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“WILL YOU FUCKING QUIT IT?”
The words slip out before Hawks can stop himself. He’s exhausted. Exhausted and so fucking cold and sure - more than a little frustrated.
Leaf doesn’t quit anything. She screams as she throws herself forward - and in the process reminds the other three idiots that they are, in fact, out on a run. This, in turn, means that now there are four dogs doing their very best to battle their way forward.
This really would be less of a problem if Hawks wasn’t currently standing in freezing river water up to his waist. He’s trying desperately to lift the sled out of the water and back onto ice without his idiot dogs then running off with it, and it’s a lot easier in theory than in practice.
The ice breaking under him had not been a pleasant surprise. Thankfully, they’re so close to land that there’s no real danger in going through the ice - other than him being outside in the cold, soaked to the bone and at least 27 kilometers from his house, of course.
Well. That, and the dogs running off with the sled, without him.
Honestly, right now, he mostly just wants to lie down to die instead of dealing with this mess, because oh god.
Why the fuck did he do this?!
The first time he meets sled dogs, Hawks is on the other side of the world.
It’s in the middle of nowhere - just pine forests and mountains and a sky that never seems to end, glittering with countless stars. This far from any sort of city, there’s no light pollution. When he steps off the bus, he thinks that he has never seen a sight quite like this.
Coming here was worth it for this alone.
The green and yellow and pink colours weaving across the sky seem to wave at him, almost. There’s a split second just as the lights are right above him, where it looks like they’re streaking down towards earth on every side of him. It’s like standing in a cathedral. It’s a moment of divinity, in a church that has nothing to do with humanity.
It’s like nothing he’s ever seen before, and for a moment he forgets everything else. It’s just him and the darkness. The darkness and the lights and the cold.
He stands there until the guide gently nudges him. Even as he’s led away, he sneaks glances back up at the sky.
He wonders what it would be like to fly there, between the earth and the playful lights above.
Once they’re almost ready, the guide settles him in the sled. Hawks sits there, snug in his borrowed winter gear as the guide finishes the work of harnessing and putting the dogs into the team.
It was an impulse decision, really. He’d been having lunch at a small cafe, browsing potential activities on his phone when he saw the ad.
“Husky tours.”
Pictures of big, happy dogs running through the snow. Happy tourists waving at the camera, often two or three on a sled.
Going with a group really didn’t appeal much - Hawks has found he prefers to try out things on his own, most of the time. Less danger of being dragged into conversations that distract him from whatever they’re doing. Less danger of being recognized.
It took some time, but he found a man offering tours for smaller groups - or single individuals. One phone call later, an abrupt change to his plane ticket and a purchased bus ticket instead, and here he is.
The sled jerks as the dogs jump and jump and jump, straining against their harnesses. The noise is deafening now. The guide laughs as he yells an explanation to Hawks, about how they’re just excited. That it’s not dangerous or something to worry about.
They’re screaming and barking and singing, lets go lets go lets go lets go.
Like Hawks would ever need a translation for this. He recognizes this kind of joy. The rising adrenaline. The excitement, knowing that it’s about to start.
The utter delight of getting to do what you’re made for.
Hawks knows that feeling to his bones.
The more dogs are put in front of the sled, the harder it’s jerked this way and that. He glances nervously after the guide, still working on harnessing the last of the dogs. As happy and sweet as the huskies had seemed when he met them earlier, they feel a lot stronger, now. They look a lot more intimidating, showing off their white teeth with every bark.
He can see muscles rippling under all that fur. These are athletes, born and bred for this, athletes who have grown up doing what they love the most.
He knows that feeling, too.
The guide fastens the last dog to the complicated system of lines connecting the dogs to the sled, and starts walking back to the sled. He pauses to untangle a line here, and move a leg over a rope there. A part of Hawks is amazed at the man’s calm in the middle of this screaming pandemonium.
The guide pauses beside Hawks, and grins. White teeth glint. The man really looks like he’s one of them, this pack of dogs that live in this wilderness. He looks amused as he studies Hawks.
“Everything alright?” the man yells, barely audible over the din of the dogs.
Their screaming has reached a crescendo. They know the ritual of this, it seems. They know it’s almost time.
