#dabihawks reading together, soft & comfort stuff

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Hawks turns over in bed to find Dabi's side of the bed empty. The space is warm still but Dabi's body had left the spot and appears to be nowhere in the bedroom either. Hawks sits up in bed and is shocked first by the fact ++

that he didn't wake up when Dabi had first gotten up from bed. He normally did. But lately, as they'd slept together, he'd been falling into a heavier, more comfortable sleep. So had Dabi.

The transition of their sleep cycles began months ago.

First, with Dabi or Hawks slipping from each other's beds with not so much of a word except watching the other as they pulled their clothes on once more and wander back into the night. Even before then, their nights had been quick things in alleyways or on rooftops leaving

the other wanting something they shouldn't have.

Something they couldn't have.

It changed when Dabi had appeared in Hawks apartment, lounging in the armchair in the corner of the living room, with his feet propped up on his coffee table like /he/ was the one who owned the

apartment. Though, to be fair, Hawks didn't quite own the apartment either. In theory it was in his name, but in the fine lines of too-many-to-count contracts, it had never been his apartment to begin with.

Hawks had noticed upon entering his apartment the presence of someone

else, and with his quiet steps he'd been able to sneak his way into the living room. To see Dabi. Sitting, almost at peace with the world in that armchair.

And depending on how Hawks decided to look at it: their nights only went downhill from there.

Dabi didn't just spend a few minutes there in the apartment to tease and annoy Hawks, it turned into longer nights, nights eventually spent rolled together in the sheets of Hawks' bed–though with Dabi making his way out before the morning.

Before leaving, Dabi would always pause in the doorway of the bedroom and look back at Hawks like he'd wanted to say something else––or, eventually, like he'd hoped Hawks would say something. Hawks then had just held himself against his pillow and watched Dabi's back turn

to exit.

One night––one night Dabi had reached for his pants, and Hawks had said, into his pillow and without looking at Dabi, "You can stay. If you want."

Dabi had looked up from where he'd held the dark fabric of his pants, and raised both his eyebrows. He's held gaze on Hawks eventually pulled Hawks to look back at him. Dabi rustled around through his pants pockets before pulling out his pack of cigarettes and shaking

one of the little sticks into his palm. "You decided you want to keep me around?"

Hawks scoffed, huffing, "You're the one who always leaves."

"Didn't want to push you into thinking I had to stay."

Hawks heart clenched at /that/ more than it really, truly, needed to be doing

two months into his infiltration mission. Feelings weren't an option for him, or things he was allowed to have––but he'd already sunk this far down into hell. Taking the hand reaching out to him from the cracks of the earth couldn't be much worse than what he'd already done.

"Well," Hawks said, "stay."

Hawks didn't say that Dabi reminded him of a stray cat––gone sometimes, roaming, but always coming back when he wanted to. He could leave that night, but Hawks knew he'd come back. Knew he /wanted/ Dabi to come back. Hoped he would.

Dabi sat back up, pulling himself back into bed, with his cigarette in hand. He lit it with a flick of a flame over the pads of his fingers, before shaking out his hand like one would a lighter, and pulling the cigarette to his lips. All while looking down at Hawks.

His blue eyes glowed under the light of his cigarette and he looking over every crevice of Hawks face in the same light. For a moment, it felt like the shadows hanging from their faces were the same, eerie reflection of one another.

That was the first night he'd stayed.

Then he stayed again, and again; then the chair in the corner of Hawks' room became a space where Dabi would throw his pants and jacket over, instead of on the floor; then, Hawks was waking up in the nights with Dabi still asleep beside, though it was how they both learned

they didn't tend to sleep easily, or quickly, or stay asleep for long periods of time.

Nightmares, usually. Hawks, sometimes over the people he couldn't save––or knows he can't save. Like his mother. His father.

And Dabi––Hawks isn't quite sure what he dreams about, but knows

he'll wake up with a jolt and flash, and look around the room to take in each object like he was making sure everything was the same as before he'd fallen asleep.

Hawks had tried to ask before, but Dabi at the time hadn't been too privy to answering. And Hawks wants to know

still, but worries that Dabi will think it's because of reasons other than caring or genuine concern. Part of Hawks himself worries that he'd be asking for the wrong reasons too though.

There had been nights though when Dabi would wake, and instead of going back to sleep, he

would leave the bed––but not leave the apartment––and wander into the living room. Hawks had begun following him, worried about the haunted look falling on Dabi's face, to find him sitting either at the kitchen table, in the armchair, sitting on the couch, or even outside sitting

at one of the balcony chairs with a book in his hands.

Hawks assumes it's one of these kinds of nights and rouses up, to wander away from bed, letting his scattered feathers fall into line on his back so they drag across the floor as he walks from the bed.

