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Any other night, they could have passed the time in a restaurant.
Sometimes they do private rooms, the lights dimmed low, dishes piled high between them. Sometimes they're seated side-by-side at the bar, their only company a chef concerned more in executing the perfect plate than who's consuming it. There are backstreet hole-in-the-walls so small and packed with laughter they go overlooked, unnoticed, and a server runs off her feet delivering endless rounds of chicken-stuffed gyoza. Quiet corner booths. Shadowed tables for two. Food trucks when they're just passing through.
Not tonight.
The chill wind will blow but they will not step out together, Hawks huddled in close to capture his warmth. Enji will not stomp through the snow, melting it right to the concrete, because some people refuse to wear anything but ridiculously oversized sneakers with zero traction, and what the hell is that fabric, Hawks, it'll soak right through! Hawks will not laugh it off and poke and prod him toward whatever eatery he wants this time – an old favorite or someplace new they absolutely have to try, Enji-san! He's heard all about it, everyone's saying it's the best!
Tonight all the places they've come to frequent will be frequented by other couples. It's Christmas Eve and it's worse than Valentine's Day. You can hardly walk down the damn street without bumping into strolling pairs moseying along at a snail's pace, gazing up like goggling idiots at the lights strung up everywhere and shining over the snowdrifts. All the restaurants will be booked full, for lovers only, and he and Hawks, that's not—
They're not—
...They are.
But.
"I won't make a reservation," Enji had warned weeks ago, eyes trained on the red wings. It would happen there first, any trace of upset.
Hawks made a noncommittal sound and yawned. Not a single feather twitched.
Enji had felt his face contort and that Hawks laughed at, though it rang hollow and humorless.
"Why so surprised, Endeavor-san?" he'd asked, using the name he saved for just in public and on duty. "You don't have to tell me. I know it'd be a bad idea, thinking long term."
Long term.
Enji took down the only serious villain they'd encountered that day before Hawks could even intervene. The man was carted away on a stretcher instead of in handcuffs. Enji had stormed away from the crime scene and the critics seeking sound bites for tomorrow's headlines bearing the full weight of Hawks' silent reproach.
They hadn't discussed it again after that. As always, things between them tend to just fall into place, unspoken.
Enji regrets it now.
He has expected Hawks to appear at any given moment all day, but the sun set long ago and he's still not here. Enji should have said something. He should've confirmed, he should've made sure... But Hawks has to know. Enji hadn't been telling him not to come at all. He'd just meant— He'd just meant—
Enji slaps the case file he's finished reading closed and shoves it on top of his teetering stack. There's a great brown spot on the folder in the exact shape of the palm of his hand, and so what. It happens often enough, it's nothing new, it might as well be his goddamn signature. He grabs the next one and the cheap, flimsy paper goes coffee-colored where the pads of his fingertips press. Enji's just about ready to send the whole thing up in smoke when his phone erupts in a round of infernal peeping.
Hawks.
He's taken the liberty of changing the audio on his text notification again, but Enji will dress him down for that later.
The message reads only: omw!!!
Enji knows this one. He'd conducted a full investigation on the moogle when Hawks first used it. It helps that Hawks is fond of it; Enji will not forget it. It means Hawks is coming. He will be here soon.
Enji manages to suppress the heat, manages to not leave scorch marks on the next two case files before finally, finally the door of his office slides open.
Hawks ambles in like he owns the place, casual in his leather jacket, t-shirt, jeans. He's left his visor and headphones behind for once. He might have even at some point today brushed his hair – with an actual comb, not the wind. He dawdles along, skirting the carpet, shaking his head at the chandelier as if he's exasperated it hasn't up and left yet (and like hell it ever will), and stops just shy of Enji's desk.
Enji doesn't rise to greet him. They're just about eye level this way and that's enough.
"You're here."
"I am."
"You've eaten?" Enji grumbles it at his paperwork. He already knows the answer and yet this useless question escapes from him anyway.
Hawks hits him with the expected sardonic smile. With or without Enji, he rarely misses a meal.
"I got you something," Hawks says, and Enji notices he's got one hand stuffed into the front pocket of his jeans. Enji's brow furrows, because no, the last thing he wants is whatever mashed up leftover Hawks has jammed in there thinking he might like. He's got no qualms letting him know exactly that, but holds his tongue when Hawks pauses longer than he usually might and finishes, "Well, I didn't wrap it."
