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His phone rings and he finds himself looking at a number he deleted but couldn't find it in himself to block. He stares at it, and it feels like the sound of everything else in the world fades away, like passing shadows. In his lap, Faust's tail curls and he looks up with expectant yellow eyes.
Trafalgar's eyes had been gold too, damn him.
Hawkins grits his teeth and lets the phone finish ringing.
It buzzes, and Hawkins' hand is on it before he can quite stop himself, tapping the screen to read the messages popping up.
pick up
you used to take your phone into the fucking bathtub, i know youre there
its important
Hawkins lets his eyelids fall shut as the phone buzzes in his hand a few more times, a few more messages, before Trafalgar is calling again.
He stares at it, and his hands move on their own, accepting the call and bringing the phone up to his ear.
"Hawkins," Trafalgar says, the moment the call connects. "Basil-ya. I need you."
Hawkins swallows hard at that. His heart tries to squeeze out of his ribcage and throw itself at the man on the other end of the phone line, on the other side of the world. Trafalgar always did play dirty. Ridiculous how easily he knew the words that would make Hawkins stay on the line a moment longer.
"Hello, Trafalgar." Hawkins twirls his fingers around Faust's tail. "Are you dying?"
"What?" Surprise. Annoyance. Impatience. "No."
"Pity."
He's free if Trafalgar dies. Free of this stupid torch that refuses to go out, free from constantly being burned by it no matter how far he tries to distance himself, free from the wanting . But even that is too much of an admission.
"How soon can you be on a plane to Alaska?" Trafalgar asks, like it's not ridiculous to expect Hawkins to drop everything and come running when they haven't spoken for two years. "It's Bepo, you're the only person other than me who I know is qualified— ach scheiße , do you even know about Bepo, or—? Polar bear, eight months old, very sick and needs constant monitoring. My team can do that, but it could turn into an emergency surgery at any time, but the entire facility's funding will be pulled if I don't show up for this fucking stupid thing back in Spain and— hell, I can't put the words together. Will you come? Please."
Hawkins feels torn in two, listening to Traflagar's words, a long distressed-angry string of his voice, twining gold and bleeding red.
"So you do know how to say please," Hawkins observes, stalling the answer. "That's practically begging, from you."
On the other side of the line, there is rustling cloth, and the obvious sound of Trafalgar swallowing his pride and anger.
"If that's what it takes," Trafalgar says, and it costs him beautifully, each word being dragged across his unwilling teeth and tongue. Hawkins wishes he were there to see Trafalgar's face. He can imagine the flash of passion in Law's unusual eyes, the flecks of true gold in the bright yellow-brown.
"No," Hawkins says. There's a sharp intake of breath on the other side, the kind of breath that accompanies the careful selection of words that would cut an old lover where it hurts most.
"Save it for when I get to see it in person," Hawkins finishes.
There's a silence as Trafalgar processes this, understands.
"Fine. I'll pay for your flight," he says, instead of 'thank you'. "Hurry." and he hangs up.
Hawkins looks at Faust as the dial tone beeps. Faust 'mrrow's judgmentally.
"I know," Hawkins sighs as he scoops the cat up in one arm and walks to his wardrobe to start packing.