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Hawkins had never liked to be touched.
It started when he was a child, when he learned that there was a brief moment when a grip turned from firm to cruel, and that nothing good ever followed that point.
Some people, narrow-minded and unwilling to listen, would latch onto his arm, dragging him home to try to shame him for scaring their children by demanding an apology from his whole family.
They got it, usually. It was easier than fighting people, every time it happened. The other kids weren’t scared because he was trying to scare them, they were scared because he was there, because they didn’t understand his cards and his predictions and the way the whole world laid out in probabilities before him.
Years along, and it was busybodies of the town, trying to drag him to the local constabulary. “Practicing witchcraft” wasn’t, strictly speaking, illegal according to the laws on the books. But it was scary to the people of the island, and he knew if he were ever brought up on such charges, the lack of actual laws would not stop anyone.
He escaped that grasping hand and fled to the docks. By evening, he had left the shores of his home island for what he guessed would be the last time.
The tendency had never gotten better with time. He could tolerate a tap on the arm or shoulder, but beyond that, a touch felt like an invitation to disaster. He knew it did him no favors when he’d ducked out from under the arms of drunken comrades, trying to pull him into a conversation or a song. The way the first few ships, before the cards suggested he find his own and build a crew who’d respect his space, captains would sometimes lean over him as he did readings, his shoulder taking more and more of their weight as they tried to see the future as he did.
But once he became a captain in his own right? That time had been the best time in Hawkins’ life - sailing the seas, making a name for himself, building a crew with the same goals and drive as he. During that time, with people around that he trusted, he ever tried to work on that feeling of wrongness with every friendly gesture.
He’d let himself start to think this would be the way things went from now on, that the early days were the price he paid for this freedom.
Like everything in life, though, that had come to an end.
“Something you can share?”
Hawkins looked up from his meal. He and Drake were eating side by side, both picking off the same shared plate on a small table between them. Darkness blanketed them, as they sat on the balcony of a small inn, overlooking the capitol. The lights made the city look like an amusement park done up for a festival.
He wasn’t sure why Drake had begun talking to him - lower ranked, unfriendly by design, just following his orders and getting out of the way. But while the people in this place were mostly loud and/or aggressive personalities, there was a space of calm around Drake. He’d wondered, at first, if anything could phase the man.
Only later, once they said more than business to one another, did he learn Drake had wondered the same of him.
“Nothing important,” he said into the darkness. Drake was an observant man, and rarely asked anyone if something was wrong. Hawkins appreciated that. “Is something wrong” felt disingenuous even when honestly meant. If the person was acting strangely enough that you noticed, something was amiss.
He could feel Drake wanting to ask a follow-up, to press for more information - “nothing important” could be honest or dismissive, and in a place like this, the tendency to deflect from any problem and pretend everything was always going well meant it was often the latter.
To save him from asking, or squirming about not asking, Hawkins added, “I did a reading today on the mission tomorrow. There were a couple cards that could be read in multiple ways. It’s left me uneasy.”
“Do you expect danger for yourself?”
“No. But the success of the mission is … questionable. Depending on what the cards meant, it could be a ninety-eight percent chance of full success, or less than fifty.”
“Then just be careful,” Drake said after a moment. “It’s all you can do, right?”
He didn’t answer. It didn’t require an answer. He instead glanced down at the plate, plucking the last small pastry from it. The sounds of the insects in the grass rose as he ate the baked good. As he does, he sensed Drake looking his way and glanced over. Their eyes met, and for a moment, there’s a contest there -- one of wills, but not in the way they are usually conducted in Kaido’s group.
He was not a sentimental man, and knew Drake was not either. They’d both been through too much in their lives, and faced too much now, to ever be lovey dovey, all hand holding and pet names like something in a story. But over time, there was kinship, of a sort, and then comfort of a sort, and now something more.
They both knew they’d come to this out of the way place, away from prying eyes, to see what that something more might be. But now, old fears were creeping in.
Drake had not reached for him once, in this time, like he sensed something. Hawkins wasn’t sure if he hoped or feared that would continue. Being in this shut-away island was a never-ending grind on his nerves - on his soul, he supposed one could say. It was a pressure, pressure that had cracked something in him enough to try to let someone else in. He wanted to.
But he kept wondering, waiting, expecting … like when skin was tender after an injury, and no matter how you didn’t want to, you’d flinch if touched there. It was reaction, instinct, nothing intentional.
But if it happened, he wasn’t sure how Drake would react. What he’d think. Or what Hawkins could - or should - even do. Would that be the end of things? Should he cut it off before it even got to that?
“Hey.”
Hawkins’ eyes darted over to the other man, whose expression he could just make out in the particolored light. From what he could see, Drake’s mouth was a thin line, eyes searching his own for something.
“We can just got if you-” he started.
Hawkins shook his head. “No. we’ve come all the way out here. It would be a waste to go back now.”
Drake chewed over that - Hawkins could see it, wondered if his words have been careless, have made the decision for him. But then Drake noded, just slightly, almost imperceptible.
“Right. Well then -- want a round of drinks? Or more snacks?”
Hawkins quirks an eyebrow. “There’s no reason not to. For one of the flying six, they won’t even charge.”
Drake almost smiled, the expression fleeting but genuine. “I guess I earned that.” He reached out, but shopped just short of Hawkins’ neck. The Magician doesn’t flinch, doesn’t move, but he knows Drake can see him poised, fearful of his own reaction, and the hand pulls back.
“I’ll get them,” Drake said instead, withdrawing and heading out to place the order.
Leaving Hawkins unsure whether he felt more grateful, or guilty, and hating both.