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Dabi presses his fingertips to the corner of his eyes. His eyelids flutter delicately, but his hand is steady, gently smearing paint in broad strokes under his eyes as he watches himself in the mirror. He’s almost done, which means that his reflection grins back at him like a ghost. White paint on his cheekbones and black under his eyes. He’s even painted the teeth over his lips, so his normally gaunt face looks even more like a skull. He drops his hands and allows himself a moment to stare, his eyes hauntingly blue among the monochrome.
Festivals are usually for elders and children in a village like his--he’s too old to have the time, too disinterested in stuffing his face with sweets--but this one is different. Everyone attends the burning of the fields.
And everyone paints their faces.
The village is already in motion by the time he emerges, a riot of color and sound even though dusk is still at least an hour away. Dabi tries to look annoyed as children weave around him, their faces painted into little skulls ruined by their pink and grinning mouths. You can tell which have painted their own faces from the too-big eye sockets and lopsided nose holes. Grandmother’s chide them good-naturedly from their doorsteps, their arms painted white and black to match their faces, every delicate bone painted onto their stiff-jointed fingers with loving care.
Half in the grave already, Dabi thinks with a snort, but he doesn’t dare say it out loud. It doesn’t matter that he looms them; any of them would gladly smack him on the shins for that kind of sass.
Dabi’s hands skim his pockets. Damn. He needs to find his matches. The festival won’t wait for him, and the burn will be uneven if he’s not ready for his cue. A bad omen, his father will say, and it’ll be his fault when their crops struggle.
Dabi scowls to himself. It’ll be his fault anyways, it always is, but he doesn’t want this one to be true. It’s the first time Shouto is old enough to help him with their part of the burning, and he won’t let himself ruin that.
“You dropped these.”
Dabi looks up--and then looks again, startled to find a clean face staring back at him. Over a box of matches, held out with a flourish.
His box of matches, beaten up at the corners and smeared with dirt where it looks like someone stepped on it. The stranger holding it is just that--a stranger, so clearly out of place in the village that Dabi wants to laugh. He’s never seen someone so painfully from the city before, from his ruffled black coat to the frankly improbable amount of brass buttons. Dabi frowns, trying to count them. Where could they possibly all connect to? Only someone from the city could invent something so stupidly unnecessary.
But that’s really the least of his problems right now. “You forgot your face,” Dabi says bluntly, taking the matches and safely tucking them in his pocket. Any of the village grandmothers would happily beat him for being so rude as well, but what they don’t hear can’t hurt him. He learned a long time ago that it’s not worth his time to waste politeness on city boys. Or much of anyone, really.
The city boy’s smile wavers. “Hawks,” he says, with a touch of sarcasm. Just enough that Dabi takes a bit more notice. A city rat with teeth. Interesting. “Nice to meet you too.”
Nice? Not him, and sure as hell not during the burning of the fields. Some things aren’t meant for tourists. “Your face,” Dabi says again, tapping his own cheek. Carefully, so as not to smudge his make-up. “You look like an idiot. Or an outsider.”
Dabi smirks. Same difference.
Hawks--what kind of name is Hawks? though he does look a bit like a bird, doesn’t he? in a strange way--raises his eyebrows. “A little more lively though, don’t you think?” He grins, his eyes crinkling at the corners. He has a strange air about him; he can’t be any older than Dabi himself, caught in the twilight between boy and man, but in an ageless way, where he could easily slip into either role as it suits him. “Why do you do that? Paint your faces?”
“Why do you care?” Dabi counters. No one cares about villages like his, small and far-flung, where even the roads hardly go.
“Call it intellectual curiosity,” Hawks says. He nods. “And I found your matches.”
Hardly a favor worth calling it, but fair play. Dabi considers him for a moment, his eyes narrowed shrewdly. He glances behind him, as if his father might be there, scowling with his arms crossed, but no one else has noticed them. They’re singular points of stillness among the joyful chaos of the street. “At dusk we burn the fields,” he says, feeling stupid. What would a city boy understand about the fields? About burning? He’s wasting his time when he should be finding Shouto and making sure Natsuo didn’t mess up his make-up. “To clear the remains of the old harvest and fertilize the ground to plant in the spring.”
Always at dusk, so that they can watch the flames lick the darkening sky. Red on blue on black. It’s beautiful.
