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dawn-moths · 2 months

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"Chanel Perfume"

CHAPTER 3

Tomura & Dabi x Female Reader

word count: 30,800+

part 1 * part 2 * part 3 * …

(Following the success of your trio’s first big robbery, the three of you decide to keep up with the good luck you’ve seemingly found yourselves in. Between getting high off adrenaline and laying low to avoid attracting attention from the cops that have begun poking their noses into your neck of the woods, you further explore your relationships with both Tomura and Dabi. However, when Tomura goes on an overnight supply run for your upcoming mission, you and Dabi end up getting closer than you ever could’ve previously imagined.)

disclaimer/content warning: 18+ content! minors dni! pretty plot heavy with some smut, oral sex (both male and female receiving), alcohol consumption, drug addiction and abuse, reader has trauma, mentions of suicide attempts, mentions of child abuse and abusive parents, reader is estranged from her family, inspired by the music video for “365 Fresh” by Triple H, songs mentioned in this fic are “Chanel Perfume” by Derik Fein and “My Heart” by Twin Wild.

*ao3 mirror*

***

His head is leaned back over the edge of the tub, eyes peacefully closed as you run cold water through his hair. It drips down his neck, little blue-black rivulets racing each other over his tattooed skin before they slip beneath the collar of his tattered t-shirt and disappear, the logo for some old emo band printed on the front. You take this rare moment of gentle tranquility to watch him, studying his face. The rise of his cheekbones, the curve of his cupid’s bow, the sharpness of his chin.

Then those clear blues flutter open, catch you staring, and he takes a long beat to study you right back. Finally, he says, a lulled breathiness to his usually jagged, viper’s strike of a voice, “Is it done yet?”

Snapping out of your trance, you swallow and blink back embarrassment. “Uh, I think so,” you reply, quickly standing to fetch the rough old bath towel lazily folded and placed on the edge of the sink, holding it out for him to take.

As Dabi dries his hair, now freshly dyed thanks to your expertise, he also stands, heading over to the sink and causing you to sidestep so he can take a look in the mirror. The upper left corner has a thin crack cutting through it, the glass speckled with the ghosts of precipitation that haven’t yet been wiped away. A few faded smudges of indigo spot the stainless steel basin of the sink. You tell him some acetone nail polish remover should get rid of it.

“Don’t worry about it,” he says, too preoccupied with judging your handiwork, making sure there’s none of that telltale white still peeking through at the roots. “Everything in here is old anyway…”

You take a seat on the closed lid of the toilet as you continue to watch him, gaze following the way his big, slender hands run through the back of his damp hair, tousling it around to rouse the spikes back to life. A carnation is inked over the top of his right hand, the image suddenly striking you as out of place amidst all the flames and stylized text and other odds and ends that mark his flesh.

He cracks a smirk, side-eyes your reflection in the mirror where he already knows you’re watching him. “You did a pretty decent job, huh?” he asks rhetorically.

“Well, I am a hairdresser,” you remind him. Then, to yourself, under your breath and forlorn, “Well… was, anyway…”

Gaze turning back to his reflection, Dabi huffs out a cruel exhale of a laugh and says, “You’re still hung up on that?” You flash him a slightly wounded look but he continues. “Jeez… Didn’t know working in a shithole barber shop was your dream job. Guess forty thousand dollars don’t help make that loss any easier.”

It wasn’t my dream job, you want to snap back. But it was my normal.

It was your normal and now it was all gone.

“Whatever,” you reply, curt and cold, standing from the toilet and going to stride past him. “I’m gonna go see if Tomura wants a haircut—”

He grabs your wrist as you pass him, the sudden, unexpected contact stopping you in your tracks, though his grip is loose. And you’re looking at him. And he’s looking at you. And, for a moment, it’s just the two of you standing alone in the tiny bathroom beneath the dim yellow light.

“Scissors are in the kitchen…” he speaks, letting you free as his voice, low and almost shy, disrupts the thick silence that has gathered between you two.

You don’t give any acknowledgement to that statement. You just walk away, hoping to slow your quick-fire pulse before either of you starts getting any other ideas.

***

ONE WEEK AGO…

Twenty-four hours ago, you’d been icing bruised wrists and smudging lipstick and mascara across your face. You’d been gearing up for a risky robbery that might just cost you your life if things didn’t go according to plan.

Yet, somehow, even with the “plan” going to hell and back again all within the first thirty minutes or so, you’d come out on the other side in one piece. And, not only that, you also now had about fourteen-thousand and three-hundred dollars more to your name. That was to say, after the forty-three thousand grand prize had been split three ways.

“Hey…” Tomura greeted you through a wide yawn. It was the afternoon after the cash had been counted and you’d all now caught up on some much needed sleep.

“Hey,” you responded, quiet and through a sparing smile. You’d been curled up on the couch, enjoying the silence the place collected while the boys had been resting following the all-nighter it had taken to crack the safe. You’d done a little more digging into Dabi’s things— found some books, a deck of cards, some old sketchbooks containing what you could only assume were ideas for tattoos he either had gotten or still wanted, and, last but not least, at the very bottom of a scuffed wooden box buried beneath it all, a faded photograph containing the remnants of a family, their faces burned out as if someone had held a lighter beneath just to watch the images warp and blacken, all except for one.

It was a little boy, perhaps around the age of ten.

He had the same sapphire eyes and, now you knew, snow white hair as Dabi did.

You put the photo back in the box, face down just like you’d found it, closed it, and reburied it back beneath all the dog-eared books.

But, since finding it, no matter how hard you tried to forget about it, to pretend you’d never even seen it, you couldn’t.

It was easy to ignore the fact that all of you, the outcasts of society, had once belonged to families. Had parents. Maybe even a sibling or two.

It had been so long since you’d thought about the little girl you once had been, scared and unloved and just trying to survive. But, looking at the boy in that photo, there was a strange part of you that, in hindsight, didn’t feel so alone.

“What’cha got there?” Tomura gestured to the book currently in your hands— the one you’d decided to omit from the paperback burial and take a gander at to pass the time— some mediocre horror novel likely adopted from the discount bin at a bookstore or swiped from the edge of someone’s yard sale.

You held the cover up to show him and he scoffed at the cheesy-looking font, coming over to join you on the couch. He took the book as you held it out to him. “Wow…” he said, sarcasm already detectable in his tone, “And he knows how to read? Guy’s just full of surprises, isn’t he?”

You snickered at the comment, grabbing the book back before your page was lost.

“It’s not half bad, actually,” you said. Then, with a little more honesty, “Well, actually, some of the descriptions are kinda gross and the main character keeps making dumb decisions, but the overall plot has potential.”

“Oh yeah?” Tomura leaned in closer to you, as if trying to get a peek at one of the paragraphs, but then you closed the book and set it aside, not caring about losing your place anymore. It’s not like you planned on actually finishing it anyway. Instead, you cupped his cheek and lightly guided his head down to rest on your shoulder, stroking your fingers through his fluffy silver waves, catching on a few knots.

“You should really let me cut your hair sometime,” you suggested, remembering his denial to your request the last time you’d asked. It was nearly down to his shoulders, and while he didn’t look bad with long hair necessarily, you still figured a little trim couldn’t hurt.

“Later…” he mumbled, turning his face in towards your neck, comforted by your scent and your body’s warmth. And then his arms were wrapping around your waist, pulling you closer to him, and all you had to do was melt into his touch, both of you feeling safe within each other’s embrace.

You stayed like that for a long time, long enough to drift off into a light sleep, exhaustion still clinging to you like the dust that settles after being stirred up by a breeze, only ever shifting, never truly leaving.

A few hours later, the sky still bright with the last few shades of daylight, you stirred to a low, indistinguishable whimpering sound.

Carefully, so as to not disturb him, you stealthily shimmied from Tomura’s grasp, making sure to lay his head down in a comfortable position now that your shoulder would no longer be serving as its resting place, and cautiously shuffled further down the maze of halls and cubicles to investigate. The closer you approached, the more the pitiful sounds began to sound like words, though what exactly they were was still mostly indistinguishable.

“…Don’t…”

The voice was broken with a pained whine, high and trembling.

“…Please…”

The syllables were slurred but still held a sense of urgency, as if they were trying to escape before they were choked on.

“…I won’t…”

You turned the corner into what you now recognized as Dabi’s room, finding the spindly length of his form curled in on itself, blanket throw askew and limbs tensing periodically as his brow twitched into a furrow and a frown tugged down at the corners of his barely parted lips.

The moment you actually saw his mouth move, witnessing as the words, “…Somebody help, please…” were muttered out through a shaky exhale, something inside you flexed cold and sharp with a disturbed kind of sympathy.

You crept closer, lowering to kneel before his place on the floor, a hand reaching out to shake him awake as the next round of pleas began to spill from him, but the moment you made contact with his shoulder, Dabi’s eyes snapped open and he flinched back from your palm.

“What—? What happened?” he blurted out, panic stricken and shallowly panting. He tried to blink through the dim darkness that filled his little cubby of a room, one of the few cubicles with a makeshift ceiling to help keep out the daylight, and register the silhouette crouched before him.

“It’s just me. It’s ok…” you cooed, keeping a bit more distance now to give him space but wanting so badly to comfort him. “Everything’s ok. You were just having a bad dream. You—” But he sat up, a hand pressed to his clammy forehead, looking caught between confusion and a confession as his jaw flexed.

Then he said, low and gravelly, “Get out.”

“What?”

He shot you a scathing glare, cobalt cutting through the dark. “I said— Get. Out.” And it was with pure hatred that the order was spit through clenched teeth, almost in a whisper, as if he was trying to hold back the rush of rage that was threatening to surge towards the surface.

You didn’t wait to be told twice. You rose from where you knelt beside him and scurried out of the room, resisting the urge to glance behind you after you crossed the doorway’s threshold.

Dabi could tell you’d stopped a few paces out of his sight, standing there waiting and conflicted, before continuing on back towards the main den.

He pressed his palms to his eyes, trying to quell the threat of oncoming tears, and waited until his trembling subsided to emerge from his nightmare’s shadow.

***

Two days after the heist by the bay, your bruises were beginning to fade from deep navy to sea-sick yellowish-greens. Dabi’s elbow was indeed, as he’d so eloquently put it, “fucked”, but he’d snapped enough bones to tell a fracture from a full break. He wrapped it in a makeshift sling, for a little while at least, but then he got tired of only having use of one hand and abandoned the remedy, figuring he’d risk the pain. Not mention, with the help of his little white pills, he probably wouldn’t feel much of anything at all once one hit his tongue.

“You really don’t know any doctors?” you’d pressed him as you attempted to bandage up the bullet graze to his calf. “I mean, I’m not saying they even have to be licensed. Just anyone with enough medical knowledge to—”

“I already told you,” he reiterated, irritated. “Any of the guys I did know belong to rival gangs or cost too much to contact.” He sucked in a hiss and winced when you dabbed disinfectant to the deepest part of the wound, nose scrunching with discomfort. Then he continued, “Besides, it’s not like I haven’t had a concussion before.”

You ceased your attention to his injury, looked up at him from where you sat between the couch and the coffee table, his leg stretched out to rest across the table while you worked on patching him up. “Dabi,” you stated, stern and serious. “I don’t care how many you’ve had, a concussion isn’t something to take lightly. If you don’t get it checked you could—”

“I’m not going.” He cut in, firm and final, like a petulant child, holding your gaze until you were forced to look away and resume addressing his wound.

Passive-aggressively and under your breath you argued back, “Well what good’s all this money if we can’t use it for the things we need?” Dabi shifted his leg from your reach as he bent forward to pluck the roll of gauze from your hands and then stood from the couch. “Hey!” you scolded him. “I wasn’t done yet!”

Starting to wander off to some other part of the warehouse he droned out a simple, “I’ll finish it myself.”

You watched him disappear around the corner and let out a frustrated sigh.

“I swear to god…” you muttered to yourself, going to rub your temples out of habit but then wincing as you touched the tender bruise that blossomed there courtesy of those bastards from Jiro’s gang who’d been rough with you. You pulled your hand back as if expecting to find it red and shining with blood, motions temporarily frozen as you stared off into space, some of that night’s mishaps beginning to replay in your head.

Tomura said your name then, causing you to look over and see him wearing a relaxed grin, which dropped into concern the moment he saw your eyes wide and startled.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, coming over to be by your side. “Are you ok?”

You opened your mouth to speak, most likely to lie, to shake your head and say, “Nothing,” but as his fingers lightly brushed back your hair to take a closer look at your bruise, your eyes began to well with tears as the tiniest squeak escaped your lips.

“Did he hurt you?” Tomura growled, already looking ready to take vengeance if Dabi had done anything. But you seemed to find your voice then, simmering his bubbling wrath as you explained that, though behind you now, that night kept returning to you when you least expected it. All those grabbing hands. The way they’d ignored your pleas and screams. Treated you like you weren’t even human. The scar that cut through that man’s crooked smirk. The taste of the blood in your mouth as you bit down hard. All of it. All of it. All of it, still too much to bear.

And Tomura felt horrible, because he had no idea what to say to you. How could he comfort you? How could he tell you it was all ok now when, in reality, things were only slightly less fucked than they were before?

Leaning in to press your forehead to his shoulder, you choked out the words, “It hurts…” and that…

Well, that was just about as close to having a broken heart as Tomura had ever felt.

Offering consolation in perhaps the only way he knew how, he put his arms around you and stroked gentle lines up and down your back. “I know…” he said. And then, darker, as if looking into the eyes of all who’d ever hurt you, “I know.”

“You two love birds done cryin’ all over each other?” Dabi sneered as he strolled back into the room.

Tomura shot him a scathing, scornful glare, but ultimately stayed quiet. It wasn’t worth engaging with Dabi, especially when a fight was all the guy ever really wanted.

When the two of you continued to ignore him, Dabi grabbed his jacket and slipped on his boots, announcing to the two of you, “Well, I’m headin’ out for a bit. Don’t raid my shit again. I’ll be back later…” Through a sniffle, you asked him where he was going. Hand on the door’s metal push bar, he threw his head back and pretended to ponder that question. “Uhh… How ‘bout, none of your fucking business.”

The door was slamming shut behind him before either of you bothered to offer anything back in reply. Though, Tomura spoke for you both when he said, “Something is seriously fucking wrong with that guy.”

You felt the weight of your sorrows beginning to lift then, exposing you back to the odd reality that was your current situation— several thousand dollars richer yet still in hiding nonetheless.

“I thought we weren’t supposed to go out…” you said.

Dabi’s exact words had been, “Now, they’re gonna be searchin’ the outskirts high and low for us for at least the next couple of weeks, so it’ll be best if we stock up on the shit we need ASAP and then lay low till things settle a bit.”

“Yeah, well, he seems to think he’s the exception,” Tomura muttered, pushing up to stand and offering you a hand to pull you to your feet. With his fingernails lightly scratching at his neck, he proposed, “What’d ya say we get outta here for a bit too?”

You gave him a warning look. “But what about—”

“They won’t find us,” he said, sounding a little too sure for your liking. “At least, not where we’ll be going.” The scheming smirk he wore then caused your expression to shift into something more skeptical.

“What do you have in mind?” you asked, curious nonetheless.

“Do you trust me?” was all he gave as an answer.

You fought with your better judgment for a moment, then ultimately landed on the decision that life was too short to spend it living in constant fear. So you followed Tomura out of the narrow downtown alleys, winding and weaving your way the long route around just in case. You thought he was taking you somewhere into the nicer parts of the city, but when the two of you turned off into a foresty area and began walking uphill, you were wondering just what exactly he had in mind.

No matter how many times you asked where you were going though, he wouldn’t tell you.

“It’s a surprise,” was all he kept saying. So you started guessing. “Even if you guess right, I’m still not gonna say.”

But then finally you saw it, and when you did, it nearly stopped you in your tracks.

You had to lay low. You all knew that. But after all that you’d endured, all that you’d survived, how could you not at least let yourselves have a little fun?

***

Back down that long, unrelenting stretch of desolate road, past the vandalized billboard of the crying woman, turning left at the next abandoned intersection only to drive for what felt like a fucking eternity, Dabi pulled the shitty, half-broken down “rental” car (a favor cashed in from an old acquaintance) up to the dilapidated building shrouding the warehouse that served as Spinner’s contraband museum.

He gave a series of quick, aggressive knocks on the rusted metal door, impatiently waiting outside and kicking stray rocks with the toe of his boot to bide the time it took for Spinner to come and unlock it.

Before the trader, collector, dealer— whatever it was Spinner considered himself— could even get the door open all the way, Dabi snapped his sapphire gaze up to meet him and blurted out, “So, do you got what I need or not?”

Spinner winced at the sight of him, the tattooed vagabond more gaunt and haggard than he’d appeared the first time, skin pallid and clammy, dark circles carved out beneath sharp cobalt that made them appear even brighter and more menacing than usual.

“Uh… Would you like to come in, or—?”

Dabi hastily shouldered his way past the reptile-enthusiast, navigating deeper through the maze of stolen or illegally-procured goods. Spinner let out an exasperated sigh as he shut and locked the door behind him, starting after Dabi before he could mess with anything. This definitely wouldn’t be the first time a disgruntled or overzealous client came storming through for one reason or another, but with the way Dabi’s head was on a swivel like a hunting dog trying to sniff out his beloved painkillers, Spinner was getting worried things might escalate if they couldn’t agree on the right price.

