#bigger project

Carefully approaching the last burrow he knew for sure was used by the League of Villains, Hawks entered through a window, silencing his fierce wings, and began searching around. In fear of not being discovered by any acolytes, he didn’t send any feathers ahead, so he had to stretch his senses to the maximum. It was too quiet. An unusual amount of adrenaline pumped through his veins. After a couple of minutes of tip-toeing on the curiously empty corridors of that abandoned warehouse, he spotted a dim light coming through a half-closed door. As he inched closer, his stomach got tied into a knot. He was getting annoyed at his own reactions, not understanding what was going on, but forced himself to open that door.

Not only he got surprised finding Dabi in what seemed to be a bathroom, but also the whole scene was confusing. Topless, holding a dye tube in his hand and freed from his staples and piercings, Dabi stared back at Hawks.

“Do you have a deathwish, bird?!”

Torn from his trance, Hawks blushed and frowned, looking away. There was something very peculiar about the effect Dabi had on him. Since he didn’t actually reply anything, the silence turned awkward. He looked back at the taller man and caught a detail that messed with his mind for a second.

“Your hair is naturally white, Dabi?”

Panic flooded the villain’s turquoise eyes. He frowned and resumed his previous activity: dyeing black the roots of his hair. Even if he tried to play it cool, there was a small piece in his still beating heart that wanted to tell Keigo the truth. But he couldn’t jeopardize the League’s plan. Leaning against the door frame to seek for some comfort, Hawks didn’t look like he was going to leave anytime soon and the tension grew thicker between the two.

“I didn’t call for you. Why are you here, bird?”

“Can’t you call me Hawks? I’m just winged, I’m not a bird. And truth be told, I came because I was thinking about you.” He said before entering the bathroom. “You know, I don’t get why, but you remind me of someone…”

The tone in his voice changed. Dabi sensed it, along with the slight man scent that spread in the air when Hawks reduced the space between them. That smell was so damn familiar to him. He tried to ignore everything, to keep up the act of being Dabi, but right there, in that moment, alone with his best friend, Touya resurfaced. He focused on Dabi’s face in the mirror, continuously applying the black dye, but the image blurred away, slowly replaced by childhood memories.

His father’s tormenting training. The numerous hits and punishments. The burns. The threats. The disappointment. The lack of protection from his mother. The fear. The way his father denied any interaction with his siblings and deprived him of their unconditional love. The stupid and painful power he was born with, unable to fully control it, suffering with it. The way he got forced into that stupid high-school.

The dull expression imprinted on his scarred face slowly shifted into sorrow. Observant as always, Hawks noticed the change and tried to untie the mystery behind it.

“Oi, what happened?”

Soothing words were accompanied by a light touch on Dabi’s forearm. Keigo didn’t think it through and panicked when he felt the scarred hot skin. Even so, he couldn’t make himself withdraw.

That awful high-school with those awful teachers and trainers. The high expectations he gladly disappointed. The unusual winged boy he fell for. The friendship they tied. The emptyness in his stomach whenever they spent time together. The calm Keigo uncounsciously laid upon Touya’s broken heart. The way his blue flames seemed to tame whenever he smiled because of Keigo.

Red hot liquid slowly flowed down from where normally would’ve been tear ducts. Dabi closed his eyes, trying to take in as much as possible from Keigo’s touch.

“Oh, man, you’re bleeding!”

Hawks quickly grabbed a towel and pressed it on Dabi’s cheeks, to wipe the blood off. After such a long time, his friend jumped to help him again, even unknowingly.

Beyond closed eyeslids formed the image of young Keigo defending Touya everytime teachers pushed him too far. Everytime his father overstepped the line, talking nonsense and rude things about his son, even if deep down, Keigo admired that man, as a hero. He always thought highly of Keigo’s loyalty for doing those things. Back in the room they shared, Keigo never made fun of him when he cried, he always cheered him up, hugged him, helped him clean the wounds, the burns. They almost healed just by the skilled manner his blond friend bandaged him, smiling, assuring him everything will be fine as long as he was there.

Turning his face to look at Hawks, Dabi let his hands, that still rested above his head, squishing the black substance, slowly fall and hit Hawks’ arm, pushing it down. His torso leaning over the sink, red drops stained the inside of it, as they kept falling from Dabi’s eyes. The worry and confusion on Keigo’s face emphasized as he didn’t understand how could this cold, reckless villain be so fragile and broken. Shifting the towel to his other hand, Keigo removed the glove on his right hand and reached it to touch Dabi’s back. Somehow, he was drawn to the man. He didn’t feel this way in years, and it felt familiar. Everything about this felt oddly familiar.

