Work Text:
The space, too white and too sterile to have held life at any point, had somehow been Hawks’ apartment for the last several years. No one in their right mind would ever believe it. Nothing was ever out of place, no soft blankets draped over the couch, the TV remote never moved from the coffee table, and any small speck of dust was swept up before it could even settle. Who would want to live in a showroom?
It was true that he lived there, showroom or not, but it certainly didn’t feel like it. Every day he came through the front door and wished to be anywhere else. Coat and boots tucked into the shallow closet by the door, out of sight of the rest of the pristine area. There was no reason to ruin it. Empty shelves that should hold books and trinkets, the open concept dining, kitchen, and living space, the miserably blank, white walls. How could it possibly be more miserable than that? To live in the shell of something that should be filled with life. To not be allowed to tarnish his image by adding anything that wasn’t painfully dull. There wasn’t even a table or chairs in the dining space, a simple line of metal stools set at the kitchen island were the only things available. Cold metal that made his teeth ache every time his wings bumped against them, the ache shooting through his bones like a bullet. All painfully metallic.
If a person’s house is a reflection of who they are, then Hawks was horribly, terrifyingly empty. And it wasn’t as if he could refute that point, the world could end the very next day and all his tombstone would read was, “He will be missed.” Missed by who? And for what? Even he wouldn’t be able to answer that if asked. So the room stays empty, no matter how much he would love for it to have any sort of life, any sort of comfort, nothing is ever added and everything stays the same. So different from his childhood home, yet equally as miserable in so many ways. The empty space was always the worst, no matter how clean the newer cage was.
Until the day the lock on his living room window melted through. Maybe it was the broken lock itself, but something about the ragged coat draped over the back of the too stiff couch and the muddy boot prints marking Dabi’s path of rampage through the space, tarnishing the pristine status of it all, made it feel like he could finally breathe beneath the layers of bleach. Or it could’ve been the messy kitchen, now finally stuffed to the brim with ingredients and snacks it had never once contained before, there were dishes overflowing from the sink and across the stovetop like never before. What he would’ve given for a single home cooked meal a few months ago became obsolete, the warmth and care put into the food made ready for when he got home banishing the notion over and over again. No more need to give, only to take, and take, and take. It’s what Dabi kept saying, for Hawks to take what he wanted, and what he wanted was the mess, the imperfections that followed Dabi like the scorch marks dug into the fabric of that hideously pristine couch and scratchy carpet.
It opened a floodgate, those simple things did, and brought with it absolute anarchy. Colorful blankets and pillows stuffed onto the couch, spilling onto the floor in a waterfall of fluff. Empty shelves slowly started filling out, first with old, deteriorating books, then with newer additions of things yet to be read. Every genre from Romance to Sci-Fi and many, many more. Hawks hadn’t even thought to question it when the art had been hung up, lovely landscapes in every color and scene among a scattering of sticky notes stuck between them. Little notes and messages, grocery lists and reminders, doodles and snarky comments displayed for all the world to see, no matter how cluttered it made the surfaces of the fridge and any other available surface seem.
The worst of it was the space Dabi filled. Filling a space with things could be done by anyone, becoming a welcome occupant of that same space was another matter altogether. It was this occupation that lost the TV remote for the first time since he had moved in, that all but demanded he get a different couch and actually purchase a dining table. One day, Dabi had bumped into the horrid metal stools at his counter, glared at them for a solid minute, and the stools were gone before he had any chance to protest.
“You got rid of the stools?” Hawks recalled asking once he had noticed their absence, the empty floor where they should have been feeling blank in a way he had grown unused to.
“They sucked, of course I did,” would be the following answer. Dabi never once elaborated, never asked permission, and most certainly did not take “no” for an answer when it came to such things.
And why bother questioning any of it? With afternoons filled with life, love, and laughter, an endless amount of bickering over who’s turn it was to do dishes, or that Hawks shouldn’t spend so much time at work. He jokingly referred to Dabi as his “housewife” on one particularly memorable occasion and had promptly been banned from picking the movie they watched that night. They got along alright, but there was also something odd about the way they interacted, fighting and insulting each other without any real intention to harm itching at their fingertips. Dabi didn’t do nice, rather he seemed to walk this tightrope thin line between insulting Hawks every chance he had and passively remodeling the poor hero’s life until it fit a mold they both liked the shape of better.
The empty void had been tolerated before, but the very idea of returning to it was not dissimilar in feeling to that of being burned alive. Phantom pain stung the scars on his back and face like never before as he stumbled through the front door. Some distant part of him was almost more hurt that there wasn’t a meal waiting, no obnoxious snarky comment thrown from the couch about how truly terrible he looked. Chest tight and eyes stinging with salt, Hawks limps over to the couch, the new, soft cushioned blue couch Dabi had made him buy that seemed to swallow him in a comfort he didn’t deserve. And looking around, no matter how much it physically hurt to do so, little reminders stayed frozen in time, books on the shelves that were wholly Dabi’s in every way. Dishes in the sink, clothes on the floor, burns and stains marking a life well lived in the confines of his cage.
Maybe it should have stayed a cage.