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Hawks is in his bathroom getting ready for a shower when he hears the noise.
Someone must be at the door, he thinks absentmindedly—
But that's on the other side of the apartment.
Hawks tenses and listens. There's a series of soft thuds coming from the living room.
Hawks next assumes his location has been compromised and someone who wants him dead has broken in. He can't be bothered to consider it more specifically than that. The list is... pretty long.
There's always a chance the commission testing him, but better to prepare for the worst. He's wearing a thin halter top and a pair of booty shorts; so, not the best of circumstances but at least he isn't naked.
Hawks clicks the bathroom light off and cracks the door open slowly. He sends a few feathers on ahead, low to the ground. Sure enough, he senses up a draft from the previously closed window. Someone is near the balcony, panting; the closest feather thrums in tandem with an elevated heart rate. Hawks slinks into his bedroom, peering around the corner to the main room to catch a glimpse of—
Dabi?
All lights are off. The window is open, and it's pouring rain. Dabi is barely a wisp, an intimidating shadow backlit by dim city lights. Hawks hears the plip plop of something closer than the rain outside, and realizes that Dabi is sopping wet and dripping all over his floor. Hawks' first thought is a distraught, oh no, the hardwood; his second is a resigned, he's definitely here to kill me.
A villain doesn't break in through the window of a hero's forty-fifth story apartment on a dramatic rainy night for an impromptu booty call.
Hawks rounds the corner into his living room, stance firm. The closer he is to that open window, the better.
"Fancy seeing you here," Hawks says dryly, balanced on the balls of his feet, knees bent slightly.
Dabi doesn't immediately attack, but also doesn't grace Hawks with a verbal reply. Hawks has a long primary feather ready to detach, arm angled subtly to brush the tip of it.
If he grabs it now, Dabi takes that as intent to attack; Dabi burns him and his apartment building and all it's tenants down to ash. Hawks needs to be closer to that window.
He takes two steady steps into the living room before Dabi stumbles forward. Thinking Dabi's lunging forward in attack, Hawks leaps back, sharpened primary feather in hand.
Something's off about the direction, the follow-through. Dabi's movements are too slow, too uncoordinated. Not enough burning fire-y wrath.
And that's when Hawks realizes Dabi's just stumbled over the lip of the living room rug.
"Why th' fuck d'you live so high," Dabi says, slurring a little.
Hawks narrows his eyes at the declaration, thinking hard.
Dabi wouldn't have come to Hawks' place to lick his wounds. They're both more likely to stab one another than to offer sanctum, and this deal of theirs ends when one of them outlives their usefulness.
There's no way he'd turn to Hawks, unless the League is tearing itself apart from the inside, unless Dabi has been cast out. And if that's the case... well. Dabi ran out of uses first, didn't he?
Hawks risks taking a few slow steps closer to Dabi, to the window. It's too dark to see any wounds and Dabi's too wet and goth to tell if he's bleeding.
That's when Hawks smells the alcohol.
It's subtle, but it's also whisky. Which means Dabi was drinking with intent, or... with the intent of seeming very inebriated.
What's the play here? Pretend to be drunk and see how Hawks reacts? Dabi likes head games, likes dramatics, but he's more straight forward than this. He likes watching Hawks squirm because he's a goddamn sadist.
Hawks wonders how deep one of his tertiary feathers could dig into Dabi's skin before Dabi could burn it into non-existence. Maybe if it had enough inertia...
Dabi stumbles forward again. This time, Hawks is close enough be caught up in the trajectory of Dabi's path. A wet, heavy weight topples into Hawks, threatening to unbalance him.
Hawks isn't sure whose luck it is that he hasn't decided how to proceed.
Hawks tightens his grip on the sword-feather and grits his teeth, braced for pain. He'd rather be making the first move, is use to striking first. But if he does and he's wrong, recovery of the mission, of Dabi's good will, will be nigh impossible.
Dabi shifts and Hawks is as ready as he can be. He's mentally prepared for the incoming fallout, for the pain, when Dabi mumbles, "You smell nice."
Which.
Hawks has been on a patrol route all day. He's well aware that he smells like the city and yakitori and sweat. Dabi, on the other hand, smells like a liquor store.
Okay. Hawks is probably. Not getting murdered?
Arriving abruptly at the conclusion that Dabi is very, very drunk as opposed to murderous, Hawks dulls his sword-feather and reattaches it to his back.
