Chapter 1: Human Heater
Summary: Hawks was freezing. He could slowly feel the rigid setting in. With cold fingers he fumbled with his phone. "D-dabi? C-can you come o-over?"
12:27 AM.
Cold. It was so cold.
Snow was falling outside the window and adding to the already thick blanket of white that covered the streets. The thermometer showed -3°C (26,6°F) outside and barely five degrees (41°F) inside the small apartment.
Hawks shivered and curled himself deeper into the blanked on his bed. It didn't help much.
His heater had broken about a month ago, and because he didn't expect this kind of weather for fucking April, he hadn't cared enough to get it fixed yet. Seriously, snow in April! It was supposed to be spring. Nice mild weather, flowers blooming and no damn snow to freeze him half to death!
Because of the cold Hawks had the time off from work, as his quirk was rather sensitive to the low temperature. He was a bird, and as such he got cold easily. If he stayed in that state to long, he would fall into rigid, exactly like the animal whose qualities he had inherited with his quirk. Which was unfortunate, considering the broken heater and not very well isolated, and therefore chilly, apartment.
He had already tried sitting in front of the oven, but the small thing didn't have enough energy to heat more than a corner of the room, and Hawks found his bed to be warmer after all.
The number two hero's teeth clattered loudly in the silence, and he blew into his hands to warm them up. He couldn't feel the tips of his fingers, with the filled down talons, anymore. To keep as much body heat as possible he drew his wings closer around his body. The feathers did more against the cold than the thin blanked.
This also, of course, was a spring blanked, the ones for winter already tugged away deep into the closet. It would have probably been smart to dig them out as soon as the cold set in, but Hawks had foolishly believed for the weather to get warmer soon, the way it was supposed to be this time of year.
The clock on the table beside the bed showed 2 AM.
Hawks blinked slowly, surprised. It had felt like only a few minutes had passed since he last looked at the clock, but it had really been over one and a half hours. He tried to move his wings to shake off the tension that had settled in them. They barely twitched, stiff from the cold.
Shit!
The rigid was starting to set in.
He sent one of his feathers out to fetch the tea from the counter, that he had prepared a few hours ago. When he put the cup to his lips with shaking hands, he found that the beverage had already cooled to ice tea. Damn it!
Then plan B. He needed to get warmed up, and if nothing in his apartment was able to help him with that, then he would just have to call over his favourite human heater.
It was difficult to maneuver his half-frozen feather to his phone on the kitchen table, but he managed to control it enough so the device was dropped in his lap.
He quickly tipped in the number he knew by heart.
After the tenth beep, the call was finally answered by a grumpy voice. "What?"
"H-Hi!" Despite the cold that made his hoarse voice crack, a smile spread over Hawks' lips at the sound of his boyfriend's voice.
"Birdie? What the hell do you want? It's the middle of the night!"
"I-it's co-cold." His voice shivered as he spoke. Biting his lip (he couldn't even feel it, that probably wasn't good), he tried to concentrate on pushing away the drowsiness that started to set in. He shouldn't fall into unconsciousness or he would probably catch hypothermia.
"C-can you c-come ov-over?" God, his voice sounded pathetic, but there wasn't much he could do about that. His stupid bird brain seemed to be slowly freezing.
"Is your heater still broken? Kei?" Dabi asked, his voice growing concerned when the other didn't reply.
Hawks managed to get out a indefinite hum that could have meant anything, but his lovely boyfriend seemed to understand him anyway.
"Shit! I'm gonna be right there. Don't fly anywhere, birdie."
Hawks chuckled lightly as the villain ended the call. Like he could.
He estimated that it would take Dabi around fifteen minutes to get here, depending on which hideout he was currently staying at. Fifteen minutes. He could do that. Curling his wings and the blanked tighter around himself he let his head fall against the headboard. He just needed to stay awake and fight off the complete torpor.
Hawks was lying on the bed, barely conscious anymore, when a key unlocked the front door roughly ten minutes later. Dabi pushed the door close, pulled off his snowy coat and boots, and made his way over to the hero's bedroom.
"Hey, little bird. How are you feeling?" he mumbled uncharacteristically soft.
"C-cold." The whisper was barely audible, and the villain was quick to wrap his arms around his boyfriend. Hawks immediately relaxed into the warmth radiating from his skin.
