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Hawks, at this point into his infiltration mission, had attended an uncountable amount of League game nights. Despite the recent unification of the PLF and the League to form the MLA, the League still preferred to have their game nights as their own, in a little section of the MLA mansion that Shigaraki had claimed as theirs.
It’s one of those nights once more, and there’s a drink in Hawks’ hands while he stretches back over the couch.
Due to the lightweightedness of his bones– little bird bones as Dabi kindly called them, teased him sometimes, as his fingers fluttered over his skin–but that said, the drinks tend to go to his head a little faster than for most people. So three ciders into the night, and his mind was a little fuzzier than it should have been considering he could still be called out at any moment for hero work. The heavy input his wings filtered day in and day out through the feathers is muffled, like a floating caress at the edges of his mind
Hawks had, more easily than he wanted, desired, ever expected, had been able to slip into the hominess that the League provided.
The hominess that Dabi provided.
Normally during game nights, or any other events with the League or the MLA, Hawks would take a place next to Dabi. Most nights, Dabi would sling his arm over the back of the couch, behind Hawks’ wings, and just feather the pads of his fingers over the feathers closest to his hands. Other nights, they’d still walk around the other members of either group and Dabi would hold Hawks hand like they were some celebrity couple.
Hawks guesses they kind of are. A celebrity couple that is. In a way. One of the most notorious villains in the country, in the world, with Japan’s No. 2 Pro Hero. What a sight for some people.
If they were at Hawks’ place, out of sight from the people, from the fans, because he still has fans within the MLA, then Hawks would have shed his feathers and let Dabi’s hand rest on his back.
But with everyone else around, Hawks settles in, and leans both into the haze that the alcohol provides–a sweet cider in his hands that coats his throat with sugar–and into the tingling that falls down his spine with each barely-there touch of Dabi’s fingers.
“Okay Hawks,” Spinner calls, “one more round. Loser has to drink the rest of their drink.”
Hawks clears his head momentarily with a shake of his head as Spinner hands the steering-wheel shaped remote to Hawks.
Mario Kart. He’d played with the League a few times––enough times for them to know that he’s going to win. Unless inebriated, he has always won.
Unfortunately, he is inebriated, and can feel the room spinning as he takes the controller with his outstretched hand.
“You’re being sneaky,” Hawks groans, and Dabi patted him on the back a moment later–right between his wings, sending another pleased tingle down to his toes.
“We’re villains birdie,” Dabi says, voice gravelly from his last smoke, and he raises his own beer bottle to clink it against Spinner’s. “‘Sneaky’ is our middle name.”
“This is cheating,” Hawks says while he, Spinner and Shigaraki go through picking their characters.
“It’s not cheating,” Shiagraki joins in–the absolute traitor. He’d not ever quite been on Hawks’ side during game nights, especially the first one when he challenged Hawks to Super Smash Bros. As his way to decide if Hawks was trustworthy or not. Which, Hawks still wasn’t sure if it was strategic or not because he’d never played Super Smash Bros before that night, despite Rumi and Fat Gum’s insistence on nights he’d find himself available––if he had any that was. Most of his nights since starting his infiltration mission had been filled with just that: mission work, hero work, Dabi.
“It’s strategic,” Shigaraki grumbles, pulling his hoodie further on his head. “The rest of us aren’t that much better off.”
“See,” Hawks says, “Some of you could probably stand right now. I don’t think I'd be able to stand even if I had to.”
Even if he got called out for an emergency right now, he’s not sure if he’d be able to sober up enough to fly. The thought startles him for a brief moment. His phone could ring with an emergency, and he’d have no idea what to do. It might just continue to buzz in the crevice it’s fallen into of the couch.
It never ceases to amaze him, and scare him, with the knowledge of how deep he’s gotten into this mission. It’s supposed to be a mission. Just that. When did it stop being a mission? He’s still going to fulfill what the HPSC wants, but in the end he’s going to break his heart–break Dabi’s–and break the League’s.
He jostles with Dabi’s droning voice beside him, but it’s not aimed at him.
“No way,” Dabi says, pointing at Toga who is reaching for one of the beers at the side of the coffee table. “Get a mocktail or something. You’re way too young to be drinking.”
Toga whines, throwing herself over the back of the couch, “But Shigaraki’s drinking!”
“And? You’re 16, put the drink down.”
Hawks huffs through his nose, rolling his head to the side to take in Dabi’s expression. It’s a focused look, even through whatever amount of alcohol Dabi had up to that point. Without thinking, Hawks asks, “Is this what big brother’s act like?”