“Sure, just make yourself at home, man…” Spinner grumbled, swishing his green hair out of his eyes, a new streak of purple freshly dyed through in the front. Then, with a more severe tone as the junkie began to dig through one of the bins sitting off to the side, he said, “Hey! Don’t touch that!”

When Dabi seemed to ignore him, Spinner approached and placed a hand on his shoulder. He’d only meant to snap him out of it, but a split second after contact was made Dabi was whirling on him with a wild-eyed look and a snarl vicious enough to cause the dealer to retract with a blatant wince.

“Where the fuck are they?” Dabi barked, going to search through the next bin of miscellaneous items.

“Jesus, man, just chill out!” Spinner snapped. While his client’s back was turned he discreetly reached for his pocket knife just in case things really started to take a turn, but then he let out a sigh and asked, “You want oxy or vicodin?”

Dabi peered over his shoulder at Spinner like an animal in the night, eyes glowing with something hungry and sinister. Spinner could see the way his hair stuck to the back of his neck with sweat, the way his hands were beginning to shake and how his bloodshot eyes were beginning to water.

He’d tried to hold himself together to the best of his ability when he’d been around you and Tomura, not wanting to show any signs of his sickness lest you two take him for weak. Besides, it’s not like his disheveled appearance had raised any real alarm bells from either of you. Dabi always sort of looked like he’d just narrowly escaped some harrowing event after several nights with close to no sleep. But the moment that door had closed behind him, he’d taken off with a desperate urgency. How he’d managed to even drive all the way out here without running himself off the road was a mystery, if not impressive to some degree, but one thing was for certain.

Dabi was deep in withdrawal and if he didn’t get his addiction back fast he was going to be in for one hell of a bad time.

“Fuck— whatever you got, man,” he replied, voice cracking with relief, a wheezing whine laced through the swear.

Spinner dropped the switchblade back into the pocket of his cargo pants and sighed to himself. He turned, nodding his head down the adjacent hall. “Well then follow me.”

The journey from the Lost and Found section of Spinner’s museum to the Illegal Substance wing felt like a fucking eternity for Dabi. Half of him wanted to double over, vomit, then curl in on himself as a wave of icy hot pinpricks wracked through his aching bones. The other half knew he was so fucking close to some relief that he better keep moving.

“Y’know, I’ll be honest with you, man…” Spinner began, continuing to wind down different narrow pathways carved out through the claustrophobic maze of man-made alleys, Dabi feeling like the walls were closing in on him more and more with every staggering, vertigo-inducing turn. “Tomura might’ve vouched for you and all, but I don’t trust you as far as I can fuckin’ throw you.”

Dabi’s vision was doubling, his ears ringing loud enough to drown out the second half of Spinner’s candid confession. He didn’t respond. He didn’t have to. So long as the buyer got what he wanted, he could care less about what the seller thought about his character.

“Here.” Something was pressed firmly into Dabi’s trembling hand and when he came to he saw Spinner standing before him and wearing an expectant look. “I’ll cut you a deal, but just this once…” He seemed to ponder over something for a second, then said, “So how ‘bout you give me five hundred and we consider this case closed, yeah?”

Dabi didn’t remember pulling out his old wallet and thumbing through the wad of cash he’d shoved between the worn leather. Didn’t remember handing it over to Spinner and walking back out to the car. He didn’t recall popping the cap on the bottle and pouring two of those little white pills into his palm, tossing them back and dry swallowing them, waiting for the drugs to take effect.

He only became coherent again once they kicked in, stabilizing him just enough to turn the key in the ignition, put the car into drive, and make his way back down that long stretch of lonely road. He parked the car a few blocks from his own warehouse and felt his mind clear enough to feel himself shift back to the misery he’d come to know as normal by the time he was slipping through the backdoor and slinking down that blue inferno vortex of a hallway.

When he shouldered open the door into the main living area, he half expected to see you and Tomura doing something gross— like openly cuddling on the couch or staring at each other with those cringy googly eyes that made Dabi want to put his head through a wall— but all he was met with was the stark and sobering silence of the empty space.

“Hello?” he called out, just for good measure. Pacing through the makeshift rooms, he kept poking his head into the usual places he’d expect to find you. “Helloooooo…?” You weren’t in the kitchen or the bathroom. You sure as hell weren’t in his room— he would’ve killed you if you were— and neither of you had left a note or clue of any kind that let him in on where you might’ve gone.

But why would you?

He didn’t feel the need to explain himself to you guys, so in what world would you owe him that kind of courtesy?

Well, maybe they’ve finally decided to go and run off into the sunset together, he thought to himself with equal parts sarcasm and dismay.

Dabi returned to his dark little cubby of a bedroom, pulled the curtains that served as the door closed, curled up on his mattress, and hoped he could get some rest. Ever since he’d run out of pills he’d barely slept more than a few hours, let alone an entire night uninterrupted, whether by night terrors or pain.

When his head hit the pillow and he closed his eyes, it felt like a matter of minutes before he was knocked out cold. And it felt good to sink into the nothingness. He just hoped that, when he woke, he’d hear the quiet shuffling of feet or the muffled mingling of familiar voices from the living room.

***

The metal skeleton of what had once been a functioning amusement park rose up from the vine and weed infested grounds. The overgrown attraction stood eerie and looming, carefully shrouded by the canopy of pine that blanketed the mountainside. From the highway streets below, you could pass by this place and never even know it was there. But, like Tomura, if you knew to look for it, it was just a couple miles trek through the trees.

“Oh my god…” you sighed through a smile, slowly turning in circles once you found yourself standing in the middle of what had been a lively, light-filled hub, once upon a time. “How did you even find this place?”

“I have my ways…” Tomura answered, leaning against the beam of one of those spinning swing rides, arms crossed over his chest and wearing a crooked smile of his own. “But you haven’t even seen the best part yet.”

You turned back to face him, wearing a mischievous smirk. When he didn’t offer any further details, you playfully urged, “Well, lead the way then, Captain.”

Tomura blew out a breath of amusement through his nose, swiveling on his heel, and waved you after him as he said, “Follow me.”

Navigating your way further through the rides— go-karts and roller coasters and kiosks that used to sell sweet, sticky caramel corn and melty, sugary soft serve— you tried to imagine a time when this place was brimming with tourists and loud with the kitschy carnival music that had been composed to grab the attention of every eager child that crossed paths with the tune.

You imagined, had you and Tomura been able to attend while the place was still in business, that maybe you would’ve convinced him to participate in one of those stupid water gun games where whoever filled up the meter through the mockingly small target first would win one of the big plush lions or dragons or bunnies slouching up on the top shelf of the prize display, each one holding hope in its shiny black plastic eyes to have a home by the end of the night.

He’d probably scoff at first, say something about how those games were rigged so that no one could ever really win any of the good prizes, but then he’d see the way you eyed that bunny, its fluffy white synthetic fur and rosy pink cheeks reminding you of a much smaller, much rattier relic from your childhood. You’d act like it wasn’t a big deal, like you didn’t want the cheap toy as much as you really, really did, and try to brush it off, say he was right and those games were a waste of money anyway.

And maybe you’d make it on another ride or two before Tomura eventually caved and gave it a go, watching the participants play a round before quickly securing his seat on the brightly colored vinyl stool that seemed to have the most powerful water gun. And so he’d play, trying his damnedest to win, maybe getting it on the first try, or maybe on the fourth, but one thing was for certain.

You guys weren’t going home until he’d won you that rabbit.

And when he finally did, you’d smile big and bright, pretending for a moment that the world you lived in outside of this place wasn’t terrible and dark and lonely. You’d hug that rabbit— the one that was almost half your size, you realized only once it was in your arms— close into your chest and then lace one of your hands with Tomura’s, gently tugging him down for a kiss.

And despite how much he’d grumbled about it before, Tomura would have no regrets about doing it. Because something so simple had made you so happy. And he’d do anything to be the reason for that smile appearing on your face.

It was the smile that gave him hope.

The smile that convinced him to keep on living.

“Well…” he said, hopping the short metal barricade and helping you over the side as well. “I hope you’re not afraid of heights…”

The two of you had reached the end of the park, the sea of green creeping in to drown out the sparse remains. Rounding the short curved path, the trees cleared and revealed in their wake a giant ferris wheel, its evenly spaced yellow and blue and red passenger cars dangling and swaying with a light creak from the structure like raindrops about to fall from an awning.

“I’m not afraid of heights,” you told him, almost as if, after all you’d been through, to have such a fear would be ridiculous. “But, wait…” You stared up at it, craning your neck the closer you approached, a subtle dread sinking slow and heavy in the pit of your stomach. “You’re not actually thinking of going up there, are you?”

Tomura flashed a look that was half-pleased, half-pleading. He continued on towards the control panel, likely long dead at this point, rusted over from the weather if not corroded all the way through.

“Y’know, the first time I found this place—” He pried open the control panel with only minimal struggle, exposing the tangled jungle of wires within. “I thought I was gonna use it to… Well, y’know…” He gave a lazy half shrug, as if casually talking about one of his previous suicide attempts was no big deal. Though, you supposed, when someone had once been as desperate to die as him, something like that started to feel like any other Tuesday. “Anyway, figuring out this one still worked was honestly just a complete coincidence.”

He fished out two of the wires, their frayed ends faintly sparking as he struck them together a few times in quick succession. You heard him mutter a curse under his breath when, assumingly, the desired result failed to follow. In the meantime, he continued, “I used to climb it. Use the maintenance ladders, y’know? And so—” He struck the wires again, a brighter spark emitting that time. “One day, I thought, hey, wouldn’t it be nice to take one more spin on one’a these, see one last view before—” When he struck them that time, the spark caught and the machine whirred reluctantly back to life, cutting off the end of his confession.

“Oh my god!” you laughed, too lost in the spectacle of it all to remember to ask him to finish telling his story, as hard as it may have been to hear. “You actually got it working?”

Tomura’s leisurely movements suddenly picked up pace, him taking you by the hand and helping you up onto the ride’s landing as the wheel slowly began to turn, its old bones groaning with stiffness and age after being stirred from such a long slumber. “C’mon, quick— Before it gets going too fast!” he instructed with a kind of giddiness you weren’t used to seeing from him.

Together, the two of you leapt onto one of the gondolas and took your seats across from each other, Tomura pulling the little safety door shut behind you.

“Are you sure this is safe?” you asked him, probably not quite as concerned as you should’ve been.

But Tomura just gave a playful roll of his eyes and said, “Do you really think I’d take you up here if it wasn’t?”

Soon, you found yourself carefully shifting over to sit beside him, nestling closer to his side. “And how about this?” you asked. “Is this safe? Or will the whole thing tip?”

He slung an arm around you, gently pulling you a little closer. “Trust me, it would take a lot more than us to flip this thing.” Then, gazing out at the growing horizon, almost wistfully, he said, “Y’know, I really didn’t think I’d ever be back here. Especially not with—”

But his admission was cut off with a kiss, your lips finding his and helping him get lost in a different kind of memory. A reminder. A little something to convince him that he’d stayed alive all this time for a reason. That he should continue to live, to fight for every day he had because life was too fleeting to dwell in the shadows of the past.

“Thanks for taking me here,” you said, voice soft and loving. You rested your head against his shoulder, content. “I really love it.”

Tomura settled his head atop yours, slightly flexing his fingers where they were interlocked with yours a little tighter. He wanted to thank you for allowing him to make new memories here, ones that weren’t all despair and death and the darkest times in his life. But instead all he said was, “No problem.”

***

The precinct was buzzing with conspiracies and chaos. After a bust on one of the dilapidated old warehouses that sulked on the city’s outskirts, the cops turned up with an array of weapons, drugs, and various other kinds of contraband— though suspected it was mere crumbs compared to what the main haul had been before whoever had been holing up there had cleared out— as well as copious amounts of blood that forensics could only conclude had lead to one unfortunate person’s death.

The crime scene investigators had collected various DNA samples, mainly fingerprints and an amalgamation of hair strands, and while they’d been able to link some of these samples to suspects with a previous criminal record, there were still a few gaps in the overall investigation that had Keigo Takami and some of his team scratching their heads.

“Anything new?” one of Keigo’s co-workers asked as he peered over the blonde’s shoulder at the computer screen.

Keigo clicked through a few more of the mugshots they’d linked to the scene so far. Mostly low ranking gang members or guys who’d been arrested once or twice for more minor offenses. “Nothing yet…” he sighed, chin resting in his palm as he stared at the profiles with about as much interest as one would have watching paint dry. “Although…”

He let his next thought trail off as the following mugshot popped on screen amidst his mindless clicking. It depicted a teenage boy, perhaps around the age of seventeen, with spiky white hair and piercing blue eyes. He looked miserable and murderous all within the same image. Keigo stared into his digital eyes for a while longer, then perked up as something deep within his brain seemed to click.

“What is it?” his colleague asked, sensing Keigo’s razor sharp intuition kicking in. “Think you got somethin’?”

Keigo read the name beneath the photo. Touya Todoroki. The Chief’s son, undeniably. He’d always been vaguely aware of his boss’s dirty little secret— how his only son had run away from home at the age of sixteen, fallen into a life of crime, though the way Enji told it made it sound like he had no idea how Touya had turned out that way.

Keigo clicked past the image and pulled up the next one. “Nah…” he shook his head. “Doesn’t strike me as the ringleader type.”

After that, his colleague mumbled something about how overtime was probably about to pick up and then sauntered off to poke around in someone else’s work rather than continue with his own. Keigo peered over his shoulder, made sure he had at least a little privacy, then clicked back to the photo of the white-haired boy.

As far as police records were concerned, the last time the Chief’s troublemaker son had been spotted was when this mugshot had been taken and then his father had bailed him out after twenty-four hours spent in holding. Enji’s side of the story was that he’d tried to reason with Touya, convince him to come home, but the boy had blatantly refused, departed holding, and disappeared again soon after. As the years went on with no sight of or contact from Touya, Enji could only assume his sole offspring was dead. But, looking into those eyes, seeing the violence, seeing the resolve, Keigo had a hard time believing that someone like that would lay down and die so easily.

Flipping open his notepad, Keigo scribbled the name down, along with a few notes listed in his profile like a few of the tattoos he’d had— at least at the time, but he was sure, if he really was still alive, by now he’d have more— and also some of the persons of interest he’d been linked to back in the day. He pocketed his notepad, closed out of the profile catalogue, and logged out of the computer. He’d finish off his workday doing some private investigating of his own.

Plus, he wanted to keep things on the downlow for the time being. He didn’t need to inform Enji about the sudden and rather concerning reappearance of the child he’d proclaimed dead, or dead to him, in this case. As far as the Chief needed to know, the blood had belonged to another lowlife criminal and they’d catch his cronies soon enough. Case closed.

But what had really piqued Keigo’s interest was how this all connected to the barber shop murder, and you, and all the other bits and pieces he’d been collecting along the way.

If he reached a dead end, perhaps he’d have no choice but to bring it to the Chief’s attention, get a few extra resources to fill in the gaps (he knew Enji trusted him enough to give him whatever he asked for— anything for the precinct’s golden boy, of course) but for now, he needed to follow his instincts, and his instincts told him to pursue things on his own.

Plus, he’d always been curious as to what kind of person Enji’s son really was.

***

It looked like it might rain again soon, a veil of thick cloud cover creeping over the city skyline, a mere sliver of azure sky left unswallowed on the edge of the horizon. As the setting sun cast a pale glow of gold across Tomura’s skin, you took a moment to study him, tracing the lines of his profile, his features a unique contrast of sharp and soft.

“Can I ask you something?”

Tomura looked over at you, and you could almost see the daydream die in his eyes.

“Sure,” he said.

“Do you remember the first time you wanted to…” You tried to search for the right words, wanting to be as delicate and respectful as possible, but none seemed to turn up.

Tomura’s gaze fell to his hands, fingers loosely fidgeting in his lap as he resisted the urge to itch. He let the question he knew you were trying to ask turn over in his mind a few times. Then he let out a gentle sigh through his nose and replied, “Yeah… I was five.”

Anger.

Confusion.

Grief.

So many emotions ran through you all at once you couldn’t separate one from the other.

“Tomura…” you said, pleading and heartbroken as you tried to meet his downcast gaze. “What do you mean you were five? Five? I mean— What— You—?” You couldn’t even get the sentence out, so many questions tripping over each other on your tongue that it all just turned to incredulous sputtering.

He shrugged, lips parted with the opening lines of a tragedy, silence choking out the trauma that clung to him, haunting him like a ghost, invisible but ever present.

After what felt like an eternity, his brow becoming more and more furrowed as he relived the pain, relived the rage, he said, slow and wrathful, “My dad…" A thick swallow. "He used to beat me. And my mom…" The clenching of his jaw. "I dunno. I think when I was a kid, I used to think she’d just watch. Like she’d just let it happen. But now I think maybe he was beating her too. Or maybe he wasn’t. I don’t know. But she was clearly afraid of him enough to not intervene…”

You felt his hand under yours, though you didn’t remember deciding to reach over to place it there. You just listened, trying your best to hold back the tears you felt threatening to well, the back of your nose stinging in warning.

“I had a sister,” he admitted. You thought you saw a flicker of a smile when he continued with, “And a dog. And my grandparents even lived with us too, for a while…” He told you about his sister and his dog and his grandparents. The memories he offered of his other family members were mostly bits and pieces, nothing too specific, but when he started to talk about his dog— a corgi that had been named Mon-chan— you didn’t think you’d ever seen his eyes light up like they did then.

It sounded like that dog had been his best friend for most of his childhood, his only companion on the evenings when he’d been banished to the corner of the backyard by his father after some bout of abuse. But, despite the horrors he’d had to endure, when he spoke of Mon-chan he couldn’t help but smile.

