Chapter Text
October might be the happiest month of Keigo’s life.
He has finally won over the heart of the beautiful, rebellious, curse-spitting black cat that is Touya. The first morning Keigo woke to azure eyes and snowy hair in his bed, he honestly believed he was going to die of a heart attack. It was a rapturous sight– Touya gazing across the bed at him with that half-lidded gaze, pale skin marred by little love bites, fresh new piercings glittering in the morning light. The old singed shirt and the new piercings finally blurred the lines between Touya and Dabi in the best possible way, and Keigo couldn’t help but devour the man underneath him for the better part of the morning.
Touya’s low, raspy moan will echo in his head for the rest of his life.
It was so easy, like breathing. Like closing your wings and dropping off the Fukuoka tower, reveling in the addictive pleasure of free fall.
Loving Touya is so effortlessly easy.
How could it not be? Touya makes them breakfast every morning, grumbling and bitching about god knows what until he is at least halfway done with his cup of tea, while Keigo devours eight pancakes and beams like the fucking sun. Keigo cleans the house, runs errands, and makes lunch, all while Touya spends the afternoon working on various paintings (Touya is spending longer and longer on each piece, almost like he is searching for something in between the drips of blue and red). After lunch, Touya spends a few hours talking to his mom or siblings over FaceTime or in one of his virtual doctor’s appointments, while Keigo works on his gift. Finally, Touya cooks dinner with a soft hint of a smile on his face while Keigo chatters his ear off about everything and nothing.
They only watch TV after dinner a few times a week now, too busy dragging one another to bed so they can fuck the absolute living daylights out of one another.
It’s even better than the first time, headier and blissful and transcendent. They don’t have to hide in alleys and fuck in abandoned buildings. They don’t have to sneak around, don’t have to fight the layers of paranoia and inherent tension of being a hero and villain, don’t have to spend months pretending they are just fuck buddies trying to manipulate one another until they fall ass backwards into an actual relationship.
It’s just… pure. Touya only ever looks at him with love, with trust, with adoration. And Keigo…
He’s not a traitor this time. He isn’t a spy waiting to close the trap around the entire League. He’s telling the truth, always.
There are just a few details, a few lies by omission. Things that, realistically, don’t even matter anymore. The burns and broken wing healed long ago. Touya’s broken body healed long ago. It doesn’t matter anymore, because Dabi and Hawks don’t even exist anymore. There is only Keigo, and Touya, and this apartment, where the only thing that matters is today.
(The past can stay dead, Keigo tells himself.)
(It has become increasingly difficult to hide the engagement ring dangling around his neck. The necklace now spends half the day hidden in his bedside table.)
(It’s fine, everything’s fine. He’ll tell Touya eventually, just… Not yet.)
Keigo spends all of October in utter bliss. By the time November rolls around, his gift for Touya is finally finally ready. It is, undoubtedly, the single most time and money Keigo has spent on anything in his life, and he desperately hopes his efforts will not be in vain.
For Touya, anything is worth it.
He just has to give Touya the damned thing.
Keigo is so nervous he’s going to vibrate out of his feathers. He tries to psych himself up in the hallway, repeatedly digging his talons into the wooden floor while listening to the soft rustle of Touya moving and painting in the guest room that doubles as a little art studio. Feathers dart around Keigo in nervous energy, tugging his clothes into perfect order, fixing his hair, and polishing the square-cut rubies in his ears to gleaming perfection.
He always preens when he is nervous.
“Hey, babe?” Keigo knocks on the door frame of the guest bedroom, peeking his head around the corner. Touya is sitting at the wooden desk (now thoroughly covered in paint splatters), working on a rather large painting of an owl he has clipped to his easel. The window is open, the perpetual breeze billowing the linen curtains and creating a waving dapple of sunlight that dyes Touya’s hair a soft orange in the setting sun. He looks up, giving Keigo a small smile. There’s a smear of apricot colored paint on his cheek.
Fuck, that’s so fucking cute.
“Hey,” Touya’s voice breaks on a slight rasp. The setting sun catches and glitters off the piercings, and Keigo feels himself go cross-eyed. He doesn’t hesitate to step into the room, clutching his laptop to his chest and struggling not to bounce in place. Keigo walks up behind Touya’s desk chair, wrapping his free arm around Touya from behind. He gives Touya a little kiss on the top of his head, before propping his chin up in the mass of soft white hair. Touya ‘humpf’s and goes back to his painting.
