I haven't posted on here in a long time - I'm really just curious how this will do compared to AO3.

And I've got nothing better to do anyway.

The triumphant cry, flung far across the battlefield, acts as a stopper shoved in a bubbling bottle of champagne, and whether intentionally or not it brings everything to a stop. A still and quiet hush has descended over the world, peaceful and terrible. Shouto's heart freezes solid in his chest as Endeavor comes to an abrupt halt next to him, and even the sound of the vicious battle is dulled. Or maybe that's just his imagination.

The giant's footsteps shake the ground. Flakes of ash whirl like snowflakes through the air and in the distance a city burns. Still, Shouto hears nothing, until Dabi yells it out again.

"I said dance, old man! People love a show! That's what you're best at, isn't it? Your hero persona never comes off, right? Well then, Endeavor, show me your teeth!"

As if to demonstrate, Dabi bares his teeth at them like a starving wolf as he finally jumps down to the ground. He raises his arms askew like crooked branches, sways his hips, and kicks up dust.

A madman, Shouto thinks. He can't close his mouth or even so much as twitch a muscle, but at least now he can hear the deafening devastating chaos of the battle behind him, and out of the corner of his eye glimpse Shigaraki cupped in the giant's hands. But the war and its destruction do not matter when his dead brother is reborn living flesh and blood and standing right there in front of him.

He steps forward and tries to speak but maybe his throat is clogged with ashes or the smoke has ruined his vocal chords because all that comes out is a hoarse, inaudible whisper: "Touya."

"Didn't you hear what I said?" Dabi's voice drops, low and mocking. Halfway to them, he hops over a pile of rubble and kicks his heels. The wind snatches up his coat, carrying the ragged shredded tails of it so high that it looks like some pitiful imitation of a hero's cape. "Your most shameful secret is revealed! There's nothing left for you here, and there's nothing in this sorry excuse of a world left to live for. You can run away from this and die alone and pathetic in your bed, or you can die with me."

Now he's only a few steps away, and the scars are ugly. Deformed mounds of dead skin stretched hideously by the staples, his face pinched and twisted in all the wrong directions, overlayed by a criss-cross of scars, and the red dye he dumped over his head looks like blood, gushing from every split in his mutilated skin. Shouto's brother.

Dabi comes to an abrupt stop once he's incredibly close to them. He stops his taunting, stops his strange dancing, and instead rocks back on his heels and starts grinning. It pulls viciously at the ruined skin around his mouth and at the flimsy staples holding it. He has eyes only for Endeavor, even though Shouto's closer, even though he's gaping at him and halfway-reaching out because he can't help himself. Dabi grins like there isn't a speck of sanity left in him, leans back with his hands in his torn pockets and unflinchingly meets Endeavor's fiery eyes.

"Sound good to you?" he asks, and holds out his hand.

Shouto has to crane his neck to glimpse his eyes, but when he does he finds himself swallowing hard because he can see nearly his whole family wrapped up in them. They glow like embers, smolder like hot coals, tortured and bitter and desperate like mom's when she burned his face, like Natsuo's when he yelled at dad at the dinner table, like Fuyumi's when she groveled and begged for them to all just sit back down. He wonders how he didn't see it before when he looked at Dabi during the training camp. It's like seeing his own reflection, in those moments when he was young and the numbness fell away and he wanted to punch a wall, burn down the house, kill his father. Only difference is Dabi actually went out and took what he wanted.

Once, Shouto stayed up until midnight thinking about ways to kill Endeavor. The next morning he burned himself with his quirk, hating himself for thinking those things. Then, a month later on his sixth birthday, Endeavor hit mom because his quirk was too weak, and that night Shouto stayed up late again and thought about how he could bash his father's head in with a wrench or a hammer, strangle him with a wire, freeze his face over and suffocate him, or just light him up like a witch on a pyre in the middle of the night and burn him and burn him until his screams curdled in his stomach and his eyes boiled over and he became a pile of bones and the bones turned to dust.

