touya, become one with him.

Dabi looks at his own hands, eyes wide and scared.

“It’s okay,” Keigo tells him, smiling when Dabi’s eyes find his own. “I’ll be there when you wake up. I promise.”

“Kei,” Dabi says. His voice becomes weaker with every word he forces out of his throat. “I… I never told you, but I—”

“I know. Me too.” Keigo’s wings puff up. “Tell me later, alright? This isn’t goodbye.”

Keigo won’t let it be goodbye. Not after everything—not again.

“Okay,” Dabi says, blinking fast. “Okay. Fine. I’m holding you to that, birdie.”

“I hope you do,” Keigo says.

A moment later, Dabi completely vanishes. He turns into a faintly sparkling dust that turns in the air, surrounds Keigo and brushes against his cheek in something that is almost a caress. Then he finally, finally reunites with his body and Keigo is left alone for now.

A wave of his hand is all it needs for his stuff to pack itself as Keigo steps closer to the bed and crouches down next to it. The blanket throws itself back and Keigo carefully slides his arms under Touya’s cool body before he stands up with him in his arm.

It only wakes a wiggle of his finger for a portal to open two meters away and Keigo wastes no time in stepping through it to let them get swallowed up by darkness just two seconds before the door to Touya’s old room splinters as it’s kicked open.

┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈

Touya’s vitals are good; as good as they can be, Yagi says.

And yet he doesn’t wake up.

Hour streak by, slowly, agonizingly. They turn first into days and then weeks.

Keigo spends every single second in Touya’s presence. He’s loathe to leave his side for tasks as simple as using the bathroom or showering, though he knows he has to. Rumi steps in where she can, kicks his ass when he, in her words, “begins to smell like an ox.”

He may or may not have whacked her with a wing once or twice.

Through nights and days, good weather and bad, Keigo doesn’t dare lose hope even for a split second—there’s no need to; he can hear Touya’s heartbeat, steady and familiar, music to his ears. Most importantly, he can sense magic gathering under Touya’s skin, as if in preparation for something big.

It takes time, but it’s okay; Keigo is patient when it comes to Touya.

He’s waited years for this, he’s more than okay with waiting just a little more. It’s not like time is running out for them—not anymore. They have all of eternity if they only allow it to have them in return.

┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈

And then, one Monday morning… Touya wakes up.

┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈

“Hey, sleeping beauty,” Keigo says.

“Fuck off, I’m going back to sleep.” Touya’s voice is rough from disuse, just a tick lower than it had been when he’d been Dabi. It sends a shiver down Keigo’s back. The sharp look Touya sends him out of sleepy, yet undeniably happy, blue eyes has his wings puffing up. “Still a shitty liar.”

The heart monitor Touya’s connected to skips a beat, and Touya turns to send it a glare before he slips his finger out of the clip it’s been caught in. Not that that really does much; Keigo can still hear his slightly faster than normal pulse when their eyes meet.

“Maybe I am,” Keigo says, eyes hungrily running over Touya’s face, “but I’m still not lying, hot stuff.”

Touya’s ears, peeking out through his messy hair, turn faintly red. Keigo’s so, so charmed. “Shut the fuck up,” Touya says, yet there’s a twitch at the corner of his mouth. “Where the fuck are we?”

“At Yagi’s,” Keigo says. At the look Touya sends him, full of disbelief and maybe just a little weirded out and impressed, Keigo lifts a shoulder. “His hut’s full of secrets. He did tell you that it looks small on purpose.”

“What a weirdo,” Touya mutters. His fingers walk over the thin blanket covering his legs, find Keigo’s, shove their way between them before Touya flips Keigo’s hand over and inspects it as if he’s never seen it before. Keigo’s happy to let him. “My throat feels like fucking hell.” He blinks when a bottle of water appears in front of him two seconds later. “Thanks, birdie. How long was I out?”

