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Phantom pain: a painful sensation in a body part that is no longer present.
It was this pain that brought him into the basement of a dingy bar, having rented the storage room full of old bottles of fermenting alcohol to himself for the night.
The smell of stale air and old whiskey suffocated him, just barely washing out the sickeningly familiar smell of pine and smoke. He swung the mostly empty bottle between his fingers, staring into it numbly. His back was pressed against a stone wall, and his wings ached at the awkward, painful angle.
He didn’t even have wings anymore.
“I was never enough, was I?” His voice was stark and unholy against the reverent silence. It grated against his ears, leaving deep gauges in his very core and an uncomfortable crawling underneath his skin.
Teal eyes looked quizzically to him. He couldn’t see them, but he knew they were there to his right, cutting straight through his soul. They were judgmental, accusing, cold, and cruel. But they were also warm, kind, and protective. They were both the shield that protected him and the sword that slit his throat. He knew the only a change in the other man’s passive, ever nonchalant expression was a slight twitch of his eyebrow, maybe the tiniest pinch of his lips. A deep, raspy voice like charcoal and the echo of an auditorium lazily tickled his ears, “Enough for what?”
Keigo’s gaze, slightly blurred by the alcohol, drifted in the direction of the voice. Pale, smooth skin and dark, rough skin that he knew he’d never be able to feel again, piercings that would never shine and draw his eye like they used to, long limbs that would never wrap around him, and those dazzling blue eyes that would never glitter in the soft light of the moon.
…
“You.” His wings tried to curl around himself. A shot of pain ran down their length from the strain.
What wings?
…
“What makes you say that, pretty bird?”
Keigo’s jaw clenched at the nickname; once endearing, it now sounded like nails on a chalkboard and a fork sliding across at plate at once. “I’ve never been enough,” he whispered.
Silence enveloped them again, Dabi’s face remaining passive. Eventually, the ruined vocal cords sang faintly in his ears again, but the tune sent a chill down his spine. “Then why are you so surprised?”
Keigo frowned. Why was he still surprised? Everyone had tried to warn him—his parents, the Commission, all the people his body was sold to for loyalty or money or favors…
“You made me feel warm. Safe.” His frown deepened, and his voice softened with raw pain. “You… you made me feel loved .”
Dabi waited a moment before responding. “I did love you.”
Keigo shook his head, bangs swaying over his face. His wings fluffed out indignantly. “Your love was is a husk. It was empty and meaningless, like a clam with no pearl in it. There was no depth to it.”
What wings? They’re fucking gone, you delusional bitch.
A full white eyebrow cocked up. “You really believe that?”
He looked at the man again, a glare on his face. Sharp feathers poked into his skin. “Yes. Because if you had really cared, even a fraction of how much I cared about you, you wouldn’t have—” He choked. He couldn’t say it. He couldn’t say, because he knew if he did, he would shatter irreparably. There would be no going back, no more denial, no more pretending.
Maybe if I pretend my feathers are still there, they’ll come back.
A flash of anger in blue eyes. “You couldn’t have cared that much if you murdered Twice and betrayed the League. You betrayed me .”
Keigo shook his head, eyes stinging. His wings tried to fluff up, but he was left with an uncomfortable itching on limbs that weren’t there, that he knew weren’t there but had to be there because the pain was so fresh and real. “ No . I was protecting you. Everything I did—I was protecting all of you.”
Dabi stared at him disbelievingly. The bloody tears that fell from his eyes felt like acid. Dabi didn’t believe him, and he knew he never would.
Still, he couldn’t help but continue, “If I hadn’t, the Commission would’ve- they would’ve hurt you .”
“ You hurt us. You hurt me .”
Something wet was on his cheeks and the world blurred, but he could still see Dabi so clearly. “N-no. Yes. I- I did, but the Commission, they would’ve- they would’ve broken you.”
“ You broke me.”
Glass shattered and a sob bubbled up in Keigo’s throat. What little was left of his bottle spilled on the floor like blood. Like Twice’s blood. Like the blood of all those people had been forced to kill, unable to save, too slow too slow
too slow
. “
YOU
BROKE YOU!” he screeched, the sound almost more bird than human. A cruel joke—all of his bird traits were permanently gone now, right? It was what he’d always wanted, why hadn’t he appreciated them while he had them, Dabi did- “You- you…”
Keigo sniffled, curling into a ball and just letting himself break down. For the first time in his life, he let the tears fall, let the sobs wrack his body, let himself fall apart. Because everything hurt, everything hurt so bad and he couldn’t make it stop, he couldn’t he couldn’t. He could feel that blue stare clawing right into his heart, which only increased his distress and made his wings curl in at an angle they weren’t meant to move in—except they couldn’t even wrap around him to protect him anymore, because they
weren’t there
.
He just sat there and sobbed and hicced and cried for what could’ve been minutes or hours before he finally ran out of tears. He slowly raised his head from his knees, and, drained of all his anger and mirth, he just looked at Dabi defeatedly.
“I was never enough,” he whispered. “Not for my parents, not for the Commission, not for you.”
“How do you know?”
“Because. My parents said it, the Commission dropped me, and you…” His heart twisted painfully in his chest, all of the blood squeezing and bursting out in ugly little squirts and pops. “ Nobody was enough for you. Not me, not the League, not yourself.”
“If I had killed Endeavor—”
“Then it still wouldn’t have been enough.” Dabi’s eyes widened. “Because nothing was ever enough for you. You were never enough for Endeavor, so nobody was ever enough for you. Your power was never enough for Endeavor, so no amount of power, no accomplishment, nothing was ever good enough for you.” His chest cracked and spilled out more and more with every word. “And you found me, and you latched onto me, because I did everything to be enough for you. Because that’s all I’ve ever wanted—to be enough for someone. Anyone . You saw that I was willing to do anything and everything to be enough for you, and so you pushed me to be and do everything you thought you needed. Your spy, your fuckbuddy, your therapist, your enemy, your friend, your pet, your punching bag .”
Keigo clenched his jaw. “But even you knew that I would never be enough. That I would never be your everything, that I would never be your anything . You led me on in the worst way you could’ve possibly led me on. You know that everything I did was for you because you know that I got way too attached to ever let you go.” His voice broke. “Dabi, you made me believe that I was worth living for. You made me believe that I was worth something .” His lip trembled, all of the light drained out of his eyes. “But I wasn’t even worth a goodbye .”
Silence enveloped them again.
“You have to stop pretending that I’m here.”
…
“You didn’t leave me many other options.” His face contorted into a look of pain, and he looked back at the ground, back to the spilled whiskey and the dirty floor and the spider in the corner—the only witness to his breaking. “You died , Dabi. You fought Endeavor and your family knowing that you’d never win.”
…
“You fucking killed yourself .”
…
Keigo looked at Dabi again, but he was gone, not even a shard of glass or a speck of dust displaced in his wake. He disappeared like a ghost, even though Keigo knew deep down that he’d never been there in the first place.
…
He was just another phantom pain.