Vriddy writes

Hawks doesn't do insomnia. He trained for that. But sharp blue eyes keep flashing in his mind, keeping him up...

Hawks trained even against insomnia. In his job, both the public-facing hero missions and the unofficial missions the Commission needs to assign him at times, it was a given that he'd get a front-row seat to horrifying sights and events, the kind that kept people up at night. In addition to that, sleep deprivation was always going to be a given considering the need to rise through the rankings fast. Hawks couldn't afford to waste any precious time scheduled for sleep ruminating with his eyes wide open. Through a particularly gruelling programme at the HPSC, he'd developed the ability to fall asleep immediately whether for a micro-nap or a full night's sleep (ah, as if), and to wake up and become immediately alert at the slightest hint of danger, no matter how deeply asleep.

Hawks doesn't do insomnia. Especially not now, busy living two full lives. One for Wing Hero: Hawks under the spotlight, next to too sharp hero colleagues and intense fans who'd know the moment his arrest stats fell down the slightest. And another one for the League of Villain, spying and cajoling and now participating in some of their missions with Dabi, only ever with Dabi, never meeting anyone else.

Dabi, Dabi, Dabi. Bane of his life. His problem was Dabi. It should be frustration at how little progress Hawks made with infiltrating the rest of the League that kept his mind occupied, but instead it was... It was...

Look, Hawks always had to keep himself firmly separate from other heroes. The way he'd been raised and what the Commission occasionally needed to use him for was just too different. As a teenager, he'd stolen credentials to peek into their files and see if there were more like him, but all he found were his "senpai", previous incarnations of a hero picked out to do the dirty work that needed doing, most of them now dead or in prison, including his direct predecessor who'd managed to get herself imprisoned in Tartarus.

There was no one else. Letting people close was too dangerous, considering the risks. Not just because Hawks might someday murderously snap under the pressure, like many before him. But also because anyone could be smart enough to figure out something was different and uncover the Commission's programme without fully understanding why it was needed. It was an easy one to misunderstand.

So even living two full lives, Hawks wasn't used to spending this much time close to one person who wasn't his boss.

'Dabi's a little bit like my boss,' Hawks forced himself to acknowledge, staring at his ceiling in the dark, pretending to himself that the shadows held enough interest to keep him up at night during the 194 minutes he had allocated for sleep today.

120 minutes, now.

There was something fucked up in the power dynamics that tied him to Dabi. Whether or not Dabi believed his story, he pulled all the strings in his relationship association with Hawks. Dabi knew it. Hawks knew it. Unfortunately, right from birth Hawks had been thrown into fucked up power dynamics and it never really got better from there, so that just felt familiar. Comfortable. Welcome.

Sharp blue eyes with depths Hawks never managed to find the bottom of flashed in his mind.

"Fuck," Hawks groaned, and turned in his bed.

Maybe sleeping on the side would work better, large wings at his back to prop him up. 109 minutes.

Whatever may feel vaguely familiar, at a distance, about the pattern of their rel... No 'their'. Of the association Hawks maintained with the recruiter of the League, that was where the similarities ended.

Everything else was new, nothing like Hawks' interactions with anyone else ever, exhilarating and dangerous and compelling. Hawks had maybe gotten himself the tiniest bit addicted. 104 minutes.

Obviously, Hawks had also trained in the art of seduction and got top marks at it, like at everything else. He'd never been above using this skill to achieve what needed to get done, whenever was needed. He'd like to say it was honeytrapping lessons that floated into his mind when he'd picked up on the signs of Dabi's interest, but that would be a lie. He hadn't been thinking with his head. He hadn't even been thinking with his dick, which would be easier to manage.

98 minutes left, and Hawks had to admit to himself that he had caught feelings.

Apparently satisfied that Hawks had reached the necessary conclusion at last, his brain mercifully let him use his training to fall asleep. Or perhaps Hawks' terror at pursuing this line of thinking further finally short-circuited the insomnia.

Either way, Hawks slept, until one of the feathers he left around his apartment for safety alerted him to an intruder. Hawks woke up with a grin on his face, body fully aware of what likely came next. The feather was the one on the balcony. Only one person ever came in that way. Hawks didn't need to look at the time to know he had 88 minutes left until patrol.

Eyes wide open, he counted the sixteen heavy steps until a familiar shape appeared at the bedroom's doorstep.

"Is the little bird asleep?" Dabi asked in a scratchy whisper, as if his gaze hadn't already locked with Hawks' in the dark.

Feathers got him and dragged him to the bed. Already naked, Hawks pushed away the blanket while Dabi kicked off his boots and climbed on top of him, crashing their mouths together.

87 minutes was plenty of time.