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Of all of the times to get hit with a quirk, that particular moment on that particular day on that particular patrol hadn’t been the best time; Hawks had been busy, in public, and on-call for more patrol that night, which also happened to clash with his scheduled time off. Which was fine, villains never rest and all that (which seemed like a lie, especially now that Hawks had actually met villains. If Dabi wasn’t up by noon he wasn’t getting up at all.). Of all the quirks to be hit with, a ‘self-care’ quirk, in theory, wasn’t even in the top thousand worst.
In theory.
Actually going through the effects of one that demanded he see it through to its end was unbelievably shitty. It didn’t seem very likely that a trip to the spa and a nap was going to cut it this time (Hawks had never actually been to a spa by himself but he sometimes went with Rumi. With his popularity being dependent on people thinking he just had wings and nothing else, he’d ended up just sitting close to her and drinking tea. Decaffeinated tea.). Hawks’ memory of the confrontation is blurry, everything feels blurry now, hours later, but he thinks it was a fan. A very concerned and persistent fan who actually fucking warned him before he grabbed Hawks’ shoulder and stared him down with such intensity that Hawks actually felt mildly alarmed. It had felt like being doused with pleasantly warm water, which was odd enough that it kept him in a state of mild shock until he was released. The citizen had pressed a bright piece of paper into Hawks’ shocked hands, smiled cheekily, and tossed a quick “take care!” over their shoulder before they disappeared into the crowd. A warning didn’t make it any better- or any less illegal- but Hawks supposes that it was nice to have a warning for once. There had been no warning when, an hour later, he suddenly felt so tired he listed sideways and almost knocked his head against the tasteful marble counter tops of his kitchen and shattered his coffee mug. Likewise, there was no warning when, fifteen minutes after almost knocking himself out and landing in hot coffee and shards of glass, a pissed off Dabi was knocking at his window and glaring so hard that Hawks wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if the villain caught fire and took him down with him.
Which brought him to now, trying not to obviously lose his balance and hit the floor as Dabi gave him a harsh stare and moved his mouth to make sounds that Hawks’ brain couldn’t form into words. The apparent standoff was so one-sided that it felt more like he was getting lectured by his boss than by a (villain? Friend? Dabi was the closest thing he had to a friend, other than Rumi, which was sorta depressing, but true. And Hawks wasn’t about to have the jealous side hoe conversation of ‘what am I to you?’, he’d rather die) companion. A weighted pause met his ears as he stared into the distractedly ahead, and seconds later fingers were snapping repeatedly, inches from his face. They were close enough that Hawks could feel their heat as Dabi became more and more irritated and allowed his quirk to leak out. In the distance, a bird perched on a power line and pecked at it’s neighbor until the other bird pecked back harshly. Hawks could relate. The fingers snapped again. “I bite,” Hawks hums sleepily, his eyes focusing blearily on the fingers still in his face. Dabi rolls his eyes and retracts his hand before focusing his cold eyes on him with an irritated look. “Try it, you fucking bird. Try. It.” The hand that had been snapping in his face lights up with blue fire; it's more of a show of power than anything else, but Hawks finds himself enjoying the hypnotic movement of the blue flames instead of backing up like he assumes Dabi expected him to. The heat burns his skin, it’s too close, but it’s so pretty that he can’t even bring himself to blink. When it suddenly extinguishes and the fingers roughly flick his forehead he feels a little lost, but he feels a little more aware now than he did before, so he guesses it’s alright. “What the fuck is wrong with you,” huffs Dabi as he slowly gives him a very pointed once over. And God, does Hawks not want him to know he was hit with a civilian’s quirk, that would be embarrassing. So he just throws out the first thing his rapidly fogging brain can think of.
“Life is hard.”
And that isn’t what he wanted to say at all. It comes out as more of a petulant whine than he would have liked, but he guesses that it’s enough of an excuse as Dabi just rolls his eyes again and takes a few steps away. His face looks angry; a crease between his eyebrows and a harsh frown on his face. Angry isn’t even a proper description, Dabi just looks done.