So. Not food but a gift. Hawks intends to get straight to business. That's... It's fine. Again, it's not like they talked about the form this evening should take. Enji grits his teeth, looks up to see Hawks is watching him, waiting for what? Permission? He doesn't need it, but still Enji sits back, crosses his arms, and gives him a nod.
"Go ahead."
The words are barely out of his mouth before Hawks has whipped out with a magician's flourish a— red ribbon? It flutters up in an arc between them. Hawks catches the tail end of it on the way down and pulls it taut. He holds it out, displayed like a banner, and grins, far more pleased with himself than this... thing deserves.
The scarlet scrap of silk has seen better days. Once. Maybe. Long, long ago. Now it's creased and crinkled and dirty. One tip is mangled, the edges black with oil like it's been chewed up in some machine. From between Hawks' fingers on the other side, Enji can see a rusted rivet attached to a janky little key ring.
Hawks' smile ebbs the longer Enji takes to react to this, though all at once he realizes he already has. His frown is deep, his brow still knit, Hawks' wings are drooping, and damn it.
"Oh," Hawks mutters before Enji can scrounge up something to say about this odd, disgusting garbage he means to give him. He's doing it, the thing Enji hates most. All his passion is draining away, like emotions are just something you can pull the plug on. Enji is just about ready to demand it, this bit of whatever, when Hawks' gaze wilts down to his ribbon and, all at once, he re-animates.
"Wait!" he cries and flips it around. It goes slack in his grip, so he tugs it back taut, and this time Enji can read faded once-white letters gone grey with ground-in grease: REMOVE BEFORE FLIGHT.
"It's a real one," Hawks enlightens him, so smug with renewed confidence Enji almost wants to laugh. The 'fake' ones are Hawks' own bestselling merchandise. Enji doesn't know how many times he's twisted around in a double take, seeking a glimpse of darting feathers he's caught from the corner of his eye that turn out to be instead a rigid red rectangle dangling from a set of keys, a purse, zipper, bag, phone... They're everywhere, these damn things, sporting the very same words, not printed, but embroidered in heavy thread, the back not blank but featuring a feather done up in black.
Enji had hated them. Hated them for playing tricks on him, for— for never being the real thing. Not the ribbon, just... not Hawks.
But now he will have one of his own – one that, for all its collected grunge and clear history of abuse, Hawks has deemed superior. Enji proffers his hand to accept it and Hawks pools it into his palm with a quiet smile. There's no regret it in. Hawks usually outfits himself like an old world aviator and still, Enji had learned the hard way how disturbingly fond he is of airplanes. Who even knows where or when or under what circumstances Hawks has procured this real ribbon.
And yet, he gives it away easily, freely.
"I'll find a place for it," Enji promises. There has to be something he can hang it on, even if, upon closer examination, there is absolutely no hope any of the grime can be washed away. Enji will simply have to put up with it.
"So, where's my present?"
Enji throws Hawks a disgruntled look, but he just taps his watch. As if! This impatient boy is going nowhere soon. True to form, his gaze is keen, observing everything as Enji removes a box from his top desk drawer, dropping the ribbon in its place and exchanging one gift for the other.
This one at least is wrapped, done up in metallic blue paper, the corners pressed in neat and precise. The box is not large, neither too long nor too thin. It fits exactly in Hawks' hand, as well it should. Hawks flicks the lid off and... stares.
Enji knows what he sees – a fancy amalgamation of glass and metal. It had taken ages to find a craftsman with the skill to combine the two to Enji's specifications, and so it's ludicrous, this tightness in his chest that grows the longer Hawks takes to react.
"Enji-san, it's..." Words have apparently failed him, and Enji bites back a smoky snort of frustrated fire. He sees now. It's Hawks' turn, isn't it? To not have a single damn clue what he's even looking at. Enji passes him the second part of his gift – the vial of ink – and the realization hits.
"It's a pen!" Hawks plucks it out of its protective padding to examine the filigreed silver grip spiraling down to hug a nib of whirling glass. He twists it in his fingers and sets it alongside the ink. He glances from one to the other and back again as if the two objects are in any way comparable. He's still bewildered. "I thought you said my handwriting was an abomination."