Keigo watches Touya’s thin, paint-stained hands load up the thinnest, tiniest paintbrush he has ever seen with cream colored paint. He meticulously paints each feather on the owl’s face, slowly building up the intense level of detail characteristic of his paintings. No wonder Touya’s bigger paintings take the better part of a week.
“What are you painting?”
“...An owl.” Touya doesn't look away from the painting, and Keigo snorts a little laugh.
“Mm, but why an owl? And why, all of that?” Keigo gestures vaguely to the burning red sun in the background and the branch impaling the bird through its empty heart.
(There’s always a red sun and birds dying, stabbed through the heart by branches. Something about them always seems so–)
“‘Dunno, just–” Touya fidgets a bit in his seat, leaning backwards into Keigo’s chest. “It’s hard to explain.”
“Hmm,” Keigo closes his eyes, burying his face into the top of Touya’s hair. His heart feels like it’s in his throat. He gives Touya a little squeeze before letting go and sitting down on the edge of the guest bed to Touya’s right. Touya doesn’t look up from his work, still meticulously painting feathers.
“So, uh,” Keigo coughs, his wings twitching anxiously. Touya finally stops what he is doing and looks up, fixing Keigo with his curious, brilliant blue eyes. “We talked during the Hojoya festival. About your art. Selling it, I mean.”
Touya’s eyes widen slightly, expression going blank and reserved. He always does that when he is overwhelmed. He darts his eyes to the laptop clutched in Keigo’s hands, and swallows nervously.
“...Yeah.”
“And, well,” Keigo shuffles up to the edge of the desk, placing the laptop on the only free corner that isn’t taken up by the easel, paint, and brushes. Touya starts chewing on the end of his paintbrush, eyes riveted to the computer screen in front of him. “I talked to Yonemoto-san; she ran the Hawks Agency website before it closed. I hired her to build you a website. It’s, um, done?”
Touya doesn’t say anything, just watching the screen as Keigo opens the internet browser and navigates to the website. Keigo’s wings twitch, and his tail keeps flicking.
The website is clean and minimalistic, with a slightly warm sepia tone. The main page has a simple navigation bar at the top, followed by a neat collage of about eight zoomed-in snippets of Touya’s paintings. Keigo starts navigating through the website, ignoring the way his talons tremble a little. He swallows past the lump in his throat.
“Um, so I took some of the paintings you already have done to Sakamoto-san. He’s a photographer I did a watch advertisement with once. He’s like, really old school, and does a lot of his photography on old-fashioned film. But, uh, he has high-resolution scanners, like for art. He was able to do me a favor, and so now we have digital versions of some of your paintings.” Keigo clicks through a few examples. He opens one of Touya’s more recent works, the little bird wreathed in blue bark that he finished the day of the Hojoya festival. “Um, you didn’t write any titles on any of them, but I figured we could add that along with a description, or whatever you want to write.”
Keigo glances at Touya, searching for a reaction. Touya is stone-faced, staring at the computer. He barely moves, frozen with the end of his paintbrush in his mouth and paint streaked across his cheek. He has a drip of paint in his hair, standing out a bright cerulean against pure white. Keigo can’t tell what emotion hides behind brilliant blue eyes. He’s so nervous, he could vibrate right out of his feathers.
“Oh, and then there’s a shop tab already, let me just–” Keigo navigates to the store. Each of the scanned paintings is listed neatly in a grid as prints available for purchase. “So, I talked to my photographer friend, Sakamoto. Watch guy. And he told me that there's a fancy art printer, glasey or something, that you use to make actual art prints–”
“Glicée. It’s a glicée printer.” Touya’s voice is rough and dry. Keigo still can’t tell what he is feeling.
“Ah, yeah. That. So, I got one already. Also, archival paper, the special printer ink–”
That finally makes Touya snap his head up, staring at Keigo in utter bewilderment.
“What– what do you mean you got an industrial-sized printer? Where the hell are we going to put that?”
Keigo looks away, wings fidgeting and rustling behind him. His tail flicks.
“Um, I kind of rented a studio space on the first floor?”
Touya just stares at him.
“Ahh, so the ankle monitor, the house arrest. That. It, uh, only goes off if you leave the building, since it can’t tell what floor you are on. And the first floor is all retail space. There was a little jewelry store that went out of business not too long ago, and the space was available, so. I rented it.”
