Watch Closely (Dabi x Male OC)

33: Outlook

"Do you remember that night well?" Tomoya asked. 

Rei had asked him to take a walk on the beach with her. She hadn't been to one in nearly a decade. 

The woman smiled. "Yes." She replied. "I remember it clearly. I also remember that morning, and the one after that, and almost every day until you left your assignment.". 

"I was terrified for you." Rei revealed. "All of those marks...and you were so young.". 

"I was old enough." Tomoya replied. He was still in denial about a lot of what had happened to him. Hell, he had trouble coming to terms with the fact it had happened to him and he had done nothing to make it happen. That it hadn't been a choice in any way. 

"Not to have so many bruises or cuts.". She gazed out onto the water with a faraway look in her eyes. "I searched it up, the day after when you went home. I thought you might be having a psychotic break or something. You told me you killed him, but it was such an obvious suicide. But then I wondered, where else would you have gotten those bruises?". 

"The bruises." Tomoya repeated, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. "They weren't as bad as you describe them, I was surprised anyone even noticed.". 

"Well they weren't bad where your clothes didn't cover." Rei said simply. "When your shirt rode up it was like you have been killed. All purple and muddled. I used to wonder what it was like for you, how much he really fought back. But now I don't like to think about it. It hurts too much, as selfish as that is.". 

"Its not selfish." Tomoya promised her, "I don't think of it often either.". He paused for a moment. "I sometimes wonder if he truly craved death as much as he said he did, or if he was just a deeply violent man with a messed up sexual fantasy.". 

The man had fought the poison with all his might, attempting to beat Tomoya half to death as he did so. 

But he said thank you the whole time. They were his last words. 

After that Tomoya set everything up to ensure there wasn't a trace of him there. The perfect faked suicide. 

No traces, except the physical ones on his body. Obviously he hadn't been able to hide those well enough. 

"I'm happy you're happy." Rei broke the silence. "All I've ever wanted was to see you and my children happy, and now you're practically one of them.". 

Tomoya gazed through squinted eyes at the glittering water, the sunlight beating down on them. 

"I wish we were a family worth the wait.". 

At that the man stopped. He looked over at Rei, confused and slightly concerned. 

"I wish that we were a family that was worth the wait." She repeated, smiling sadly at him. "You've never had a family, and your part of ours now but...we're broken. Enji's death complicated almost as many things as it fixed.". 

"Should I have left him alive?" Tomoya asked. Rei laughed slightly. 

"Your decisions were yours and Touya's to make." She said, not giving away her stance on the matter. 

Tomoya waited a moment, chewing his lip slightly. 

"You're more than worth it." He blurted out. Rei gave him a strange look. 

"You are." He insisted. "It was worth killing him. Worth waiting.". 

"Sometimes, I still wish I had my own parents." Tomoya admitted. It was a shocking moment of vulnerability, but not an unwelcome one. "But I feel like if someone had adopted me none of this would have happened.". 

None of the bad stuff would have happened. But none of the good stuff either. 

Tomoya had thought many times about how if he was a normal, well adjusted human being he would never have been dragging the body of that person out of that car that night. 

If he hadn't done that, then he would never have met the League of Villain's Dabi. And he would never have met Todoroki Touya, the now undeniable love of his life. 

"Maybe its more accurate to say I wish Touya had in-laws to visit.". 

Rei put a hand on his arm in a reassuring gesture. "He didn't have good experiences with parental figures, he would hate having more of them.". 

Tomoya laughed. She wasn't wrong. 

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He hadn't considered himself unstable before, but the more stable he became the more Tomoya realized just how unstable he had been. 

Honestly he had been unstable since birth. His whole life was built on so much uncertainty it was impossible for him not to be. 

But that meant that he didn't know what to do with himself, now that things were stable. No abuse, no murder, no revolution. It was like his life had abruptly switched genres. 

"You're thinking to hard, I can hear your brain working." Touya quipped. 

Tomoya looked over to see the man smirking at him from the couch. He was in a sun beam, shirtless with his scars and staples of full display. "Just go, she'll be happy to see you. Its not like she'll be able to psychically sense you killed the number two hero with me.". 

The med student gave him boyfriend a conflicted look. Touya groaned as he got up from the couch and made his way to the front door where Tomoya had frozen up. 

He pecked Tomoya in the corner of the mouth. He was given a not so impressed look in return. Laughing, he leaned in to his Tomoya properly. 

"Kids sometimes know things." Tomoya muttered. It was illogical statement with no basis in reality beyond being told that children have heightened emotional responses and receptors in his psychiatry classes. 

"It'll be fine baby." Touya assured him. "If not we can always just, you know.". He made a cutting motion to his neck. 

"We are not killing Eri." 

"I meant the adults! The grown ups! Not the child! Why did your mind go to killing the child first?". 

Tomoya's silence was slightly ominous. Touya laughed in disbelief and shook his head, making sure he kissed him one more time before he left. 

Turns out, everything went just fine. 

Tomoya arrived at Aizawa's apartment in the teacher's dorms right on time to visit Eri and the girl was already waiting for him. 

"Good to see you again." Aizawa greeted with a smile while Eri ran to Tomoya. He picked her up as he stepped inside. "I hope you've been alright these past weeks.". 

"Its good to see you too. I've been alright." Tomoya replied, "It helps that Natsuo's healing well. I didn't really know him personally, only professionally. That being said it was till quite the shock.". 

Aizawa considered his words for a moment. "Todoroki, Todoroki Shoto, I mean, also seems fine." He revealed, unaware that Tomoya already knew. "It shows how little we understood about the man we called the number one, even briefly.". 

"Its a family thing, I don't think we'll ever understand." Tomoya said, absolutely sure none of his amusement leaked through his words. 

"Come to think of it, Todoroki was calling you big brother Tomoya in class today." Aizawa trailed off. Tomoya just smiled and didn't comment on a thing. "You must be closer with Natsuo that I originally thought.". 

Tomoya chocked on nothing at the notion that he was in a relationship with his best friend. "Not in the way you're thinking.". 

"Adult conversations are boring!" Eri protested, much more vocal about her feelings now, it appeared. "Lets do something fun!". 

"Sure," Tomoya said with a smile, "lets do something fun.". 

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Epilogue out now ------->