A Song to Come Home to

Chapter Two

Keigo sits stiffly next to the number one hero. He can feel the heat from Endeavor's hero uniform roll off as the flames threaten to singe his feathers. He doesn't know why he couldn't just fly from the court hearing. Being escorted around and crammed into the back of a car with black tinted windows makes him feel uneasy.

He picks at the sleeve of his jacket, biting gently down on the inside of his cheek. All Keigo can think of is the last words that he had shared with Dabi. It leaves him with a gaping wound in his chest and the regret at how everything had turned out between them pools at the very core of his being. Already, he feels as hollow as his frail bones.

Truth be told, Keigo feels sick to his stomach. His whole past few days have been nothing more than mountains of paperwork, the constant looming of the press, sleepless nights and the guilt that claws and twists tightly in his stomach. He feels nothing more than a hollow husk of a man who had taken away his only semblance of happiness, security, acceptance and most of all, love. Clenching his jaw, he can feel his filed down talons dig deeper into the supple leather of his gloves.

Keigo had been happy because of the trust that was placed in him. He had seen a side to Dabi that no one else had ever seen. He had seen the soft and tender underbelly of the man who the press paints as a monster. Keigo had seen the soft light in his eyes, the tenderness of hugs and joking quips. He had seen the man feed and take care of strays and defend the weak against the strong. Keigo had lifted away Dabi's mask and had a glimpse of Touya. The beauty hidden behind the mask was so brilliant it had left Hawks blinded.

Keigo had been secure in the sense where he had been allowed to let his own mask clatter to the floor. There was no use in parading around as Hawks when he had been accepted as Keigo. With security comes the acceptance. At the end of the day, there was no need to hide who he was. Keigo had held no fear of being turned away and there was no shame in hiding his true self. From his talons to his nictitating membrane and even to his raptorial feet, Dabi had embraced the side effects of his quirk. Dabi had told him that there was no shame and that he shouldn't let himself be so easily tamed by those who had captured him and clipped his wings. Dabi had told him that he's a bird of prey and that he deserves to be free and not behind the gilded bars of an ornate birdcage like a simple songbird.

Then there was love. All of his life, he had been starved of the most human feeling: love. In his line of work, there was never really any time for something more than an occasional night in someone else's bed. True love, however, Keigo had been a stranger to true love. His life had been nothing more than a bleak and cold tundra landscape. When Dabi had come into his life, the flicker of azure had melted the frigid ice and even freed Keigo from his own fears of developing a closer relationship with anyone.

Keigo continues to stare into space as his gloved fingers run along the seam of his jacket and scratching it. He had squandered all of that away, burned the bridge of Dabi's trust, love and kindness. He had stood in the ashen remains and had been selfish enough to cry about it in the dark and lonely hours of the night. Keigo had, had the gall to let himself fall to his knees as his tears stained his face and ask himself 'why?' Why is a simple question to a complex answer that he doesn't even have. All he knows now is the pain in his chest as if when he had arrested Dabi, his lover had torn out his still beating heart and set it aflame in a cruel show of furious blue.

He clenches his jaw tighter and scratches harder against the seam, his talons embedding into his gloves and the leather groans out as they threaten to rip under the sharp talons. Regardless of the looming threat of yet another pair of gloves being ripped, he continues to scratch and scratch.

"Stop that." Endeavor's low voice breaks Keigo from his reverie. Risking a glance upwards, he sees Endeavor looking down at him with a stern expression. Seeing his eyes only makes Keigo want to squirm. Seeing that shade of blue on a man other than Dabi just looks wrong to him. In his mind, he tells himself that they don't belong in a sea of flickering oranges, yellows and reds. A blue such as that can only belong on a man with a dangerous and dark beauty that possesses fire just as blue as his eyes.