Vriddy writes

Boku no Hero Academia | Hawks & Miruko | 1.8k words | rated T
Written for whumpex

Sensory overload

Overtraining already hypersensitive feathers is bound to have long-term consequences. Hawks is utterly miserable, utterly on his own... and has been lying to himself for so long now, he kind of forgot the truth.

This happens every few years, but Hawks can handle it. It doesn't have to affect his work or his life. He genuinely, truthfully believes that. Wants to keep believing that.

Even if in truth, the problem gets worse every time.

It always starts with an unsettled feeling, leaving him wondering if he has indigestion or is coming down with something. But Hawks never gets sick. As the days pass, it becomes obvious that it originates from his hypersensitive feathers, suddenly perceptive to the point of pain, like the sensation of the air itself is too much.

Unfortunately, Hawks can't turn them off, even less so while working. Sometimes, he wonders. Has he overtrained them? Was it a mistake from the start, to increase their sensitivity to the degree they did during his long years at the Commission?

In the end though, it always comes back to the same thing: if he hadn't trained like that, then where would he be today?

Pain, no matter how sharp, no matter how constant or maddening, he's learnt to compartmentalise. Mostly. At times, it still kind of spills out.

And he can't sleep when it gets that bad. The blanket hurts down to his skin. Removing the feathers doesn't change a thing. He's too cold. He's too hot.

Eventually, it'll go away as it always does. He never figured out how to speed up the recovery despite trying everything. The only thing left to try would be to "rest" when this happens, but, well… Until villains kindly agree to also take a break, that ain't an option.

So he pushes on. This used to only last for a couple of days, at the beginning. The last one ended after a week. So what if he can't sleep? Sleep deprivation, he's learnt to fight against, too.

Unfortunately, despite his best efforts at rejecting his own limits and even with years spent ignoring meaningless avian instincts… he's still human. And something tells him this bout will last even longer.

He spent fifteen fucking years training his body and mind though, he's got no time to stop. Not for this long and certainly not for something like this.

Six days in, the pounding in his head is incessant. When he flies, it's like the wind claws at his wings.

Yet he misses that agony the moment he has to step into a building. Every conversation echoes and thumps into his skull, and even the dull crackling of the lights tears at his feathers. He's nearly late because he has to stop by the bathroom to vomit.

An appointment with his handler at the HPSC headquarters is not to be missed, though. After cleaning up and rushing to the appointment, he barely has time to close the door behind him that his superior is already tearing into him.

"You look terrible. Appearance is critical to popularity, you know that. Looking healthy is an essential aspect of it. We taught you how to use make-up, haven't we? Go fix this. We'll talk later."

The headache is getting so bad. Overwhelming. Might he have a fever? No, it's likely only exhaustion speaking. He should have fixed up his complexion in the morning. He knew he was starting to push it. If only he could turn off the sensitivity of his feathers on demand… but he can't. What's the point in empty wishes? He needs to work with what he has.

He should have time to stop home and fix that, maybe rest for twenty minutes, then go to his next patrol.

That's when he spots Rumi at the other end of a corridor. What is she doing in this building? She usually avoids anything having to do with the bureaucracy hell that is the HPSC these days.

Sometimes, she has a preternatural ability to sense Hawks' moods, no matter how well he hides them from anyone else. Considering that he's not even doing a good job for everyone else at the minute…

Hawks does not want to deal with concern right now, especially not from a friend whose worry will be 100% genuine. He doesn't have the strength nor the energy to smooth that over. Quickly, he plasters a smile onto his face, waves at her, and confidently opens the nearest door as if that had always been his destination.

He expected another large open plan office, and it is. Unfortunately, his gaze immediately meets the nearest supervisor, Takada, who absolutely hates him. From Hawks nosing around in files he shouldn't have as a teenager, he wasn't the only "project" raised by the Commission, but Takada's pet project didn't turn out as successful and the guy resents him for it. Takada sends him on the dirtiest missions at every opportunity, perhaps to remind Hawks that the golden boy persona only ever is an image. As if Hawks could forget.

His reaction time is slightly too slow. Takada's already beckoning him over. Hawks can barely hear what he's saying but there's a mission sheet, so it can't be that clandestine.

It's still bad though. And it must be handled right away, reshuffling his patrol schedule to move him to a later one, and any chance of rest further away.

The new mission has him stuck underground in a crowd of villains that seemingly won't shut up. Halfway through, Hawks vomits again, gets discovered too early, and has to kill using a sharpened primary to get himself out.