“Oh, right,” Dabi snorts, looking angry and sarcastic, “your life must be so hard.” He flings his hand out as if to showcase Hawks’ apartment, and the hero feels a hollow feeling nest in his chest as his tired eyes follow Dabi’s gesture. His apartment is nice, he knows that, but he also knows that it’s as empty as he feels right now. Even Dabi’s hand falters and drifts back to his side as he takes in the empty apartment with its blank walls and cream colored furniture. It could, Hawks supposes, be taken for stylishly minimalistic, rather than hardly lived in. And he just wants to sleep in his rarely used bed, he feels like falling over and his vision is blurry, but Dabi is staring at him, looking for answers that he doesn’t want to admit to. Hawks feels like he’s drowning as he chokes out a small agreement without looking the other man in the eyes. Dabi was right, in a way; he had everything he could ever want, and therefore no reason to complain. It didn’t matter what his apartment was like anyway. He was willing to bet money that he slept at his desk on top of reports more than he did in his room, or just his apartment in general. It was the life that he got for being a hero, and he embraced it.
Besides, it could be worse; he could have to teach classes like Eraserhead. It would, to put it simply, be a disaster, because Hawks can’t even take care of himself properly, and kids like to pull on things like hair (and feathers) so it’s just not worth it.
Hawks allows himself a heavy blink and suddenly the world is a lot fuzzier and Dabi is a lot closer. That doesn’t matter, it never matters, not when it’s him, not when they don;t touch. So he does the only thing he can think to do with his body becoming lead and his mind slowing down to a syrupy frenzied mess; he turns and stumbles away, his wings dragging behind him as he walks. He can turn his back because Dabi won’t touch him, hasn’t touched him since their first couple of meetings when he pushed and shoved and threatened and burned. He thinks his wings pick up the vibrations of footsteps following him, but he can’t bring himself to care past an initial bout of alarm. It’s just Dabi, following to snap at him more for not being homeless, which Hawks doesn’t really get, but he doesn’t get Dabi either. It cancels out if he doesn’t think about it too much. If Dabi wants to kill him and take his apartment, Hawks isn’t going to stop him and isn’t that a worrying path to go down-
Hawks is tired.
It feels like it takes ages to get to his room, the entire trip blending into an off-white and cream blur as he just relies on his feet to drag him there. Dabi follows, silent as a ghost as Hawks drags himself closer to the bed. He’s still silent when Hawks’ body just gives out and drops him onto the floor next to his bed. Everything feels muddles and bleary, and he can feel his eyes trying to slide shut like weights are tied to them. Hands scoop him up and drop him roughly onto something much softer than the floor, and he’s out before his body has stopped bouncing from the rough drop off.
Everything is warm, especially whatever is right next to his face, and he loves it, he does. Really. But his wings are cramping and Hawks always has work to do, so he reluctantly blinks open his eyes to rough denim inches from his nose and rough grumbles from someone in the room. The sleepy haze in his brain is still very present, even as he slowly pushes himself away from the now too-hot denim and follows the trail of it to a shirt and them up to blue eyes that glow with a furious sort of worry. When he fully wakes up, he feels more refreshed than he has in a while, possibly ever, and Dabi is seething. There’s a note clenched in the villain’s fist, probably a little burnt around the edges if the heat that Hawks can feel rolling off of Dabi is any indication.
“What the absolute fuck, Hawks?” he seethes, roughly tossing the slightly charred neon pink ball at the hero’s chest. Hawks carefully unballs it and oh.
Oh shit.