“Long enough,” Keigo says. “My hair was about to turn grey. Y’know how awful I’d look with grey hair.”

Touya’s eyes flash. “Mhm,” he makes, “yeah, tell me all about how shit it’d be to have grey hair.”

“Respectfully, your hair’s white and you’re hot.” Keigo huffs when Touya chokes on the little sip he just took. He waits for him to recover, listens to the sound of his pulse, gently strokes the back of his hand with his thumb. “Close to two months after we did that spell. You almost had me scared there for a second. Oh, and,” he says, “your siblings reached out; whatever spell they were under seems to have broken when you reunited with yourself.”

Might have been the weirdest conversation Keigo’s ever had in his entire life, Fuyumi and Natsuo trying to fuse with the floor with how hard they bowed as they apologized profusely, but Keigo isn’t going into detail. Not when Touya grimaces as if he bit into something sour. Keigo can’t wait to tell him that Rei and Shouto want to see him, as soon as Touya signals that he’d like to see them too, that is.

“Speaking of,” he says then, allowing himself to grin, “Dabi, hot stuff? Really?”

“Shut the fuck up, it was kinda cool.”

“Cremation.”

“Drop it or I’ll show you why I chose that name.”

Keigo does drop it, but not without mouthing a very obvious, “HOT!”

Touya drinks some more before he puts his bottle away and sighs, slumping into his pillows. His hair fluffs up a little from the movement, and he blows some of it out of his face before he turns back to Keigo. “Don’t let me sleep that long ever again.”

“I won’t,” Keigo says. He squeezes Touya’s fingers, mumbles a soft, “Hey.”

“Hey, yourself,” Touya replies.

After waiting two more seconds, Keigo leans a little closer. He braces his free hand on the mattress of the bed Touya’s on, closes some of the distance between them. He makes sure to meet Touya’s bright gaze head-on when he says, “I’m in love with you, Todoroki Touya. You drive me absolutely crazy.”

Touya’s eyes, so bright and so expressive, turn glassy—he’s always been something of a crybaby, more emotional than the rest of his siblings though he does his best to hide it. His hand finds Keigo’s shirt, and he snaps, “Shut the fuck up,” before he yanks Keigo closer.

Despite how surprisingly strong Touya’s grip is, how angrily he’d told Keigo to shut it, their first kiss is nothing like it.

Touya’s mouth is warm, hot, as it presses against Keigo’s. Tender, soft, almost careful as Touya turns his head, allows their lips to slot together properly, and Keigo thinks, holy shit. Then Touya’s mouth moves against his own, his teeth find Keigo’s bottom lip, and he stops thinking anything at all.

Keigo, as if pulled in by Touya’s very own gravity, gets off his chair, half climbs into bed with Touya, one hand by his covered waist and the other one by his neck. He reaches up, holds the side of Touya’s face, dares to run a finger along his sharp jawline as Touya buries a hand in his hair, long fingers wrapping around blond strands and using his grip to hold Keigo in place while he kisses Keigo and rewrites his entire being, just like that.

He presses closer, breathes Keigo in, licks and bites into his mouth, brings Keigo to a place as close to heaven as he’ll probably ever get. Keigo hums against his mouth, chasing the smoky, cool taste of Touya’s tongue.

Teeth dig into Keigo’s lip, hard enough to sting, when Keigo eventually pulls back. Keigo hisses through a laugh, mouth tingling deliciously. “Y’know,” he says, voice rough, “I think you might be some sort of demon after all.”

“If that’s what it takes to be with you. Hey,” Touya tugs on Keigo’s hair until Keigo looks up, drags his gaze from his red mouth to his blue eyes, “I love you. Thank you for waiting for me.”

Keigo surges forward to press another kiss to Touya’s mouth before he says, “It was nothing,” when it was everything. “I would do it all over again.”

“You might be a shitty liar,” Touya says as he begins pulling Keigo in again, “but that sounds like the truth.”

And it is.