Beautiful the way the boy’s eyes are beautiful, dangerous if you get too close. It’s no good to spend so much time on an outsider, but he’s having trouble looking away. He’s never seen golden eyes before. They’d look good, if they were painted black the way they’re supposed to be.
“And the skulls?” Hawks prompts.
Dabi unsticks his tongue from the roof of his mouth. “So that the angel of death can’t tell the living from the death,” he says, growing bolder. He’s proud, despite everything. Despite his father and their fields and the fact that he’ll never get to really leave them. They don’t have gods in the city, unless their names are Industry and Profit. They don’t need gods, as far as Dabi is concerned. They’re in hell already. “So our ancestors can come back to us, just for the night, and the angel can’t take their souls back to the afterlife until morning.”
Hawks’ expression softens. His hands are sunk deep in the pockets of his stupid coat, his hair messy and windblown. “That’s beautiful,” he says.
“It’s not meant to be beautiful,” Dabi snaps. “It’s ours. Just ours.” He eyes Hawks suspiciously. Why is he still here? People usually don’t linger this long, even if they make the mistake of starting a conversation with him. If they do, he’s usually more than happy to take the matter of leaving into his own hands. “It’s tradition. Not that you’d understand.”
“I know about tradition,” Hawks scoffs. “Well, maybe more like obligation. They’re kind of the same, aren’t they?” He begins to walk, and Dabi hesitates for a long moment before he follows after him, like a fish at the end of an invisible line. They don’t get many outsiders there, he reminds himself. It’s natural to be curious, even if it is a no good city boy. Even if there’s so much he still needs to do before the burning.
“A bit,” Dabi admits, looking back toward where the town bustles with activity. He knows enough about both. Things have been hard since his mother went away for the season, like she does every year, down south to live with her sister to wear out the winter where the sun doesn’t hide for so long. The darkness makes her go mad, to hear his father say it. Dabi thinks a winter spent with his father would make any sane person go mad.
But he shouldn’t complain, even though he always does. Fuyumi tries harder than she should have to to replace their mother, and sometimes Dabi resents her for that too. No one in their family is ever willing to look the ugly truth in the eye, except for maybe Natsuo.
Dabi stops at the edge of the field, watching as Hawks wanders past the stakes driven into the ground to mark where the fields end the town begins. Once the burning begins, mothers will point to those same stakes and make their children swear not to venture past them, not even if it seems safe. You never know how quickly the fire will spread.
Hawks looks back, raising his eyebrows. “Come on,” he says, teasing. “Are you afraid of some weeds?” The fields have long since been harvested, the harvest safely tucked away for the long winter ahead. They’re yellow and ugly and patchwork. Fit for nothing but burning now.
Dabi scowls, and steps out into the field. The crunch of dead vegetation makes dread trickle down his spine, but he won’t let a city boy show him up. “What do you know about obligation?” He says, eager to break the silence. The breeze is cold and wet, cutting through his coat and ruffling his hair. It’ll be a difficult burn this year, with so much moisture in the air.
Hawks tips his head back and laughs, the sound peeling over the empty fields like a bell. “A bit,” he says cheerfully, shooting Dabi a grin. “I have a job, you see.”
He’s waiting for Dabi to ask what it is. It glitters in his eyes, mischievous. Dabi would love to deny him the satisfaction. He really would.
But he is curious.
“What kind of job is that?” He asks. “Cleaning up horse manure?”
Hawks laughs. “Worse.”
“Dredging the sewers?”
“Not so bad as that,” he concedes, wrinkling his nose. “In the middle, maybe.”
“In the middle, between manure and shit.” Dabi tilts his head, considering. He snorts and shakes his head. “Can’t be worth the pay.”
“Depends on the day.” Hawks rocks back on his heels, looking up at the sky. “I work for a funeral parlor,” he says. He hesitates. “In a way.”
Dabi frowns. He’s being cagey again. Hawks is cagey and awful lot, for someone who seems to like the sound of his own voice so much. “What kind of way?”
“Ah,” Hawks says hesitantly. “I work with the dead.”
“Oh.” A shiver crawls down Dabi’s spine. He touches his face, as if to be sure his painted skull is still there. His fingertips come away black. “Sounds like a shitty job.”
When he looks up again, Hawks’ face is different. Changed in a way that’s hard to name. He looks like a tragic hero, painted with oils and forgotten in the belly of a ship lost at sea. He looks sad.
“I don’t want to do this again,” Hawks says, and he makes every word sound heavy.