It’s a self-care list. The same list that had been tucked into his own hand by that civilian. The list is neatly organized, to the point where he has to wonder if the civilian had done this to others before. There are bullet point topics with little check boxes next to each one. Everything is numbered. Number one is labeled ‘Sleep zZ’ and the bullet points inform that this one lasts as long as it needs to until the one affected is deemed well-rested. There's a rough looking check mark in the box with little notes, obviously written by Dabi, and a series of tally marks that get worse looking as they continue. Hawks raises his eyebrows, “What’s with the marks?” he asks, glancing between them and a fuming Dabi, who fixes him with a frustrated look. “Those, Birdie,” he spits through gritted teeth, “are how many hours you were out,” his jaw clenches and unclenches roughly. Hawks stares down at the paper in his lap, flabbergasted. He can feel his mouth hanging open. “You’re kidding-”
The look that his seething companion sends him tells him that Dabi was, in fact, absolutely serious.
“No,” Hawks breathes out.
“Yes,” Dabi stresses sarcastically, moving to read the list over his shoulder and mockingly tracing his finger over the marks. “Forty six fucking hours, Hawks,” he says lowly. Hawks feels like crying and laughing and screaming all at once. Dabi just looks like he feels like screaming. Scrambling off of the bed (he didn’t remember making it to the bed, but okay) he ran his fingers roughly through his hair, stress-preening and fulfilling a nervous habit in the rough tugging. He’s been out for almost two days, he’s missed patrol-
And, if Dabi was still here, looking out of place and comfortable, like an alley cat on a silk pillow, it meant that nobody had stopped by. Hawks had been missing (if anyone even cared enough to call it that) for almost two days, and nobody had checked up on him. “The commission called,” Dabi interrupts his mini freak-out by causing a new one, waving Hawks’ phone in his hand. There’s a game that Hawks doesn’t remember downloading open on the screen; he thinks it’s Angry Birds. Hawks feels like the birds in the game, as he automatically launches for the device. Dabi simply moves his arm and uses his other hand to flip Hawks onto his stomach and hold him down by his shoulder. His wings flap frantically, but it’s too uncoordinated to actually aid any form of escape. It would be the perfect moment for the villain to smirk, but Dabi just looks down at him with a calculating look in his eyes. He looks blank, and Hawks is still struggling slightly to grab his phone, when the villain breaks his contemplative silence, “I listened to the messages,” he says it like it’s no big deal, but Hawks can feel the grip on his shoulder tighten. He feels himself tense, “so you know,” and even hearing himself acknowledge it is almost too much. It feels like he’s admitting to cheating rather than manipulating and backstabbing Dabi’s family.
“About the spy gig? I’ve known from the get-go, you idiot,” Dabi gives it a moment to sink in, eyeing the hero from his position above him, "I mean the messages talking about ‘serious repercussions’,” the fingers of his free hand form air quotes, and the ones still splayed against Hawks’ shoulder blade twitch. Panic is lancing through him again, this time having nothing to do with being at a murderer’s mercy. The Hero Public Safety Commission, his boss, his Handler- they’re all disappointed, angry even. He’s going to get punished, which could mean a stern lecture or another lesson is torture resistance, and it’s all because he wasn't aware enough to avoid a civilians quirk. It’s almost laughable, really. He’s going to get hurt, and it (probably) won’t be by the villain in his bed. Hawks feels like he should invest in one of those ‘take a number’ machines for everyone who’s going to be waiting for their turn to hurt him. The fingers on his shoulder blade are uncomfortably hot, and Hawks is reminded that Dabi currently holds the slip of paper with a ‘one’ on it. “Calm your shit, you dumb fuckin’ bird,” the villain grumbles, and Hawks hears the sounds of the game as they mix with Dabi’s muttered cursing. He’s not sure if Dabi is talking to the game or to him.
Apparently giving up, Dabi looks at him again. “Next on the list is food, bird, so get ready to stuff your goddamn face,” he informs, turning back to his game. He grunts unhappily as he apparently misses again.