You wished that did anything to ease the weight of what you’d learned.

You wondered how many of those scars that hid under his sleeves had been inflicted upon him by others.

“I don’t think I knew what suicide was back then,” he eventually said, a bitter, cynical smirk tugging at one corner of his mouth now. “All I remember is wishing there was a way I could just escape from it all. A way I could disappear and just not exist. I thought about running away, but I was so scared of what would happen if someone found me and brought me back there— brought me back home and I—”

It was years away from him, almost another lifetime ago, yet it was like he was still that scared little boy, even now. When you looked at him, you could see that he thought he was still just as helpless, just as alone.

“Anyway, when I was ten, I found out my dad had these pills. Some kind of heart or cholesterol meds or something, I don’t even know. But he kept them on the top shelf of the cabinet over the sink where I guess, when me and my sister were kids— or, y’know, smaller than we were at that age— he thought we wouldn’t be able to get ahold of them…”

You could picture it. The bright orange plastic of the prescription bottles standing out like a lure from amongst all the whites and browns and grays of the other items clustered on the shelf. Tantalizing. Tormenting. Tempting with the promise of what swallowing the entire bottle would bring. The slow descent into a vast, numb darkness that would finally put an end to all the suffering. That would finally bring him peace.

Y’know, as long as someone didn’t find his comatose body before the effects could set in and rush him to the hospital in time to get his stomach pumped first.

“And did you?” you eventually asked after a prolonged bout of silence, your voice barely above a whisper. “Take the pills, I mean?”

Tomura let out a sigh through his nose, gazing out at something in the distance as if searching the silhouette of the trees would spell out an answer that made it all make sense for him.

“No,” he breathed, so quiet you’d nearly missed it. Then, clearing his throat, he spoke a little louder, “No, I just started hurting myself in other ways, getting as close to dying as I could without actually committing to it.”

There was a creak and a jolt and then suddenly the gondola swayed to a halt, leaving you suspended at the very top of the ferris wheel. You gasped and clutched him, your heart dropping, for a split second fearing that he’d get his wish and you two would plummet to your deaths right then and there.

Once the rocking slowed, you cautiously peered over the side at the vast drop below and said, “Um, is this part of it or…?”

Tomura clicked his tongue, leaning further over the guardrail than you ever would’ve dared, just the thought of it making your stomach turn. “Yeah, this happens sometimes…” he admitted, slouching back against the bench with a sigh. “It’ll pass eventually. We just have to wait it out…”

You scooted closer to the center of the car, not wanting to be anywhere near the edge, distressed. Tomura’s unbothered nonchalance seemed to wear off gradually when he realized this, resting an arm over your shoulders and tugging you a little closer into his side. The wind began to pick up and you nuzzled further into his chest, closing your eyes and trying to calm yourself down.

“Don’t worry,” he attempted to comfort you, the usual rough edge to his tone smoothing to something softer and more soothing. “We’re fine. It won’t be long. Promise.”

You believed him, and luckily within the next five minutes the wheel began turning again, lowering your car closer to the ground. But still, once the initial adrenaline of falling into an early grave if this rusted metal death trap decided to finally give out faded, you were grateful for the small moment of respite with your head resting against his chest, listening to the steady beating of his heart.

The ride wouldn’t stop on its own though, so once you were three cars from the landing platform, he informed you that you’d have to jump off similar to how you’d jumped on. Tomura went first, dropping from higher than you would’ve thought safe in order to be at the landing in time to lend you a hand.

Once you were safely back on solid ground, Tomura went to switch the ride off, the ferris wheel groaning to a rickety halt after a couple of minutes, abandoned gondolas swaying in the wind, those dark clouds inching closer by the second.

“So,” he said as you began to exit that area of the park, “What’d ya think?”

“I think I probably prefer being on the ground,” you shamelessly admitted, but then added on a slightly more encouraging, “But it was still really cool. Thanks for taking me.”

You grabbed his hand and he interlocked his fingers with yours. “Think you’ll be up for the roller coaster next time?” he joked, and you gave him a nudge.

“You wish,” you chuckled. “But seriously, I mean, how many people do you think even know about this place?” He told you, of all the times he’d come to explore it over the years, he’d never run into another soul in the entire park. Only ever the sporadic graffiti that was sometimes left behind in another explorer's wake.

It was his secret base. His safe place. Nothing but out of service machinery and a fence of overgrown greenery and the open sky above.

He would’ve killed to have known about it as a kid. Had any place he felt like he could sneak off and escape to for a little while. It wouldn’t have fixed things, but it maybe would’ve helped make them a little more bearable, at least.

“Oh, and, by the way,” you began, “I won’t tell Dabi about this place. It’ll be our secret.”

Tomura scoffed. “Only use he’d have for this place is a new backdrop to get high in, probably…” Then, slightly more irritated, “Where the hell does he go all day anyway? It’s not like he’s got a job or anything.”

Half of you was curious as well, but the other half thought that you really didn’t want to know.

“Who cares,” you concluded. “But hey, I’ve got an idea—” Tomura gave you an inquisitive look, though when he read the mischief in your expression he slowly began to turn a little more cautious.

“What…?” he asked, though sounded like he wished you wouldn’t answer.

“Do you trust me?” you asked, turning his previous words against him now, shooting him a devious grin.

He rolled his eyes, a crooked smile cracking across his lips. “Sure, but can I at least have a hint?”

“It’s a surprise,” you repeated. “And don’t bother guessing, ‘cause even if you guess right, I’m still not gonna say.”

“C’mon…” he chuckled, though it sounded laced with dread.

“Oh, you really walked into that one, didn’t you?” you teased.

“Ok, fine,” he said, trying to feign annoyance but more than content to play your little game. “But if it sucks and I hate it then we’re leaving.”

“It won’t suck,” you said, sounding as if you were offended he’d question your choice of activities. “Though, you might hate it, at first. But you’re not allowed to leave!” You leaned against him, sending his next step a little off balance and making you giggle. “But it’s only fair,” you told him. “You got to take me somewhere, so now it’s my turn to take you somewhere.”

Tomura didn’t like his odds, the way you were making it sound, but you were right.

Wherever you were about to drag him, even if it sucked and even if he hated it, so long as you stayed, so would he.

By now, he was pretty sure he’d follow you anywhere.

***

The club lights danced in a rainbow of electric color across the crowd, the thumping bass of loud music buzzing in your chests as you and Tomura sat at the bar, two shots down and a third on the way.

“No,” he’d stated with an unamused drone as you’d stood before the entrance to the establishment. “No way. C’mon— You’re really gonna make me do this?”

“Yes,” you’d replied, firm and unyielding as you began to approach the front doors with his hand still clasped in yours. “It won’t kill you to let loose a little! Plus, I wanna dance, so either you’re gonna dance with me or you’re gonna stand by the wall and watch as some other guy dances with me.”

That had shut him up— after he’d let out a disgruntled groan and carried on like you were marching him towards a root canal instead of a nightclub— but ultimately he complied.

“Hey!” you’d called over the initial burst of music that was seeping through the second set of doors. When he looked over at you you pulled him in for a kiss, fleeting but firm, then said, “Till death, what’s left, right?”

You weren’t sure why you’d said it. You supposed it had just felt right at the time.

Tomura’s eyes widened a fraction, as if those words had awoken something within him. Sparked a sudden and life-altering epiphany. “Till death,” he repeated with a raspy rise of his voice, “what’s left.”

And with that the two of you had submerged yourselves into the thick neon atmosphere of the club's maw.

Now, you shouted over the commotion as the end of one remix blended into the beginning of the next, “Oh— Wait, I love this song!” already sliding off the barstool and drifting towards the packed dance floor, expecting Tomura to follow you, but when he didn’t budge you stopped mid-stride and turned on your heel. “C’mon!” you beckoned, your beaming smile almost enough to convince him to join you, as much as he loathed the idea of becoming part of the claustrophobic, undulating mass of bodies swaying, thrashing, and grinding.

“You go ahead!” he called back. Your smile fell. The next round of shots arrived. Tomura plucked one up from the counter, merely studying it for a short spell before he said, “I’m good here, I think.”

Until he would inevitably see a stranger approach you like you’d warned him of, at least.

You flung your arms over his shoulders, hooking your chin there, and whined “C’mon, dance with meeeee…” as you nuzzled your cheek, already dewy from the combined sweat of the grimy population, against the rough skin of his own. “Pleeeeeeaaaaaase!”

Tomura felt his resolve waver, a jenga tower one block away from crashing down. He flexed his jaw, gripped the shot glass a little tighter. “I dunno…” he shrugged, averting his gaze and trying to suppress a nervous smile. “I don’t really think it’s my vibe.”

“Tomura,” you said, suddenly turning serious, gently grasping his chin between your fingers to turn his face towards yours. “Just give me one dance, then we can go back to Dabi’s.” Then, through a sultry smirk, you added, “I promise I’ll make it worth your while…”

To this, Tomura huffed out a dark chuckle of a breath, threw back his shot, then also helped himself to yours, and next thing you knew he was sliding off his stool and following you deeper into the crowd as you led him by the hand to the center of the chaos.

And while he was undoubtedly stiff and awkward at the start, the more you seemed to let go and just allow your limbs to flail wild and free as you jumped and stepped and swayed to the beat, the more he seemed to try and follow.

Tomura was smiling the next time you looked up at him— actually smiling— big and bright and still a little crooked, though to you that only added to the charm of it all. It was the kind of smile that reached his eyes, filled them to the brim with carmine elation. You could hear him laughing, the song simmering a little in preparation for the beat to drop.

But he wasn’t happy because of the song or the rare opportunity to dance without a care in the world.

He was happy because he was realizing, not for the first time, that all of this was real.

You were real.

You were his.

You were all his…

“Hey!” you called over to him, flinging your arms over his shoulders again, clasping your hands around the back of his neck, sweat dampening his silver waves, the sheen causing him to glow under the neon flashes that cast saturated swathes of blue and purple and orange over his pale skin. Once you had his attention, you thought you might say something else. Thought you might say something you meant in the moment but might regret once the high of the night wore off.

So instead, you opted to lean in and kiss him, deep and slow that time, savoring the taste of his mouth against yours, the spice of the alcohol on his breath mingling with your sweet saliva, warmth flooding you through and through. And despite the amount of strangers currently surrounding you, in that moment, it felt like you were the only two people in the room.

“I—” you started to hear him say once you broke away, but the rest of his sentence was indecipherable and lost amidst the increased volume of the song.

“What?” you shouted, that gleeful smile splitting across your face once more.

Tomura then shook his head, wearing the remnants of his own grin, and replied, “Nothing! But do you wanna get out of here after this?”

You gave his hand a squeeze, hummed out a pleased, lilting note he wouldn’t be able to hear. You two had had your fun, even if just for the duration of one short dance. It was time to lay low again. But you both knew that laying low had its own benefits just as well.

“One more song!” you bartered.

You just needed one more song before you shed the carefree skin that you’d once been allowed to live in and went back to being an animal caught halfway in the hunter’s trap.

***

It was late by the time Dabi’s warehouse came back into sight. Well, actually it was extremely early in the morning, the storm having already come and gone during the hour or so you two had been inside the nightclub, the only evidence it had happened at all being the slick pavement and the humid scent still lingering in the air.

When the two of you stumbled back down the hall marked with the glowing blue inferno, your muttered flirtations and simpering giggles echoing off of metal and concrete, neither of you cared whether Dabi would be waiting on the other side of that door or not. You were going to have sex no matter whose ears were around to hear or whose eyes were around to see.

You were both shameless.

Ravenous.

Alight with a new outlook on life.

You were a tangle and limbs and teeth and tongues as you burst through that heavy metal push door, Tomura trying to strip you of your clothing like he was going for the new world record of undressing another person and his only competition was you. Pieces of black and white fabric were soon strewn across the warehouse floor, a trail of t-shirts and jeans and underwear leading to the couch.

When you were beneath him and his body was against yours, he swore you were something more than human. An angel. A god. A being that transcended all logical description. Your breath became his breath and his breath became yours, drinking in each others’ air as your kisses became so fervent it was like you were trying to consume each other. Like you were trying to become one. Your hands became cartographers, mapping out each others’ bodies like you were hoping to plot the next great civilization, sculptors kneading the clay that would become the most beautiful masterpiece.

“Tomura…” you sighed, clasping your hands behind his neck as his lips sucked gentle bruises against your throat. “You know… Once all this is over… and we make enough money to leave this place…” Your words were interrupted with a soft mewl as he found the tender spot by your jaw, the shiver that ran up your spine melting into a spread of sated warmth.

You nearly forgot where you’d left off. What you’d wanted to say. Every kiss he placed upon your skin was pulling you further from the future and anchoring you closer to the present. But you wanted to tell him.

You wanted to tell him that you wanted him to come with you.

You wanted a life with him. A normal one.

“Hm…?” he hummed, urging you to finish your sentence, but it was already lost to you amidst the subtle pleasure.

Gazing into his eyes, getting lost in all that vibrant red, you just smiled at him, nudged your nose against his, and replied, “Nothing… I’m just really glad I met you, is all.”

For someone who’d been starved of it as a child, convinced himself he didn’t deserve it as a teen, and believed he’d die without ever having felt it into his young adulthood, the way that Tomura had learned to love since your fateful encounter in the street that night was startling.

The way he loved you shouldn’t have even been possible, given his history.

But, even without him saying it, you could feel just how much he cared for you. What had started as a one night stand after perhaps the most traumatic moment of your entire life had led to a certain kind of intrigued fondness. You’d woken up next to each other the following morning, shared breakfast at the shitty diner on the edge of town. You’d gotten roped into a robbery but lived to tell the tale. You’d cheated death. You’d laughed about it. You’d cried. You’d danced.

You loved him too.

“Tomura, wait.” You stopped him before things could really escalate. He swished the hair that had fallen into his eyes out of the way and patiently awaited your next words. You wrestled with a nervous smile and lost, splaying a hand across his chest and giving a gentle push. He reluctantly retreated, sitting back on the couch and looking like he was wondering what he’d done wrong.

Then you flashed him an expression that was a little more sultry, humming out a lilting note of amusement as you shifted to climb atop him, straddling his lap and placing both hands on his shoulders.

“How about…” you pretended to ponder. You cocked your head at him, the scheming grin you now wore only stretching wider. “You let me take care of you this time?”

Tomura’s eyes widened, the rise of his throat bobbing with a particularly hard swallow.

“Yeah?” he seemed to question, quirking up one sparse brow as if he wasn’t sure he’d heard you right.

“Mmhmm…” you nodded, urging him to get more comfortable as you slid further down his form, laying on your stomach between his legs. Pearly beads of pre-cum were already beginning to leak from the blushing tip of him, his length a little more intimidating to you from this angle.

But you wanted to do something special for him.

After tonight, you figured he deserved it.

You began by pressing a kiss to the head, a small tremor wracking through him as he draped his arm across his eyes and craned his head back against the arm of the couch. Next you gave his cock teasing little kitten licks, the salty taste of his arousal coating your tongue as you pressed it flat and dragged a fat wet stripe up his shaft. Tomura bit back a moan, tensing as you started easing him into your mouth and down your throat, more sounds of pleasure breaking through to cut the silence of the empty warehouse as he felt you tightening around him.

Selfishly, he bucked up into your mouth, forcing himself a few more inches deeper and causing a muffled whimper to squeak from you as tears welled in your eyes. He curled a fist in your hair but he was gentle. He didn’t pull. He just wanted to feel its texture. He was stroking your head, broken whispers of “oh god, oh god, oh god” muttered out in quick succession before a strained “Fuck—” was punched from his lungs.

You could’ve finished him off that way— would’ve, if you hadn’t had a few other things in store— but he was reaching his limit. You figured you’d better change the pace of things a little bit.

He let you pull off of him, thick strands of spit keeping the two of you connected until he reached forward to wipe your mouth with the pad of his thumb, half-lidded gaze glowing as it landed upon you as if you were something ethereal. But if he thought you were done, he had another thing coming.

You swallowed thickly, wincing at the soreness that had already begun to form in your throat in such a short time, but kept things moving.

You sat up again, scooting closer to him. Beginning to stroke him with your hand, you soaked up every one of those strained whimpers and hisses that escaped from between his clenched teeth. “I told you I’d make it worth your while,” you reminded him, working him up just enough to tease him. You probably could’ve had him cumming in a few minutes, at the rate he was already twitching under your touch, but what fun would that be?

You wanted this to last for a little while, at least.

He was panting hot and heavy, mouth left agape as his stomach continued to flinch, probably a few more strokes away from spilling into your hand, but that’s just when you’d slow down, or stop, or do any other thing that made him cast you a pleading look. It was oddly intoxicating, holding that kind of power over his body. It was almost like you couldn’t believe it was you who was doing this to him, like you kept trying to prove to yourself it wasn’t just some kind of coincidence that he was coming undone beneath your touch.

But you’d had your fun.

Now, you’d give him what you both wanted.

Tomura gripped your hips, helping you to slide down on his aching cock, taking his time, letting you feel every vein and ridge of him. Any power you had prior began slowly seeping out of you as he filled you, already nudging against the sensitive, spongy spot deep inside your cunt as he gave you time to adjust to the familiar, welcome stretch.

But really, with you on top of him, it was still up to you when things would start moving.

Your first bounces were tiny and shallow, lust glazing over your mind as he helped lift you further off of him so you could slam back down, before long the two of you working in tandem to pleasure each other to completion.