Dabi blinks his pretty blue eyes down at him for a minute. His eyelashes are thinner and Hawks, not for the first time, wonders if the fullness of them has been burned off more and more in the times Dabi continues to overwork himself and his quirk. He wonders how long Dabi’s eyelashes would have been, if they’d not burned away. “What? Absolutely not.”
Now, Hawks didn’t ever have siblings, but he’s seen how siblings act. “I’m pretty sure it is.”
Toga chimes from the side, a grin in her voice, “He always acts like that.”
Dabi ignores her, keeping his eyes on Hawks as he answers him, “You don’t have any siblings, you wouldn’t know that.”
Hawks raises an eyebrow, but holds the burning So you have siblings? question tucked into his chest. He briefly thinks about what it must have been like to grow up with siblings. Even in the time with the Commission he very rarely saw the other kids who were being trained. The few times he did, he swore that he’d work hard enough that they’d never need to be put through that. Even now at 22 he swears, silently, to the kids still in the Commission programing, to the kids in all the hero programs around the world, that he’ll be the best so they can rest, so that they don’t have to be a successor to anyone like he was to Nagant. He’ll be Atlas, even if the world crushes his wings.
“Well–” he tries, ready to argue back to Dabi, giving into that easy banter.
“If you don’t pay attention,” Dabi says, leaning down to whisper against his ear, low and teasingly, “you’re going to lose the game.”
Hawks turns immediately back to where the race had already started. “See! You’re both cheaters!”
Spinner and Shigaraki’s laughter sends his head reeling as he leans forward to try to focus on the game on the T.V. The bright lights of the racecourse on screen are almost as easy to focus on as Dabi’s blue eyes––bright, startling, and better than any flight in the sky.
In the end, he loses the round of racing. But he grins and laughs and takes the rest of his drink, gulping it down in several easy swallows. He feels Dabi’s eyes on him the entire time, his fingers back in his feathers, just brushing over them in a comforting sort of motion.
“Ugh,” Hawks says, placing the bottle onto the makeshift table that’s in the middle of the room. “I’m out.”
“One loss and you’re out already?” Shigaraki says petulantly. He does that frequently when he tries to lure someone into playing more. Sometimes it works––for some people. Not for Hawks.
Instead, Hawks settles back against the couch, and Dabi’s arm moves so it’s a warm weight over his shoulders. He’s tugged right against Dabi’s side and his heart flutters at the warm seeping into his skin. Hawks grins as he says, “Yeah, you two got me this time–cheaters, seriously. The both of you.”
They ignore him before moving onto their next victim of the night: Dabi.
“Come on Dabi,” Spinner motions with the controller, “your turn.”
“Nah,” Dabi answers. He waves off the controller, making himself even more at home on the couch, tucking Hawks closer to him with the one arm. “I’m good.”
“You scared you’re gonna lose?” Toga teases.
Dabi hums, “Sure. Absolutely. Completely terrified.”
“You’re being a loser,” Shigaraki grumbles. “We don’t have losers in the League.”
“Might want to prepare yourself, ‘cause you’ve got two of them right here,” Dabi raises an eyebrow, motioning to him and Hawks, before placing his beer on the table.
“Fine,” Shigaraki says, raising his hands. “We have two losers, two characters who are never picked by players.
Is that supposed to be an insult? Hawks wonders, before humming. He turns his head up to Dabi, eyes tracing as carefully as possible over his staples. He says, with zero pause, “Dabs is better than all the fried chicken in the world. Makes him pretty great. Can’t be a loser if he’s great.”
Toga claps her hands, excitedly slipping down the side of the couch before landing with her bum on the floor. “Awww, that’s so sweet!
Shigaraki huffs, “How is that sweet? He’s comparing Dabi to chicken. ”
“So!” Toga continues. “I compare people to blood all the time!”
Spinner grumbles, “It’s disgusting is what it is.”
Compress chimes in with a flourish nearby, throwing his cards from where he’d been playing with Kurogiri and Twice into the air like confetti, “You need to have more faith in young love!”
Young love. It brings Hawks’ brain to a halt. All the swimming stops for the briefest second as the words repeat over and over like a broken record. Young love, young love, young–
He’s never been in love before. Does love feel like this? Does love always end in betrayal?
Dabi doesn’t say anything. One of his hands comes up, away from Hawks’ feathers and twirls one of the stray golden strands that’s fallen into Hawks’ face.