But six-year-old Shouto wasn't strong enough to do any of that (no, he was puny and pathetic and weak and that's why Endeavor hit mom and made her cry), so he waited for the day he would be, and stayed up all through the night just thinking sometimes, lying on his side and imagining a future where Endeavor was nothing more than a pile of ashes—until he got older and numbness wrapped its icy hands around his heart and he stopped thinking altogether.

He can't kill Endeavor, he knows that now. And neither can Dabi. Endeavor is immortal, Endeavor is all-powerful, Endeavor is the beast that roams the halls at night, that hides in his closet and under his bed, that lurks in the back of his mind. Endeavor will never die because he will live forever in Shouto's head and in Natsuo's and Fuyumi's and mom's and Dabi's, sucking the hope and the happiness out of them like a hungry parasite. But maybe Dabi can at least put his body in the ground.

And then, when it's done, Shouto will return the favor, freezing Dabi's freely bleeding heart solid and stopping it, but first he'll talk to him, and first he'll ask him…

A gust of wind blows his hair back as Endeavor surges past. A pillar of fire burns away the canopy of smoke as he gives a mighty roar like a wounded lion and barrels into Dabi. They go crashing to the ground and roll over and over until Endeavor comes up on top pinning his son to the ground, panting heavily, his flames licking at Dabi's shoulders. The stomach-rolling smell of burning flesh fills the air. Shouto can't move a muscle; he's caught like a deer in the headlights, caught in the ingrained mindset that screams if I don't move then maybe he won't hurt me.

Dabi's smile is just another gash across his face. His head hits the ground and his body convulses as laughter tears away from his lungs and is snatched by the wind and flung higher and higher, hysterical and manic, sounding like a torn open wound. Dabi pounds his fist against the ground in his uncontainable mirth. "I knew you'd never turn down the chance to fight with me!" he cries, the whites of his eyes gleaming like opals. "Any opportunity for training, isn't that right? Correction, adjustment, improvement—you talked like I was a car missing some parts! Newsflash—the time for training passed a long time ago, and now I'm going to fight back."

A growl simmers in Endeavor's throat, builds up guttural and grating and dangerous until it finally spills over: "How dare you show your face again after what you've done?"

Shouto's feet are rooted immovably to the ground and his spine is stuck ramrod straight but he somehow still flinches at the familiar threat in Endeavor's voice. But Dabi doesn't flinch. Instead, he turns his languid eyes to Shouto—brilliant eyes that shine like two moons producing their own light. "He's really still like this? Damn, that must suck ass for you, little brother."

Endeavor snarls and presses Dabi further into the ground, looking like a rampaging bear about to tear out his victim's throat. He hasn't broken Dabi's shoulders yet but he is definitely burning them—flames are leaping up from his hands and scorching holes in Dabi's coat—but Dabi's eyes don't register any pain.

He lifts one lazy hand and flings fire into Endeavor's eyes.

Shouto takes a faltering step back, breath catching, as he watches his father fall away with a bellow, clutching his already scarred face. The stomps of Gigantomachia thunder behind him, as well as the valiant cries of his friends—Iida and Bakugou and Nejire, and he knows Izuku is somewhere nearby, unable to stand—but Dabi's crazed laughter at Endeavor's cry of pain is the loudest thing he's ever heard, ringing in his ears and bouncing off the walls in his head. The roaring of the fire that is born on Dabi's fingertips is worse—a monotone that drowns out everything else, that leaves Shouto frozen in the face of it, watching the flames dart and flicker and spin and dance like occult followers at night, bright enough to blind him and hot enough to sting, even from this distance.

Dabi throws out his hands and hurls the flames at Endeavor.

The battlefield is erased. The battlefield is blotted out by the blazing, blistering electric blue that sears Shouto's retinas, and the raging heat that scalds his skin. But Shouto squints, and in the midst of the tempest he glimpses Endeavor on one knee, shielding himself with his forearms and grimacing into the onslaught. Soon enough he can be heard shouting his defiance into the flames and into Dabi's face, a cry without words, a cry so distinctly Endeavor that it makes Shouto forget how to breathe.