“...A storefront. In Chuo ward. Across from Ōhori Park. The park that has the art museum and a fucking castle in it. How– how much does that even cost?”
“Uhhhhh…”
“Never mind, I don’t even want to know.” Touya rubs at his face, smearing a bit of purple paint on the tip of his finger across his cheek without realizing it. “Ok. Ok. How big is the space?”
“Erm, uhh–”
“Keigo.”
“Well, there's the back room, which is where I put the printer and all the supplies. And a bigger easel, if you wanted to do bigger paintings in the future. But there’s a front room for a gallery.”
Touya stares at Keigo for an exceedingly long time, and Keigo can feel his wings and tail twitching. He’s about to keep running his mouth out of sheer anxiety when he sees Touya’s eyes start to tear up.
“A gallery,” Touya whispers. Tears gather in his eyes, but they don’t fall. “You got me a–” His voice cracks. “I– When I saw the sketchbook, the really old one, I remembered drawing everything in it. Not details, but– I thought about it a lot, back then. It was just a stupid fucking fantasy, but I thought… That if my life was different, if I wasn’t what I was…” He trails off, burying his face in his paint-stained hands and finally lets out a tiny, almost inaudible little sob.
Keigo croons, gently hugging a crying Touya into his chest and draping his wings around them both. Touya is quiet when he cries, only betrayed by the slight hitch in his breath and the tears wetting the front of Keigo’s shirt. He buries his face in Touya’s hair; he smells like smoke, sandalwood, and cloves, laced with the slight chemical sting of paint. Keigo can feel the tears stinging in his eyes as everything hits him all at once. What Touya could have been, if his life had gone a little differently; if he didn’t have an abusive father, if he didn’t burn himself alive at thirteen. If he had a home and a supportive family, the chance to pursue something he actually wanted, instead of being told he was worthless because of his quirk and discarded like a broken toy. If he had the opportunity to be anything, anything other than Dabi.
(If Keigo had taken the out, followed him to a house in a rural town, and left being a hero and villain behind them.)
(It might not be a ring and a house, but maybe this can be enough.)
“Hey,” Keigo mutters, raking his talons through Touya’s hair. “Babe, look at me.” Touya sniffles, stubbornly rubbing at his eyes in slight embarrassment before looking up at Keigo, hovering above his head. His face is stained red from crying. “You deserve it. You deserve to be able to do something you are actually passionate about. I’m so proud, so fucking proud of you, Touya. I know you don’t– but you’ve come such a long way.”
Keigo gently runs his thumb across Touya’s cheek, wiping away a silent tear. Touya closes his eyes, letting out a brief, shuddering sigh.
“I mean it, Touya. I’m so proud of you.”
“...Ok,” Touya’s voice is a wet rasp. He pulls out of the hug, scrubbing at his face. “Sorry, sorry I just– Fuck. A gallery. Fuckin’ hell, Keigo.”
“So… do you like it? The website?”
“...Yeah. Thank you, birdie,” Touya huffs, rubbing at his face and unconsciously smearing the bit of paint across his nose. He reaches out to start navigating through the website again, clicking on the digital versions of his paintings as if he’s seeing them for the first time. Keigo trills proudly. He swears that love and pride are shining through his skin like the fucking sun; he’s overflowing with it.
“So,” Keigo drapes a wing across Touya’s shoulder. “Have you thought about how you are going to present yourself? Do you want people to know who you are?”
“No. No, not–” Touya answers instantly, shivering a little. Keigo croons. “I don’t want everyone else to see… him. Dabi. Like some kind of peek into a villain’s mind. I– Nobody gets to know.”
“That’s fair,” Keigo says. “Stage name, hero name, villain name. It’s ok to separate your work from who you really are. Do you know who you would want to sign your work as?”
Touya is quiet for a long moment, heat slowly rising to his face. Keigo starts tickling his neck with a little downy feather, until Touya bats it away in embarrassed irritation. Keigo teasingly slides into Touya’s lap, wrapping his arms around Touya’s neck and very purposefully grinding his ass down. Touya looks like he is about to combust.
“You have thought about it,” Keigo teases, nipping at the edge of Touya’s jaw. The body under him ratchets up five degrees. “Tell me.”