After Hawks has calmed down, and Dabi has given up on the level, they migrate through empty halls until they end up at the empty kitchen. He had barely remembered to grab the list before they left, and he kind of wants to shred it when he read the second bullet point. ‘Food!!! (-;=3’ is written, and it takes a second for Hawks to realize that it’s a little chef emoji next to the word. Why they wrote out a texting emoji, he doesn't know, but it does fuel his rage a bit. In the few seconds it takes for him to decipher one of the oddest emojis he’d ever seen, Dabi makes himself at home against the white marble counter. Hawks looks on in disbelief as Dabi begins to raid his cabinets. “Keep reading, Pretty Bird,” Dabi calls over his shoulder as he digs through the fridge. Hawks slowly drags his eyes back to the list and feels his anger flare up again at the lackluster ‘eat whatever you need!!!’ written there. “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” he grumbles. He doesn’t look up at Dabi’s increasingly frustrated noises when he finds nothing substantial in Hawk’s kitchen. He actually huffs at Hawks’ fridge, but that’s kind of understandable; the only thing on there is canned coffee. Dabi slams the door shut and just looks at him, seeming disappointed in Hawks as a person. He sighs, shutting his eyes in apparent despair, “guess we’re ordering in, then.”
Not only is ordering in a bad idea, but it’s a bad idea. An expensive, usually delicious, bad idea.
The fact that Hawks gets to order chicken, his favorite, makes the betrayal so much worse. He gets through setting the table, which has a disgusting amount of probable domesticity except for Dabi just dropping onto the unused couch in the sitting room and not contributing at all. He gets through opening the door, and paying for the food, and sitting down. He (barely) gets through the cannibal jokes made by Dabi. The moment that turns the meal sour begins as soon as the first bit of food is swallowed. The betrayal comes in the form of a sharp pain and the immediate purge of it from his stomach. Dabi, who has already dug into his meal like a wild animal, sharply looks up at the choking noise Hawks makes when the food immediately tries to crawl back up his throat. He seems frozen in shock as Hawks scrambles to the sink and shoves his head into it, but Hawks, after retching for a bit, hears Dabi’s chair screech against the floor and a cold hand (how is it cold?) awkwardly pats his shoulder in what Hawks assumes is an attempt at comfort. Once he’s past the initial shock of Hawks choking his food back up, Dabi doesn’t even have the decency to be sympathetic, “that’s what being a cannibal gets you,” he sighs in a monotone. His hand, still cold, has moved to the back of Hawks’ neck, and he tries desperately not to draw similarities between his handler and Dabi, but he can’t help it this time. The shudders and jerks out from under the loose touch. Dabi takes it all in stride with a form of awkward grace that Hawks envies.
“So,” he hums, like he’s contemplating what he’s about to say. Hawks already sees where this is going, “what do you really eat?” the villain muses to himself. At least, Hawks hopes it was to himself; he can’t exactly reply with his head still stuck in the sink. He manages to choke out a response between the bouts of gagging anyway.
“This is what I eat,” he coughs. The considering noise that Dabi makes tells Hawks that the villain doesn’t believe him, and he would bet money that a raised eyebrow is involved.
“No, I don’t think it is.”
“I eat this all the time!” Hawks protests, head still buried in the sink. His body, satisfied by the purge of the small bite of food, has stopped trying to kill him. He gasps in breaths, feeling disgusting.
“Huh, maybe only eating fried shit is the problem.”
“It’s not! This is food poisoning.”
“Fastest acting food poison I’ve ever seen,” Dabi snarks back, slapping the water faucet on and almost soaking Hawks’ head in the process. He yelps before glaring back at the villain and Dabi just shrugs, “wash your mouth out.”
While Hawks busies himself with getting the taste of bile out of his mouth, Dabi retrieves the list and takes it upon himself to read the other bullet points on it. Hawks had read a few before dismissing them entirely, which was a mistake on his part. Hawks can almost hear the raised eyebrow Dabi is sporting when he calls, “raw meat is marked with a shit-ton of question marks, but it’s also backed up with bird facts,” he sounds like he’s trying to hold back laughter. When Hawks turns to meet his gaze, he’s holding the pink paper out and grinning darkly. “So,” he purrs, his eyes almost glowing, “what kind of birdie are you?”