"Which is exactly why you need this," Enji snaps with a roll of his eyes. He ignores Hawks indignation – he can pretend to be offended by the cold, hard truth all he wants – and just tells him the rest. His eagle-eyed little fool won't notice without his help. "You can put a feather in it."
Hawks opens his mouth. Closes it. His tufted eyebrows threaten to escape into his perpetually windswept hair, and then already, there's a feather flittering in from over his shoulder. Hawks grabs it, peers at the end of the pen's barrel, learning within a single blink how he has to squeeze it to wedge the sides open just wide enough that he can jam the shaft of his own quill into it.
He makes a face.
"What?" Enji demands. What now? What's wrong with it?
"It pinches," Hawks admits.
"Give it here."
"What?! No! It's mine!" Hawks tosses it – tosses it! – away so Enji can't grab it back and tuts. It doesn't travel far – doesn't hit the ground, shatter, or smash, as it would if anyone else had thrown their gift away. It takes on a life of its own, does a loop around the far end of the desk, and returns to hover by Hawks' ear as disapproving as a put upon sidekick. "No take backs, Enji. That's so rude! Where are your manners?"
There wouldn't be any gift left for that, just ash and a memory, but Hawks knows exactly what he's doing, choosing now to selectively withhold that honorific. They're hypnotic, his eyes, soft as liquid gold and climbing higher and higher as Enji abandons his seat to loom over the desk between them, knuckles pressed hard into the wood.
"Where are yours, boy?" Hawks sways toward him as if drawn in by the tide of his voice, lower lip sucked in with anticipation. He's close, but too, too far all the way down there. "I've given you a gift. What do you say?"
And like Enji has spoken magic words or sprung some hidden trip wire, everything soft about Hawks runs wicked. Enji can't move, can't speak, can't do anything but watch it happen: one massive wing splaying wide, stretching far, and without an ounce of regret swiping the tower of dossiers right off the desk.
A whole week's worth of work.
Scattered.
Papers fly up everywhere like an eiderdown pillow explosively rent in two.
Hawks snatches one sheet out of the air, waves it, wrinkling and rustling, back and forth in front of his face as if checking its worth and, it's... it's – god fucking damn it – but of course it's a page that's been singed to hell and back. Hawks shoots him a look so thick with irony Enji has to fight to contain Hellflame from bursting forth all across his cheeks. That's. That's the only reason! He's so red! Damn this...! Damn this brat!
"Hawks." The name strangles out of him just like he's going to strangle this good-for-nothing bird brain, but he's not even listening.
Hawks has slapped his caught piece of paper down, apparently satisfied at its lack of value, and is reaching for the ink.
"What?" he asks, all innocence and purity and lies. "You give me a pen and don't expect me to test it out? Don't you want your thank you note? I thought people your age preferred the handwritten kind, but I suppose I could always just..." He trails off, eyes straying to the phone still at Enji's right hand, and the very suggestion of more high-pitched cheeping is enough to make Enji convulse.
"Don't."
"Okay! Then we're decided."
Hawks unscrews the vial, content as cream, leaving Enji to hack through the Gordian Knot of how effectively he's been played. Hawks hums as he clinks the vial down and rubs his palms together with anticipation. Unassisted by any physical means, the feather pen drifts to the lip of the tiny bottle and stutters there as if gearing up to take the plunge.
All Enji can think to do is protest dumbly, "You're supposed to hold it."
"I am holding it."
"Not like that!"
"Then like what?"
And Enji's just walked right into it again, corralled so there's only one answer left. It's entirely unnecessary, Hawks' follow-up, uttered sweetly as a tightening noose.
"Show me?"
Enji gestures, resigned, to the couch.
Hawks lets out a low whistle. "Wow, you're even gonna let me sit down for it?"
"Just. Go."
Hawks goes.
The pen follows along after, zooming and zipping like a happy yappy dog. Enji has to remind himself it has no mind of its own. Hawks controls it – he's the one deciding to make it act like that.
Enji turns to his drawers again to distract himself from a sudden indefinable swelling feeling. Hawks is the absolute worst thing that has ever happened to his blood pressure. Enji should get rid of him, tell him to go, send him away, but instead he rummages through his stacks until his thumb stops on the next worst thing he's ever experienced. He jerks a few sheets free, brandishes them up, and confirms his suspicions.