Hawks shifts Dabi's weight to one side then the other as he pushes the rain-heavy jacket off of Dabi's shoulders. Before the fabric hits the floor, it's scooped up by a few of his secondaries and whisked outside to the balcony where it can't do anymore harm.
Hawks maneuvers Dabi onto the couch he bought for show when he moved in and never uses. The leather isn't going to look the same after the rain water has a chance to soak into the fabric of the seat, but better to ruin the couch than the floor and lose his security deposit.
Hawks misses the days when he was still naive enough to think the commission would let him expense things like that.
Hawks leaves Dabi dumped on the couch and grabs two towels from the bathroom. When he returns, one of them goes over the worst of the water pooling on the hardwood floor and the other is tossed atop Dabi's head. Dabi shows no sign of registering his new headscarf. Hawks perches beside the wet interloper on the now-damp couch and tries to pat Dabi dry. It's largely a losing battle.
"Did... something happen?" Hawks asks, squeezing some of the moisture out of Dabi's hair and not expecting a real answer; not sure he wants one. He's seen Dabi drink before, but in small doses. He was largely under the impression that Dabi didn't like to be out of control. Merely the idea of the sort of thing that could push Dabi over the edge, past that kind of natural defense, makes Hawks chest tighten and his neck muscle tense.
"Oh, y'know," Dabi flaps one hand around in a clumsy approximation of a wave, bumping inelegantly into Hawks' elbow, "Anniversaries n' shit."
"...Oh." Hawks was right.
He didn't want to know. He's already doing his best to not think about it.
Hawks figured out a while back that thinking about Dabi like he's a real person is a mistake. He doesn't at all care for the nauseating swirl of emotions it kicks up.
Hawks leans and extends his arms to pat the towel against Dabi's exposed neck. At the same time, Dabi reaches towards Hawks' with both hands, fingers catching clumsily on the fabric of Hawks' halter top and tugging their bodies closer together. How much closer can I be? thinks Hawks, alarmed.
But then Dabi is using more force and pulling Hawks onto his lap and Hawks gets it. Gets it in the physical sense; in the sense that he nudges Dabi's hands and elbows out of the way and makes room for himself in the v of Dabi's legs. In the mental sense, Hawks is unable to divine meaning from behavior of the intoxicated villain currently ruining his furniture.
They settle, back to front. Hawks stares blankly at a patch of wall behind the entertainment center.
Dabi's thinly covered torso and the bare flesh of his arms are dangerously close to Hawks' wings. He has to concentrate on keeping the individual pinions soft and not open a dozen lacerations on the drunk man behind him. Relax, Hawks tells himself, Don't tense up, keep it loose. You don't want to stab Dabi. Well. Not by accident. No wait, don't tense up.
The easiest way to keep from mutilating Dabi would be remove his wings from the equation, but in a situation like this? No way in hell he's shedding them.
The wetness from Dabi's shirt soaks into his own. Hawks grimaces.
Dabi slumps forward into Hawks' back, hands resting loosely near Hawks' thighs. Wet strands of hair brush his ear and shoulder, warm puffs of breath tickle the small feathers in his back. His wings shudder slightly at the indirect contact.
Dabi's weight gets heavy as he settles and Hawks thinks wryly, there goes my chance to shower. He uses a feather to grab the remote from the coffee table and turns on the TV.
A short while later, Dabi has relaxed into the couch. Similarly, Hawks, perhaps unwisely, has relaxed some degree into Dabi. Meanwhile, the man and woman on the television screen enthusiastically try to sell them on a new blender.
The scene feels like a fever dream, the way Hawks' brain can tell him what's happening but can't tell him how to make sense of it. Together they sit, still and wet and only a little cold, and Hawks idly considers the merits of a new blender.
Suddenly Dabi's arms are moving, and Hawks' heartbeat trips over itself. Hawks holds himself very still as the arms snake around his torso, one hand brushing his left pec and the other grazing his belly button.
Hawks instincts urge him to stab something. He manages to resist. Maiming your point of contact is no way to smuggle yourself into a criminal organization, chides his handler's voice inside his head.
A hand slides part way up his shirt and Hawks thinks dryly, of course. Dabi's not just drunk; he's horny.
Hawks isn't convinced Dabi won't pass out on him in the next few minutes. He'd rather not put in the mental or physical effort to get worked up. Hawks doesn't move, doesn't reciprocate, but he does let Dabi do what he wants.
The warm contact of slightly damp skin against skin, of bitingly cool metal, sends a small tremor through Hawks. Hawks waits, expectant despite himself. Soon, Dabi will either slow down and drift off, or pick up the pace with an indication that this is actually going somewhere. Then Hawks will know what to do.