Hawks nods, pretending he’s not feeling slightly apprehensive.
Being pulled in a wooden sled by twelve dogs through this northern winter wonderland seemed like a curious thing - something exotic to tell people about once he got back to Japan. Something new - a memory to hold onto, once he got back to a country where everyone knows him.
It seems a lot less safe now, as the guide gets behind the sled. It’s really only a thing made of rope and wood, and it’s hard to think it’s made to withstand the force currently trying to yank it loose. Hawks twists around to watch him as the man grabs the handlebar with one hand, and the rope with the other.
“You’ll want to watch the dogs!” he yells, and waits until Hawks sits back down.
Dogs scream and lunge and jump. There’s a small jolt behind him, and then he understands why the guide had told him to watch. This is something he is glad not to have missed.
It feels like they’re suspended, just for a moment. Like they’re weightless - the jumping dogs, the sled, him and the guide. It’s a moment in limbo, and then, as one, they run.
The noise cuts off immediately.
The sled is catapulted into movement - one second they’re in the well-lit dogyard, surrounded by noise and thick, warm dog-houses, and the next, they’re through the gate and flowing down the trail. Trees whip past them. The light of the dog yard is but a memory, and the only lightsource now is the headlamp of the guide - and the flickering northern lights and the moon, bright and full above them.
The guide laughs, as bright and full of joy as his dogs. It’s a sound of pure happiness. Hawks glances back and sees snow spraying from where the man stands with both feet on the brake.
It doesn’t seem to make a difference to the dogs, who are running at a full gallop. It’s smooth. It’s fast. Their joy is contagious: both the dogs’ and the guide’s.
That first, initial speed lasts for a while, but eventually the dogs start to settle down. It’s like they had to let out that first, big burst of excitement and glee before they could calm down. One by one, they switch to what looks like a fast trot - backs straight, feet moving fast.
Not one of them glances back. All of their attention is on the trail and on running. It’s a single-minded focus Hawks can recognize. They look like they could keep running like this, at this speed, forever. They’re like a train, stopping for nothing.
They’re like the wind, sweeping over the taiga, untouchable and free.
There’s a dip in the trail - a sharp drop, before a hard turn to the left, and then they’re on the river ice. It’s covered in snow, shining in the bright moonlight.
The guide turns off his lamp.
With only the aurora and the moon to show their way, the dogs run.
The only sound Hawks can hear is paws hitting snow and the runners gliding over the trail.
It feels like flying.
Hawks has been back in Japan for nine and a half months.
He’s mostly healed up now - at least, as much as he’s going to get. There’s not much anyone can do for his missing Quirk. He had realized quickly that, despite the lip service everyone gave about making changes to stop the rise of the sort of villains they had just defeated, there was little follow-through to be seen.
From politicians to Pro Heroes - most people seem to fall back into old habits fast.
He’s an agent, now, sort of. A consultant, maybe. He knows what they’re grooming him for - it’s obvious, from the meetings Mera insists he attend to the networking they do on his behalf.
The ex-hero turned high-ranking public servant. A perfect story for the public that is still reeling from the devastations of war.
It’s not that he disagrees.
Hawks knows he could do a lot of good, given time, in that position. He knows that it will be a long game - chess, not checkers, probably played in four dimensions. It’s an intellectual challenge, and one he knows he could excel at if he wants.
If he wants.
He took half a year off, after. After the war. After he healed. After things started settling - enough so he could finally let himself feel his own loss.
After he knew Dabi would survive. After he knew there wasn’t a deadline on seeing the man again.
If he wants.
So. Half a year. To travel. To see how other people lived. To taste new things, to see new sights.
To see new skies.
To search, maybe, for something like the wings he no longer has.
To search, maybe, for the emotional equilibrium that might let him visit the facility where Dabi is being kept.
He has jumped from planes. He has climbed mountains. He has tried skis and snowboards and sailboats, looking for something to give him that feeling back.
Something like the freedom he once had.
Half a year to see that nothing could ever replace his wings.
