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"How do you deal with it?"
It was late in the afternoon, the setting sun filtering past the open curtains and casting a golden glow over the sparsely decorated room. The window was open and letting in a cool draft that swirled against his skin, his hair, the wings spread out on the bed behind him.
He didn't need to look over his shoulder to know what was there. Hawks was laying across his mattress, cheek propped on his chin and elbow resting on the pillow. His wings were draped over the rustled sheets with the tips of red feathers brushing against hardwood floors. He was watching him. Golden eyes were lazy, relaxed, calm and leisurely in the way he always was. But his pupils were pinpricks, small slits of a predator analyzing prey. He always looked at him like that. Analyzing. Taking it all in. Looking for something. Scanning for things he didn't deserve to find.
Dabi had been standing for a moment now, arms stretched over his head in a way that tugged on the staples and seams in his back, a pain that he secretly relished; it was a dull pain, but a pain nonetheless, and with his numb body, he'd take any pain he could get. A cigarette that was held between his lips puffed out smoke lazily, which was pushed and spread throughout the room by the whistling breeze. He didn't have his jacket or shirt on, though he couldn't feel the wind so much as tickle his skin anymore. Each and every time, he silently hoped that the cool breeze would draw a shiver from him like it did everyone else, only for it to never do so. He stopped being disappointed by it a long time ago.
"Deal with what?" He asked around the cigarette, dropping his arms back to his sides and rolling his shoulders back to try and make his creaking and stiff joints work how they were meant to.
"The pain," the voice behind him said. "The staples and all that. It doesn't hurt?"
"I don't feel it," he said and plucked the cigarette from his lips after taking a deep drag. The smoke warmed his lungs in a way that made him feel sick. He turned to face the bird in his bed, smoke spilling past his lips. "It's all numb."
Hawks cocked his head, golden eyes drifting over every seam and staple in his body. Analyzing. Studying. Then—"how?"
Dabi shrugged. The cigarette found its place on the bedside table, snuffed out and leaving a small singe behind to join the countless other circular burn marks in the wood. "It just is," he said. "Can't feel it at all."
Hawks hummed at that. It was low, questioning but understanding and curious and a surrender all in itself. He sat up with a sigh and stretched his own arms over his head, his wings going with. They were admittedly beautiful as the light caught on the red sheen that filled the room behind him, gorgeous and crimson like splatters of blood against the wall or rose petals blooming or anything else that's sappy and red and beautiful. Then they folded and the blood was cleaned and the roses were wilted and the hawk was perched there again, head tilted and eyes analyzing.
"You don't feel pain, then?" He questioned. Curious. Prodding. Trying to get something, information to feed back to the people constantly tightening the leash and collar on him. Constantly shrinking the cage.
"I feel plenty of pain," Dabi said with a small laugh. Nothing was funny and it hurt his smoke-filled and addled throat and chest and it tugged on the metal holding his cheeks together, but it made the bird's eyes glint with a grimace and a twitch of a frown grace his lips, so he'd laugh a thousand times more. "It's just that if you spend all day every day with them, you'll learn to tune it out." And I barely hurt anymore, stayed locked behind his lips. And the fire hurts more than the staples, and it hurts plenty on the inside, and tuning it out does nothing when sometimes they pull at the seams of your unraveling body and ache and ache and ache.
Hawks hummed again. He didn't say anything about the other countless signs of hurt on Dabi's body, even as his eyes traced the healthy skin that was still marred by scars and marks. It was obvious he felt pain if he kept crawling back to him with more and more blood on his palms and burns on his skin. He didn't say anything.
"Why do you care, anyway?" Dabi asked with a rasp in his voice. Prodding the bear. Rustling the feathers. Leaving himself out on a plate for the hawk to maul. "You worried about me?"
"Just curious," Hawks said with a grin. It was easy, teasing, flirtatious in a way, with a small fang—and there were fangs, Dabi had found them himself. Fangs that he wasn't supposed to know about. Fangs that weren't meant to sit in a predator's jaws—poking over his bottom lip. It didn't reach his eyes. Dabi hated it. He wanted to see that look on his bird's face forever. "Seemed pretty difficult to live with, is all."
"Yeah, well," a shrug. A hand in his pocket pulling out another cigarette, lifting it to his lips and lighting it. His lungs didn't feel warm or hot or disgusting enough. He needed something to do with his hands. He hated himself. He felt sick. He watched how Hawks' eyes watched the way it sat between his lips and how effortlessly he lit it and wanted to smoke a million more. "Like I said. Tune it out."
"I can't imagine I'd be able to tune something like that out," Hawks said with an exaggerated sigh, his shoulders and wings sagging as he let his head roll to the side. He played his actions up too much, Dabi had noticed early on, because he did it with his fans so he did it in private too. Constantly putting on a show. "Just looks too annoyingly painful to me."
Dabi breathed in the smoke and didn't breathe it out until he felt like he was suffocating. "It never really was," he took the cigarette from between his lips and wanted to put it out on the table or his arm. He held it between two fingers instead. "Could never feel it in the first place. It's all pretty numb."
Hawks perked up at that, lifting his head and catching Dabi's eyes. "Numb?" He asked with too much interest in his voice. Playing it up, thinking Dabi was dumb, trying to get on his good side—it all made him feel sick.
"Yeah," he said lazily. He can play it up too. Where Hawks is an airheaded playboy, Dabi can be an apathetic asshole. It's easy. Play a role. Never be real with him. They can both wear masks and have them clink against each other when they get too close. "Nerves are fucked to all hell. Can't feel much most of the time. It takes a lot to make it through."