"Jeez, Kei! You're freezing!" Dabi's shocked voice made a low laugh escape the winged man.
"You don't say..." he mumbled, burying himself deeper into his boyfriend's arms.
Dabi used his quirk to raise his naturally high body temperature even more. The sudden heat was a strong contrast to Hawks' freezing limps and stung a little, but he welcomed it anyway. It chased away the drowsiness, and his body became less stiff the warmer it got.
The fire-quirk user unwrapped Hawks from the blanked to lie next to him and hug his boyfriend close. The hero snuggled into his chest and draped his wings over both of them almost protectively. Dabi then put the blanked on top of the cuddle-pile. He started to run his warm hands over the other's arms, sides and across his back.
Finally being warm and close to the man he loved on top of that, made Hawks tired again. But this time it was a good kind of tired, not the state of pressing unconsciousness but a cosy and relaxed kind of drowsy.
"You should have called me sooner," Dabi scolded him lightly, pricing blue eyes starring into half-lidded golden ones.
"I know," Hawks mumbled and ducked his head into the other's neck to break the eye contact.
To be honest, he had thought about it as soon as the temperature in his apartment had dropped uncomfortably under ten degrees (50°F). He had hesitated, because he was embarrassed about his cold sensitivity and didn't really want his boyfriend to know about that stupid weakness if he could avoid it somehow. The hero commission was always annoyed with him whenever he couldn't work, because of the cold, and even though he knew Dabi was different then them, he couldn't help but be nervous about him finding out. Well, now it's too late, I guess.
"Hey, pretty bird." Dabi put two fingers under his chin and gently guided it up so Hawks was forced to look at him. A surprised chirp left the his throat at the action.
"Why did you turn yourself into frozen chicken? Though, I appreciate the sentiment that you wanna stay fresh for me." The smirk and the teasing couldn't quite conceal the worry in his eyes.
The way he pretended not to care when he very clearly did, made Hawks snort. It was just so...Dabi.
"I just get cold easily, like you probably already guessed," the winged hero explained sheepishly, "Birds are very sensitive to low temperatures, especially Hawks. So I go into rigid if I'm in the cold for too long. Then I'm all stiff and not able to move and my brain kinda shuts down." He tried to appear cool and nonchalant, but his lightly twitching feathers exposed his nervousness.
"Well, that sucks. But don't worry about it. You're not the only one who's quirk makes them sensitive to temperature. I overheat easily. Now that I know, I can heat you back up whenever it's cold." Dabi shrugged.
He seemed to neither judge nor care about this specific weakness of Hawks' but supported him instead. It made the winged hero fall in love with him all over again.
In a quick motion he pressed his lips against the other man's in a feather light kiss.
"What was that for?" the villain asked with a dumbstruck expression, but a beautiful small smile (one of the rare real ones only Hawks ever got to see), pulled at his staples
"I just felt like it."
"Well, give me another one," Dabi demanded in a low voice that made Hawks shiver. They both leaned in for a deeper kiss. It quickly turned passionate, their bodies close to each other, one warm the other still slightly cold. The blond rolled on top of his boyfriend and let out a low moan as their tongues fought for dominance.
Just as he was starting to get overwhelmed by the sensation, Dabi gently pushed him off and pulled away. "We should stop here before things get too far."
"Dabs! No fair," Hawks whined and chased after the other's lips.
"Lets save that for another day, pretty bird. You still need to warm up and rest. If you get sick, I'll have to stay and take care of you. I don't have that kind of time."
"You have all the time you want. It's not like you have a job to get to," the hero huffed, but his heart warmed at the admission that his boyfriend would take care of him.
Dabi let out a mock gasp. "I'll have you know that villainy and arson are very time-consuming activities, thank you very much."
"Oh, shut up and cuddle me or I'll have to arrest you."
"You would never," the villain said with a wolfish, overconfident grin.
Hawks rolled his eyes, but didn't protest. The black haired was right, he loved him way too much. Instead he rearranged himself in Dabi's arms and tangled their legs together. His boyfriend tugged him closer, wrapped one arm back around him and started to gently caress his feathers with warm hands.
With a sigh Hawks' eyes fluttered close as he relaxed fully into the other. The last thing he head before sleep enveloped him was a whispered: "Love you, little bird."