Tomura lived for the music of your moans, revived every time one of them clipped off into a whimper or heightened in pitch. His eyes had been squeezed shut for a while now but he forced them a fraction of the way open. He wanted to burn this image of you— head thrown back and bruised neck bared, lashes fluttering, pretty tits bouncing with every repetitive motion as you worked yourself up and over your own sharp edge— into his mind, seer it into the tissue of his brain so that he’d never forget this memory.

But then he was losing all control and coherency and spilling inside of you, flooding you to the brim with thick, sticky warmth. You trembled and tensed with a silent cry seconds after, your silken walls trying to milk every last drop from him.

You couldn’t help but hunch over him at that point, both of your chests heaving with exertion, bodies slicked with a thin sheen of sweat and the air thick and humid with the scent of summer sex. Tomura turned his head and pressed a kiss to your forehead from where you rested against his shoulder, allowing himself to stay inside you a little longer, to enjoy the intimate warmth your body gave him.

He wondered how every time you two did this it seemed better than the last, how you kept on surprising him.

Out of all the hows, whys, and what ifs though, the main thing he couldn’t seem to figure out was why you’d chosen him. Or rather, why you kept choosing him. On one hand, he knew he probably shouldn’t dwell on it. He should count himself lucky and not sink into thoughts of self sabotage. On the other, he feared you’d wake him up from this dream he felt like he was living in as of late and he’d come to find that what you and him had going on had actually ended the morning after that first time in your apartment.

If that were the case, he hoped you’d let him sleep for a little longer.

“Y’know…” Tomura murmured later as the two of you lay together, you already halfway to dozing off. “Truth be told, I don’t even really care about the money…” He sounded like he was talking to himself more than anything. Like he was simply voicing his thoughts out loud. “I never had much to lose to begin with. When you found me, all I really had left to lose was my life. And thinking up all these crazy scenarios about what being rich could be like is fun ‘n all but…” He glanced at you, all closed eyes and shallow breathing. You were probably asleep already, yet still he couldn’t help but finish the thought. Looking back to the crumbling ceiling, voice barely above a whisper, he said, “All I think I ever really wanted was to be loved.”

And, even with no one around to hear it, admitting that was the scariest thing Tomura had ever done.

***

Dabi staggered from the darkness of his den the following morning, feeling ten tonnes lighter and, for once, well rested. He felt like a new man. Reborn. The dark bruises usually caving in under his eyes and the clamminess of his skin had dissipated. And he actually had an appetite for something other than illegal substances. This new hunger was a foreign feeling to him. He’d known hunger before. He’d known starvation. But, after a while, the knot that twisted in his empty stomach had gone numb and died, his body finally adapting to malnutrition.

That morning, he could’ve eaten an entire breakfast buffet and still had room for dessert. But all he had in his kitchen were some half-stale snack foods and a couple cans of beer, so he consumed everything he could get his hands on then grabbed his keys and his coat, planning on heading out to the nearest konbini to legally purchase anything that looked good.

He thought to ask you and Tomura if you wanted anything, then remembered that he hadn’t seen you two when he’d come home last night. Suddenly he felt a little less hungry.

But, against his own will, he hoped that, when he walked out into the missmash of broken down curb-side furniture that he called a living room, he’d see you two curled up on that couch.

He hoped that you hadn’t truly abandoned him.

His breath nearly caught when he turned the next corner, relief flooding him when he saw the two of you all tangled up in each other under a frayed old patchwork blanket, still weighed down by the heaviness of a deep sleep.

And Dabi almost let himself feel happy. He almost let himself simmer in the fact that, for once, his life didn’t feel like it was collapsing down around him.

But then he remembered how it should’ve been him sleeping with his arms around you, how he should’ve been sharing body heat under that thin blanket.

Dabi forced himself to look away as he passed the couch, making sure to let the door slam on his way out.

***

In the blink of an eye three more months had passed.

You, Tomura, and Dabi had stayed busy over the summer. Dabi’s long list of vengeances wouldn’t rob themselves, after all. And so the three of you had steadily increased your catalogue of stolen goods and dirty money, every target you hit never having seen you coming. But as Dabi’s index of enemies you had left to steal from seemed to shorten, your own tally of adversaries was getting so long you’d just about lost count.

The night after your second heist, the high of risk and success still coursing thick through your veins, the three of you stayed up into the early hours of the morning talking about what kind of lives you’d have once all was said and done and you left this town for good.

“I’m gonna get a motorcycle,” Dabi shared, “something expensive and fast, and I’m gonna get the hell outta this shithole town.”

“And then what?” you’d asked. “Where will you go?”

“Dunno,” he’d admitted. “But it would be somewhere far away. And I’d open a tattoo shop there.” He nodded towards you. “And what about you? What’ll you do?”

You took a moment to think about it, then said, “Honestly, I don’t need anything crazy. I’d just like one of those nicer apartments in the city center. Maybe I’d own my own salon, since that’s all I’ve ever really been good at. But more than anything I just don’t want to have to worry about keeping the lights on or wondering if I’ll have enough to afford groceries anymore.”

Dabi nodded, either like he understood or like he thought that didn’t sound too bad, then the two of you turned your attention to Tomura.

“Me?” he’d emphasized, as if he’d forgotten he could be perceived in the room. “Uhhh… Well I guess…” He glanced at you, then back to the pale red lines that were appearing against his wrist from where he'd begun to scratch absentmindedly at his skin. “Well I guess I’d just go with you, if the invitation was extended… Figure things out from there…”

You leaned forward and placed a peck to his cheek. Of course you’d invite him. At this point, being without him didn’t feel right. Besides, one way or another, Tomura would follow you anywhere. You guys were sort of stuck with each other.

It was just another reminder that when all was said and done it would be Dabi who ended up alone, always the odd man out.

Now, with the first few weeks of fall kissing your noses with cool, brisk air whenever you walked outside, the three of you had fallen into the illusion that your lives were completely different than what they’d been when you’d first met at the start of the year’s most humid season.

You kept the bulk of the cash stashed in a fireproof safe hidden in the wall where part of the foundation had begun to crumble away, one of several movie posters and art pieces that now decorated the warehouse— which had become much cooler and cozier over the past several weeks— plastered over the gap. You all had your own rooms now, though, more often than not, you and Tomura slept together in yours.

You had beds. You had new clothes and places to keep them. You’d all pitched in to buy a new refrigerator, a kitchen table and three chairs, a flatscreen TV, and, Dabi’s personal favorite, a new couch. Two of them, in fact. God knew how fucking desecrated the old thing was after you and Tomura, among himself, of course, had been done with it.

You guys also had a car now. As in, you actually owned one. You figured you’d have to, eventually. You needed a reliable getaway, if anything. The boys had sent you to pick it out. You were, after all, the least suspicious of the three of you. And you knew how to charm your way around the dealer. You’d chosen something unassuming. Something black to blend in better with the downtown city streets at night, but not something so nice that it would attract the attention of anyone more inclined to vandalism or thievery. You’d paid for it outright and in cash.

You’d been teaching Tomura how to cook. You’d been cutting Dabi’s hair. One night the three of you even indulged in a nice dinner out. The place wasn’t anything five star— that would’ve been too risky— but it was better than a konbini or a diner and it was good fucking food.

The more jobs your trio seemed to pull off together, the more amicable you all became. Or rather, the more amicable Dabi became.

He smiled more. Laughed more. He stopped insulting you and Tomura and became less snappy, so long as he kept a steady supply of his beloved painkillers on hand. The three of you seemed happy. Like you were a family. Like you could spend the rest of your lives together. As if all of this would never end. As if you’d only ever succeed, never get caught, and never fail.

Everything was going so smoothly it was almost scary.

But the three of you really should’ve known better by now that when things seem too good to be true, that usually means they are.

***

“You seen this yet?” one of Keigo’s colleagues tossed a newspaper— one of the small-time ones half full of cheap gossip and trashy advice that no one really read— onto his desk.

Keigo eyed his co-worker as he leaned forward in his chair, hair mussed and dark circles beginning to form under his eyes from too many sleepless nights as of late. Because, yes, he’d seen it. He’d been following every scrap, morsel, and tidbit of information that seemed even remotely connected to that initial warehouse bust and the murder that had accompanied it for the entire summer. Most of his investigating and research had been on his own time, but the more frequent and high stakes the robberies in and surrounding the slums were becoming, the more likely it was looking that he was about to be getting paid for at least some of the overtime.

When the Chief officially assigned him to look deeper into the matter though, it was under the pretense that these criminal activities were creeping closer to the main hub of the city. Because who cared if the savages that scampered around the slums were getting robbed? The police weren’t paid to protect them. What did those people even have that was worth protecting anyway?

“Looks like you get to do your favorite thing again, Hawks,” the Chief had commented through a sarcastic scoff. “You run with any of these crowds in the past?”

Undercover work was, after all, Keigo’s specialty. Whether or not it was his favorite was a different matter, though he’d be lying if he said he didn’t get some kind of cruel satisfaction out of it, especially the moment right before a case came to a close.

“More or less,” he’d told the Chief with a shrug as he took the briefing report from him, casually flipping through it with little interest, “I’ve succeeded at pretending to, at least, so…” Then he reached the suspect page and stopped cold.

There was an array of photos, at least ten different profiles of past convicts, and while any of them could’ve been picked out of a lineup to fit the part, something about how blatantly obvious it felt didn’t sit right with him.

Besides, they were all men.

Keigo knew at least one woman was involved in all of this, same as he knew it had been a woman who’d killed that barber shop owner at the start of the summer.

And while he didn’t yet know how you fit into all of this just yet, his intuition told him it would only be a matter of time until he did.

There was also the fact that a certain Chief of Police’s estranged son was missing from the list of current suspects. Touya Todoroki’s mugshot had been among those linked to the warehouse bust but was now conveniently absent from this new group.

“Just be careful,” Enji cautioned, shooting his most promising young detective a wary side glance. “And if you think any of them even remotely recognize you, get outta there. It’s not worth it to—”

“Relaaaaaaax…” Keigo cut in, trying to suppress the urge to roll his eyes at the lecture of concern. It was no secret to anyone in the precinct that Enji Todoroki basically viewed Keigo as the son he never had (though, unlike a majority of the others, Keigo knew he had had a son, at one point or another), gave him special treatment and basically anything the detective asked for. Keigo sometimes wished that weren’t the case though. Because, for as useful as unquestioned resources could be, the constant micro-doses of that concerned parent attitude that Enji seemed to inject into their interactions tended to make Keigo’s skin crawl.

Having grown up as a street orphan, you’d think he’d crave the care, the praise.

But all it ever really did was stir up his unsettled resentments.

“I’ve got this,” Keigo assured the Chief. Then, almost to himself, “I mean, when have I ever gotten caught?”

To this, the Chief clapped a hand on his shoulder and encouraged him to get started as soon as possible. “I have full faith that, if anyone can track down who’s responsible, it’s you, kid.”

And while Keigo might not’ve known who was responsible yet, he did have a pretty good idea of where to start his search.

***

These days, the narrow maze of alleys you and the boys had learned to call home felt so much smaller. You’d started learning what it was like to live a little, after all, and even just a single sporadic night spent in the heart of the city and all its glittering temptations and luxury had broadened your horizons more than all three of you had once thought possible.

It was sort of crazy how a lot of money, the right wardrobe, and a little bluffing could get any one of you into pretty much anywhere. Your catalogue of characters, aliases, and disguises had grown quite considerably over the last few months, as had your acting abilities.

You’d been the daughter of a beauty company CEO, the wife of a pro athlete, the personal assistant of a celebrity that was currently in town, and the manager of an up and coming pop star. Tomura had been a top twitch streamer, the adopted son of a wealthy tech-startup owner, and a “faceless content creator”, whatever that meant. Dabi had been a social media influencer, a renowned tattoo artist, and, his personal favorite, much to your and Tomura’s disdain, a popular porn star.

You’d spend slow afternoons practicing your personas in front of each other, giving and taking notes on how to make them more believable, whether by script, body language, or confidence, and once all three of you felt the facade was solid, you’d enter that identity into the rotation.

Though, seeing as tonight all three of you seemed to have some time off from your more nefarious extracurriculars, you’d all opted to just be your usual selves. Which meant Dabi was out on a cigarette run while you and Tomura probably got busy doing something together on the new couch that would make it glow under a black light.

Little did you know though, that while your trio hung up the masks, a new player had just entered the game.

And Hawks was the boss battle when it came to playing pretend.

When he’d started to trail Dabi, he hadn’t had any real reason to suspect him, other than him being a shady guy in a shady part of town. From his current angle, all the detective could see was a tall, lanky, thin silhouette shrouded by a black hoodie, some faded old ripped jeans, and some scuffed lace up boots. It wasn’t until he waited across the street while his suspect purchased a fresh pack of Marlboros in the adjacent konbini that he caught a glimpse of all that ink peeking out from his sleeve cuffs and the neck of his t-shirt, the shiny tousle of raven spikes fighting their way out from under his hood, and the extended family of silver piercings climbing up both his ears that his intuition kicked into overdrive.

Hawks pulled up his own hood, hiding his golden locks, which were in desperate need of washing at the moment, beneath the tattered grey sweatshirt he’d borrowed from the station’s lost and found that smelled like someone had doused the thing in cheap cologne to cover up the stink of even cheaper weed serving as the perfect centerpiece for his disguise. To make matters even more convincing, he’d dropped a few pounds and hours of sleep from his regular schedule over the last week since he’d been assigned this investigation. He was the picture of a perfect addict.

And Hawks knew one when he saw one.

And Dabi was definitely in that club, in one form or another.

Before he’d even exited the corner store, Dabi already had a cigarette between his teeth, pulling out a lighter to activate his current vice before shoving his hands deep into his hoodie pocket, continuing on at a leisurely pace. Hawks pushed off from the cool brick and followed a good half block away, keeping his gaze mostly downcast except to glance up and make sure his target was still in sight, until his mark turned down into what he assumed was another side alley about twenty minutes later.

Hawks didn’t miss a beat. He turned down the same alley, the long stretch of it only visible to him for a moment before he found himself suddenly and unexpectedly being grabbed by the throat and slammed against the closest wall.

“You make a habit of followin’ all kinds of people,” Dabi asked, the question a threat spit through clenched teeth, “or only the ones who are more inclined to break your fuckin’ neck?”

Hawks raised his hands in surrender, golden eyes gone wide with fear as he sputtered out a panicked, “I-I was just lookin’ for some kickers, man!” The end of his sentence cracked with the ghost of an upturned shriek. On one hand, he needed Dabi to believe he’d truly caught him off guard. On the other, Keigo had actually been caught off guard. And as he flicked his eyes back and forth between all that vengeful cerulean, something told him that this guy wasn’t bluffing about the neck breaking comment. “I thought maybe you might be the guy!”

Dabi tightened his grip a fraction, leaning in closer to Keigo’s face as if he’d find a lie quivering somewhere beneath his features, then eased up and backed off, shoving the blonde away from him and back into the brick wall to create some more distance.

“Jesus, man…” Hawks coughed, gripping his own throat and wincing when he touched the newly bruised flesh. “Sorry for the mix up, but I just need O, bad. You wouldn’t happen to know—”

“Don’t know a damn thing,” Dabi cut in, back to his usual disposition of not giving a shit as he began to walk away. “But, word of advice, dude. In the future, it’s probably not a bright idea to sneak up on people like that…” Something akin to both amusement and malice flashed through his eyes as he concluded with a sharp crack of a smirk, “Next time, whoever’s waitin’ around the corner might just kill ya.”

He seemed more than content to let a nameless addict wither into the early stages of withdrawal in between those bricks, but Hawks was far from done with this interaction.

“Hey!” he called out, and he could tell how Dabi was debating with himself whether to give him the time of day or not as his next step skidded before he finally came to a halt, peering over his shoulder at him. He didn’t approach, per se, though he did take a few hesitant, shuffling steps forward. “You hear anything about those robberies lately? Like, the ones happening ‘round here?” He gave a brief pause but Dabi didn’t answer. He didn’t so much as blink. “Well, the thing is, my last dealer got caught up in some of that stuff… No idea where he went. Won’t return my texts or my calls. Hell, I even went right to his place and waited an entire day and nothin’. Anyway, I guess I’m just try’na figure out if anyone maybe knows anything about who’s involved. I mean, for all I know, he gave up dealin’ ‘cause he makes more money robbing all these gangs I keep hearin’ about…” It was a little hard to study Dabi’s facial expressions from this far away, any minute twitch or flicker of fear, doubt, or knowing lost between the distance, but his body language gave away nothing. Still, Hawks wanted to hear him say something. Even if it was just a simple repetition that he didn’t know anything.

After a nervous chuckle, he concluded with, “Shit, man, I mean— I-I’m reachin’ my limit here…” He shuffled a half pace closer, arms out to signal open defeat, a pleading edge of desperation woven into his trembling tone, “If you got any contacts, I swear I’ll make it worth your while.”

Dabi seemed to roll something over in his head then, though whether it was reluctant sympathy or annoyance, Hawks couldn’t tell. Then he turned back to him and said, “Look, man. All I know about the robberies is that, whoever’s goin’ around hittin’ these gangs or whatever, they clearly got shit worth stealing and I sure as hell don’t. So, if you ask me, don’t go walkin’ around actin’ like you got it made and you’ll probably stay off their radar, or whatever.” He took out his pack of cigs, shook a new one free and lit it up.

Then, unexpectedly, he actually offered one to Keigo.