The man shivered under Hawks’ touch and backed away. There was a tint of desperation in his eyes and he felt weak, unable to control his feelings.

“After everything we went through… together and separately… we got to this point where I am him, while you’re still you, Keigo.”

Hearing his first name, Keigo snapped. There were so few people that knew his name. How did this guy know it? It was getting dangerous. He thought that they found out everything. He felt guilty and afraid and began searching for a way out to go warn the other heroes. Unfortunately, his body froze on the spot. The way Dabi looked and talked, completely different than days ago, captured Keigo’s mind. He tried to regain calm as his mind proceeded in analyzing. Dabi was in fact white-headed. His eyes were extraordinary familiar, not only the colour, but the intensity of the look. The shape and placement of the burn scars on his body, now shown without the stiches and staples. They almost looked like they could come from a serious self-burn. That’s right, Dabi had a similar quirk as…

“Tou…”

“Hey, Keigo. Nice to see you again…” Touya whispered as he let himself slide on the wall, all the way down to the floor, covering his head with his arms.

There was no reaction from Hawks whatsoever. No gasp, no scream, no groan, no words. He turned numb. He remained in the door frame for what seemed like an eternity for both of them, swiping through memories in his mind, reliving his childhood and teenage years with his friend, Touya. If the tension in the air wasn’t an abstract thing, it would’ve solidly filled the room. Fully aware of the consequences, yet fully aware of his feelings too, Keigo threw himself on the floor, embracing Dabi’s whole head and arms.

“You idiot, stupid, son of a bitch! How could you do this to me?! Do you not know how much I’ve loved you!”

The grip of Hawks’ arms was painful and Touya couldn’t breathe, but he was ready to die by his friend’s hand, since he was the one assigned by the League to kill Hawks, the double agent, in the fight to come. He didn’t hug back. He felt not worthy of it.

“It’s too late, Hawks…”

Hot breath hit the material covering Hawks’ chest. The words hurt the young man so much, but he didn’t let go.

“They told me you died! I felt so hollow… I promised to save you at any cost. And I failed you…”

The duality of the feelings Dabi was experiencing triggered all the hormones in his body. The proximity of the other man’s body and the dangerous situation the world was about to get in. Adrenaline. The pain in his own heart. The connections he had with the villains. Cortisol. Hawks’ familiar perfume. The fact he was a criminal. Dopamine. The need to touch him back. Now. Testosterone. There wasn’t enough blood to hold all those hormones.

Breaking the embrace, Touya pushed himself against Keigo, roughly kissing his mouth. At first Keigo was shocked, but he gave in quickly and put his hands around Touya’s head to hold it firmly, their faces tilting left and right as the kissing intensified. Long beautiful minutes passed while the two long lost souls found each other again. Hands touching hands. Hands touching face, hair, neck, body. Their hands were everywhere at the same time but it still wasn’t enough.

„When we were in training I convinced myself that I was important to you in some way , why else would you care for me the way you did?...”

„Touya, for fuck’s sake, I love you!”

The glistening in Keigo’s golden eyes bridged all the way to Dabi’s heart, conquering it for the second time in this life. They made silent love to one another, right there, on the cold floor tiles in that godforsaken warehouse bathroom, black paint leaking from Touya’s hair onto Keigo’s arms and chest where it mixed with the bloody tears that came down earlier. Intoxicated and consumed, they couldn’t part at the end, their arms and legs intertwined, the dirty scent of bodily love still lingering in the room.

Keigo felt out of this world. He was a teenager again. The world was good. The League didn’t exist and Touya was in his arms. Woefully, he was soon pulled back from his reverie, when a loud explosion noise heard from the back entrance of the warehouse. The heroes were here. Why? It was still too soon! He didn’t give... the signal. That’s right. He didn’t give any update, so they had to start without him. Seconds after, unhumanly cries and shrieks responded to heroes fighting shouts, as mutants left their hidden holes and marched under their leader’s commands. Understanding what just began happening, Dabi grabbed his clothes and rushed to close the bathroom door.

“You need to get out of here, Keigo! Get the hell out!”

“What?! No way I’m leaving you. Are you stupid?” Hawks responded angrily, pulling himself from the floor and trying to put his clothes back on.

A dark aura surrounded Dabi and he cruelly grabbed the collar of Hawks’ jacket, pulling him closer to his face. Narrow turqoise eyes stared angrily in golden ones as the grip tightened.

“I said GET THE HELL OUT, BIRD!”

Bewildered by this behaviour that he could not associate with Touya at all, Hawks freed himself and complied to the demand. He flew out of the bathroom window, stopping midair to look back. Dabi was still in the bathroom, making sure Hawks got away. Only when the feathered hero joined the others, he realized he was stained with blood and paint and that his clothes were torn. The others didn’t notice, especially since it was kind of normal for him to look like this after a fight.