He shuffles across the cold floor with his bare feet, holding his arms to his t-shirt clad chest to hold back whatever chill had gathered into the apartment since Dabi and him had gone to bed just a few hours earlier.

He steps around the hallway corner to find Dabi just where he

expected him to be: on the couch, with a book in his hand, and single lamp turned on in the opposite corner of the room.

"I heard you can ruin your eyes if you read in low lighting," Hawks says as he leans against the wall of the opening into the living room.

Dabi turns to look over his shoulder. He's lounging on the couch, with his legs stretched out over the black fabric, with his back pressed against the couch arm. The book in his hands is open, and Hawks can't tell if it's the same book he's been sifting through for a couple weeks

now, or if it's an entirely new book. Dabi thumbs at the page while also giving Hawks a curved smile. Even in the distant shade coming from the other direction of his apartment, Hawks can see the ghostly look worrying the edges of Dabi's face.

+++++ (twt limit)

"You plan on getting me glasses then?" Dabi asks. Hawks moves forward towards Dabi, grabbing a blanket on his way over from a new basket that they'd recently acquired for the apartment.

"I might, if you'd let me take you to an optometrist or something."

Dabi scoffs as Hawks

stands before the couch. Dabi moves, falling into their routine, and he shifts his legs open for Hawks to lay between them. Hawks settles himself before nudging at Dabi to take the blanket and throw it over the two of them since Hawks is laying over Dabi's chest.

Hawks lets a feather hold onto Dabi's book while Dabi also situates the blanket over the two of them, and tries to cover what of Hawks' wings that he can, but most of his left wing still sprawls towards the floor.

"What are you reading tonight?" Hawks asks, pressing his ear

against Dabi's chest, feeling in the back of his mind when Dabi takes his book from his feather.

Dabi hums but it's a rumble against Hawks' ear, a soothing vibration falling into his chest as he worms his way closer. "Okay birdie, you very literally can not be any closer."

"I can try," Hawks chuckles, "And that's what you think, there's always–"

Dabi clamps a hand over Hawks' mouth. "I've thoroughly corrupted you if you were about to say sex."

Hawks licks the palm over his mouth and Dabi makes a face before releasing Hawks' lips.

Hawks smirks up at Dabi while he wipes the licked hand on the blanket. "I've always been this way," Hawks says, "you're just finally realizing it."

Dabi raises a single pointed brow, letting his blue–ocean blue, sky blue, deepest blue–eyes roam over Hawks' face. "Maybe so."

"So, tell me––the book, what is it tonight?"

Dabi shakes his head, letting his empty hand fall over Hawks' back, on top of the blanket, and right above where his wings connect to his back. The other hand holds open the book, looking over the page, but not reading it––

just examining the contents of the page.

"One about family."

Hawks eyes lift at that. "Really? Didn't take you for the family man."

Dabi smiles, almost self-deprecating. "Then you might want to know this one doesn't have a happy ending."

Hawks narrows his eyes then. He digs, just a little bit, his chin into Dabi's chest until Dabi looks down at him.

"Why's that?"

"The man guy does something–creates something–terrible and inhuman, and it ends up tearing apart the rest of his family in the process. But this thing

he created–well, in creation it's his own family too. He's the one who made it be how it is, gave it the life he did, and then he abandoned it."

"Oh," Hawks says, looking over Dabi's face. The drowning shadows. The dull shine of the staples.

"And this thing," Dabi takes a deep

breath, letting Hawks raise on his chest with his breathing, "this thing just wants to know it's place in the world, wants to know why his creator left him. There's other families in the story too who suffer by the hand of this one person––but this creature thinks it

is the way it is, because it doesn't have a family. And, the only family it could have had–"

"It's creator?"

"–right, that creator, that very same family, left him."

"That's sad," Hawks says, and he can't help but think of his mother and father, of the HPSC. Even though the HPSC wasn't his "family," not by any means, they'd still taken him, away from his mother's empty looks. Away from the empty home.

He thinks about Dabi, about Dabi's possible family. Once family. Or maybe he'd been abandoned, like this creature in the novel, or felt like he had been, and felt like he'd had no one to turn to.

Dabi lets the book slip from his fingers, and fall to the ground beside the couch.

"You don't wanna finish reading it?" Hawks asked, taking the opportunity to worm his way closer, to push his head up under Dabi's chin.

"Another night," Dabi says, taking his newly empty hand to wrap it around Hawks and hold the two of them together. Hawks doesn't quite hear in Dabi's voice, or in his grip, that for that night––it feels like Hawks is a piece of a missing family. That Dabi feels like

He's regained something he'd lost years earlier, and that maybe, possibly, some of his bad luck in the world is turning over––to something full of possibilities.

"Another night," Hawks echoes, sighing into Dabi's neck, and letting the fresh warmth take over his body.