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Hawks is glad to be alone.
Even as he hisses at the pain of unwinding the bandages from around his torso, he’s glad to be alone. No more HPSC to snap a leash around his neck after an injury, just the discharge instructions from the hospital. No fellow heroes to see the shame of his failure, all too busy. No more Todoroki family parade or hospitalized UA just down the hall. No more Twice to ask him questions and call him a friend.
No more Dabi.
Hawks turns his back to the mirror, trying to get a look at the burns. A graft would have meant a quicker and less risky recovery, but at the cost of foreign DNA impeding his heteromorphic quirk. He could never have done that. From his awkward over-the-shoulder angle, he can’t differentiate the red of new wing growth from the leathery brown of his skin, but he knows they’re there. Most of the pain receptors on has back have been burnt away, along with any feeling at all, so the itchy buzz that his new baby wings pick up from the air is pretty distinct.
The burns on his sides hurt much worse when he exposes them to the air. The combination of the pain there and the weird crackly brittleness of his back makes it tricky to apply the ointment himself.
But he’s glad to be alone.
The best he manages is to contort one arm behind him to squeeze some on the top of his shoulders, then use the smooth plastic side of his new back scrubber brush. Each time it bumps one of the wing nubs, it triggers a flinch, which he grits his teeth to fight off. The whole thing is an ordeal; he’s tempted to just cover the wall in the stuff and then rub his back all over that like a bear against a tree. He’s seriously considering it, letting the scrubber brush dangle at his side while he eyes the wall, when he’s put off by the yellowy mineral streaks that show up from the humidity in the bathroom. He’s doing this to avoid infection.
The harsh artificial light of his bathroom and the smell of the ointment combine to make him feel like he’s back in a hospital. But at least here, he has the benefit of privacy to lick his wounds in peace, a kicked alley cat clutching his useless back scrubber.
He remembers doing this for Dabi just a few days ago.
In the next room over, he tugged Dabi in through the window and sat him down on the bed while the sunset washed over them from the open curtains. “Well, if it isn’t the boogeyman himself,” he started, then squinted and switched to, “Haven’t done your diaper cream yet today, have you? Your skin always creaks differently.”
Dabi collapsed backward onto the bed and spread his arms out. The quilt puffed up around him and he settled in contentedly. “Now why would I do that,” he lifted up just his head to look at Hawks, “when I could get you to do it for me?”
Hawks rolled his eyes but crawled up next to Dabi anyway, sending a feather to fetch the ointment from the fridge as Dabi took his shirt off. “You’re lucky I like you.”
“I am,” Dabi said softly, looking up at him through his lashes, and Hawks’s heart stuttered, so he quickly swatted Dabi’s chest and commanded him to sit up against the pillows, then straddled him and settled in. He took Dabi’s jaw in gentle fingers and tilted his head to the side.
“This one looks worse.” Under his left eye, the rough burn texture was starting to creep past the staple barrier and onto the healthy graft.
“Mm.”
“I’m not going to tell you to be careful,” Hawks said, “but maybe you should think about it anyway, I dunno. Cut down on the murder of innocents, just for this week.”
Dabi snorted. “I’ve killed fewer people than you have in the past month.”
Best Jeanist, sent to the nomu facility. Hawks swallowed back the anxiety. He needed to be in the moment here—for his cover, for the mission. And if he liked these soft moments with Dabi and wanted to keep them separate from the feeling of impending doom that came with thinking about Best Jeanist, that was neither here nor there.
He leaned forward and smoothed Dabi’s hair out of the way before using his thumb to apply the cold ointment on his cheekbone, then working his way down to the corner of Dabi’s mouth, then the dip between his collarbones.
Hawks could feel Dabi’s eyes on his face the whole time, so he avoided them focused on the skin. He brushed his fingers reverently over the staples at his waist and was pleased when Dabi sighed. He never complained, never flinched, never let on if this caused him any pain. He was only expressive when it felt nice. Hawks continued tracing the staples one by one, up to where they wound over his arm. And when he finished with the insides Dabi’s wrists, he twined their fingers together and leaned in for an antiseptic-smelling kiss.
In every image of Dabi that Hawks has seen since, the patches of burned skin have grown. They spread like ink staining his face and hands. Hawks knows Dabi’s not applying the ointment—he’s reckless, he doesn’t care, he’s destroying himself and nevermind the work the two of them had put in. Nevermind Hawks, who doesn’t want that, and nevermind Takami Keigo, the one Todoroki Touya tried to drag with him onto the pyre.
Hawks does end up leaning against the wall as he wraps clean bandages around himself. He can’t get them secure enough under his arm against his body, so uses his shoulder to pin one end in place against the wall and painstakingly passes the roll from hand to hand around his ribs, then criss cross over the wing area. He wishes he didn’t have to use the mirror to orient himself, because what he sees is grotesque. The unburned skin looks waxy. Where it meets the burns, it looks like it’s curling up and peeling away to reveal his true self underneath. At least no one else can see it. At least there’s nothing of Dabi’s things left behind in the bathroom, just a pile of clothes next to the laundry basket on the other side of the door.
He’s glad to be alone.