Still, it was a good experience. It has given him things to talk about - a semblance of a civilian life. His apartment has pictures now, pictures he’s taken himself. Souvenirs he bought because he liked them. It makes it easier to acknowledge the pain and let it pass over him whenever someone looks just a little bit too long at his back.
Hawks is young, still. Twenty-five years old, which is not a bad age to reinvent yourself, really. Young, with a job, being quietly groomed for a position where he can truly help people on a systemic level.
He packs away his uniform. He donates the hoodies and shirts with holes for his wings, and he buys clothes without them needing to be altered.
He travels Japan to meet with heroes, politicians, and government employees, because a young agent of the HPSC being groomed for leadership needs to know the country and its people.
It is not a bad life, really.
He misses flying.
Hawks is in Hokkaido for a meeting.
He watches the snowy countryside as they drive towards the meeting place - a small conference center known for its privacy. It’s another trip doubtlessly full of long meetings filled with longer drinking sessions, all mandatory for a young, up-and-coming employee.
It grates, this wasting of time on social niceties. The President of the HPSC does not need to attend drinking parties - but he is not that, not yet. For now, it’s a temporary evil. Another step on the ladder.
As it turns out, he was right. With every participant staying at the center, there are few ways to escape the other attendees. Everyone there is very excited to see him, the former number two Pro Hero. Former Wing Hero: Hawks.
Everyone makes sure to tell him how sorry they are for his loss, and how much they appreciate his sacrifice.
Everyone is slick and smooth and always smiling.
It is exhausting.
He once would have been able to fake an emergency, and with one strong beat of his great wings, he’d be off. Now, he needs a car to leave - unless he fancies trudging through the darkness of the Hokkaido winter in his oxfords and his expensive suit.
When it becomes too much, he pretends he needs the bathroom, only to slip outside. He stands there, in the cold, watching the night sky - and then he hears it.
He hears them.
It’s faint - far away, somewhere in the evening darkness, but it’s there. A familiar chorus - a pandemonium of sound.
Lets go lets go lets go lets go
Somewhere in the Hokkaido wilderness, someone has dogs. Dogs, celebrating. Loud and carefree and wild, because they’re going to run.
He tastes that feeling again, that moment of weightlessness before they shoot off into the darkness, a uniform team working together to flow through the night. Man and sled and dogs, coming together to form a whole.
Freedom, of a sort.
Far away, dogs sing in joy.
Hawks listens, and thinks of flying.
Hawks sits at his desk, back at the HPSC headquarters.
He’s trying to read a memo Mera says is important, but he’s having a hard time focusing.
It’s another counter proposal from some politician who wants support for their own cause in return for their vote on a bill for increased funds for research on Quirk Dysfunction. Easier access to support gear for civilians, less restrictions for Quirk use, better resources available for children with Quirk Dysfunctions - it’s all just a political game for those higher up in the machine that is Japan’s government.
It’s all just another way to keep the status quo where it is, so those with power don't lose any of it to those without.
It is maddening.
Hawks scrubs a hand over his eyes, before turning towards the window.
He watches the streets below - filled with regular people, who are at the mercy of the decisions made here. Whatever happens in the countless meetings and memos and emails and phone calls happening behind the scenes impacts them more than any of these politicians.
He had seen more of these people when he was still a Pro Hero.
He had been more connected to the streets.
These days, he mostly sees the people who will never be impacted by the bills they argue over. People with enough money and resources to buy their way out of whatever trouble they encounter. People who have never gone hungry, or lived in such desperate loneliness that any company was better than none. People who have never needed saving, only to be left behind.
People who have never been abandoned because of their disability.
People who have never been failed by their own Pro Hero father.
A woman walks by on the street below, accompanied by a dog. It’s not like the sleek athletes he met on the other side of the world, not really - but something about those small, perky ears and the furry tail reminds him a little of them.
Those big dogs, all heart and fur and big, goofy grins. Strong, broad paws that hit him square in the chest if he stopped petting them. Strong, broad paws that ran mile after mile after mile, because they knew the secret of it all.
They knew the joy.
Joy of movement. Joy of freedom.
He watches as the woman and her dog disappear around the corner. A small beep alerts him that there’s a new email waiting for him. It’s the third one since he got up from his chair.