Here it is – the supreme wit of the universe.
A young man managing, somehow, to sit both prim and inattentive at the edge of a couch cushion and making a quill pen dance in front of his face for his amusement, who couldn't write legibly to save himself from a villain's clutches... has hair the exact shade of palest eggshell yellow as Enji's finest calligraphy paper.
Torinoko Enji remembers it's called. Bird's child.
It's far too expensive to waste on practice. He has little enough as it is. It should be saved only for the most vitally important of his contracts.
Enji rams shut the drawer, grabs up the ink Hawks has forgot, and joins him, spreading the blank pages before them on the table. He pushes Hawks' wing aside as he sinks down beside him, ignores the familiar way it thwaps back against him like a spring, and for the second time that night proffers his palm for something red.
He makes sure Hawks is watching when he transfers the pen from right hand to left. He earns a small oh of surprise for that. Enji wants, not for the first time, to curse the incompetence of whatever instructor had taught Hawks his letters. They'd left him with an inability to write anything well save his own damn autograph.
Inexcusable.
It's not like any of this is even hard. Enji mastered this while still in school – practiced over and over and over again until he got it right. Calligraphy is just another means of displaying one's diligence and endurance in the pursuit of perfection.
And so Enji does as Hawks asked.
He shows him.
Back straight, relaxed grip, letting his arm do most of the work. The glass nib tinks when he dips it into the vial and shakes off the excess. Glass because it's simpler to use, easier to clean, and holds more ink at once – maybe even enough to keep this fast-paced boy's aversion to waiting at bay for longer.
Enji doesn't have to think about what character to demonstrate. There can only be one. He sketches it out in quick, even strokes: a dotted cliff enclosing half of change and an old bird above the new bird.
Taka – hawk.
Hawks watches the word emerge like he's hungry for it. Enji writes it again for him, slowly, methodically, the delicate vane of the feather brushing along the side of his hand with each line – all twenty-four of them. Hawks has bowed his head by the time he's done and his eyes have fallen shut.
"Maybe you should do one more, Enji-san," he mumbles, lulled and lazy as a well-caressed cat. "I don't know if I caught it well enough."
Enji would. He doesn't mind, except... those markings on his face look like dashed-on smudges of ink and taken all together it's—
Endearing.
"Your turn," he gets out gruff, seizing Hawks by the wrist, thrusting the pen on him, forcing his fingers around the grip.
Hawks startles and resists.
"Hey, what—?!" He yanks back, wings flapping in distress, and in the struggle of the tug of war between them, whose hand or wing or limb it is that lashes out and does it, Enji doesn't know.
The bottle of ink is knocked. It overturns with a dull thunk, and though it's so little, the black wave that glugs out seems never ending.
"Enji..." Hawks breathes as it nears the table's edge and, to Enji's horror, dives forward and drowns his hands in it. Like he can dam the flow and push it back, to... what? Spare the plush Persian carpet at their feet? All Hawks succeeds in doing is smearing it further, and it will stain wood just as well as rug.
"Uh," Hawks says and coughs. He uses two – two! – pages of lustrous, glossy paper to blot at the accident, dabbing at it long after they become tainted with black. He peers over his shoulder and Enji can tell he's thinking hard, thinking fast, thinking how to spin this to his advantage, but...
"This lesson," Enji begins with finality only for Hawks to interrupt, "Hey now, hey! Just wait a second here. We still have... canvas."
"Oh, sure. A whole half a corner! You want to write with that, boy, be my guest! You can go about finger painting for all I care!"
Where the hell's that pen got to? Enji's taking it back. What a mistake! The very idea, that he thought he could— that Hawks would even want— Just. This whole day! None of this would have ever happened if they'd just been able to go to a restaurant like usual, like the two of them or this thing between them were normal—
"Okay."
The attack lands before Enji even knows to counter it. Cold and wet, Hawks slaps a dripping hand right across his mouth, slippery fingers curling into his jaw.
"After all," he repeats, tipping Enji's chin up like he's some kind of prize stallion up for consideration on the auction block, "we've still got canvas."