“... You aren’t allowed to laugh.”
“Whaaat? Me? I would never.”
“Fuck you.”
Keigo giggles. The feather returns to teasing at Touya’s neck, winding around his neck and giving it a gentle squeeze. He feels Touya’s pulse jump under his feather, and he smirks in victory.
“Ok, I’ll only laugh a little. Come on, babe, what is it?”
Touya mumbles something under his breath.
“What was that?”
“Fumffm.”
“Didn’t catch that.”
“Fushmffmff.”
“One more time.
“Fushichō (不死鳥),” Touya snaps, face going bright red. Keigo fails to suppress a snorting laugh. Fuck, that’s so, so on the nose. It isn’t even remotely subtle. “Don’t make me say it again. I’m not– I’m creative with paintings, not… name shit.”
“Mm. Clearly,” Keigo snorts, and Touya grumbles like a grumpy cat.
“You know,” Keigo says, nudging at Touya’s ear with his nose. Touya finally huffs out a small laugh, shoulders slowly loosening. “You’re going to have to start naming the paintings, too. Might be rough to search a website where everything is called ‘untitled.’”
“What, you don’t think Untitled No. 37 has a nice ring to it?”
“No,” Keigo snorts. “That’s why I overruled you when you wanted to name the fish ‘sakana’. How can you be such an incredible artist, but not have an ounce of creativity for names?”
“...You named it Bananya.”
“Hey!” Keigo pouts, his wings drooping. “That’s a great show. And that’s besides the point. Just– Ok. Like, what are you thinking about when you’re painting this?” Keigo directs Touya’s attention back to the painting of the owl clipped to his easel. “It could be a feeling, or a concept. You must have something in mind when you paint.”
Touya hums consideringly, winding his arm around Keigo’s waist. He leans his head against Keigo’s chest, tickling Keigo’s nose with his unruly white hair while he stares consideringly at the nearly completed painting.
“Mirage,” he finally says, almost a whisper. Keigo looks back at the painting.
“...Why?”
“I don’t know, I just–” Touya’s gaze fuzzes out, staring somewhere into the middle distance. Keigo startles a little, recognizing the distant, hollow look. Touya, stuck halfway in a fragmented memory; the moments Touya only seems to half-remember, fading back in sometimes hours later, halfway through an entirely different task.
He hasn’t done that in a while.
It raises the hair on the back of Keigo’s neck.
“The sun, it was so red–” Touya’s eyes are far, far away. “Owls– Knowledge, objective truth, I think. Losing my heart. Knowing, and seeing for the first time, that it was nothing but a mirage…”
“...Hey,” Keigo grips Touya’s shoulders a bit too tightly, talons poking holes in his shirt and digging slightly into his skin. He ignores how hard his heart is pounding. “Touya? Sweetheart, can you look at me?”
Touya lazily drags his eyes, flat blue gazing blankly into worried gold. Keigo grips his talons a little more, digging into Touya’s skin and risking drawing blood. Touya’s eyes seem to clear, sharpen into focus again. He shakes his head, as if shaking away threads of a memory that has already slipped through his grasp.
“I don’t know, Mirage just seems to fit, I guess. Fuck if I know.” Touya doesn’t seem to realize that he fuzzed out for about 30 seconds, and Keigo’s heartbeat finally slows. Touya tightens his grip on Keigo’s waist, pulling him in for a long, slightly hungry kiss. The inherent ‘thank you’ is obvious. Keigo’s eyes flutter shut, wings relaxing in a pool behind him. The kiss slowly becomes an open-mouthed, filthy thing, and before long, Touya is a panting, wanting mess with a horny bird writhing in his lap.
“Bed, now.” Touya’s voice is a deep rasp, a trace of smoke leaking from his mouth. Keigo shivers, all too willing to ignore whatever that was and bury himself in Touya instead.
“... Yeah, yeah, ok.” Keigo is quick to pull a dark-eyed Touya to his feet, stumbling their way down the hall, past the kitchen, before falling into their bed in a heated mess of moans, teeth, and feathers. The sun finishes sliding under the horizon.
Keigo closes his eyes and slips underwater, pulling Touya along with him.
A loud ringing startles Touya awake. He instantly bolts up in bed, sheets pooling down around his waist, his white shirt drenched with anxious sweat. His heart is pounding and his hands are shaking, body heat spiking to a blistering fever as his anxiety crests. Keigo rolls over and groans beside him, one enormous wing shuddering slightly in an aborted little flap as it rises to cover his head.