And, though he’d quit smoking when he’d been taken in by his foster family at thirteen, Keigo reached out and accepted the peace offering with a shaking hand, perched it between his lips and muttered out a quick, “Thanks,” before leaning forward to let Dabi light it. As he breathed in the sweet, burning nicotine, he felt like he was a kid again, hungry and alone as he survived these very streets, waiting for the day he’d find a way to fly far, far away from here and maybe become somebody.

He and Dabi smoked in silence for a short bout, Dabi scanning Hawks as he did so before eventually saying, “Y’know, if it’s painkillers you need, I might know a place.”

Hawks felt the familiar spike of electric victory zipping through his veins but forced himself to stay in character. If he showed even an ounce of smugness now he’d ruin everything.

“Yeah?” he pressed, trying to sound pathetically optimistic.

“Sure,” Dabi shrugged, blowing out a thick cloud of smoke up into the air above their heads. “But the guy’s pretty on the down low. I’d have’ta let ‘im know you were comin’ before you showed up.”

Hawks said he’d take any info he had, growing progressively antsier the closer he came to obtaining what he needed this man to believe he was quite literally dying for. And when Dabi told him about Spinner’s operation on the edge of town, Keigo knew instantly exactly who he was talking about.

He’d had a run in with the collector before, after all. Only, back then, it had been a certain scrawny, silver-haired individual who’d blown Spinner's cover. He hadn’t seen that guy since but now he couldn’t help but wonder if Dabi was connected to him, too, somehow.

“Shit, man, I really owe ya…” Hawks said, Dabi tossing down the finished cigarette and stomping it out with the toe of his boot.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, now seeming like he was really going to leave. “But, hey. I’m serious about what I said earlier. Watch out down these streets.” He cracked another one of those sinfully charming smirks, tossed the blonde a flirtatious nod. “It wouldn’t be the first time one’a you pretty ones got left for dead in the night out here, y’know?”

At that, Keigo couldn’t help but blush. What could he say? He hadn’t taken Dabi for the type. But that, among other things, had conjured up a unique interest in Dabi for him. He had a hunch that told him that guy definitely knew a lot more than he let on. Perhaps he’d run into him again sometime, repay the cig he’d bummed, and continue chipping away at what the stranger knew.

“Oh, I’m Dabi, by the way,” said stranger introduced.

Keigo nodded at him, decided to steal the nondescript name of one of his co-workers as he said, “Kaito.”

Dabi nodded back, tugging his hood further over his hair. “Well then, Kaito. Maybe I’ll see you around.”

And with that, Keigo let him slip away into the night.

***

Intricate fanned out displays of cash lay scattered in controlled chaos around you and Tomura as you sat cross legged on the floor and divvied up the earnings from the most recent job. Dabi had been gone for a while even though he’d said he was just heading to the corner for some smokes and would be right back, but by now you guys were used to that. In the meantime, you and Tomura traded anecdotes from your pasts, this time trying to stay within the vein of happy ones, though when you ran out of those, you just settled for ones that were amusing.

“I ever tell you about the time I almost got arrested?” Tomura eventually offered up, asking the question with a smirk that hinted that he’d either narrowly escaped or given the cops hell. Probably a mix of the two.

“No,” you scoffed, cracking a grin, curious. “When was this?”

Thumbing through his current bundle of bills, Tomura said, “A few years ago. And Spinner was there, actually.” He set the stack aside, went to reach for the next one and shrugged. “Well, he was involved, at least. Technically, when the cops showed up, he was the one who had to deal with them.”

You began scooping up the counted piles, wrapping rubber bands around them so they could be placed into the safe once all was said and done. “Damn. And he stayed friends with you after?”

Tomura handed you a few more rubber bands when you struggled to reach them and you muttered out a thank you before he said, “Oh, yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, they couldn’t get any solid charges on either of us, though if they would’ve found out the operation Spinner was running, things probably would’ve ended up a little differently…”

He gave you a basic rundown of how the almost-catastrophe had happened. Tomura had met this guy online who frequented a forum for one of his favorite games at the time. They started talking. Got decently close considering they’d only ever communicated through text on a screen. Then, the next thing he knew the guy was asking to meet up at a bar halfway between them on the edge of town.

“It didn’t feel shady, at the time,” Tomura explained, absentmindedly tapping the wad of bills into a more even stack on the floor. “I mean, the guy knew what he was talking about. Must’ve done a lot of research if he hadn’t been at least partially into this stuff beforehand. And, anyway, something brought up the whole suicide thing and…” He blew out an exasperated sigh through puffed cheeks, like he was still blaming himself to this day for being so gullible. “He even tried to make me think he could relate…” You stopped bundling bills, giving him your full attention.

“And then what?” you delicately pressed after a while of Tomura falling silent.

“And then he asked me if I’d ever tried these drugs. Like, to overdose, y’know? I said I’d gotten my hands on some before but just never, well, y’know. At least, not yet. So then he was all like, ‘well where did you get them?’ and I was all like, ‘oh, I know a guy,’ and one thing led to the next and a few days later he’d tracked Spinner down and, well, Spinner can smell an undercover cop from a mile away, so…”

You briefly recalled a bit of conversation exchanged between Tomura and Spinner the first time you’d met the dealer, back when the three of you were trying to sell the car Dabi had stolen. Something about only bringing people Tomura knew personally (as in, enough to know they weren’t undercover cops) to his warehouse because of this aforementioned incident.

“And, what?” you asked. “He never tried to like, come and find you again later?”

Tomura continued counting out the cash, thus recommencing the assembly line of counting and bundling you two had pretty much perfected. He said, “Well, yes and no. After Spinner chewed me out for basically delivering a narc to his doorstep I checked online and the guy’s whole profile was completely wiped. All our messages, any posts he’d made, all of it was just gone.”

“And?” you pressed, nearly on the edge of your seat now.

Tomura shrugged. “And then I was walking near the shitty apartment complex I was practically squatting in at that point and saw a car that was just a little too nice to belong here. Caught a glimpse of his stupid blonde hair through the back windshield and knew he was probably staking out the place hoping to catch me doing something illegal or something. I dunno…” He shook his head, chewed on the inside of his cheek. Then he said, “Anyway, I just turned into the nearest alley and didn’t come back till the next day. I grabbed my shit and left. Crashed at Spinner’s for a while till I found the next place. Haven’t seen the guy since.”

“Why do you think he targeted you though?” you asked. “I mean, this message board, forum, whatever… You said it was for a game, right? What about that was so suspicious?”

Tomura wrestled with a guilty smirk and lost. “Well, it was a game about dealing drugs. I mean, harmless enough, except for the fact that it was, like, super realistic. So you had real drug dealers who also got into the game who were popping onto these forums and giving real advice. So, yeah. The message boards were pretty sus. But as for why he targeted me…” He paused for a moment, combed through the particular history before responding, “I think he probably was doing the same thing to a lot of guys. Luring them in under the pretense of false interest, getting to know them better, convincing them to let their guards down, then sniffing out which ones were actual leads and which ones were just guys who were into edgier IPs.”

You could’ve come up with about twenty other questions based on the last bit of that story alone, but before you could, Tomura added, “It just goes to show you might think you know someone, and they might act like they actually give a shit, but at the end of the day…” He cast his gaze upon you then, something vicious and skeptical glimmering in that carmine glare. “It can all just be a bunch of bullshit.”

You weren’t afraid of him. Even when he’d been forced to hurt you before your first heist together you’d never looked at him and thought he would ever do anything to actually harm you. But just then, you found yourself wondering…

What would it take to cause Tomura to kill?

“Well you know I’d never do that to you,” you found yourself defending, half out of comfort and half out of fear. “The three of us are a team now. We’re not going to betray each other. And, besides…” You flashed a devious smile, all sharp edges and gleeful sin. “If anyone was going to betray anyone, it would be you and me against Dabi.”

You felt some tension subside when Tomura’s gaze softened, some of his suspicion melting back into that underlying loneliness. “I know I can trust you…” he admitted, sounding like he was relieved, his throat bobbing a few times as he swallowed in quick succession. He cleared his throat, reaching one of his big, rough hands out to place on your knee, his thumb gently stroking your skin there. You stared at the cross-hatching of scars that ran over his alabaster flesh, once again finding yourself wondering how many of them had been self inflicted.

You slid your hand under his, intertwined your fingers and raised his hand to your lips so you could press a gentle kiss to the back of it. You reminded him that the two of you would be ok so long as you stuck together.

“I know,” he said. Then, in a murmur, as if only to himself, he repeated, “I know…”

The scariest part was, Tomura thought he was genuinely beginning to believe that. It gave him hope. And hope, he knew, was a dangerous thing for someone like him to have.

“And what about Dabi?” Tomura then asked, tone dropping to something darker and more skeptical. “Do you think we can really trust him?”

You wanted to say yes and fully believe it, but the closest you could get to telling the truth was, “I think so,” which was honestly as much as you could hope for in terms of staying optimistic about the current relationship between the three of you. “I think he’s warmed up to us a little more, y’know? And, besides…” You scooted over to lean into Tomura’s side, allowing him to slip one of his lanky arms across your back and gently tug you closer against him. You rested your head against his chest as you continued, “It’s not like we could do this without him. We might as well make as much money as we can while things are still going smoothly, and if things take a turn we just get out. We run.” You peered up at him, though found he wasn’t meeting your gaze and was instead staring out into space with a slightly tense and troubled expression. “By then we’ll have enough money to go anywhere we want.”

Tomura wished he could dwell in the same fantasy as you. He wanted to, but again, historically, him and hope didn’t mix well.

“Well, I’m not a fan of the guy,” Tomura stated, “but as long as you’re still in on these jobs, then I guess I am too, so…” You smiled at him, let out a lilting note of a hum before pressing a quick kiss to his cracked lips. Then, Tomura said, “But yeah, once we have the money, let’s just get out. Let’s get as far away from here as we can. We can still get that nice apartment you want. You can still open your own salon…” It seemed, for better or for worse, some hope was going to force its way into his thoughts after all. “I just— I want a life with you. You’re the first thing that’s made me wanna live— not just for a little longer but, I mean, as long as you’re around, I wanna be around to be with you, so…”

“Tomura…” You sat up straighter, shifted to sit facing him a little more now, wearing a new expression of intensity. “Is that what you really want? I mean, I think it’s just—” You struggled to find the right words. To get your point across in the way you wanted to. “I think it’s important for you to also figure out what kind of life you want aside from me. Not that I don’t want you to factor this—” You motioned back and forth from yourself to him. “Us— into the whole thing but…” You were starting to feel like this all wasn’t coming out the way you’d intended. Getting a little frustrated with yourself, you sighed and leaned back against him. “I just want you to be happy, too.”

“Of course I’m happy,” he said, like it was offensive you’d ever think otherwise. And then he fell silent, jaw clenched in contemplation. When he opened his mouth again to speak, all that seemed able to come out were stuttered fragments. Apparently, he was frustrated he couldn’t find the right words either.

After a few failed attempts to articulate himself, you stopped him. “Tomura,” you said. “Just shut up and kiss me.” He only stalled for a moment, eyes widening in that way that said he wasn’t sure if he’d heard what you’d actually said or only what he was hoping you’d say. But then he was obliging you, things soon escalating until he had you pinned beneath him, your clothing tossed carelessly over the side of the couch, your pleasure echoing faintly throughout the warehouse as it so often did.

***

Red yarn stretching from clear thumb-tacks cut diagonal, criss-crossing lines across a map of the downtown city. On one side of the slums there was a photo posted of the murdered barber shop owner, the establishment in which he’d been killed circled in thick red ink. On the other lay the abandoned warehouse, also circled, the photo present next to that location that of the deceased gang leader, Jiro.

Smaller photographs surrounded the dead barber shop owner, one for each of the four women who worked there. Two had been crossed off with red X’s, those suspects deemed innocent, however your photo and the photo of the colleague who’d called you the morning after the murder remained unmarked. Still potential killers in this case. Though, including your colleague in that demographic had merely been for the purpose of keeping the potential for other theories open, mostly to appease the Chief. Keigo knew the only one he really needed to keep an eye out for was you.

The group of side-characters surrounding Jiro were that of his most recent gang, as well as some past members that could’ve had possible motive to come back to finish some unresolved business. The image of seventeen-year-old Touya Todoroki was circled several times over in red. Keigo didn’t yet know why he felt like the boy’s ghost had risen to claim revenge, but he knew better than to ignore a hunch when it was this strong.

Your photo was connected to your boss with red string, and the detective kept glancing from you to Touya. You to Touya. You. Touya. You. Touya.

You and Touya.

Keigo stepped back, traced the layout of the streets with his eyes, followed the maze of alleys from the barber shop back to your apartment, which was also circled. You didn’t live too far. But you hadn’t been back to the shop or your apartment since fleeing.

Keigo stopped, reminded himself that, as much as his intuition told him you were involved, there was also a small possibility that you were somehow a victim in all of this as well. Because he also had a theory, albeit not a very viable one, that a third party had come in, killed your boss, kidnapped you, and you were dead at the bottom of a ditch somewhere out where the road turned into a dusty wasteland of vandalized billboards and dilapidated buildings.

He looked back to the Chief’s son, those striking blue eyes blazing even though the low res image the printer had reluctantly spit out. He approached his conspiracy, research, whathaveyou, closer again, so close that his nose was only a few inches from touching the map as he squinted at Touya’s photo.

“How’s it goin’ in here?”

Keigo pinched Touya’s photo between his fingers and quickly gave it a sharp tug, stuffing it into his pocket as he turned to face Enji with a tired grin.

The Chief stood in the doorway, leaning against the doorframe looking both curious and amused. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe in Keigo’s ability— quite the opposite, in fact— but, well, it was just the sight of a Red Yarn Conspiracy Board that always seemed to pop up in cliche detective films that had both of them feeling a bit silly.

“It’s getting pretty late,” Enji reminded him. He nodded towards his map and then jokingly said, “That’ll still be here in the morning if you go home and get some sleep, y’know.”

“I was just getting ready to pack up,” Keigo lied, Enji sauntering further into the room with a lazy stride, clearly in need of some rest himself. “But I think I’ve almost figured out the connection.”

Enji and Keigo stood side by side, both of them staring at Keigo’s work with a slight tilt of their heads, contemplative. Then Keigo pointed at the photo of you and said, “Whatever’s going on here, she’s at the center of all this.”

Enji let that sink in for a moment then asked, “How so?”

“Because,” Keigo explained, “I think maybe these guys—” he pointed to the warehouse group, “have something to do with her disappearance. And that could potentially link them—” He pointed back to the barber shop, “to this.”

“And all those robberies that have been popping up downtown?” Enji further inquired, almost like he was testing Keigo.

Keigo paused, took a moment to come up with a decent hypothesis about that. “I still think it’s all connected. I think someone connected to these guys from the warehouse had something to do with the barber’s death and is now committing these robberies. Or, who knows…” He shrugged. “Maybe the barber was involved in the whole scheme but knew too much and wanted to squeal so they had to off him. There could be any number of possibilities but I know somehow she’s at the center of it all.”

“And I know,” Enji pressed, “that you need to get some rest.” He pat Keigo on the back, pulling him from his intense concentration. “Tomorrow is a new day. I always find clarity comes from looking at things with fresh eyes the next morning. Plus, can’t have my brightest detective sleepin’ on the job now, can I?”

Keigo promised he’d be falling right into bed the moment he got home (most likely another lie) but he just had one last thing to do before packing up shop and heading out.

Enji let out a weary chuckle and said, “I admire your commitment to the job, Hawks, I really do, but seriously. Don’t work too hard. If your health starts to suffer because of it, we’ll all be at a loss.” After that they bid each other a good night and said they’d see each other in the morning.

Once he was sure Enji wasn’t coming back, Keigo pulled the crinkled photo of the Chief’s son out of his pocket, studied those striking cerulean eyes that he shared with his father again.

And then it hit him.

He’d seen those eyes before.

He’d seen those eyes glowing through the dark, hidden beneath spiky black hair and a hood pulled low.

Keigo felt like he couldn’t breathe, bouncing back and forth between believing the realization he’d just unlocked and brushing it all off as just another wild theory.

But just how many people have eyes like that?

So, as he left the office that night, as he caught a cab home, as he changed out of his button up and trousers and brushed his teeth, staring down his weary reflection in the bathroom mirror, as he got into bed and stared up at the ceiling in the dark, he just couldn’t get the image out of his head.

He could still hear his raspy voice clear as day.

“I’m Dabi, by the way… Maybe I’ll see you around…”

Keigo closed his eyes, felt that familiar, sick satisfaction creeping over him, the sadistic excitement that came with setting a trap and knowing it was only a matter of time until he lured his target in.

But why set a trap, Keigo figured, when he already knew just where to find his prey.

***

A few hours had passed since you and Tomura had concluded your extracurricular activities on the couch, both of you having dozed off under one of the fluffy blankets you’d purchased as an essential in this cold, concrete box the three of you had learned to call home. If you hadn’t been a light sleeper before, you definitely were now that you’d started living with two men. More so about Dabi than Tomura but, needless to say, when both you and Tomura heard the heavy footsteps echoing down the long hall that no doubt belonged to the third member of your trio, which was destined to be followed by the telltale creak of the main door opening into where you both were laying naked beneath the blanket, the two of you jumped up from your resting place in unison, frantically gathering your scattered clothing and trying not to laugh as you whispered urgently back and forth.