Hawks is trying to pay attention to the words being spoken by everyone else–back to the young love– but Dabi’s hand continues to brush through his hair, and it’s heavenly . Minute by minute, he grows sleepier, and feels his body sinking into the couch, into Dabi’s comforting weight next to him.
“Better than fried chicken, huh?” Dabi whispers, pressing his lips against Hawks’ forehead.
Hawks blinks, looking through the haze to try to catch Dabi’s eyes. Dabi pulls away to gaze down at him–there’s something in his expression that Hawks can’t put into words. He’s not sure, even if he were sober, if he’d be able to give words to it. He’s not sure if the world’s greatest poets would be able to do that very thing either––putting names to the unnameable was their thing though.
What does he know though? He’s not a poet, but he doesn’t ever want Dabi to stop looking at him how he is.
Soft. Holding his words back. Tenderly and continuing to brush back stray strands of his hair.
“Better than KFC even,” Hawks answers.
Someone behind him––probably Shigaraki––makes a gagging sound.
Compress wonders aloud, “Is this what bird love is like?”
Dabi doesn’t supply him with an answer, he just presses another kiss to the top of Hawks’ head, and then Hawks tucks his head into the side of Dabi’s face. Hawks settles close, pulling one of his wings from around him so it lays out across his shoulder and over Dabi’s lap. With his face pressed to Dabi’s neck he can breathe in the familiar scent from Dabi’s favorite brand of cheap cigarettes, mingling with the alcohol on his breath.
The room swims more as he closes his eyes from the last dregs of his drink, and Dabi finally starts talking back to the League, but Hawks can’t put their words into coherent meaning. The words are completely lost on him, even more when Dabi’s hand that isn’t in his hair begins combing through the feathers blanketing them like someone slotting their fingers in another’s hand.
The drowning sounds around him are a comfort. They mix together like soup on a cold day.
Hawks has never had this.
He’s never had a family. Not like this.
This is nice, is his last thought before sleep rolls over his body.
He wakes shortly to movement, and he’s as awake as he can be considering the alcohol dragging down his body. He jolts, but Dabi’s voice soothes him immediately.
“Shh, it’s okay,” Dabi says, and Hawks blinks. Dabi’s holding him up, in a princess-carry, and Hawks’ wings have folded around him for easy carrying, and it’s strange that he didn’t wake up to Dabi moving his wings, or with any of the other additional noises that had caused him to go to sleep.
He’s a light sleeper. Always has been. First fom the noises his parents caused when he was a kid, the glasses being thrown in a room, his father yelling at his mother––to the numerous emergencies he’d had to be awake for: tsunamis, villains, saving any civilian he could because he can’t fail.
Dabi’s hands meet next to his waist, with one of his arms underneath the peak point of his knees, the other around his back and awkwardly tucked under his wings. “Just taking a sleepy bird to bed.”
“So kind of you,” Hawks says, and means it, but it sounds distant to his ears.
Dabi huffs. “We’ve slept in beds plenty of times together. I wouldn’t leave you on the couch.”
Hawks rubs his nose against Dabi’s throat, pushing his drunk-heavy arms up over Dabi’s neck.
“And,” Dabi’s voice supplied again, “these bird bones of yours make you easy to carry.”
His body is naturally lighter due to the hollowness of his bones––more delicate, too.
“Definitely much better than fried chicken,” Hawks whispers against Dabi’s neck.
He isn't in the right state of mind enough to see the look that crosses over Dabi’s face, but he feels how Dabi holds him a little tighter. Maybe that’s because he’s trying to carry him up the stairs though to his designated mansion room.
“You like me better than fried chicken?” Dabi answers, but it sounds quiet. A genuine quiet, even past the process of sounds and feelings going both through his ears and through his feathers, he hardly hears the question.
“Fried chicken can’t carry me to bed,” Hawks says.
“You’re not wrong about that,” Dabi answers, and Hawks thinks he can hear the smile in his voice.
Hawks hums, and he brushes at the small hairs at the back of Dabi’s head. “Better than KFC, too. Did I say that?”
Dabi snorts, “You did tell me that.”
He finds himself wishing he’d not had that last drink so he could truly commit to memory the sound of Dabi’s laughter: all of his laughters, even the small snorts through his nose.
Hawks closes his eyes, and Dabi says something else but when he opens his eyes again, Dabi is placing him on his bed. The room is mostly dark, except for the light streaming through the window––with the curtains open, and the moonlight streaming in, Hawks knows it’s definitely way past the time he’d need to be back at his apartment. He’d had to fly out early if he wanted to make it for patrol.