“Wha’ time s’it?” he yawns, creeping one taloned hand to try and pull Touya back into bed. The ringing starts up again, and, oh. It’s his phone. Touya quickly snatches his phone off the bedside table, hissing when the screen lights up and practically blinds him as it rings and buzzes in his hand. He rushes to answer the phone before his eyes can adjust, his heart still racing.
“...Hello?” he asks carefully, oddly anxious. Something tells him that getting called in the middle of the night used to be bad–
There’s the distant sound of pounding music and yelling, like the caller is at some kind of party. A club, maybe?
Who the fuck does Touya know who would be at a club?
The hair stands up on the back of his neck. Is it someone he used to know? Someone who’s calling for Dabi?
(They used to go together, he would numb the pain and she would–)
The lights are trailing in his vision, the music so loud it's vibrating in his chest. He’s hardly been sober since the raid, forever struggling to bury the horrific sound of Hawks screaming–
There’s a familiar, deranged giggle in his ear.
“Aw, c’mon Dabi-kun! Let's go kill some people, it’ll make you feel better! I know it always makes me feel better when I’m sad! Look, that guy is soooo cute! He looks just like Deku, I bet he would look so pretty with his throat slit!”
“Fuck off, crazy,” he spits, slumping further into the booth. He might be lying down now; he’s not sure. His whole body is numb. The blissful couple of hours after he shoots up are the only times his spreading burns don’t hurt nowadays. His vision swims as he stares at the ceiling, colored lights swirling together and starting to drip like paint at the edges.
“Fine! Sit here and be sad. I’m gonna go lure that guy out into the alley, ok? I’ll be back! You can burn him for me after if you want, although I don’t know how much there will be left!”
The hysterical, deranged giggling fades away, and Dabi stares up at the bleeding lights. He sinks deeper into the padded bench, the music thumping and vibrating deep in his skull. The lights swirl with red and gold before rapidly being consumed by brilliant blue, dripping and swirling like paint as it takes over his vision.
He closes his eyes, choking on a single, dry sob–
“Touya-nii, hello.”
“...Shou?” Touya rasps, rubbing at his face. He shakes away the bizarre ringing in his ears. “Are you alright? Why are you calling me at–” he pulls the phone away from his ear to glance at the screen, squinting through the incessantly bright screen in the dark. “Jesus, three o’clock in the morning? Where even are you?”
There’s a slight shuffling, the music in the background changing to something even more upbeat.
“Touya-nii, I need your advice,” Shouto says on the other line, voice his usual low monotone. Keigo’s feathers rustle and he yawns, once again trying to pull Touya back into bed. “I didn’t feel like I could call Natsuo or Fuyumi about this.”
“Is that Shouto? Why is he calling?” Keigo mumbles, still half asleep. Touya bats him away, flicking on the bedside lamp and frowning.
“Shou? What’s going on? Are you ok?” he asks, voice quickly going serious and concerned. That seems to rouse Keigo somewhat, head popping up to stare at Touya with serious, glinting eyes (well, as serious as he can look with a ruffled bedhead and a line marked into his face from his pillow).
“I have been peer pressured into consuming alcohol,” Shouto says with his flat, deep voice. “I believe I am intoxicated.”
Touya stares at the wall in the lamplight, tired brain slowly registering the situation.
“Wait, you’re drunk?” Touya says incredulously. “Are you… Drunk calling me?”
“I believe so, yes. How do I know if I am drunk?”
Touya’s mouth drops open, and he turns to stare at Keigo, still lying in bed to his left. He is giving Touya the ‘confused parrot’ look, head cocked and wings puffed, a curious coo bubbling up from his throat.
“I… fuck, I don’t know, is your face numb?”
“Hmm, yes, but I usually can’t feel the left side of my face. You know. Because of the scar. I feel like face numbness may not be a reliable indicator of intoxication for me.”
Touya throws himself back into bed with a groan, running one hand through his hair while he holds the phone to his ear with the other. Keigo chirrups softly next to him, one wing slowly wrapping around him and pulling him closer into a half snuggle. Touya closes his eyes and relaxes into the embrace, focusing on the feeling of feathers tracing along his chest. It calms his frantic heart somewhat, panic slowly ebbing to be replaced by pure annoyance at being woken up for one of the stupidest conversations of all time.