It feels like a loaded question, and Hawks isn’t really sure if they’re talking about what food he needs anymore, so he decides not to respond. Instead of responding, he just plops himself on one edge of the barely used couch. Dabi slinks after him and takes the other end, and just stares at Hawks with questions written in his eyes. He tears his eyes away from Dabi’s and glares down at the pink paper in his fist. Eventually, Dabi just closes his eyes and reclines in his spot, tipping his head back to rest on the back of the couch.
“We could try worms,” Dabi suggests, not even bothering to open his eyes.
“Absolutely not.”
“Well damn, Hawks- oh.”
Hawks hums in question, still staring blankly at the bird facts.
“You’re a bird of prey.”
“And?”
“And that means you eat meat-”
“We tried that-”
“Raw meat.”
Hawks feels sick for entirely different reasons as his mouth waters. When he looks up, Dabi is watching him for his reaction, and seems to decide their next move when he meets Hawks eyes. It makes sense that he needs it; birds of prey do eat raw meat, after all. But Hawks doesn’t want to need something like that, something that could destroy his career if it got out. So he just laughs when Dabi suggests going shopping, “I can't go out to get raw meat, hot stuff,” he adds a quick smirk, but his heart is not in it. He thinks that Dabi can tell, but is gracious enough to ignore it. Maybe not ignore, but he definitely lets Hawks get away with it and that’s both out of character and greatly appreciated. Instead, he focuses on Hawks’ words, “why the fuck not?” he sighs.
“If people see me, I’m done. It’s common knowledge that I can’t cook for shit,” Hawks defends, glancing over at Dabi. He looks so unimpressed that Hawks, a grown man and the number two hero, is scared to go grocery shopping.
“I’ll call Toga then,” he decides, hauling himself up from the couch.
Hawks jumps after him, “no, nope, absolutely not!” He lunges for the phone in Dabi’s hand.
“Do I want to know why Toga has raw meat laying around?” Hawks mutters, leaning away from the package on the counter. Say what you want about the League of Villains, but they had connections in all the right places; between Kurogiri creating portals for delivery and Toga having raw meat on-hand (“What? Why-” Hawks starts to ask and is cut off by a slow shake of Dabi’s head and a hand over his mouth. “Don’t ask,” he says simply as Toga just chirps, “for stuff like this, silly!” Hawks decides that, maybe, Dabi is right. He doesn't want to know.). Dabi just snorts as he cuts the package open and begins to root around for a plate to put the meat on. Hawks thinks it would be fine by him if Dabi didn’t find anything. He can’t cook, but he’s almost willing to risk burning his apartment down to avoid eating the bloody mess in front of him. “Can we even trust that this isn’t, like, a person? Cannibal jokes are fun and all, but I’d rather not actually be one, you know? Plus, human meat could make me sick, and I can’t really afford that with the HPSC breathing down my neck- Oh, yeah. Hey, Dabi, I’ve gotta call them and explain this or they’re gonna be real mad-”
The silence is what disrupts him. When he looks up, it’s to see Dabi just looking into an empty cabinet like if he stares hard enough things will just pop into existence. Around him, every single cabinet door is open, and every single one is empty aside from one with a water bottle. He winces at the look that Dabi turns to give him. “Hawks,” it’s said slowly, like a teacher talking to a preschooler who’s not seeing what’s right in front of their face, “where’s all your shit?” The silence stretches on before Dabi, with the grace of a bull in a china shop, breaks it again. “Whatever, here,” he tosses a cheap set of disposable chopsticks at Hawks, who barely manages to catch them. Then, it’s a waiting game. No way in hell is Hawks going to eat this suspiciously acquired meat, and Dabi seems about ready to force it down his throat. What feels like hours pass by with the staring contest of Dabi vs Hawks vs the mystery meat in front of them before Hawks just pushes it away, “yeah, no. We tried it-”
“You didn’t try shit and I’ll shove it down your pretty throat if you even think of getting up from this table,” Dabi threatens absently as he holds his own chopsticks. It’s easy for him to say; since Hawks now has a new meal, Dabi is eating his old one. The fried chicken mocks him as Dabi steadily eats away at it and he tries not to feel jealous when he looks between their meals. Hawks makes a face.