The rest of the room is how it normally looks when he stays over, though most nights they’re falling into bed together with Dabi’s lips at his neck, and Hawks legs around his waist. The room has a small dresser in one corner, a small amount of clothes piled into a basket in the corner, and a bathroom attached with its door cracked open across the room. The walls are plain, bare, say for a single painting in the room. It looks, from at a distance, like a deep blue sky, with––one, two, three, four birds, Hawks counts, flying in one corner, and another in the opposite corner.
This painting wasn't there the week before when Hawks had last stayed the night.
It's a painting that, if Hawks were more coherent, he might ask if it was one Dabi had painted himself. Sometimes he finds Dabi sketching in his apartment, it wouldn’t be too far-fetched to think Dabi paints as well.
He’ll ask tomorrow.
He’ll need to remember to ask tomorrow–but he’ll ask.
He wants to have all the details about Dabi that he can because of that inevitable. In the end he wants to be able to remember everything he could about Dabi: that he paints, that he sketches, that he reads but likes reading on Hawks’ balcony the most, especially during the nights when it’s cooler and the heat doesn’t cause his skin to feel like a soppy sponge and irritate the seams of his scars and skin.
“If you’re still here in the morning,” Dabi says, pulling Hawks from his wandering thoughts. “I’ll make you chicken nuggets.” Dabi’s fingers work at Hawks’ shoes, pulling them off of his feet, over his ankles and over his toes, leaving his legs in his pants.
“For breakfast?” Hawks slurs a bit. The offer is incredibly tempting. To be able to skip his early morning patrol and eat chicken nuggets in bed, for breakfast with Dabi. He wants to skip patrols for Dabi.
He can’t afford to want to skip Hero-things for Dabi. But he craves it. He craves it and the craving digs a terribly nauseous feeling in the pit of his stomach that he can’t equate to drinking one drink too many.
As soon as the weight of his shoes are away, he cozies himself into the smell of Dabi’s bed. The rest of his clothes are left on as he buries himself into the sheets.
He wishes Dabi stayed at his place often enough for his smell to permeate his sheets. Maybe one day he’d be able to take the extra copy of his apartment key that he’d made a couple weeks previously, and he’d give it to Dabi. Their time was short after all, a blip not just for the universe, but with his mission and its end in the future growing closer. He might as well throw all caution into the wind and give Dabi the key.
He’ll do that tomorrow too. When he eventually asks about the painting, he’ll hand over the golden key.
Maybe Dabi will stay at his place more. Maybe Hawks’ll come back to his apartment to see Dabi making them dinner in the kitchen, more than just the few times it had happened already. Maybe then Dabi’s staples would pull out of his skin as he scaled up the side of his apartment building and onto his balcony.
“For breakfast,” Dabi chuckles and pulls the cover over Hawks, finding an additional blanket in the room to drop it over Hawks’ body.
“You’re not staying?” Hawks asks, blinking through the haze of his eyes, trying to focus on Dabi’s face, but he can’t get them to focus. In the corner of his mind he realizes that was bad, he always needs to be alert, but there’s something about Dabi–something about the League–that makes him want to curl further into the blankets and shut his eyes for a few hours. Makes him wish that the alarm on his phone wouldn’t ring in the morning like it always does.
Dabi’s hand is on his face a moment later, thumb brushing over his cheek. “Just gonna change clothes. Sleep, angel.”
A small smile pulls at his cheeks but he closes his eyes, and falls asleep once more to the sound of Dabi rummaging around his room, and to the warmth and softness of the blankets.
He unfortunately wakes up to his alarm some hours later. With a pounding headache too.
He woke up too wrapped around Dabi, arms tucked between the both of them, and Dabi’s chin over his head, and one of Dabi’s arms folded up above his head.
Dabi had grumbled about him turning off his alarm, and he did with a feather quickly sent the phone’s direction, finding half a moment to realize it had travelled from the game area into the bedroom. Dabi’s breathing settles again after that and it’s a rush for Hawks to get his shoes on and find the rest of his hero costume in the mansion.
He’s nursing his terrible hangover during patrol, trying how he always has to grin at civilians, taking pictures when people ask, all while in the back of his mind he thinks:
Dabs is better than all the fried chicken in the world.
He blushes, and when people ask about the red on his cheeks, he just notes that it’s a little warmer today and the fleece in his jacket is getting to him.
And he hopes to god Dabi won’t remember the words he’d said.
But he does.
Just a few hours into his patrol he gets the text:
Right when his patrol ends, he takes off, before rushing to his apartment to get the extra key and stuffing it into his pocket––and reminding himself to ask Dabi about the painting in his room.