“Are there other indicators of intoxication?” Touya smacks his hand to his face with a low groan. How is this happening right now?
“I don’t know, is the room spinning? Do you feel like it's really easy to do or say things you usually would be too self-conscious to do?”
“Hmm, I think so, yes.” The background music shifts to some annoying J-Pop song, and a group of girls scream ‘wooo!’ somewhere in the background. “The room keeps spinning up and to the right, and I have tried to dance and sing karaoke. I am good at dancing, but I am very bad at karaoke. It is hard to dance, though, because I cannot feel my legs.”
“Aren’t you like, twelve? How the fuck did you get into a club?” Touya grumbles. Keigo snickers slightly, and Touya gives him a little chastising smack on his wing.
“I am sixteen and a half, and I do not think you should chastise me for underage drinking, Touya-nii. It could come across as hypocritical.”
Touya just sighs.
“Ugh, ok, fair. Where are you?”
“Kaminari’s parents are on a work trip, and he is having a gathering for classes 2A and 2B at his house. I did not realize it would be so… rambunctious.” There is another loud chorus of ‘woos’ in the background, and the distinct sound of glass breaking. “How do I become less drunk?”
“Eat some rice with umeboshi or something, I don’t know,” Touya says. Keigo scooches closer, wings puffed up and eyes bright.
“Oh, oh! Tell him to get miso with shijimi clams!”
“Fuck off Kei, clams are disgusting,” Touya snaps. “That’s just going to make him throw up.”
“Wait, is Keigo-san there?” Shouto asks. “Why is Keigo-san in your room at three in the morning?”
“Uhhhh–”
“Hi Shouto-kun!” Keigo chirrups loudly, leaning over to half yell into the phone against his ear. Touya rolls his eyes, exasperated. “Have fun at your party! I’m sorry you don’t feel good!”
“Touya-nii, are you and Keigo-san dating again?”
“Fuck off,” Touya snaps, his face going bright red. Keigo lets out a little chirping laugh in response, and Touya smacks him on the wing again. “I thought we were talking about you being drunk.”
“How did you get Keigo-san to date you?” Shouto asks, voice finally sounding ever so slightly slurred. Touya sighs, rubbing at his face with one hand and staring up at the ceiling.
“Who said I was–”
“Aren’t you sleeping in the same bed?”
“...Fuck you, nosy little brat.” Touya snaps. “Fine, ugh. I don’t know, just… we kissed and then talked about our feelings or whatever.” Keigo squawks next to him, wings bristling as he lifts his head off the pillow to pout.
“Hey! I tried very hard to woo you!” he complains. Touya just rolls over and ignores him.
“Oh. The feelings part sounds hard. The kissing part sounds less hard,” Shouto half-slurs. The music in the background changes to some slower, thumping beat. “Touya-nii, how do I kiss someone?”
“Oh, for fucks sake– We are not having this conversation at 3 AM when you are piss-ass drunk at some teenage house party,” Touya groans. “Go sober up and we can talk about this tomorrow.”
“But–” there's a fumbling sound, interruptions from several loud teenagers, and a mumbled apology. “But he’s here at the party, and he looks very pretty. I think I would like to kiss him. I am feeling very confident, and I do not usually feel confident. I think it would work.”
“No, Shou, listen to me, you do not want your first kiss to be when you’re drunk. Be, like, a responsible kid and ask him out on some cute boba date or whatever teenagers are into these days.”
“I can try to dance with him. I am better at dancing when I am intoxicated.”
“Shou, don’t–”
“I can impress him with my dancing and then kiss him. This is a good plan.”
“This is a bad plan,” Touya groans. “This is a very bad plan.”
“But he is very pretty, and very strong, and his hair is… large. I want to touch it.”
“Shouto, how much have you had to drink?” Touya sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. Keigo is smothering his chirping laughter into a pillow.
“Uh, four, I think.”
“Four what, Shouto?”
“Four shots. Of Shochu. And also a beer. And something blue.”
“Jesus Christ," Touya groans. Keigo snorts in an undignified way and laughs even harder. “How are you not puking your guts out already? Just like, go lie down on a couch or something and drink some water. For the love of god, stop drinking and do not make a move on your stupid friend until you’re sober.”