Hawks tilted his head, the movement painfully birdlike. "Damn, really? What, so, you're numb, but it still hurt enough for you to have to eventually tune it out?"
Dabi shrugged at that. "It's like you said. Too annoyingly painful at first."
Hawks was quiet at that. He was watching Dabi, his gaze almost unsettling, as he seemed to take in the new information or maybe just look at him in search for something more. He felt like he was being dissected. He felt like prey. He felt wanted. He felt sick.
After Hawks proved he had apparently no intention to continue the conversation, Dabi heaved his own exaggerated sigh and dropped onto the mattress beside the bird. He sat between him and the headboard, taking the bird's right and forcing him to scoot over and make room for him. Hawks was still intently watching him, so Dabi held up his cigarette as an offering. Hawks' eyes slid from his face to his hand and he took it, setting it between his own lips.
Dabi always enjoyed watching the hero smoke. It felt especially good when it was with his cigarettes, ones that his disgusting lips had just been on. It felt like he was dirtying him. He had no idea if Hawks had ever smoked before meeting him, but he liked to imagine that he hadn't and that his first cigarette had come from Dabi's pocket.
The cigarette made him seem more relaxed, more real. His shoulders sagged as he took a drag of it, but in a way that seemed tired rather than exaggerated. He removed the cigarette and smoke spilled past his lips and Dabi liked to imagine the smoke coming from embers on his pretty red wings instead of the cigarette burning between his fingers.
He imagined it sometimes, burning him. Whether it be beyond recognition or just a shiny red mark on untouched skin didn't matter to him. He could light his hand ablaze and press it to a wing, let the keratin melt and smolder, or he could let Hawks disconnect and hand him feather after feather so he could burn them meticulously. He pictured that one a lot—from shortest to longest was one that particularly appealed to him. Let the small ones burn to ash first, then as he got to the primaries he would light one end and watch the red blacken and spread and swallow the entire feather whole until nothing remained. In order of necessity was a nice one, too; burn up the ones he didn't need to fly first so he could still maybe get away, and then reach the ones that he really needed and light them up too. Getting rid of one wing at a time in one fell swoop was also an option, but the lack of order in the destruction of the feathers made him upset, so he'd rather it never came to that. And once the feathers were all gone, whichever way he'd settle on burning them, he could place his hands on Hawks' back and press a kiss to his cheek or neck and light where they reach his spine on fire as well. Of course, that would mean that there would be no chance for the feathers to regrow, which means that he would really have to make the most of them while he had them and choose a truly good method of destroying them.
"You're staring," Hawks said, and Hawks was staring too. He had another smile on his face, but this one was soft, gentle, easy, and tired. He was holding the cigarette between his fingers, close to Dabi so he could take it if he wanted. "What's got you so focused, huh?"
"You," Dabi said and took the cigarette. He put it up to his lips and inhaled more poison and imagined it was coming from the red in front of him.
Hawks's smile turned warm as he tilted his head, his eyes wrinkling in the corners. "Am I really enough to catch your attention like that?"
"Yes," he breathed smoke right into Hawks' face and Hawks didn't blink. He wouldn't blink at the smoke from his feathers. He'd smile like he is now and hand another to Dabi. Ideally, they'd already be laid out on the floor in the correct order and he'd hand the perfect one to Dabi because he already knows which one is next because they're already in order, as Dabi had meticulously organized them prior, and he'd smile like he is now.
Hawks hummed quietly at that and turned toward the open window, closing his eyes against the warmth of the sun. He glowed like this, windswept hair matching the color of the light and slightly tanned skin belonging exactly where it was now. Dabi wanted to see it covered in burns and he wanted to see it unmarred forever. He wanted Hawks to be how he is forever and he wanted him gone, out of his room, out of his life. He took another drag of his cigarette.
"Don't you have to go back eventually?" He asked after he exhaled the smoke. "You already said the Commission would get suspicious if you spent too long here."
Hawks hummed again. He did that often, Dabi knew, because it meant he didn't have to formulate a response to something he doesn't have an answer to.
"They can wait," he said eventually and opened his eyes to look at Dabi. "I'm enjoying spending time with you."
Dabi met his golden eyes easily. Vertical pupils softened as they looked at each other, bright blue against warm yellow, exhaustion meeting exhaustion. Dabi reached out and put the cigarette out on the bedside table.
"You're crazy," he said, and Hawks laughed. He turned back to the window, and Dabi looked at it too. The sun was properly setting now, dipping behind the mountains surrounding Gunga Villa. The warm light was turning cool as day turned to night, slowly but surely setting the world into darkness. Hawks usually flew home when the sun began to properly set. He stayed sitting beside him.
"No crazier than you," Hawks said back. "You psycho."
Dabi thought of burning feathers and scorched, singed skin. He thought of the staples and stitches holding his failing body together, and he thought of the pure reverence with which Hawks looked at each seam. He was hideous, he knew that, but he still let Hawks fool him into thinking that he was worth loving. Worth looking at. It made his heart ache and pulse and filled his body with a warmth besides the raging inferno licking at every part of his aching form, a warmth that actually felt welcome. It felt like a cool breeze coming from an open window that actually draws goosebumps across his skin, and it feels like smoke in his lungs and discarded feathers found in his sheets. Feathers that he doesn't burn yet, even if he wants nothing more. He wants them to burn, and he wants himself to burn, and they both will. Him and Hawks will burn together, side by side, hand in hand, and he'll love every second of it and he'll want nothing more to escape. He'll want it like he wants oxygen. He'll want if like he wants death. He'll get it like he gets everything coming to him.
"You have no idea," he laughed.