Dabi clenches his hands into fists and the flames dissipate instantly, with nothing but the rising columns of smoke left to prove they were ever really there. Endeavor remains exactly where he is, but he slumps down a bit and his massive chest rises and falls dramatically as he fights to catch his breath.

Dabi slinks up to him, grabs him by the back of the head, and slams his nose down onto his knee.

Endeavor gives a garbled shout and recoils back with his face twisted up in pain, but not fast enough, because Dabi pulls his arm back without hesitation and punches him square in the jaw, and then across his cheekbone, and again and again and again, striking him in the face before he can so much as move. Fury and anguish are clear in every strike, and for what feels like ages he doesn't let up for even a moment.

Then Dabi pauses to catch his breath, and Endeavor moves.

He rises up with a building shout of rage, grabs Dabi by the frayed, torn, scorched collar of his coat, flings him to the ground, and kicks him in the stomach and in the back of the head. "Devil child!" he shouts. "You were sick and evil from the beginning!" His face is a sorry sight—scarred over and dripping blood from nose and mouth—but his eyes still gleam with terrible righteous fury, and that alone is enough to keep Shouto rooted where he stands as Endeavor lights fires on his hands and presses them to Dabi's chest.

The scream is like nothing he's heard before.

It's high and piercing and bone-chilling and makes his blood run cold. It comes in uneven stops and starts and is interrupted by strangled pauses for bitter breaths and a fit of coughing but it always comes back, and for a solid minute Shouto listens to Dabi scream. But as soon as Endeavor cuts off his flames, it turns to a laugh.

And the laughter is worse.

Dabi's chest is half-gone, soaked through with a pool of blood, the skin that's left charred to blackened scraps and pieces. But still his chest rises in stuttering, uneven motions in time with his piercing shrieks of laughter. Dabi throws his head back and beats his fists against the ground and kicks his legs and laughs like bones rattling in a broken body, like eyes dripping with dirty blood, like a life where everything's ironic and everything's hilarious because it's so meaningless, and Shouto understands—he lives that life too.

Shouto has never heard anyone laugh like Dabi does, but he has heard its echoes in Natsuo's bitter smile, in Fuyumi's tears, in mom's hitching sobs and in his own emptiness. This sound is more than insanity—it's the sound of a life used as nothing more than Endeavor's tool for power, a life used up and broken down, and a heart so bruised and beaten that's it's funny, it's hilarious, to think of a world where it could be whole. It's so funny, to think that a single person can be a representation of another's utter failure, of what should have been, of the life they should have had, and it's hilarious that it's not just one person representing that, but an entire family.

Dabi clutches his stomach and rolls around on the ground, unable to contain his hilarity, crying tears of hysterical glee. He sounds like a ghoul, like something dastardly and dreadful from the pit of hell, and looks it too with his skin ripped up and torn like shredded clothes, blood pooling around him, the sun glinting off his staples and his luminous eyes. Todoroki eyes, Shouto thinks, and he knows that they look just like his single blue one. When Dabi was young, he must've looked like Shouto would if his right side was the only side he had.

That's my big brother, Shouto thinks, he's just like me.

Endeavor lights the fires on his hands again, about to bring them down, and the spell breaks.

Shouto races forward and shoots twin spears of ice at Endeavor's hands, killing the flames. Endeavor whirls around, and surprise registers only a millisecond before fury. He opens his mouth to shout at him, but Shouto encases him in a capsule of ice, all but the nose. Endeavor falls like he's the last tree on earth, like the entire universe is holding its breath. It can't be true but Shouto is sure that a dead silence descends as the top hero's eyes go comically wide, as he starts to tip back, gravity pulling him down with ghost hands. He hits the ground with the sound of cannonfire, of collapsing towers, louder than Gigantomachia's colossal steps.

Once he's down, Shouto doesn't spare him a glance. The pent-up energy from when he was frozen and quaking translates to him running fast as hell to Dabi, dropping to his knees and fumbling, stammering, reaching blindly and dumbly for anything he can possibly do. "T-touya, just try to stay still and breathe evenly, and I'm gonna…" He trails off, making aborted movements to touch Dabi's gaping chest, his still-smoking skin, the staples that have come loose across his collarbones, the dye and blood dripping into his eyes. Finally Shouto starts working out of his hero costume's shirt, but there are a lot of buckles connecting everything and his hands are shaking.