Enji can't object unless he wants to taste ink. Can't tell Hawks off when he tilts his head first one way and runs a guilty stripe down his marred cheek and then the other which he blinks at slow and owlish.
"Let's see," he muses. "What to do? I could blacken your eyes, you know."
Maybe Enji would deserve that – in truth or as Hawks means, to line his eyes just like his own. He's been testy for the past— always. But if Hawks is going to stand in front of him like this with that teasing smirk that's starting to creep into his very being, he'd better damn well make it good. Enji palms his hips and tugs him closer, right between his thighs. How is Hawks to write well from so far away? He sears the question into him with burning hands and burning eyes.
Hawks chides him with a pleased little cluck. "Hold still."
His left hand, heavy with pigment, is poised over Enji's cheek, and still he waits. Oh, come on. What the hell's he doing? Flipping through a mental dictionary? Enji raises his ruined brow to egg him on just as Hawks' lips quirk and he begins.
It's not a character Enji uses often or ever. Not one he even commonly reads. And still he recognizes it after only a few strokes. He knows it piece by piece and part by part.
Talons reaching to uncover a heart over the radical for winter.
The more it takes shape upon him the more he feels weighted down by something he can't explain. The universe is laughing again, he's wildly sure, at getting to throw how perfect this kanji is for this moment right in his face.
Hawks finishes with an unnecessary flourish, satisfied. It's only when he leans back to admire his work and Enji's hands fall from him that he realizes the enormity of what he's written.
He could keep going. He could make it into a statement. But the two of them are frozen now, seized in an awkward tableau, the only movement the beading ink trailing down Enji's face and collecting in his beard.
Hawks breaks free first. He smiles, says something Enji can't seem to hear, and releases him, smudging ever more ink across his mouth. He steps back, chattering away, light and airy, but the plumage of his wings is fluffed up and the feathers don't settle even after he reseats himself.
Enji's limbs won't obey him. He sits there like a useless lump as Hawks keeps trying to act like nothing happened. Like they can just move on.
This is how it goes when Enji fails to respond. When he misses his cue. Hawks just drops it. Changes the subject. Starts something new. He'll revisit things, sometimes, in a fresh way with different tactics.
Not always.
But it's not supposed to go like this. That's not how they're supposed to be. How they've always been, from the very first moment they were brought together side-by-side under the spotlight on stage in Kamino Ward.
Hawks is the set up.
Enji is the punch line.
What Hawks starts, Enji is supposed to finish.
This relationship is scored deeply into his own flesh.
And as usual, Hawks has already done the hardest part and said the hardest word.
Enji takes a deep breath – in and out – and with it his flesh heats enough to dry the ink and bake it on.
Hawks has fallen silent by now. His inky hands are hanging off his knees and he's concentrating hard on the pen again. He's somehow managed to get it loaded up to write and it's floating over the one clean corner of paper left, halfway through taka.
Enji plucks it from the air to Hawks' mild protest. He knows he is getting Enji's answer, though he's not sure what it will be. He stays still for it, watching, waiting.
It's easy to catch him like that, the same way he caught Enji. By the chin. Hawks is surprised. He shouldn't be. Enji still enjoys it, seeing how wide his eyes manage to get. Now he's got him where he wants him, Enji sets the pen aside. He swipes one finger through the pooling ink and makes three strokes.
Three kana.
To finish the sentence Hawks started.
Enji lets the ink drip just long enough that it reaches the paltry little beard he... loves so much. A soft revenge. Then blows it dry with one hot breath.
It'll wash off. Later. But this memory never will.
Hawks is looking at him like he knows it. Like Enji is the moon and stars and skies above, and it's too much. Enji has said it now and meant it. It's what couples are supposed to say today anyway, it's not a big deal, isn't there work to be done or something?
Yes.
Of course there is and Hawks has thrown it all over the ground.
Enji heaves himself up, reminding Hawks, at length, just what he thinks about his little stunt.
"It'll take forever, sorting that!"
"Forever? Really?" Hawks' golden eyes dance, alive and fond with mischief.
There was never any hope from the very second he arrived tonight. Not for the paperwork. Not for Enji. He takes Enji's hand, entwines their ink-stained fingers, and tugs him back down.
"Maybe I can help."