“It’s raw-”
“That’s the fucking point, isn’t it? It’s like bird sushi.”
“It’s cold-”
“I’ll heat it up for you.”
“It’s gross-”
His protest is cut off by Dabi, who moves faster than lightning and grabs a small handful of raw meat and shoves it into Hawks’ protesting mouth. The transfer is messy, the surprise of it makes him choke, and he immediately tries to spit it out before Dabi, who’s leaning across the table to keep his hand over Hawks’ mouth, brings his other hand up and pinches the hero’s nose shut as well, “swallow.” Hawks tries to struggle, but once the taste of the meat registers, the fight is terribly one sided. Hawks doesn’t even really remember it, his humanity taking a backseat to his raptor instincts that have, apparently, gotten a taste of what they wanted all along. An embarrassingly short time later, he can’t even look up to meet Dabi’s eyes. Hawks can feel the bloody juices running down his face, and his hands are a bloody mess, and he has to choke back his whines as his eyes tear up because what had he done-
Dabi slowly reaches over and grabs the list before burning a hole through the checkbox next to food with his flaming pinky finger.
Hawks leaves the table and stays in his room until the morning sun is peeking through the large windows that take up most of the eastern wall.
Hawks still can’t look Dabi in the eye, but he accepts the list when it’s passed to him after he finally reemerges from his room. The villain is quiet, and Hawks certainly isn’t going to fill the silence with his usual chatter, not after what he did, so it remains awkward. Until he reads the next bullet point that is. “I do that,” Hawks mutters indignantly, tossing the list back onto the counter. “Apparently not,” Dabi replies, pulling it back to him and tapping the next merry go round of misery. The word, ‘Wingssssss’ is there, with a small picture of wings drawn next to it. The ink used is red, in an obvious attempt to imply that this is specifically about Hawks’ wings. There’s only one bullet point, but it’s long; it details how to properly preen them, as well as how to work the hero’s body in order to ensure the preening is actually helpful. He still feels like a monster, and having someone else’s theory (their true theory, the fuck?) about his oil glands being on his back being directly in his face, Dabi has read this, only makes him feel even less like a human. He’s been called out be a bright pink piece of paper, and he’s going to lose his shit.
“So, how are we doing this?”
“Huh?”
“How are we,” Dabi gestures between them lazily with a finger, “doing this?”
“I’m doing it. Alone.”
And with that he storms off, leaving the list with Dabi, who’s frustration beats against his back until he turns the corner. He’s still seething with embarrassment, rage, and something less than human when he finally makes it to his room and slams the door shut. He can take care of himself just fine; he’s been grooming his own wings for years, and he doesn’t need the help of a villain to do it now. He’s resolved himself to do it, it’s going to be fine, he’s capable, but then his wings shift from soft to harder than steel, then back to soft. It’s startling, but as good a clue as any that the next phase is starting. The sudden shifts aren’t too bad, easy to ignore, and Hawks is debating just being lazy and seeing if the quirk will just wear itself out.
And then they begin to burn.