The kill itself will only mean more paperwork later, but the crunch and slide of blood against the feather during the act, and the stickiness of blood and internal matters on vanes afterwards turn his stomach. The dizziness doesn't stop and he's going to pass out if he doesn't go home.

Apologetically, Hawks rainchecks on his patrol and heads straight home instead. Even if he can't sleep, he can rest, and do so in an environment as quiet as he can make it. Tomorrow, he'll have to pretend to be okay again. He can manage. This won't last forever. And at this point, it can't get any worse, can it?

It can. Rumi has long owned a copy of his apartment's key, if only for the fact that she's always travelling around Japan and can find herself in Fukuoka at any time which he would normally hate to miss.

Right now, he can't think of anything worse than having to pretend to her, having to hide how unwell he currently feels. Yet when he opens his front door, here she is, lounging on his couch.

"Bad enough to cancel your patrol, huh?" she says after one glance at him.

Hawks stares too long, then remembers what he's supposed to do. He straightens his posture, relaxes his face, lifts the corners of his mouth into what should be a smile, and steps inside.

"Dude. Hawks. Stop it. You don't have to. You know I can tell when you're distressed. Just one look at you in that fucking corridor and I knew. Animal instincts or whatever the fuck, I don't know how, but I just know."

"I probably won't make for good company tonight," he says pleasantly as he slowly removes his boots. "You're better off booking a hotel this time."

"Like hell I'm leaving you alone," she replies just as sweetly. "Look, you don't have to talk with me, or even stay in the same room if that's too much. I'm just not letting you deal with this on your own." Her voice gets softer, and that is so unlike the Rumi he knows. The world seems off-balance, even more unsettled and unsettling. "You've got friends, dude. And you've got the best possible friend in me because I am awesome, and I know exactly how much heteromorph instincts can fuck someone up, if they're not dealt with properly."

There's a challenge somewhere in there, but Hawks is too spent to pick up on what bit. Instead, he declares defeat with a nod and drags himself to the bathroom, trying to convince himself that the sensation of water shredding his wings will be worth it. It'll remove all the gunk that he cannot stop feeling and thinking about from the earlier mission.

After his shower, he puts on a soft shirt and sweatpants for Rumi's sake. Not as nice as staying naked, but still aeons better than the hero costume rubbing his skin like sandpaper at the moment.

He's going to head back into the living room, wish Rumi good night, and crash on his bed. That's as far as he can plan through the rolling thunder in his head.

When he comes back into the living room though, it looks different. Rumi has taken all of the pillows and blankets in the apartment and assembled them into something between the couch and TV. And it's not like he needs the blanket anyway, but there's something that catches his eye…

With a jolt, Hawks realises that with just a couple of changes – a blanket tugged slightly more to the side here, another cushion to hold it there – the mess of blankets could be a nest.

His breath hitches.

The feather sensitivity worsens.

Usually, whenever he gets a silly thought too close to bird thinking, he just pushes it aside and never thinks twice about it.

Rumi is silent on the armchair, the challenge in the set of her chin impossible to miss. She's mentioned before that she liked to burrow, sometimes, when her instincts seemed to ask for it. How it calmed her down. Hawks had replied that thankfully, his own animal instincts didn't work like that.

He'd lied.

But he's been lying for so long now, he'd kind of forgotten the truth.

Fuck this. He's too tired. He feels too broken. Resisting one more thing, in his own space, in the company of a dear friend, is just too much. It's beyond him in this state.

Hawks rearranges the missing spot to finish the nest – his nest – and sits in the middle. His feathers still hurt, but something else at his centre quietens, soothed at last.

"If animal instincts are so powerful," he asks to distract himself and to prevent a conversation about what he's doing, "are you not stressed, so close to a predator?"

"With you in that state?" Rumi laughs. "No fucking way. Also, if there's a carnivorous species of bunnies out there, that's what I am."

Safe. He feels safe. He can't ignore it.

This is stupid.

But working himself to insanity is also stupid. He'll get himself killed if he doesn't sort himself out quickly. Now. Sooner than now, even. Hawks lies in the middle of the nest, and instead of hurting, resting his wings on the edges of the nest-shaped blankets feels natural.

Maybe… maybe it even feels good.

His eyes close. With the pain receding, the god of sleep immediately comes to take his due.

As Hawks loses consciousness, a stray thought worms into his mind. Perhaps he could set up his bed like this, too…