“I’m jumping in the shower!” you declared, already halfway to where the crooked little cubicle was located. Meanwhile, Tomura was tugging on his clothes as he side-stepped into the kitchen, hastily pulling his shirt over his head as he heard Dabi enter, grabbing one of your iced teas out of the fridge and leaning against the counter as he attempted to act natural.

He heard Dabi mutter something from far off accompanied by the rustling of plastic grocery bags. Then he called out to the two of you, sounding slightly irked, like he was wondering why you’d decided to leave all the cash you were supposed to be counting unattended, before Tomura heard his gait growing closer to the kitchen.

As an afterthought, Tomura opened the iced tea and took a few quick gulps, trying to pretend he’d been casually sipping at it for some unspecified amount of time. When Dabi appeared in the kitchen’s entryway, he stopped short upon laying those sharp, scrutinizing eyes upon Tomura, the bags of groceries swaying slightly in his grip.

“Hey…” Tomura greeted, trying to play it cool.

Dabi narrowed his eyes and cocked his head slightly to one side as he returned the gesture with a skeptical and accusatory question of, “Why is your shirt on backwards?”

Tomura’s posture stiffened slightly and he forced himself to take another sip. “Is it?” he asked, feeling his heart rate increase slightly, on the cusp of being caught. “Huh… I didn’t notice.”

Still watching Tomura out of the corner of his eye, Dabi set the groceries down by the fridge and wandered closer. Tomura fought the urge to make a get away. He knew he’d only seem more suspicious that way. “Where is she?” Dabi then asked, which pissed Tomura off more than anything.

“In the shower,” he responded with only a slight attitude, figuring honesty was harmless in that case, though he quickly learned he was wrong to assume that.

Dabi stood before him, leering, trying to lean over him with the few extra inches of height he had on Tomura. “Why’s the money still out?” he asked. “What? You two get bored partway through and decide to take another little field trip?”

To that, Tomura wasn’t quite sure what to say, so he sort of just shrugged and responded, “We just took a break, man. It’s not a big deal—”

Then, startling Tomura into a reflexive flinch, Dabi leaned in closer than he’d ever dared get before and actually sniffed him.

The moment their eyes met again, both sets of them wide with confusion and horror, Tomura knew that Dabi knew what the two of you had done while he’d been gone.

“If you two fucked on my couch again,” Dabi sneered, absolutely livid and alight with the promise of violence if Tomura so much as twitched, “I will fucking kill you.” He gave Tomura a shove, once again treating him like he was trash, like he was nothing, but that time Tomura didn’t just take it. Because as Dabi turned his back to pay the fridge a visit, like he had no fear of retaliation from Tomura, Tomura went and shoved him right back. Hard.

“First off,” Tomura corrected him, seething now, “it’s not your couch. We all chipped in to get the new ones, so that means all of us can do whatever the fuck we want on them whenever we want.” Dabi’s eyes were white hot murder as they bore into Tomura, the sheer audacity for him to oppose him in such a way tempting him to wrap his hands around his throat and finally deliver him to the death he’d once so desperately wanted.

Dabi reached forward and twisted a fist in the collar of Tomura’s backwards shirt, yanking him forward. “Listen here, you little shit—” he growled through clenched teeth. He opened his mouth to spit out some venomous retort, but before he could, your voice filled the space instead.

“What’s going on?” you asked, wrapped in a towel and still dripping wet as you stood in the doorway, looking concerned and on edge. You’d rushed out of the shower the moment you’d heard raised voices, though were trying to act like you were just happening by.

Two sets of eyes, one red and one blue, both landed on you at the same time, all three of you now held hostage in a thick, tense silence.

Dabi blew out an agitated exhale from his nose and then let Tomura go. He felt like he’d just managed to get into your good graces— well, your decent graces, more like— and didn’t want to jeopardize that all because some scrawny loser had set him off. Tomura, meanwhile, still seemed poised to strike.

“Nothing,” Dabi lied, then giving the groceries sitting by the fridge a lazy nod. “There’s food,” he said, now acting like he hadn’t just looked like he'd wanted to skin Tomura alive. “Y’know, if either of you are hungry.”

You glanced at Tomura, who then pushed off from the counter and announced he was going to take a shower now that you were done, stalking off without giving you so much as a hint that something more was going on here as he passed you in the doorway.

“I’ll come eat after I get dressed,” you agreed, a noticeable shakiness still clinging to your voice. After that, you promptly continued on to your own room.

Once he heard the hiss of the shower turning back on, Dabi grabbed a can of beer out of the fridge and sat at the table, absentmindedly playing with the pull tab as he let his mind wander.

Inevitably, he began to think about you, fantasizing about creeping down the hall and carefully peering through the gap along the side of your door, watching as you dropped your towel to the floor, all your clean, soft skin on display as you rubbed that subtly sweet smelling lotion you were always trying to convince Tomura to try all over yourself, palms carefully tracing over each and every one of your alluring curves.

Then, just as you’d slip an oversized t-shirt over your damp hair, Dabi would retreat back to the kitchen, lying in wait for you to re-enter. In his fantasies, sometimes you exchanged a few words beforehand. Sometimes you didn’t. But it didn’t really matter, because soon he’d be undressing you all over again, bending you over the counter, one of his big hands clapped over your mouth to muffle the sounds of your pleasure as he fucked you deep and slow, savoring every second spent inside your tight wet heat, Tomura none the wiser while the water washed over his head and drowned out the betrayal happening just a few rooms away and—

“What’s the matter?” you asked as you stepped into the room, a slight smirk tugging at one side of your lips. Dabi was visibly red from the neck up, his breathing stuttering a little as he stared off into space, which happened to be in your exact direction. “You catch a fever while you were out or are you just happy to see me?”

The joke was made in harmless jest, but, for a moment, Dabi couldn’t tell whether he was still inside his daydream or not (especially given you were wearing one of his oversized t-shirts, one that you’d still held onto back when the three of you were still occasionally sharing clothes). Then, seeming to snap out of it as you began digging through the various bags of food, he scoffed and said, “Don’t flatter yourself.” Unfortunately, it came out sounding a lot harsher than he’d meant it to.

You plucked out a spicy chicken wrap and a bottle of ramune before seeking refuge at the table (which was now big enough to seat all of you at once, not that “family dinners” were a very common occurrence) and shot Dabi a look that, if he let himself be delusional enough, felt a lot like flirtation. “Someone’s snappy tonight,” you remarked, semi-teasingly, semi-accusingly. Then, “What? They run out of your favorite cigarette brand at the store or something?”

Dabi pushed up from the table, went over to scavenge through the bags himself. Then, with a sigh of defeat and a package of pre-made yakitori pulled from the grocery store haul, Dabi sunk into the seat at the table opposite of you. “No,” he replied, trying (and failing) not to sound so defensive. Softening his tone a bit, he started again. “No, sorry, it’s just…”

Your dinner was raised halfway to your mouth but, upon his uncharacteristic hesitation, dare you catch a glimpse of vulnerability shining through the cracks, you placed it back down on its wax paper packaging that you’d spread out like a placemat and asked him with genuine concern, “Seriously, what is it?”

The sudden shift had surprised Dabi, too. He was usually so good at concealing his true emotions beneath a careful mask of indifference that even he began to believe nothing really mattered to him. But the longer he looked at you, eyes tracing over the faded logo on that old shirt, the more so many unwanted memories began to fill him. First, in a slow drip, like a leaking faucet, then, like a burst pipe. A flood.

After a while of uncomfortable silence, Dabi looking haunted, he said, “I just realized… that today’s the day… I ran away from home… when I was a kid.”

His confession was full of odd, unnatural pauses, as if he were reliving those memories between the gaps. But you could see it in his eyes, in that far off stare you thought you’d mistaken for frivolous fantasizing before.

Dabi could still remember what that day— that moment— felt like, even after it was an entire decade behind him.

Your first instinct was to reach forward and place your hand on top of his, a signal of silent solidarity, an unspoken apology for all that he’d suffered, but you resisted. In your experience, all open sympathy earned you was a bark or an order or a threat.

Too much tenderness scared Dabi half to death.

He figured he should kill it before it killed him.

“Can I be honest with you?” you asked. Dabi pulled his gaze up to meet yours from across the table, feeling a cold sweat breaking out across his skin. He hadn’t thought about the anniversary in a few years now. He’d always been alone and high out of his mind or busy running a risky job with a gang he was currently hitching a ride with for it to occur to him.

But now he was beginning to form some fragile semblance of a family again, and as much as he craved that stability, he also feared it. The simple notion of family was enough to evoke so many painful memories.

“I can’t say I know what it’s like to run away from home,” you admitted, hoping you’d be able to find the right words this time around. “But I do know what it’s like to—” the admission caught on your tongue, as if your body wouldn’t let you say it, wouldn’t let you tell another soul what you’d tried to forget and lock away for so long. You swallowed hard, suddenly feeling like you didn’t have much of an appetite either. “I know what it’s like to walk away from your family.”

Dabi kept his gaze trained on you now, your own having drifted down to the tiled floor.

“I mean, it’s not easy, even when you know it’s what’s best for you. And I just couldn’t— I mean, after everything I couldn’t—” You felt the sting of oncoming tears prickling in your nose, biting back the words you still couldn’t say out loud.

You flicked your stare back towards Dabi when you heard him shift in his chair, the wooden legs scraping against the uneven floor. “It was easy,” he stated, voice dark and low. “For me, it was…” He puffed out a sigh, leaned back in his chair, eyes searching the bare infrastructure of the high ceiling. “It felt like it was either me or him and I chose me. I mean, at that point, it pretty much was…” He paused, seeming to be living outside the memory more than in it now. Like he was watching it from a window while he stood across the street rather than being inside the house. He’d regained control, or at least some false sense of it. “My dad. Y’know. He was…”

“Abusive.” you completed, as if you knew that much firsthand. It sounded halfway between a question and a statement.

Dabi gave a weak nod. “Yeah. Though that never seems like a strong enough word for it.”

He seemed to be content to let the conversation end there, and you’d be lying if you said you were eager for it to continue. But still, you took a chance. Whether he was going to bare his teeth or not was irrelevant to you now. You’d regret not reaching out to comfort the injured beast more than you’d regret getting bit.

“For what it’s worth,” you began, “it’s not your fault.”

Dabi felt something in his chest tighten. Not with anger. Not with fear. But with longing.

“Thanks…” he muttered. Then, after a moment, “Same goes for you, y’know. Whatever happened. It’s not your fault.”

***

You stayed at the table with Tomura while he ate after his shower, Dabi having abandoned his seat the moment he entered the room and began digging through the bags, taking his barely touched yakitori with him to retreat to his room. You hadn’t managed to finish your dinner but were willing to reluctantly pick at it while Tomura scarfed down about two and half salmon onigiri and an entire bento all on his own. Looking at his spindly form you tried to work out where he kept all those calories.

But once everyone had finished eating and Dabi had reemerged from his den, the three of you decided you were well overdue for a team meeting.

Now, displayed across the kitchen table was a makeshift game board that served as the 3D model for your latest scheme, a crudely drawn blueprint of where your next hit would take place scribbled down on several miss-matched pieces of cardboard that had been taped together. Around the perimeter sat three game pieces— an origami star crafted from part of a takeout menu, a 500 yen coin, and some little magical girl cellphone charm trinket that had been plucked off the street— all of which were meant to represent the three of you.

Dabi plucked up his piece— the 500 yen coin— and slid it around to where there appeared to be a loading dock around the back. “What about—” he began, but you cut him off.

“No, see— ‘Cause— Look…” You pointed out the two points marked out on the board and drew an invisible path from each of them with your fingers out to where his coin now sat. “They usually post guards there, remember? It’s too risky, especially if you get back there and it’s locked.”

Tomura slid his paper star, which you’d folded for him, temporarily entertaining both of the boys as you’d done so, towards the left side of the building. “Well what about through here?” he asked, tapping on where a door had been marked down, a little asterisk beside it noting there hadn’t been a chain lock around it the last time you guys had scouted it out.

“Well, no,” Dabi interjected, “‘cause look at that.” There was a note that a lookout was usually making the rounds on the second floor, the vantage point easily visible from the window which overlooked that side of the building.

You studied the map, troubleshooting different routes until you thought you discovered one that might work. “Oh, how about this…” You moved your cell phone charm over to the upper right side of the blueprint. It was close to where the guards ran thickest, but, if approached stealthily enough, it provided the perfect blindspot from the other lookouts posted around the back and upper floors. “We might need some kind of distraction to draw them away, but…” You chewed your lip as you flicked your gaze between Dabi and Tomura. The boys ran through a few possible scenarios, some with diversions and some without, but at the end of the night it seemed like that was the most viable option.

“We’ll need some supplies,” Dabi reminded you, running through the list in his head. “Weapons, lock picks, a new safe crack— and one that we won’t have to leave behind this time— just to name a few.”

You all knew that this meant another routine trip to Spinner’s, which you’d all taken turns on running. Technically, it was Dabi’s turn to go again, which irked him because that meant you and Tomura would have even more time alone together (he was still pretty pissed about earlier, though he was trying to keep you out of it), so when Tomura volunteered to go instead, both you and Dabi were surprised.

“Are you sure?” you asked him.

“Sure,” he shrugged. “I feel like I could use a drive.”

“Wait, you’re leaving tonight?” Dabi asked. “Like, right now?”

“Why not?” Tomura asked. “The sooner I leave, the sooner I get back.” He started to head towards his room, likely to pack a quick overnight bag.

“But it’s already so late,” you reminded him, as if he’d forgotten. You almost sounded like you were asking him not to go, like you weren’t ready to be without him yet and waking up tomorrow to find he’d already left would be easier. “Why don’t I go with you?”

“It’ll be alright,” he assured you, seeing the worry in your eyes and placing a hand gently between your shoulder blades, pulling you closer as he kissed the top of your head. “Plus, you should probably lay low for a little while longer. Not to mention the less any of us are seen together, the better.”

Defeated, you stood in the hall between the kitchen and your rooms and watched Tomura go.

“He’s right, y’know,” Dabi said, leaning in the kitchen’s entry way and trying not to look smug as he crossed his arms over his chest, tattoos on display from where they unfurled from under his t-shirt’s collar and sleeves, a tapestry of black and grey like smoke creating images from a crackling fire. “Don’t want the cops catching onto any patterns or anything…”

Tomura was already heading back out with a small duffle bag slung over one shoulder. He looked to Dabi, asked if the keys were still in the usual spot by the door, and Dabi nodded, trying not to show just how much he was enjoying the fact that, for once, he’d have you all to himself in the warehouse.

“I probably won’t be back till morning, early afternoon at the latest,” Tomura informed you as you trailed after him on his way to the door like an anxious puppy. You told him to be careful, that if any trouble arose he should just get out and— “I’ll be careful,” he promised you, giving you another kiss, this time on the lips, in hopes that it would help reassure you. “I’ll be back before you even have a chance to miss me.”

And, with that, he left, the door shutting behind him with a final and damning click.

You felt incredibly pathetic standing before that door, just staring at it like you were going to wait there all night, like you didn’t have the power to open it and go after him, like you really were a helpless little creature anxiously awaiting its owner’s return.

You heard movement as Dabi settled himself onto the couch that faced the door, the one opposite of where you and Tomura preferred to commit unforgivable acts when it came to communal living, turning and feeling even more helpless when you noticed how openly amused he appeared to be acting now.

“So…” Dabi stared you down with something hungry, something dangerous, as he suggested, “It’s just you and me now, huh?”

***

Keigo had watched as the numbers lighting up the digital alarm clock on his bedside table climbed to their highest double digits, then switched over back into singles. One o’clock, two o’clock, soon to be three AM taunting him in a shade of red that made him want to wince, to just turn over and retreat back into the dark his closed eyes provided.

But no matter how hard he tried he just couldn’t shake this feeling— this urge that told him to get up. To get back to work. To follow this new lead.

2:43 AM.

He sat up with a groan, limbs feeling heavy but his mind buzzing with both anxiety and that addictive curiosity that made him so good at his job.

He slipped into a hoodie and some jeans, grabbed the keys to the undercover cop car Enji let him keep parked outside his condo, and headed for the darkest parts of town.

He parked on the street near where he’d first spotted Dabi. He waited. Then, by the time it was 3:15, he started to think maybe he was just getting paranoid.

What was he hoping to accomplish like this? Who was he hoping to find?

But that’s when he saw him, caught a glimpse of that shock of silvery-white hair through the untinted windows of a black Toyota that was slowly cruising by, the driver wearing the same distinct features as a certain suspect dug up from his past.

Hawks killed the headlights, waited until his new target was almost out of sight, then began to follow.

He wanted to laugh, borderline hysterical after so many sleepless nights and overworking. I mean, just how lucky could one guy get?

Because, while Tomura hadn’t been Keigo’s original mark tonight, there was one thing he knew for certain.

Wherever Tomura was headed, it was bound to give Keigo another piece of this puzzle he’d found himself so obsessed with as of late.

And, who knows.

Maybe it would somehow end up leading him to Dabi after all.

***

“Got any nines?” you asked.

In his signature droning drawl, Dabi replied, “Go fish.”

You grabbed another card from the deck, puffing out a sigh as you scanned your evergrowing hand. Either you were hopelessly shit at this game or Dabi was hardcore cheating.

“Ok, how about any threes, then?”

Dabi didn’t even look over the cards in his hand, of which there were only four, as he said, “Go fish.”

“Are you cheating?” you accused for the fifth time since you’d started playing.

Every time before that he’d had some sarcastic or witty remark to throw back at you, but that time he only smiled, placed his cards face up on the table, and admitted, “Yeah.” He had a nine, a five, a three, and a six. He leaned back to sink further into the couch, admiring your look of annoyance and betrayal. “Just wanted to see how long it would take for you to really catch on.”