There is no slow start; they go from hard to soft to burning, and for a second Hawks is worried that he’s gotten too close to Endeavour's flames while taking down a villain again, but he’s still in his bedroom, and even after rolling on top of his wings to smother the phantom flames they persist. His feathers scream at him, each one a raw nerve ending. All he can do is twist desperately to roll off of his wings, that scream with his hollow-boned body weight on top of them, but he twists too far and hits the floor with a sharp scream of his own. He’s unsure of how long he lies there, his body withering in pain and his wings making aborted flapping motions. His hands are wildly clawing at his feathers, trying to rip out the ones that are on fire, which feels like all of them. Despite all of the pain, all of the alarm, coursing through his body, his feathers are soft. This turns out to be a good thing when fingers that are not his own dive through them roughly. Hawks tries not to think about how much that hand would bleed if his feathers were sharp. The touch is like an off switch for the pain, and the sudden lack of it makes him feel drunk on adrenaline. It’s better than any pain killer he’s ever had, and small relieved chirps leave his bloody, bitten lips. Someone, Dabi, it has to be Dabi, who else would be here, is talking in hushed tones that Hawks can’t really decipher at that moment. He’s still trying to come back into his body when he catches what Dabi is saying, “-fucking stubborn bird, you’re a fucking idiot, pretty bird.”
He chirps lightly at the name, something distinctly birdlike glowing under the attention, even as he pants from exhaustion. Cold fingers smooth down his spine, and he’s reminded that he’d taken off the worn hoodie with slits in the back and thrown on a halter top after he’d abandoned Dabi earlier. The fingers leave his wing and suddenly the little bubble of peace he’d been submerged in pops and his world is on fire again. It doesn’t last for more than a second, his scream cut short as fingers dive back into his wing. The shock of pain and then the sudden lack of it, again, is more than he can really take, and he doesn’t pass out, per se, but between one blink and the next he’s moved from the bedroom floor to the living room couch. His face is pressed into the back of it, his knees splayed out for balance and his wings draped on either side of the couch. It’s not comfortable, but the way that fingers comb through his wings makes his discomfort obsolete. Dabi’s hands, Hawks thinks, are possibly the best drug ever. He doesn’t really realize it when he starts chirping, but he’s too relaxed to stop and start worrying about acting less birdlike. His chirps are rewarded with a sudden, and pleasant, heat running through the previously cold fingers. It’s like stepping on rocks left in the sun barefoot; he can feel the warmth all the way to the center of his hollow bones. Dabi has started talking, or maybe he always was, and it creates a pleasant sensation as his words vibrate through the air and seem to soothe Hawks’ feathers in a different way.
It’s nice, not grooming himself.
It’s even nicer when Dabi’s hands happen to graze the oil glands at the base of his spine (when had they wandered from strictly combing his wings?), and he only hesitates for a split second before he digs his fingers in. The chirped moan that he gains is choked out, and Dabi stops. His hands linger on Hawks skin, half under his halter top, and then he’s diving back in with such vigor that Hawks arches his back and whines.
“You wouldn’t stop screaming,” Dabi says, like he’s informing Hawks that he’s out of coffee. The villain carries on, running his hands through the hero’s wings in what could either be an attempt to soothe or an attempt to keep his hands from wrapping around Hawks’ neck, “I mean, fuck, birdie. You wouldn’t stop, you just- just twitched and clawed at your wings and you wouldn’t respond-” Dabi takes a deep breath. Much more calmly, “You bit through your lip- don’t lick it you idiot- and your hands were bloody.”
When he glances down blearily, he sees the sickly color of dried blood smeared along the back of the cream colored couch and his hands.
“Fuck,” he groans before burying his face in his arms again.
Dabi’s hum vibrates pleasantly against his feathers, “yeah.”
And when his hands retreat from Hawks’ wings a while later, nothing burns.
“So,” Dabi starts, letting his head fall to the side so he can see Hawks clearly. “Next is acceptance.” He waves his hand at what Hawks assumes is the list, but does nothing to retrieve it. Hawks hasn’t moved from the prime grooming position and doesn’t intend to. Ever. But all good things have to come to an end, and Dabi has apparently decided to be the reaper, because the balled up list hits Hawks in the head and lands next to his hand. When he uncrumples it and slowly lets his eyes drift down, there it is. It’s, thankfully, the last thing on the list, but the amount of specific instructions under the happy little ‘Acceptance <3’ makes up a little less than the entire list. The little heart makes him dread it, and when he reads the first instruction he wants to never look at Dabi again. There, highlighted with more little hearts, is ‘talk about ur feelings!!’. By the looks that Dabi is shooting him, he’s read it and he’s not thrilled either. Frankly, both of them got to this point because they don’t talk about their feelings. It’s going to be a disaster, especially when, as nice as Dabi has been these past three days, they don’t trust each other. They can’t afford to, but if the wing grooming situation is to be believed, things are going to get ugly fast.