"Keep your shirt on, dipshit," Dabi murmurs from barely moving lips, lips he doesn't have. His eyes are nearly closed, blinking slowly, but Shouto can still see a sliver of his vivid, electric eyes.

"But I have to help you," Shouto says, as he finally pulls it off.

Dabi's eyes gleam. "Is that what your dear old dad told you? Listen, kid, you don't hafta help anyone you don't wanna help, and you don't owe me shit. Just let me die. It's bound to happen anyway—I can feel it." His voice gets softer towards the end.

Shouto looks down at the shirt in his hands. He rubs his thumb over the fabric, crumples it up, and tosses it aside. "Okay," he says, leaning in towards Dabi, close enough that he can inhale the bitter, acrid sting of smoke, and feel the lingering heat like Dabi is a glowing ember on the ground. His body is a ruin but his eyes are full of waning life and Shouto wants to drink it in while it lasts.

"What should I do?" Shouto asks. And once the floodgates are opened, his restrained thoughts come pouring out, tripping and stumbling over each other in their haste. "He's going to kill me once he wakes up. He's never going to forgive me, and he's going to get angry again, and I can't take it if that happens. I don't know what to do. You're the only one of us who ever left. How did you do it? How?" His voice rises in his desperation until he's almost yelling, and he doesn't remember the last time he did that.

Dabi pulls his nonexistent lips back into a feral smile, making Shouto think of another world where his oldest brother drops by sometimes to visit, carrying gifts for his siblings and maybe bringing a lover by. A world where they all sit together at Thanksgivings and Christmases and talk about the futures they're going to have and where one day Shouto's oldest, biggest brother announces he's getting married, he's starting a family, he's in love and happy and doing everything he always wanted to do, and then reaches over to ruffle Shouto's hair, smiling without looking insane.

His heart pounds fiercely and he grips Dabi's shoulders tight. When Dabi's smile turns into a pained grimace, he just grabs on tighter, digging in through his torn-up jacket, digging into his torn-apart skin. His oldest brother is here with him, finally, and reduced to a patchwork doll with the life fading from its button-eyes. And here's Shouto: an empty glass just waiting to break, a sixteen-year-old kid who hasn't laughed since he was young.

Behind them is the villain who caused all this, lying on the ground. A villain with five victims who he's finally picking off one-by-one but the truth is they all died a long time ago. Nothing is enough to stop him but Dabi got away from him and Shouto needs to know how.

"Tell me what to do," he pleads in a whisper, and if the only thing his big brother ever does for him is answer this question then that's fine, it's enough.

Dabi lies still for so long that Shouto starts to think he's already dead, but after he squeezes his shoulders so hard that fresh blood runs over his hands, Dabi finally looks at him.

His eyes contain a fire he wishes he possessed. He may be dying but still he's more full of life than Shouto has ever been. Still, he can tell the gems are losing their lustre. The spark of life will soon go out.

Dabi tangles his fingers in Shouto's hair and yanks him in closer, pulling himself up as best he can to whisper in his ear.

"Run."

His dying breath feebly warms Shouto's skin; his grip quickly loses its strength.

"Run and never, ever look back."

Dabi's hand slips from Shouto's hair. His body falls to the ground. He smiles, and for a single moment there's a glimmer of coherence and clarity in his eyes, almost like the mania is gone and finally replaced with sweet sanity, for these final seconds. Then he closes his eyes and dies.

Shouto presses a hand to his still chest. He feels for air under his nose, he tests for a pulse and for a heartbeat. He lays his shirt over Dabi's open chest.

He looks at Endeavor, whose container of ice is starting to melt. He looks at the battle behind him—a group of heroes all throwing massive attacks at the giant's hands. Before him is the burning ruins of a city, and of a world, but this world was shit anyway. Everything is meaningless and in the end, everything burns.

Shouto throws his head back and laughs.