You threw your cards at him, sending them fluttering in all different directions as he let out a laugh. “You’re such an asshole,” you said, trying to suppress a smirk. Then, pushing up from the floor to stand, your legs a little stiff from where they’d been crossed for too long, you told him, “I’m done playing games if all you’re gonna do is cheat.”

You were planning on heading to your room, turning in for the night and hoping you’d be able to fall asleep without Tomura’s familiar warmth beside you, but Dabi didn’t seem intent on letting you go so easily.

“Hold on a minute,” he seemed to tease, a mischievous lilt to his tone as he stood as well. “You’re not seriously gonna give up just like that, are you?”

“Give up?” you repeated, incredulous at how effortlessly he could twist things. “You can’t even play Go Fish fairly! You really think I’m gonna trust you in anything that has actual rules?”

Dabi couldn’t help but find it cute how seriously you were taking this. But it also gave him an idea.

Because, if you were that willing to follow the rules, he could only imagine how seriously you’d take something with actual stakes.

“Alright, how ‘bout this,” he proposed. “You give me one more game— and I won’t cheat— and if you win…” He paused, trying to think up something he could offer that would actually entice you. “If you win, I’ll give you half of my share from what we collect on the next job.”

You couldn’t even believe what you were hearing, eyes widening with disbelief, but still shining with the challenge nonetheless. Then you narrowed your gaze at him, distrusting. “And how do I know you’re not lying?”

Dabi quirked up an inky brow. “You don’t, but—” You scoffed and turned on your heel, making it a few more steps before he quickly cut in with, “Wait, wait, wait— Ok, how ‘bout this—” You stopped and glanced at him over your shoulder, chagrined. “If you win, I’ll give you ten thousand dollars from my personal stash right now.”

You let that hang in the air for a moment.

“Ten thousand,” you restated. “Right now.”

“If you win,” he clarified.

Keeping your skeptical stare trained on him, you stalked back to your previous perch and reclaimed your seat. “Ok. What’s the game?”

Feeling victorious and a little luckier than usual, Dabi slouched back into the divot his weight had pressed into the couch and steepled his fingers together. “How about we make this a little more interesting?” He gathered all the cards that were strewn across the table, reshuffled the deck, then asked, “You ever play poker before?”

You had, once, with a long lost ex-boyfriend of yours. But it had been a long time ago and you’d forgotten the rules. Dabi had no problem re-explaining them to you, going over the places you were confused until you were sure you understood. He didn’t want you to have any excuse to accuse him of foul play. Plus, he actually did intend on playing fair this time. He wanted to earn this win, knowing victory would taste all the more sweeter for it.

“But here’s the catch,” he said just as he’d finished dealing out the cards. “Each time one of us loses a round…” Those brilliant blues scanned you up and down, unable to hide that cruel smirk that inevitably split across his lips at the thought of what he was about to say next. “We remove a piece of clothing.”

Your eyelids dropped to something half-lidded and starkly irritated as you said, unamused, “Strip poker? Really, Dabi?”

“What?” he baited. “You scared?”

With a roll of your eyes and a light puff of sarcastic laughter, you replied, “Make it twenty thousand, and you have a deal.”

When Dabi didn’t even hesitate as he agreed with an eager and resolute, “Deal,” you began to feel a sense of confidence, thinking that he was in way over his head. Unless he was some sort of master poker player, it seemed both your chances were about even. Plus, now you were locked in. Focused. You’d risk showing him your underwear for twenty thousand dollars. Hell, you would’ve done it for ten, but you’d wanted to see just how desperate he really was.

Turns out you both had a habit of testing each other just for the hell of it.

“But, just for the record,” you told him, “if you win, I’m not giving you shit.”

What Dabi wanted to say to that was, if you lost, you would’ve already given him exactly what he wanted, but he held his tongue. It would be more fun to watch you slowly devolve into the realization that you’d played right in his hands rather than show that card to you just yet.

But first you had to even the playing field. “Lose the jacket,” you told him, totaling up your articles of clothing.

Dabi eyed you as he shrugged off the worn leather. “Relax,” he teased. “The round hasn’t even started yet.”

And so the game began.

The first round was simple enough. You bluffed your way through losing your socks, but soon after had no choice but to pull them off your feet and toss them aside when Dabi caught on. The first garment you got off of him, by his choice, mind you, was his shirt. You forced your eyes not to wander the exposed plane of his abdomen. He was thin but undoubtedly had a layer of defined muscle beneath all that pale, tattooed flesh. When he caught you staring, he’d say something along the lines of, “Like what you see?” and you’d have no choice but to act like you’d been trying to figure out what some of his tattoos even were.

“What, did a kindergartener scribble that one on you?” you shot back. “Or did you just do it yourself?”

He let out a dark chuckle, clearly amused at your attempts to insult him. Then he’d say, “No more stalling. You’re up,” forcing you to take your turn.

The next article you lost was, reluctantly, your shorts. Your oversized t-shirt was big enough to protect your decency for the time being, though just a quick peek at your lacy panties was enough to begin to rile Dabi up. Dabi’s socks were the next to go on his side. When the inevitable moment arrived and you had to decide between abandoning your bra or giving up the t-shirt, you had a short internal struggle before ultimately deciding on the shirt.

“Last round,” Dabi announced, still holding onto his jeans and the boxers you assumed were beneath them.

You didn’t know how badly the odds were stacked against you right now. Dabi kept that secret skillfully concealed beneath a stone-cold poker face. What he lacked in the cards he more than made up for in his ability to bluff. Too bad he had about ten years of experience over you on that front, back when he used to bet a lot more than the clothes on his back when he’d played with criminals two decades his senior.

“What’s it gonna be?” he pressed, growing impatient as you took your sweet time.

You flicked your gaze over to him, annoyed, then back to your cards. “I’m thinking…”

“About what?” he further taunted. “Whether you’re gonna ditch the bra or the panties first?” He began to laugh at his own joke, but the look you shot at him next stopped his mockery short.

“If you’ve cheated even once—”

“I haven’t,” he assured you. Though, honestly, that only made you feel worse.

You let out a sigh, knowing you were defeated, and threw your remaining cards down on the table for him to see. “Guess that means you win then,” you admitted, depressed. You went to reach around to unclasp your bra as you said with an extra serving of scorn injected into your words, “Hope you enjoyed the show—” but he stopped you short as he said, “Wait.”

You paused, giving him a confused look, like you thought this was some sort of trick.

Before you knew it, Dabi was sitting across from you on your couch, a foreign kind of softness to all his usual sharp edges and hot-to-the-touch surfaces. You weren’t accustomed to him looking at you like that— like he was about to break, like he was already broken and needed you to help put the pieces back together— and it scared you. Made your breath catch and your bare body freeze, a wave of chills rising over you and making the hairs on your arms stand on end, electric with suspense.

Neither of you said a word. You felt like you could barely breathe.

“Dabi…” you murmured, voice delicate and trembling. “We can’t…”

Then, finally, only when his lips were an inch away from yours, did Dabi whisper, “Tell me to stop then.”

He gave you a good solid ten seconds before your silence gave him an answer, the denial on the tip of your tongue but unable to make the leap from your mouth and into the air between you.

His lips touched yours, gentle at first, as if testing just how far you’d let him go. And then, when you began to return the gesture, mind gone numb from the shock of it all, body now moving on its own, all that softness was burned away by the blazing inferno of so much pent up desire.

There was no going back now.

What’s done was done.

And what was to come neither of you were going to try to stop.

***

The outskirts of town were pitch black at this time of night, the headlights carving out a shallow pool of pale light through the endless void. Dust swirled before the light like oil in water, a certain fluidity to its movement as the particles gave way to the intersection. Tomura was actually enjoying the drive, quietly humming along to the radio and turning it up a bit as “My Heart” by Twin Wild began to crackle in and out on the far off station’s fading frequency.

Spinner’s wasn’t too far now. Tomura even thought he could just make out the twinkle of the dim LEDs bleeding from the highest windows of the warehouse if he leaned in towards the windshield and squinted a bit.

“She could have been special to me,” he melodically mumbled along with the singer, already knowing the words by heart. “She could have been mine…” Lightly drumming the steering wheel along with the beat, he sang a little more confidently, “We could have been lovers to the— To the end of time…” He turned it up higher, allowing himself to let loose a little now that he’d found himself alone. “Just another thing in my way, and it won’t last one more day—” But as his hum overlapped with the singer’s notes that time, he stopped short.

Because another set of headlights had just switched on behind him, the glare shining through the rearview mirror and causing him to wince into the sudden burst of blinding white. As the chorus kicked in, the car in pursuit gradually began closing the gap between them.

Tomura pressed down harder on the gas. So did his follower. And while Tomura had never been in any real car chases in his life (he’d only learned to drive just recently, when you guys had split the bill on the new car, you taking him out into the parking lot of an abandoned mall and trying your best to teach him the basics) he’d seen enough movies and played enough video games to guess that that was likely where things were headed.

By the time the second verse began, Tomura was climbing towards eighty miles per hour, the speedometer’s little red needle gliding higher over the numbers as the car behind him seemed intent to match his speed.

“Alright…” Tomura said to himself, killing his headlights and slowing down a fraction. Then he flipped the rear view mirror into night mode to dull the glare and scowled, unable to see the face of the driver behind him. “Let’s see if you can keep up.”

He turned the radio’s volume to max and then…

Then Tomura fucking floored it.

Hawks switched on the undercover cop car’s lights and siren, zooming down the desolate expanse of road after Tomura, white-knuckling the steering wheel and gritting his teeth as he tried to keep his lights on the car in front of him while Tomura did reckless, chaotic zigzags over the dirt, stirring up more dust behind his wheels and decreasing the detective’s visibility of him.

Good thing Tomura knew more than one way to Spinner’s. And while the long route wasn’t optimal, it was going to serve as an excellent escape plan in this case.

That was, so long as the rickety old bridge he was going to have to cross to exit city limits didn’t crumble to debris beneath the wheels as he raced across the pass.

My heart only knows this one song, those words how they echo on…

The music was bringing him alive, electrifying his senses and pumping even more adrenaline into his blood as he swerved hard down a hill, offroading the rest of the way to the pass while the syncopated oscillation of red and blue splashed against the dashboard through his back windshield.

It’s the voice that follows me, it’s that never ending beat, ‘cause there’s only one thing that my heart is set on…

The bridge was rarely ever used anymore. Not since the main city had paved a better, and much safer, way out of its designated territory. The only ones who even really knew about it were those who had reason to venture this far out into the middle of nowhere— meaning mostly criminals or truckers— so Tomura was banking on the fact that this cop wouldn’t see it coming.

Not until it was too late, at least.

I feel a hunger deep inside, from the dreams that plague my mind…

The crumbling desert provided a bumpy ride, Tomura barely swerving out of the way as tall, bendy cacti suddenly appeared before him, popping up like looming ghosts in his path. But Hawks wasn’t going to let him escape that easily. His car jumped and jostled down the hill after him. He had no idea where Tomura thought he was going, besides further into the desert, yet still he blindly followed.

I crave a different kind of high, no pill could bring alive…

For a moment, Tomura feared he’d turned off too early and missed the bridge over the canyon entirely, which meant he could find himself tipping off the edge of a cliff and being swallowed up by the drop below any second now. But then he saw it, just off to his left, and gave the gas pedal another harsh stomp as he pulled the wheel, nearly flipping the car.

But he wouldn’t die.

Couldn’t.

Not tonight.

Not when you were waiting for him.

‘Cause if I make this world mine, I want you by my side…

Tomura barely caught a glimpse of the old wooden bridge as the cop car lights doused it in the fading shades he’d soon associate with his victory, but that was probably for the best. If he would’ve had time to notice just how dilapidated and sagging the structure had become since he’d last seen it, he probably would’ve hesitated— or worse, slammed on the breaks— and gotten himself caught.

But he didn’t.

He could visualize the train tracks that waited on the other side. He’d follow them back to the main road and end up at Spinner’s an hour late, but in this case, better late than never seemed like an understatement.

No matter what will be, I do it all for you and me…

He felt the entire car sway and the surface beneath him creak and buckle as the front tires clattered against the bridge.

“Not good!” Tomura shouted over the music, the final chorus thrumming through his chest in heavy vibrations, nearly loud enough to drown out what very well could’ve been his final words.

He felt the back right tire stick on something and then drop as one of the ancient planks of the pass was punched out beneath it, somersaulting down into the cavernous trench below. The lights from the cop car were getting brighter, the siren getting louder, and Tomura let out a sound halfway between a growl and a scream as his beat up converse sneaker pressed so hard on the gas he swore it was going to break. The wheels spun until they conjured smoke, and then, by some rare stroke of luck, the car pulled itself back onto the bridge and rushed the rest of the way across just as several more big gaps were dug out behind it, rendering the bridge useless now.

Tomura didn’t even realize he’d made it across in one piece until he glanced in the rear view and noticed his pursuer was growing smaller in the distance, Hawks having been forced to slam on the breaks and swerve to the side of the broken bridge in defeat, killing his siren but letting the lights continue to spin as he watched Tomura race further into the desert until he disappeared entirely, the silent beat of red, blue, red, blue consumed by the darkness of what lay beyond the cliff’s edge like a black hole asphyxiating all visible light.

For a while, the detective just sat there, staring out at the vast expanse. Then, seeming to regain some of his senses as the weight of his defeat settled heavy over him, he slammed the steering wheel and shouted out a rageful, “Fuck!” before switching back to his headlights and putting the car in reverse, hoping he’d be able to find his way out of this wasteland before sunrise.

And Tomura—

Tomura was laughing.

He was cackling as he sped beside the train tracks, damn near hysterical.

Because he was alive.

He was free.

And he was going to have one hell of a story to tell you once he made it back.

***

Dabi’s warm hands weighed heavy on the bare skin of your waist, calloused fingers brushing against your ribs as you settled further into his lap, your own fingers clasped behind his neck, feeling his body heat seeping into your palms. The crackly old radio continued to play softly from elsewhere in the room, slow, nighttime music echoing faintly throughout the warehouse.

“Comfortable?” he murmured to you, scooting you a little closer to him, gaze sultry and half-lidded, pupils blown so wide they nearly swallowed all of that scorching sapphire. You’d gotten better at holding that gaze, always so ablaze with intensity even when he was trying to act cool. For so long you could only see hatred in those eyes.

Now, you saw nothing except unbridled desire.

Your voice was barely a whisper as you gave a feeble nod. “Yeah…” you confirmed, little fingers gently carding through the fine inky tufts at the base of his neck. His nose was nudging against your jaw, coaxing you to tilt your head back, allowing him more access to the sensitive flesh of your throat. When you complied, he began to press a constellation of kisses there, chaste and teasing at first, but then, gradually, more open-mouthed and sloppy, tasting the salt of your skin like he was trying to memorize it.

And it felt so good. God, it felt so good. Different from the way you were used to, but no less intoxicating. Before long, he had your eyelids fluttering closed and that slow drip of warmth rolling through your veins, surrendering to his touch like you’d done this a million times. Like to end up here was inevitable.

But when you closed your eyes, your imagination filled in the shifting darkness with shades of ivory and carmine, pale skin and a plethora of scars.

“Dabi, wait…” you sighed, giving his shoulders a light push until he paused.

“What?” He was searching your eyes, something scared and frantic nestled deep behind his stare, like he was already halfway to losing you. He’d tried to figure out a way to get you all to himself for so long, he didn’t want it to be over before it even began. He sounded like he was already pleading when he asked, “What is it?”

“It’s just…” Tomura, you thought. How could you do this to him? After everything you two had been through? After everything you’d shared? “I just think— Maybe we—” You felt the threat of tears beginning to prickle in your sinuses and you bit your lip.

“Hey…” he cooed. “Hey, hey, hey, it’s ok,” he tried to assure you, his voice hushed and urgent. When he saw your vision mist over, he clicked his tongue and pulled you against his chest. Feeling him hug you was a little odd, at first. Foreign. To be given any comfort from him at all was strange, but, as guilt-inducing as it was, welcome all the same.

He stroked your back for a little while until you seemed to calm down, and then he said, as if trying to convince himself just as much as he was hoping to convince you, “He doesn’t have to know, alright. He never has to know.” With the words whispered into your hair and another tender kiss placed to your bare shoulder, Dabi had you letting out a shuddering exhale.

You wanted to believe him.

But then again, when had he ever told the truth?

“Y’know…” you began again, deciding to change the subject as you pulled back from his embrace, meeting his eyes for only a moment before you looked away and sighed. And then, absentmindedly beginning to trace along the lines of some of the tattoos on his shoulders and arms with the tip of your finger, you said, “When I killed my boss… Y’know, back on the night we first met…” The image of all that blood flashed through your mind, making you wince. “I mean, I didn’t mean— I didn’t plan to, but…”

But it had been either him or you.

“Listen,” Dabi said, a slightly sharper edge to his voice now. “Whatever you did back then, it doesn’t matter now, ok. What’s done is done, and besides…” His hands were resting on your hips now, giving you a light squeeze as if trying to drive the point home with the press of his fingertips. “If I were you, I would’ve burned down that place with him inside it. Fucker got what was coming for him.”

You let out another exhale, leaned forward to press your forehead to his, adjusting your position in his lap as your hands found their way to his shoulders. Eyes closed, almost serene, you said, “I wish I would’ve thought of that…”

It was at that moment Dabi realized you hadn’t moved on from that night. A part of you was still stuck in time, still the terrified victim who’d been forced to become a murderer and then leave everything she knew behind.

