"Do I scare you?"
Dabi has said the question so casually, as if Hawks were anyone.
As if he didn't just stumble through the door bleeding.
Hawks flapped his hands briefly as he thought, regarding Dabi with this careful seriousness. Despite it all, he was unpredictable, powerful, trained in this weird mix of technicality and rogue. Hawks guessed he was someone to be feared. 'Yes' was definitely the safer option.
"No," Hawks said instead, running his tongue over his teeth.
Dabi was curled up on the end of the bed, where he had told him to sit moments prior while Hawks was tying his hair back by the window. He had his back to Hawks, knees drawn up to his chest and chin resting on them.
The burns on his back were obvious, from this angle. One ran diagonal across his back, from shoulder to mid ribcage on the opposite side, stitched together haphazardly with medical grade staples and left, never fully able to heal with Dabis Quirk. It usually looked aged, yet incredibly painful. Now it was outright bleeding.
Dabi didn't respond to Hawk's answer, just pushed off from his toes and fell into this subtle, rhythmic full body rock. Back and forth.
Ah. A bad mood, then.
Hawks tried to focus on the present, pulling their makeshift medkit from the bed and squeezing hand sanitizer on his wrists and palms.
"I, uh , bought some salve crap from the store. Wanna try it on your back?"
Dabi grunted. That was all Hawks was probably going to get from him in this state.
Pulling the kit from the floor and dumping it on the bed, Hawks pulled out the burn cream along with some tweezers and, disturbingly, the medical grade stapler Dabi had dumped in there sometime between their last injury and now.
There were no gloves, Hawks supposed that made sense. His medical training was the basics for Hero work and Dabi was literally stapled together. They were hardly prepped.
Still, Hawks sat behind Dabi and pressed a swab of alcohol around the wound, wiping away dry blood. Then, he began picking the gravel out of Dabis back with tweezers. A romantic night in.
Never for them.
"Look at us," he said jokingly when the silence became maddening, "we're a mess."
Dabi grunted again. Dropping his forehead against his knees and twitching his shoulders slightly.
Dabi always had this air of sadness or anger about him. Carried it around like a weight chained to his ankle, occasionally letting it out through violent outbursts or sizzling skin. But this was different. Dabis sadness was loud, burning its way through people and objects like a forest fire yet this was quiet. Almost sinister.
They fell into silence again.
Hawks apologized quietly out of habit before applying the salve, spreading it across the burns on Dabis' back. His skin had cooled now, no longer burning in self destruction, leaving a cluster of new blisters about Dabis shoulder blades.
"It's numb." Dabi mumbled, irritated, breaking the silence. Hawks strained his ears but didn't catch it.
"What?"
"Can't feel it. No need to apologise. No fucking point."
So this was finally the moment. Dabi had been wound tight since he got here, waiting to explode. Regarding Hawks like this would be any different, like he'd finally walk away.
But it wasn't the first time Hawks heard something like that.
Hawks just huffed, sitting pretty and, with overly deliberate gentleness, pressing the salve to Dabi's injured shoulder blade. "Don't be silly."
And Dabi's grin grew manic, psychotic, unstable, before breaking into an emotion so lost and heartbreaking.
"I'm all burnt up."
Hawks didn't take the bait. Never would. "And I've got my trusty burn cream so you ain't got nothing to worry about, eh?"
Dabi slumped, staring off for a moment before slowly rocking again.
End