There were battles on all fronts, heroes barely handling the number of mutants that kept rushing out of the warehouse. How did he not sense all of those? Was his composure that much affected by his feelings? As he fought a couple of them by his own, he spotted the leader of League and decided to eliminate the root of all this. On his way there, he got jumped and thrown on the ground. His senses were still mellow after all the earlier orgasming.

“I told you to get away!” Dabi yelled at him, pinning him down in dust.

“What? Are you crazy?! How could I do that?! I’m a hero!” he answered, pushing Dabi off of him.

“Well I am not!”

The blows coming from Touya, that he didn’t manage to avoid, hurt like hell. They were really fighting, and even if he couldn’t understand why, he couldn’t stop either. He hit Dabi back so many times, he cut his skin open with his feathers and bled on the inside because of it, just as much as Dabi bled on the outside.

“Why are you making me do this?!”

Dabi didn’t feel like talking. The emptyness installed in his heart when he remembered he had to kill Hawks and it put a padlock on his mouth. This was war. There was no time for words of love. He prayed in his mind that Hawks killed him first. But the boy didn’t seem to stop talking!

“Touya, what the hell, man?!”

Hit.

“You were there! I was there!”

Blow.

“It was so good!”

Cut.

“This is not how it has to be! Stop this nonsense already!”

The hero spoke between the hits he gave and the ones he avoided.

“I really love you! Fight with me, not against me!”

All that painful confession drove Dabi crazy. He couldn’t contain his flames anymore, so he let loose all of the accumulated tension. All of it directed to the man he loved.

A blue hot halo captured Hawks and threw him on the ground. The large amount of dust and the little spins his body made after the fall, due to impact, extinguished the fire, but his skin and feathers were still fuming. Suddenly aknowledging his act, Touya panicked and ran over to check on Hawks. He didn’t mean to kill him, he just wanted him to shut the hell up. Once above the inert body, Touya’s heart broke. Keigo’s once beautiful face and wings were utterly destroyed. A deep scar on the left of his face, burnt lips, only a remnant of featherlesss wing bones between his shoulder blades. Touya’s lover didn’t answer any of his calls, so he felt once again filled with sorrow, desperation and anger, spilling out of his body as bloody tears. He put his hands on the damaged back, trying to soothe the pain, he wiped the blood from his mouth, but Keigo didn’t react.

Not paying any damn attention on the world around him, Dabi didn’t see the blow coming. He was hit so hard by Hawks’s pupil, that the staples on his mouth broke.

“Get away from him, you murderer!” The student yelled, while grabbing Hawks in his arms. Dabi laid on the ground, struck by the image of a dark angel taking Keigo up into the sky and vanishing from sight.

“You will never fulfill that promise you made, Keigo, because I betrayed you…”

Hollow, he remained on the ground, refusing to fight anyone, anymore. The fight didn’t last forever. When most of the mutants were captured or killed, the leader felt frightened and called fallback. Since Dabi didn’t respond the call, they abandoned him. Some pro heroes found him later, all cried out and absent minded.

~

At first, they tried putting him in a hospital for mind deranged people, but he kept burning himself all over again, to the brink of death, only to stop before his end. He didn’t want to suicide. He wanted to punish himself for life. Now tied real good in his prison cell, Dabi kept remembering the short happiness Hawks brought in his miserable life. The only images he had running through his mind were Keigo bandaging him as kids, their beautiful reunion, Keigo’s corpse under his touch and how the guards ripped away from him the black glove he kept from that evening.

“How is he?”

“He’s ok... sir. He confessed everything and gave away all the future plans of the League, but...”

“Good.”

“Other than that, well he doesn’t talk much. He cries a lot. I guess, if that bleeding is in fact tears.”

The man approached the door slowly.

“Sir, you’re not allowed to see him.”

“I will do as I please. Or you will die.”

The guard felt an evil aura coming from those narrow eyes that turned to pin him, so he backed away.

“As you find fit, sir.”

His senses didn’t perish, though, only his will of life, so Dabi, now Touya, heard the door opening and the sound of steps approaching his cell. He didn’t pay much attention to it, since it was probably another guard coming to check his vitals or to tie the strings better.

“Oh, man, they didn’t change your bandages, you’ll get an infection.”

A gloved hand on the bars was the first thing he saw when he turned his face, unable to believe he heard that voice again. A scarred, wingless Hawks entered his cell and sat on the bed.

“So... have you thought about me? Do you still want to be my boyfriend? ‘Cause I do.”

Keigo gave a little chuckle as he grabbed the back of Touya’s neck.

Biscuit, a slut for dabihawks things: *offers angsty smut*