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Hawkins has a particularly bad week. Between a storm and being gunned down by an ambush of several marine ships, he's lost a third of his crew. He conducts burial rites, Faust physically helping him to stand long enough to get through it all. The Grudge Dorf limps into port and Hawkins barely has the energy to do what he must, procuring repairs and supplies for those still living. He's due to meet Trafalgar— overdue, by two days — and that thought pierces through the weariness and grim air in his mind. Trafalgar, Trafalgar, Trafalgar. The man would pitch the most unbecoming fit if Hawkins stood him up. A mix of duty and a strange desire drags him to the port town square.
Trafalgar is there, waiting openly at the fountain. There are bounty hunters eyeing him from the shadows. Hawkins can't help but smile at the impetuousness and the fact that Trafalgar waited for him.
Trafalgar pulls his weight away from the structure and his expression shutters as he sees the blood spotting Hawkins' usually immaculate white shirt. Hawkins hadn't been bothered to change. He was too tired and couldn't find it in himself to manoeuvre his injured shoulder out of a sticky, bloodied shirt and into another shirt just to ruin two shirts for his trouble.
(Meeting Trafalgar had been more important. The man might have left in a pique of anger seeing how late Hawkins was. The thought was illogical, in hindsight. But it is good to see Trafalgar.)
"You look like hell," are the first words out of Trafalgar's mouth, of course. There is a strange comfort in the familiarity, in Trafalgar's bluntness.
"Injury does that," Hawkins murmured, agreeing.
Trafalgar visibly thinks about something, frowning, and chooses not to say it.
"If your medic let you walk about, I suppose it's not serious," Trafalgar concludes, incorrectly. His assumption sends a twist of pain in Hawkins' chest that has nothing to do with the injury.
"He is hard-pressed to stop me," Hawkins says. "Seeing as he is dead."
"Oh." Almost contrite silence, for once. Trafalgar had very little in the way of manners, but it seemed he did know what they were. His voice didn't quite soften, but it was less cocky than it had been until now. "Are you docked here?"
Close enough. "Yes."
"I'll see to your injury."
He steps close, not close enough for Hawkins to lean on, not that Hawkins would presume, but close enough that it seems that he might deign to catch Hawkins if he fell.
"You wanted to exchange information," Hawkins reminds him as they make their way through the stinking alleyways of the docks. Trafalgar ambles easily alongside Hawkins' limping steps. There's a pause that tells Hawkins that was the last thing on Trafalgar's mind.
"You can talk as I work," Trafalgar allows, and they walk the rest of the way in that charged but not uncomfortable silence that often fell between them when they were alone.
Back on the Grudge Dorf, Trafalgar makes himself at home. He goes straight to Hawkins' quarters and the crew doesn't stop him. Most of them don't even do more than glance up, and perhaps nod.
Hawkins should probably be concerned about that. There is a long and ever growing list of things he should be concerned about, regarding this man. Things like Trafalgar going into his bedroom before him and holding the door open for him to step painfully through. Things like him leaving his coat on the door hooks without asking, or knowing where Hawkins keeps his matches.
"You should have said something earlier about losing your medic," he says as Hawkins sits heavily on the bed. The words in theory were concerned or chiding, but such descriptors didn't quite convey how Trafalgar clearly thought you were an idiot. He had it down to a fine art.
He rolls up his inner shirt sleeves to work, and Hawkins discovers that his forearms have tattoos as well— twin fiery rings surrounding a mutated World Government cross, in bold black ink to match his hands. It's the first time Hawkins has seen so much of Trafalgar's skin.
"Talk, Magician," Trafalgar says as he peels back Hawkins' shirt. "Is that a bullet left in there?"
"Very. Possibly," Hawkins hisses through gritted teeth.
Trafalgar pokes at the entry wound unsympathetically.
"It's several days old, and you just left it like that," he says, disgusted. "It could have gotten infected."
Hawkins frowns.
"Is it infected?"
"No, but try it again sometime if you don't believe me. Room ."
A pale blue translucent sphere forms over the injured site, the famed Ope Ope devil fruit in action. That particular shade of blue must inspire terror in many a marine.
Hawkins watches as Trafalgar produces a scalpel from his pocket and starts cutting.
Bizarre. It doesn't hurt at all, not even the pain originally from the wound itself. Still, the sight of a knife approaching his already tender skin makes him tense instinctively.
"Don't look if you're going to tense up like that," orders Trafalgar, so Hawkins looks up. Trafalgar's face is so close, brow furrowed and a slight frown in place as he concentrates. It's so quiet he can hear Trafalgar breathe, feel the air move against his face.
The breath of life. There are spells that use that.
A bead of sweat forms on Trafalgar's brow and drops into his eye. He tosses his head back and blinks, mutters a curse under his breath as he stops his work to bring his arm up and wipe his face on the rolled up sleeve.
"No wonder you're never cold," he mutters as he resumes work on Hawkins' shoulder. "You've got ten thousand candles in here."
"One hundred and nineteen," corrects Hawkins. He doesn't point out that Trafalgar had been the one to decide how many candles to light. He pauses, then decides he has known Trafalgar for long enough that he can continue with his next suggestion. "Would you like to take your shirt off?"
Trafalgar's eyes snap to Hawkins' face, searching with a hint of disbelief, of — did Hawkins actually say that? suggest that level of intimacy?— then he grins, a quick flash of teeth.
"Your timing is shit," he says and looks away and back to his work. If Hawkins hadn't been looking for it, he'd have missed the disbelief altogether. Nothing shows on Trafalgar's face as he pauses his work again and draws back.
"Too late now." Trafalgar waves a gloved hand, illustratively splattered with Hawkins' blood. "But—"
He turns away slightly and brushes at his forehead with his arm again and his hat fallsell to the bed beside Hawkins. For a second, Hawkins can't breathe, caught in the same moment of disbelief that had flashed across Trafalgar's face not a minute before— did Trafalgar really just—
Hawkins averts his eyes, suddenly feeling intrusive. Which is ridiculous, because if anything, Trafalgar is the intruder, in Hawkins' bedroom, standing over Hawkins fully-clothed while Hawkins sits on his bed with half his body bared, letting Trafalgar at his injury.
Still, the sense of impropriety compels him to determinedly look away and down, at his own knees, Trafalgar's spotted jeans and the faded yellow hoodie in his peripheral vision. Hawkins has never seen Trafalgar without a head covering, he has been nothing but modest and conservative in the way he dresses, despite his outrageously forward behaviour. It's why Hawkins had been surprised the first time they had met, when Trafalgar had approached him so boldly.
"...better," breathes Trafalgar. He sounds abruptly close, his breath warm and heavy against Hawkins' skin. The relief in his voice drops something in Hawkins' chest, warmth that blooms in his belly, curls up through his shoulders and back, even through the pain as Trafalgar resumes work on his shoulder.
As time stretches on, Hawkins can't help but to glance over, to sneak a look at Trafalgar's full face and unveiled head only to find the dread Surgeon of Death is… for lack of better word, cute . His short black hair is charmingly disheveled, sticking up messily in some places, but flattened by the hat in others. Hawkins is struck with the sudden and inappropriate urge to comb through it with his fingers, so he keeps his hands very firmly on his knees. Head covering or no, Trafalgar's hair is cropped short. Even if he was now open to Hawkin's attentions, they were not looking for the same thing. Hawkins knew himself well enough to know he couldn't bear to have a lover in bits and pieces and one night stands, no matter how badly he wanted someone. Better to never love at all.
The hat is on the bed long after Trafalgar has finished stitching up Hawkins' shoulder, and stays there until he leaves.