Five minutes later, with Hawks reclined on the couch and Dabi taking an evil sort of glee in sitting next to him with a pen and pad ‘like a real therapist’, he’s proven right. And everything starts out fine, but the easygoing mood of the dreaded feelings talk ends when Dabi asks him his name and he has to stop and think about it. Dabi seems to take his hesitancy for distrust, and his slightly bored but playful expression tightens the longer it takes for Hawks to answer. It’s a name, it's his name, it shouldn’t be hard to remember, but it is. Dabi clicks his tongue and walks away.
Hawks doesn't see him during dinner, and he chokes down his raw meat in peace.
Dabi doesn’t even knock before he opens the door to the bedroom, where Hawks has been carefully typing out an email of damage control at the HPSC.
“Takami Keigo.”
Hawks jerks and spins in his chair, “what?”
“That was your name. Takami Keigo.”
It throws Hawks for a loop, he hasn’t heard the name in years and he doesn’t miss the way that Dabi says it was his name. He’s Hawks now, he knows that, but the way that Dabi is looking at him, like he knows what it’s like to lose yourself to become something else, makes Hawks uncomfortable. “How’d you find out?” he asks, carefully keeping his voice blank. The look that he gets from Dabi tells him that he’s been caught.
“I did some research,” is the only answer he gets from the villain, and it’s so frustrating that he gives up on asking altogether.
Dabi makes himself comfortable on the bed and Hawks hears Angry Birds start up again.
Dabi is probably allergic to knocking, going off of the way that he just opens the door and walks in again while Hawks is fighting to reach an irritating spot on his wing. He doesn’t even look sorry as he flops down face first on the ridiculously large bed and doesn’t move aside from tilting his head to look at Hawks and watch him suffer. His striking eyes tiredly follow Hawks’ hands as he struggles gracelessly to reach the spot. After a while of being useless and just watching, Hawks turns away because he doesn’t want to keep staring at the villain and wondering. His wing cramps in the awkward position it’s in and snaps closed on reflex, just in time for fingers to card lazily against the trouble spot. Hawks jerks against the touch and twists to face Dabi so quickly that his back twinges unpleasantly. Dabi, the apathetic fuck, just raises an eyebrow at whatever expression is on the hero’s face. “What?” he smirks, raising an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me that I bothered you. Not after the way that you melted-”
Hawks whacks him with a decorative pillow, “Shut. Up.”
Dabi cackles and drops his hand from Hawks’ wing. He tries not to miss the touch.
Instead, he just drops onto his stomach, sends a feather to flick the light off, and settles in. When Dabi still hasn’t left after a few minutes, Hawks slowly throws a wing over him. Even though the villain is definitely awake, he doesn’t say anything or open his eyes, and eventually, Hawks allows his to slide shut.
At some point, he and Dabi became disgustingly domestic. It really shouldn’t have taken him waking up on top of the villain to notice, but it does serve as a shock to reveal what’s been happening. His face is warm, even though Dabi’s feet are cold where they’re pressing into Hawks’ leg. Actually, everywhere that Dabi touches him is cold, which is weird when you consider the whole fire quirk thing, but Hawks can’t really bring himself to care too much. It’s… nice, to not be in a rush. He should be rushing; to check his email, to get to the commission, to patrol-
But he doesn’t feel like the world will end if he stays there for a little while longer.
When he carefully untucks his head from its place under Dabi’s chin and looks up to see a shock of blue, his decision is made. Dabi huffs a laugh as Hawks burrows back into him, but does rest an arm across his back and stroke where his feathers meet his skin.