“Oh, he’s coming over here, I’m going to go kiss him now okIloveyoubye–”
There is a distinctive click, and the line goes dead. Touya cusses and throws his phone on the floor, rolling over to smack a hysterical Keigo upside the head. He just rolls over, wings shuddering from laughing so hard.
“Oh– oh my god, that was amazing,” he cackles, tears gathering in his eyes. Touya just scowls.
“Annoying is more like it. Why the fuck is he calling ME? What the fuck am I supposed to do from Fukuoka?”
“Aww,” Keigo chuckles, leaning into Touya’s side. His whole body is warm from being in bed, bare chest flushed slightly pink. He still smells like his citrus shampoo and the ever-present dusty feathers. “I think it’s sweet. He called his big brother when he was in trouble. He loves you.”
Touya feels himself blush a bright red, and he stubbornly drapes his arm over his eyes, covering up the stupid expression he can feel creeping onto his face.
“Shut the fuck up. Stupid little brat. What is he thinking, anyway? He’s at a hero school. Shouldn’t they be, like, actually following the law like good little hero children? How the hell are they going to use police violence to oppress the common people if they get fucking expelled?”
“Aww, are you worried about him?” Keigo coos, snuggling into Touya’s shoulder. His body temperature ratchets up by a few degrees. “This is character development, you know. I’m proud of you.”
A few blue sparks fly out of his mouth, and he sits back up, cussing under his breath. Keigo just laughs. He shoves his face into his hands with a groan.
“Fucking, just go back to bed. Overgrown pigeon. What the fuck are you talking about, character growth. Dumbest shit I’ve ever heard.” Keigo coos, tugging at the sleeve of his white, oversized shirt. There's an old burn mark on the sleeve.
“Come on, you too. Gotta get your beauty sleep, babe.” Keigo yawns. “Don’t wanna sleep without you.”
Touya’s chest tightens, and he turns to give Keigo’s arm a little squeeze. He runs his paint-stained fingers through Keigo’s hair, scratching a little at his scalp. He is rewarded with a blissed-out, sleepy little coo.
“Ah, I’m a bit too wired. Phone ringing scared the shit out of me. Gonna sketch a bit and calm down. I’ll come back to bed soon, I promise.”
“Mmf, don’t leave,” Keigo yawns. “Stay in bed.”
“Alright, alright,” Touya smiles, leaning over to kiss his sleepy little bird on the forehead. “I won’t leave, I promise. Just go back to sleep, pretty bird.”
“Mmn.” Keigo curls up at Touya’s side, his bad wing draped across his legs. Touya smiles softly, carding his hand through the feathers in his lap. Unlike the brittle, broken primaries, the marginal feathers are glossy and sleek, a rich cinnabar color with an iridescencent sheen. Beautiful.
Within minutes, Keigo is fast asleep, complete with his chirping little snores. Touya reverently pets the crooked, broken wing in his lap.
“... Love you, pretty bird,” Touya whispers.
Loath to disturb the wing resting gently in his lap, Touya leans over just enough to pull Dabi’s old sketchbook out of his bedside drawer, along with a few pencils from the set Keigo got him before he died. He, very carefully, opens the sketchbook and props it up along the forward edge of Keigo’s wing. The limb twitches a little, but Keigo doesn’t wake up.
Touya carefully leafs through the pages, searching for the next blank page (he isn’t sure what he is going to sketch out yet, but he always regresses to the same themes and motifs anyway). A peony, an alley cat, the odd hand studies marred by a drip of paint the color of dried blood, the portrait of Keigo.
Touya stares at the intensely detailed portrait, a confusing swirl of love, sorrow, and guilt swirling in his chest that he doesn’t understand. It clearly took Dabi ages to draw: it’s about as fine and detailed as he could have possibly gotten with colored pencils, instead of crisper, more precise, and intensely colored paint. There is even an attempt to capture the slight iridescence of his feathers, although the inherent limitations of colored pencils make the effect fall a little flat. The left wing isn’t right either, it–
Touya’s thoughts shudder to a halt.
The wings. They are symmetrical.
The scar is missing from his left cheek.
Touya stares, stares at a portrait of Keigo from before.
He tries to comb through every fragment of a memory he has managed to reclaim from before. They are mostly static images or small moments. Drinking tea on the balcony. A chirping laugh. A breathy moan. A soft wing pressed along his body. And… there. An image of Keigo landing on the balcony railing. For just a moment, he can hold the image in his mind–
There is no scar on his face. The wings are perfectly symmetrical, flared out as he lands.