It makes Dabi’s nerves prickle. “I’m not making you do anything,” he says, defensive. He doesn’t like being in the fields so close to the burning. It feels wrong. The sky is too wide out here, choked with gray clouds. “Let’s go back.”
“We can’t,” Hawks says.
“Why the hell not?”
“That’s not how the story goes.” He reaches out, to touch his face, but Dabi jerks away. He stumbles, his feet catching on one another. Hawks won’t wipe that look off his face. If anything, he looks worse. “Do you remember yet? It’s about that time.” He looks up, as if checking the sky.
Dabi takes another stumbling step back. “I’m leaving,” he says stiffly. He should have known better than to waste his time on a city boy. There’s too much to do. “You should leave, before they start the burning.”
He turns and marches back toward town, his hands curled into trembling fists at his sides.
“Do you remember your name?”
Dabi stops.
“I have a name--” He starts.
“The real one,” Hawks interrupts, impatient. “You now you can’t leave here until you do. Please. We’ve done this too many times.”
Have they?
Dabi turns slowly, and Hawks isn’t as he left him. He still looks sad, his face expressionless except for that impossible weight, carried in his eyes. He still looks stupidly out of place in his coat with its buttons and finery. The sky is still gray.
But now, Hawks has wings.
They lurk behind him, red like fresh blood, large enough that their feathers brush the dirt. They were always there, Dabi realizes. He just didn’t notice them. He never notices them.
They’ve been here before. The thought is ice water down his back. They’ve been here so many times before. Dabi takes a step back and this time the past rises up to meet him, flashing before his eyes. The fields are dead. He blinks and the fields are burning. The flames dance higher, brighter, pressing in on all sides. It’s so hot. He can’t breathe. He can’t--
A hand grabs his arm and he blinks again, the world snapping back into place. The flames are gone. They’re alone again in the empty field, Hawks gripping his arm like he doesn’t ever mean to let go.
“It’s over,” he says, his voice hushed and gentle. “It’s done. It can’t hurt you anymore.”
But it does though. A dozen versions of Hawks blur over one another. Sometimes he’s older, sometimes younger. He wears a fine coat or a stained shirt. His hair is short, long, hidden beneath the wide brim of a hat. But his eyes are always gold.
He always looks so damn sad.
“Do you remember?” Hawks whispers.
Dabi closes his eyes. And he remembers.
He remembers painting a skull over his face, careful not to smudge the delicate lines. He remembers losing his matches. What would have changed, if he hadn’t lost his matches? He wouldn’t have been late to the burning.
Shouto wouldn’t have had to replace him, so small, but always bearing the brunt of their father’s expectations. He was too young. He couldn’t do it on his own. You’re supposed to strike a match and light the center of your field before running back to safety. The run is part of the thrill, like the angel of death is right at your back, reaching for you. But only if you strike the match at the right time.
If you don’t, the burn is uneven. The other fields burn before yours, and the fire closes in on all sides.
He remembers the fire. He remembers that he couldn’t save them both.
“How many times have we done this?” Dabi asks, his voice hoarse. His body is starting to remember too. His lungs ache from smoke that isn’t there.
“I haven’t counted,” Hawks lies.
“How many more?”
“As many as it takes.”
Every year, the same. Every year the angel of death comes for him, and every year Dabi burns.
“Will you stay with me?” He gasps. He can feel the invisible heat on his skin, growing closer. The paint on his face has started to crack and flake.
“Every time,” Hawks promises, his hands sure and steady on Dabi’s arms. He’s holding him, folding him in the soft warmth of his wings. “Every year.”
Until he remembers who he is. Until he can let himself leave. He wishes he knew how.
“Sounds like a shitty job,” Dabi says into that stupid, fine coat.
“There are worse,” Hawks murmurs.
*
“Have we met?” He asks. He’s only just painted his face, and the skull is still wet. He has to be careful not to touch it, or it’ll smudge.
The stranger without a painted face blinks at him, surprise. “Maybe we have,” he says, strangely tentative. “My name is Hawks.”
It doesn’t sound familiar. He’d remember, wouldn’t he? They don’t get many strangers in a village like theirs. Especially right before they burn the fields.
“Funny name,” he says, fighting the urge to laugh. He feels light. He doesn’t know why. He hardly even recognizes the feeling. It’s been a long time since he felt like that. “My name is Touya.”