Except instead, Dabi's arm moves to encircle Hawks' chest, hands warm against Hawks' floating ribs and pressing in until Hawks' spine is flush with Dabi's wet shirt and bony torso. Hawks' wings cram against Dabi's chest and shoulders. Hawks is startled, but afraid if he moves at all he'll end up jamming them the wrong way.
Suddenly, Dabi's hot breath in his ear and Hawks' chest seizes. Dabi's too close to an area that's too sensitive, too vulnerable, and Hawks wasn't ready for it. Hawks wants to squirm away, finds himself twisting a little, straining against Dabi's grip before he catches himself—and then there's there's a soft pressure and fresh warm wetness on the side of his neck, right below his ear.
Hawks feels a shudder ripple its way down his spine deep into his gut and thinks what; but his head is already tilting, wings shuddering, throat exposed for better access.
And then Dabi starts... kissing his neck? If Hawks had to guess. He doesn't move around much, presses his face into the junction between Hawks' neck and shoulder, moves his lips against the flesh there with slow intent, breathing out through his nose, breath puffing against Hawks' collarbone. Hawks doesn't know what else to do besides let him.
Even with Dabi's body temperature is on the low end, some amount of warmth seeps into Hawks. The cloying dampness might have chilled him if he and Dabi weren't so plastered together. The warmth spreads across his skin and sinks into his bones in a way Hawks isn't sure he's ever known.
Hawks isn't quite comfortable, his wings in particular. But suddenly, he doesn't want to shift around and risk Dabi backing off.
Dabi hums into his skin, and Hawks shivers, eyes fluttering shut. "Y'smell nice," Dabi murmurs, and Hawks can feel the words in the reverberation of his bones, in the fluttering pressure of Dabi's mouth.
"You said that already," Hawks informs him, voice a little wrecked.
"Mm."
Dabi stops moving, stills with his nose pressed to Hawks' jugular while he breathes in and out, slow and steady. Hawks feels the anxiety threaten to pool in his stomach, pulse through his veins.
"...You feeling okay?" Hawks asks hesitantly, wilfully defying his gut reaction to bolt.
"Mm," Dabi maybe confirms. His head moves back and forth, nuzzling into the line of Hawks' neck. Hawks feels Dabi's eyelashes against the thick muscle above his collar bone. Nerves and something raw and warm come to curl around his lungs.
"You, uh," Hawks says, then clears his throat, finding concentration on higher level functions difficult. Heart pounding, he thinks about saying, you wanna talk about it? Hawks is cringing even as he speaks, mind changing with words halfway off his tounge. "You maybe—smell nice too."
The resulting sentence isn't as empty as Hawks would prefer. Dabi smells like cigarettes and antiseptic but it's a combination Hawks' lizard brain mistakenly associates with comfort and safety. Dabi's arms tighten around him.
Dabi's thumb rubs against Hawks' bare collarbone, back and forth, soothing. Vibrations from a meaningless hum carry from the muscles in his neck up to his ear, his brain, his ribcage.Hawks places a hesitant hand overtop the mis-matched one resting on his hip, feels the chill from the metal holding two different textures together. Slots his fingers in between the spaces of Dabi's and curls in. Dabi's hand yields to allow him room, then draws in around his own.
It's warm.
Hawks vision warps and blurs, tellingly.
Quiet tinny voices stream evenly from the television speakers. Hawks stares at the ceiling, watching colored light and shadow dance unevenly across the stippled paint. His grip on Dabi's hand tightens unconsciously as Hawks struggles with a dangerous, shapeless want.
Eventually, Dabi's hold slackens and his breath smooths out, even and impossibly slow. He must have fallen asleep, still wet and heavy and tangled around Hawks. Hawks waits for a moment, then sends a feather to turn off the infomercial. The television dies with an audible pop, the soft white hiss of the LCDs cutting out.
A noticeable hole is torn in the quiet, turning into a loud silence. Gradually, other noises filter back in. The methodical tick tick tick of a novelty clock in the kitchen. The mechanical hum of the refrigerator. The gentle pitter patter of rain on the open balcony. The revolving exhale, inhale, exhale of the man curled around him, sleeping.
Hawks stares out the window, at the soon-to-be pinkening sky of the horizon. He decides he won't fall asleep. He won't fall asleep, because if he does—
Hawks thinks and doesn't think in equal measures. He watches the sunrise with Dabi's warmth wrapped around him, and a slow, soft breathing against his cheek.