The left wing is perfectly straight, fully feathered, primaries whole and unbroken.
Tears start to sting at his eyes. He feels dizzy, and the sharp taste of metal infests his mouth. Why can’t he remember, why can’t he fucking remember–
Keigo chirps a little in his sleep, wing shifting a little and breaking the spell. Touya startles, heart threatening to beat out of his chest. He’s sweaty, anxious and upset, plagued by… something.
He looks back down at the portrait, one little realization clicking into place. There is a date scribbled in the corner. January 18th, of this year.
Keigo’s broken wing. It was recent. It’s the beginning of November, and Touya moved in with Keigo at the beginning of June. Whatever happened to Keigo’s wing happened at some point between the end of January and the end of May. The wing never healed correctly, but it was still healed by the time they met in June. Which means the injury must have occurred well before May, most likely in February or March.
“What happened, pretty bird?” Touya whispers, tracing his finger delicately along the crooked, broken wing in his lap.
There is only Keigo’s breath, steady and even in sleep. The wind blows through the cracked window, billowing the burgundy curtains.
A single tear drips and falls on the edge of the portrait, soaking into the watercolor paper. The tip of a primary feather blurs.
He flips the page.
Touya didn’t get past the portrait the first time he looked through the book, but the next page is apparently the last one. He is about to quickly flip past it and onto the next blank page when his eye catches on the sketch. He hesitates, staring at the pencil marks carefully etched into the page.
He… doesn’t understand.
It’s not a sketch, not really. It looks more like a draft, maybe? Variations on a theme. There are silhouettes of birds, grouped in clusters. Some larger, some smaller, in different configurations. They are absolutely nothing like what he usually draws; it looks more like… A design?
Silhouettes of birds, all flying in a single direction in a rough line.
A murmuration of starlings, he realizes.
There are a handful of roughly drawn feathers along one edge of the page, lines hard and etched.
A murmuration of starlings and a feather. Hard and simplistic, because they were designed to be etched into metal.
He gets dizzy, his mouth tastes like metal, his ears are ringing, and something starts to–
“–ouya?” Keigo’s voice is soft and chirping. Touya blinks awake, confused. What happ–
Talons are petting through his hair, and there is the soft click of a ceramic teacup being placed on his nightstand. The one with the blue crysanthemums, the one that always reminded him of his mother.
“How late did you stay up?” Keigo says, stroking Touya’s cheek. He is staring down at Touya with nothing but pure affection, golden eyes lit by a gentle smile. He coos softly. “It’s already 10 o’clock, sweetheart. You should get up.”
And… Oh. He’s still in bed, groggy with sleep. Touya doesn’t remember going back to bed after Shouto called in the middle of the night, but he must have fallen asleep at some point. He yawns, stretching one arm up and over his head. Blue paint stains his fingers. Feathers rustle beside him, and Keigo sits on the edge of the bed, leaning down to give Touya an affectionate little kiss good morning.
“I made you tea. I was thinking of running down to the cafe across the street and getting us some pastries for breakfast. I know you like the tiramisu there. Does that sound alright?”
Touya sits up with a groan. The teacup is placed in his hand before he even has to say anything, and he takes a sip. Earl Grey, black with just a spoonful of sugar, just the way he likes.
“Thanks, birdie. And yeah, that sounds great. Sorry I slept in so late, I know I always make breakfast.”
Keigo gives him another kiss, wings fluttering gently. The left one always drags a bit.
“It’s alright, you were tired. I’ll be back, should only take like fifteen minutes, alright?”
“Mmn,” Touya rasps, taking another sip of tea. Keigo gives him another little kiss on his forehead, and then quickly disappears with a rustle and a snap of wings.
Touya sits in bed, staring out the window and drinking his tea, scarred cheek resting on his hand as he looks up at the November morning sky, watching grey rainclouds slowly roll in to cover the sun. He listens to the distant chirping of birds and the slow thunks of the first few drops of rain hitting the glass, and reflects on the fact that this is the happiest he has ever been.
A sketchbook lies forgotten on the ground. A slight breeze filters in through the open window, sending the ashes of charred pages tumbling under the bed.
Mirage by Teagan White