Work Text:
Something weird starts to happen when you frequent at KFC too obsessively.
The napkins start whispering your name in creased syllables, and the fries—the tiny golden torpedoes of salt—seem to migrate toward the corners of the tray, arranging themselves with a neatness too similar to someone intentionally rehearsing some silent choreography meant for no one but…well, himself.
Hawks clocked this phenomenon at exactly 4 A.M.
He didn’t know how his eyes caught it. The takeout’s remnants lay on his table exactly just there—two piece burger wrapped in foil, four wings chicken coated in a delicious flavor of bio hazardous red and spice. The irony wasn’t lost on him. Worse; it tasted delicious on his tongue. His mind couldn’t stop circling back to the way the chicken skin crackled in his mouth—crunch, crunch, crunch. He pinched the last fry between his fingers and watched it twitch. Not literally, of course. But the way it wiggled under his scrutiny? Yeah, that definitely made him suspicious. Repressing the urge to take another bite, he tilted the tray. Nothing. Just gravity, probably. Or maybe the napkins were coaching it.
When he took another bite, his own wings did something unexpected. It started making some noises, caught by the wind’s tail—it flapped lightly. Flappity flap. It ate some of its own kin. It was happy.
Hawks shook his head and laughed a little too loud. That was a little too fitting, wasn’t it? Wings for wings—chicken feet for talons. He stabbed at a wing for emotional insurance. Crunch, crunch, crunch. He squinted, waiting for the wing to suddenly come bite him for the unwarranted cruelty—it didn’t. So, with a shrug of his shoulder, to the mouth it went. Crunch again. Definitely delicious. Definitely dangerous. This was the quiet luxury he didn’t let himself have too often—the kind of luxury only 4 A.M. stress-eating could achieve.
Somewhere between the third bite and the fifth sip of soda, he realized he was already planning tomorrow’s KFC run, and thought maybe, just maybe, this was the peak of his life: hot grease, a little napkin grease on his fingers, absolutely no cameras judging him for licking the greasy, clump of sauce off of his thumb…
The world could collapse outside; here, there was only spice and the sound of a stomach made happy.
…and also the stomach responsible for making a lot of cannibalism jokes.
Fuck.
Hawks dropped his face to the table, uncontrollably giggling as he buried himself in ketchup and hands.
Yep. Definitely high.