He could relate.

He almost considered telling you his side of the story, but before he could you said, “But I guess you’re right. What’s done is done. I can’t change that now…” You pulled back from him, but only a fraction, your gaze still downcast. “I just wonder how long it’ll be before one of those cops who keeps coming down here catches me and—”

“No,” he cut you off, lifting your chin so you were forced to meet his eyes. “You’re not gonna get caught, ok? None of us are. Not while…” we’re together. He looked away for a moment, swallowed down the rest of that vow. Clenching his jaw, as if suppressing anger before flicking those bright blues back to your face, he repeated, more resolute that time, “You’re not gonna get caught.”

In a broken whisper, you said, “But I’m scared, Dabi…”

His palms glided over the tops of your thighs, gently kneading the plush flesh there for a moment while he bought himself some time to think. Once his touch stilled he said, “I know. But there’s no use worrying about it right now. Besides…” Long, slender fingers brushed a few strands of hair behind your ear, hands that had once been so dangerous and rough now granting you the most tender of touches. Through a crooked smile and a little cruel humor, he added, “If it makes you feel any better, if any of us go down, we go down together, at this point.”

You didn’t want to think about any of it, to be honest.

That’s what had gotten you into this current situation to begin with.

You’d been desperate to forget. Desperate for a distraction. Needing something— anything— to make all those voices in your head that constantly told you that it was only a matter of time until your life was truly over to stop.

And Tomura had left.

There had only been Dabi.

And so Dabi it would be, at least for tonight.

“I just hope he’s alright…” you muttered, Dabi’s hands beginning their slow journey around your body again, his mouth nipping at your neck. “Maybe we shouldn’t have sent him alone. I mean, I know Spinner’s his friend but… I dunno… What if he runs into trouble on the way…”

“Don’t worry about Tomura,” Dabi mumbled against your skin between a hickey and a kiss. “He’s fine. He wouldn’t ‘a volunteered if he didn’t want to go alone anyway. Look—” He pulled back from you, though kept firm purchase on your hips to keep you straddling him for the moment. “I got somethin’ that’ll help you relax…” he offered, half sly and half sympathetic. “Y’know, if you want it?”

You knew what he was tempting you with.

Those little white pills.

The ones he used to make his own voices stop.

“I dunno, Dabi…” you replied, nervous about the idea but curious nonetheless. “I’ve never done anything like that— I mean, how strong are they, really?”

Dabi flashed one of those deviously confident smiles, the kind that said he’d already thought he’d won, and then he was carefully lifting you from his lap to stand and go over to retrieve where his jacket lay in a pile of worn black leather on the floor. You stayed on the couch and watched, heart beat picking up speed a little.

“I’ll just give you half a dose,” he reassured you, like doing unfamiliar drugs was nothing to worry about. Maybe for him it wasn’t. But for you, despite all the other things you’d tried since finding yourself in this part of town, vicodin or any of its other addictive cousins wasn’t one of them. Dabi fished a crumpled up baggie from one of his pockets and gave it a little shake, peering through the clear plastic and trying to count how many he had left. “It’ll be fine. Here—” He was back standing in front of you again before you’d had a chance to make a decision, holding out one of the little pills towards you in the center of his palm.

You eyed the pill then flicked your gaze back to him.

“Ok, but what does it do, exactly? I mean, how long does it last? Does it—”

“It’ll just help you relax,” he explained, taking a seat next to you, pinching the pill between forefinger and thumb now. He held it up, as if intending to feed it to you.

He could see it in your eyes, how badly you wanted to work up enough courage to try it. He’d help you. He’d stay sober while you got high, this time around. He’d make sure you didn’t float too far away. He’d watch over you. Make sure you were safe.

His smirk was returning, slowly spreading across his lips as if he were trying to suppress his true intentions for as long as it took you to open your mouth and let him place the drug on your tongue. When he said, “I promise, baby. It’ll help you feel good,” well…

You were going to find out now whether you could really trust him or not.

Dabi gently cupped your jaw as your mouth opened for him, carefully placing the pill on your tongue as if its precise location affected its strength. He offered you one of the half empty water bottles sitting on the coffee table among the forgotten cards to wash it down with, and once you’d swallowed he cooed, almost lovingly, “There we go… Good girl…”

He looked pleased, though with himself or with you, you weren’t quite sure.

It didn’t take long for the effects to set in, or for you to reclaim your previous position settled comfortably over Dabi’s lap. He’d shed his jeans somewhere along the way, moving on to free you of your bra. Everything felt like it was happening too fast and too slow all at once. Like all your senses were dulled and alight at the same time. So you closed your eyes, chose to focus on the sensation of his touch and the quiet sounds of the crackling radio that you’d tuned out halfway through your third round of Go Fish.

The song on the radio began to change, a series of sultry guitar chords bleeding through the crackling feedback, slow and then sharp, evenly spaced with a short pause in the middle, just long enough to take one quick breath, to let the sonics sink in.

Through the hazy, lulling high wafting through your brain, you swore you’d heard it before. A long lost memory of a summer evening spent on a rooftop somewhere returned to you, though only briefly, like the breeze that had combed its gentle fingers through your hair as the familiar, rolling melody played from inside the house, the window you’d climbed out of open to let your bedroom’s light reach out into the dusk beyond.

As the singer’s voice began, raspy and rich, Dabi’s hands cupped your breasts, enamored by the softness of your skin, a wave of chills rising over your flesh despite the consistent warmth emanating from his touch as the rough pads of his thumbs teased at the perked buds. You let your eyes flutter open, then closed again, sinking into the song, disappearing into the moment.

High off love… Love’s a drug…

His mouth was against you, sucking a trail of bruises from the hollow of your throat, across your collar bones, your chest, all the way to the sensitive peak of your nipples. You became clay in his hands, pliable and obedient to how he wanted to mould you.

Young and old… I crave your soul…

A soft, broken mewl escaped your lips, Dabi’s cock aching at the sound. He lowered you to lay back on the couch, leaving a trail of kisses down your sternum, the soft rise of your stomach, as he hooked his thumbs into the waistband of your panties, tugging them down just below your hips so he could press his lips there as well.

Those summer nights, summer nights in June…

He’d gotten too hard, too fast, just the mere sight of you stripped down and baring the parts of your body he hadn’t been allowed to see until now— the parts he’d only been able to fantasize about— stirring that dangerous, carnivorous arousal deep inside of him. By the time he was removing your panties, having half a mind to keep them for himself once you two were done, he felt himself straining painfully against his boxers, a precursory hiss escaping through clenched teeth.

Your sweet Chanel perfume…

His mouth continued to travel lower, finding you where you were most sensitive and wanting. The first kiss he pressed to your cunt had you shuddering and keening, his tongue gently teasing you there for a while, keeping you carefully perched on that fine, razor’s edge of pleasure. He couldn’t let things be over too fast now. He was intent on savoring you like this for as long as he could bear.

I’m drunk in love, drunk in love… With you…

“Dabi—” The broken cry of his name lilted off your lips, sweeter and more sacred than any music he’d ever heard. Your fingers were twined through his hair, gripping those inky spikes for dear life as he dipped his slick, wet muscle deeper into you, obscene slurping sounds emitting as he dragged his tongue between the dewy petals of your folds, spearing his tongue into your dripping hole just to earn another one of those beautiful moans from your pretty little mouth.

He glanced up at you from between your legs, all that entrancing blue reminding you of how you’d felt staring up at the clear, open sky from the top of that building. The one the three of you had found yourselves on after narrowly escaping that chase. The serenity that followed the adrenaline. How so much chaos had wrought so much peace in its wake.

Baby I’m a savage for the dirty little things you do…

When Dabi flashed you a casual smirk, you thought maybe he’d go easy on you. Keep things slow. Smooth. Controlled. Helping you towards that peak more so than forcing you there.

But then something sinister fizzled behind those eyes and he proceeded to return to his treatment of your pussy more viciously than before. Like the world was about to end. Like you both were about to die and this was the last thing you’d ever get to experience. Like time was running out.

You’re my ecstasy, fire gasoline… You can pour yourself… Right on top of me…

But he was a master of that tortuous push and pull, knowing just when to ease up or intensify his ministrations in order to let you come down or work you back up. Every flick of his tongue against your swollen, sensitive little nub was intentional. Enough to make your thighs tremble and try to close around his head. But those long, spindly, ink-covered arms of his would always wrestle them back open again, looping around the back of your thighs to pin you down.

You can kill me any way you’d like… You can stomp on my heart and dice it with a knife…

“Dabi—” you moaned, the second syllable clipped as it pitched higher. “Please—” You sounded so pathetic. So helpless under his spell. It was almost enough to make him weak. To leave him his own kind of breathless, desperate mess beneath the brand of magic you bestowed upon him.

But as the single plea of, “Stop—” was uttered through a shaky exhale, Dabi felt a hot barb of fear stab into his chest.

Maybe the enchantment had finally worn off.

But that request was followed by a slightly more hopeful, “Wait…” and that, Dabi could deal with. He lifted his head slightly, gazing up at you expectedly, patiently, which took just about all the fragile willpower he had.

The thing was, you didn’t want this to be over too soon either.

You were actually enjoying yourself. Enjoying him enjoying you.

You beckoned him closer, urging him to climb further up your form, close enough that you could reach down between your bodies and palm him through the thin fabric of his boxers, pulling another one of those sharp hisses and a clipped gasp from him.

He’d wanted you to keep playing games with him, though it seemed he forgot that games took two.

Oh, but don’t you, don’t you ever leave…

A soft gasp escaped your own lips once you felt how hard he was, a damp spot already having formed against the black material of his underwear. You wanted him to let you touch him unrestricted. Good thing he wanted that too.

He pulled himself free of his confines and let you get a good look at him. His length was intimidating, to say the least, but the drugs hazing through your brain kept you too calm to wonder whether you’d truly be able to take him or not. If he would even be able to fit.

But Dabi had made up his mind long before you two had even gotten here, even if only just in the privacy of his own sick imagination, that he would make it fit.

I’m beggin’ you please…

You were the one working him up now, his panting breaths picking up speed, hot exhales fanning against your neck as he curled over you, rib cage expanding and contracting rapidly as you got him close.

Dabi grabbed your wrist, forced you to stop before things could go too far.

He wanted this to be perfect. He needed it to be.

If he only got one chance at this, with you, he wasn’t going to waste it.

And as the song began to pick up into its final act, Dabi decided it was time for a change of scenery.

You’re my ecstasy, fire gasoline… You can pour yourself… Right on top of me…

Dabi scooped you up from the couch as if you weighed nothing, all those boney limbs turning out to be a lot stronger than you would’ve previously given them credit for. He carried you through the hall of patchwork rooms all the way to the dark little nook he called his own and carefully laid you down on the mattress, which was still pushed into the furthest corner on the floor. He mumbled something under his breath that you didn’t catch, but the tone of his voice alone seemed to tell you that, whatever was about to happen next, it was going to be one hell of a ride.

He gripped both your wrists in one slender fist, pinning your arms above your head, taking a moment to savor the sight of you like this, burning it into his memory. Through the blurry dark you swore you could see his eyes glowing, two pin dots of sparkling sapphire twinkling over you like they were the stars in your night sky.

His breathing was still coming out in short, shallow puffs when he said, “Tell me you still want this,” like he was begging you with all the reverence of someone praying to a malevolent god, fearful and desperate and trembling with the last ounce of hope they had left that maybe they’d be spared.

Before answering him, an image flashed through your mind, intercut with that first night you met and everything went wrong. Because, somewhere tucked between all that animosity and terror, there was a different life where Dabi was the one you’d taken back to your apartment. One where you woke up next to him and the two of you shared breakfast at the diner on the border between the city’s shimmering heart and the jagged skyline of the outskirts. One where maybe Tomura hadn’t joined the two of you in the car at all. One where he was reduced to a mere memory of a stranger that had almost been left for dead in the midnight streets.

But even if you could go back and change things, would you?

“I…” you began, not missing the way he hung onto that single letter like it would grant him the deliverance he so desperately needed right now.

You couldn’t forget Tomura. As much as you felt you were betraying him right now, you’d never be able to let him go. You weren’t in the right state of mind to figure out what you’d do once he returned tomorrow morning, how you’d navigate the new dynamic between the three of you that was sure to rear its head sooner or later. So, for now, you let yourself stay in the present, or at least what little was left of it.

“I want this,” you nodded.

Dabi let out a breath he must’ve been holding in, relieved. Elated. Feeling like he was living in some kind of dream. Then he leaned in, giving you another kiss, his grip around your wrists loosening just a fraction. He said, “I’m gonna take real good care of you, baby. Promise,” and then you felt one of his long digits prodding at your needy little hole, slipping in and nearly pulling a moan from his throat at just how tight you were.

By the time one finger became two, beginning to assist in preparing you to take him in full, you were already beginning to writhe atop the tousled sheets, breathing picking up speed as the pleasure began to course through you sharper and heavier than before.

You winced when his leaking tip caught on your entrance as he dragged his length along your soaked folds, collecting more of your wetness to better aid you both with what came next. All the while, Dabi kept muttering, “Gonna make you feel so good,” only punctuated by a punched out, “Fuck—” once he slid a few inches in, gritting his teeth over a groan as your silky walls clenched hard enough around his cock to make him see stars. A feeble cry left your mouth as he slid the rest of the way in with one quick, harsh thrust, both of you stilling for a moment to adjust to the feeling of each other.

You were trying to pull your wrists free from his grip, wanting to touch him, to clasp your fingers around the back of his neck, dig your nails into his shoulders, pull his hair as he fucked you— anything to anchor you to him more than you already were. When Dabi noticed your resistance he let you go, took to balling the sheets in his fists instead while your little hands squeezed around his biceps.

Then he started moving, hips rolling slow and controlled at first, fucking into you as deep as he could before pulling almost all the way out, your hold on him tightening as you flinched with pain when his cock brushed against your cervix, both of you hissing and moaning in tandem when you constricted around his cock and he hit that sensitive, spongy spot deep inside of you.

“Fuck, baby—” Dabi growled, beginning to pick up speed. You wrapped your legs around his waist, pulling him in impossibly deeper, and that nearly had him spilling into you, filling you to the brim with his balmy seed. “God— Feels so good—!”

He wondered if Tomura had experienced this level of ecstasy the first time he’d had you like this, or any time after, for that matter. It was blinding, unreal, and Dabi already knew he would do anything to make sure he could taste it again.

Your mind went numb as your legs began to tense and shake, that tightly wound coil in the pit of your stomach about to snap. After a few more strokes, Dabi had you throwing your head back in a silent scream, the column of your neck bared for him where he took the liberty of sucking a new bruise into your flesh before scraping his teeth across your throat. You came undone for him, your cunt squeezing around his cock with a strength that was almost painful. Dabi sunk his teeth into the meat of your shoulder to try and muffle a whine. He gave himself about five more seconds before he lost control.

But, for some reason, just as he was about to finish, something possessed him to pull out of you, instantly making a mess all over your stomach and thighs in his haste.

“Fuck—!” he wheezed, collapsing over you. He hissed out a swear and an apology, barely able to catch his breath. But you didn’t even seem to notice, and if you did, you didn’t care.

All you cared about right now was having him close to you, beckoning him back for another kiss, catching his bottom lip between your teeth and nipping at it, causing a quiet gasp to catch halfway up his throat. Feeling that pinprick of pain, he pulled away, his tongue darting out to tease at the bite and tasting blood. When his eyes met yours again and you let out a pleased little note, he shuddered.

You were just full of surprises, weren’t you?

“Now we’re even,” you said with a devilish little grin. At first, Dabi considered you, confused, but then he glanced at your shoulder where the imprint of his teeth stared back at him with the angry red indents he’d left branded into your flesh.

He couldn’t help himself. He leaned in to kiss you again, though this time you both bared a lot less teeth towards one another, the previous passionate intensity melting into something much more slow and savoring. Neither of you were sure how much time passed as you traded saliva and stroked each other through the come down, and while most of your worries had seemingly burned away for the moment, Dabi felt that familiar sting of regret stirring up within him once more.

Because, fuck.

He could’ve had this the entire time if he hadn’t been so god damn stupid.

So selfish.

So jealous.

Though, now that he’d tried it once, just like his favorite little drugs, he doubted he’d be able to quit you for very long.

“Touya…” he suddenly said, the name no more than a panted huff, so fast and fleeting you’d nearly missed it.

Through your own shallow breathing, you asked, “What?” and he simply repeated himself, as if hearing those two syllables again would bring you clarity. “Who’s—”

“That’s my name,” Dabi quickly amended, rolling onto his back and staring at the ceiling, limbs splayed carelessly across the old mattress, all prior sharpness gone, leaving behind only a cracked and fissured kind of melancholy. He turned his head to look at you with those bright cerulean blues. He said, as if it were a threat, “That’s my real name…”

And maybe you should’ve recognized that as your chance to run. As your chance to get out before it was too late. But you’d already come too far. Done too much.

The only thing that felt right was to close your eyes and fall asleep in the dragon’s den.

***

(Hello everyone, and thank you so much for coming back for chapter three!!

I’ve been enjoying working on this series so much and have had that final Chanel Perfume scene living in my head for two whole years now! I’m excited to flesh out Reader and Dabi’s new relationship and all its turbulence in the chapters to come.

Anyway, as always, I sincerely hope you enjoyed and please look forward to the next chapter! Byyyyye~)

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