Work, it seems, never ends for government employees either.
Hawks sits down at his desk, and returns to the memo. Mera will have his head if he hasn’t read it by the end of the day.
He’s back at the conference center in Hokkaido.
It’s been four months since his last trip here, when he stood in the darkness and listened to dogs sing. There’s a follow-up meeting - because of course there is. Why do something online when you could have a meeting about it, filled with endless coffee-breaks and a thousand empty phrases that say nothing except how educated and privileged you are?
Hawks takes a certain amount of delight in leaning into his childhood accent when he’s at meetings like this, now.
He exaggerates his pronunciations and intonation, leaning into a dialect his old handlers would have been horrified to hear from him. It makes him want to laugh, watching all of these important people blink in confusion when he opens his mouth and his past tumbles out, rough and scrappy and bruised.
It’s lush and rich and his, and for just a second, he’s hit with the knowledge that this - this would make Dabi laugh, too.
The amusement keeps him going through the meetings and the dinner and the drinking. He still steals several breaks outside the building, hoping just a little to hear the dogs sing again.
It’s silent, nothing but birds and insects and the faint noises of laughter from inside.
Just another warm night in June.
Hawks wonders what it’s like, spending your life listening to the happiness of dogs instead of the hubris of humans.
It comes to a head - because of course it does.
It’s January, and Hawks has spent so much time burying himself in work that he has barely noticed the seasons change. He’s tired and cranky. What sends him over the edge is such a small thing, really.
A small thing, but the implications are too big for him to accept.
It’s one administrative assistant making an off-handed comment about the rumours that “that lizard” is writing a book about the League.
Hawks is twenty-six years old, and has devoted his entire adult life to the service of Japan. He has spent almost twenty years being the loyal dog of the HPSC. They bought him and trained him and let him fight until he couldn’t, and then they found him a new purpose.
He is grateful for that.
He is grateful for the people he’s helped and the lives he’s saved, and he sleeps through the night more often than not. Really.
Spinner has served his sentence without issues since his arrest, so far. A model prisoner, who reads and writes and takes whatever classes they allow. A model prisoner, who is paying for his crimes while doing his best to better himself.
A failed revolutionary, who lost most of his comrades - and still, outside of that one, big incident the first time Deku visited him, has not lost control of the extra Quirk he was given by All for One.
Spinner, who was driven to villainy for many reasons, sure, but the discrimination he suffered for being a heteromorph was definitely one of them - and here is some government employee, using a slur in the hallways where they make decisions to protect and help all of Japan’s citizens.
Hawks stares at her. His eyes are still golden, still with the black markings so many people believe are painted on, but without the raptor pupils.
The experts say they don’t know why he’s kept some of the heteromorphic traits, and not others. He doesn’t care enough to spend time on it, but today, here and now, he misses his old gaze that could pin people in place when he wanted it to.
He misses the inhumanity of it, the otherness. The part that would proclaim him kin to “the lizard”.
Hawks stares at her, and lets his disgust show clearly on his face.
It stops her in her tracks.
His is still a famous face. He is still considered handsome, and the scars only lend him more respect these days. Instead of people judging his age because of his young features, they see the marks of a war fought on the frontlines. He is Hawks, a rapidly rising star in the halls of the HPSC, and that is not nothing.
The woman falters, growing unsure. He keeps staring at her.
He is the rising star of the HPSC, sure - but once, he was Wing Hero: Hawks, the second ranked Pro Hero of Japan, and his blades were sharp and his grin was fierce. He was Hawks, when that name meant more than just politics.
He was Hawks, a bird of prey.
A pretty little bird who lost his wings and voluntarily crawled into a pretty little cage, forgetting that he was meant to fly free. Forgetting that he had talons, once, and a beak sharp enough to rend and tear.
He doesn’t have wings anymore.
He’s just human, now, maybe.
He has been a loyal dog to the HPSC most of his life. He has trained, and fought, and fetched, and whatever else they’ve asked of him. All he has to do is keep listening, and they’ll plan his life for him, making him rich and comfortable and powerful.
A fat dog, thoroughly tamed, tail thumping against the plush cage because he knows his owners expect him to be grateful.
Like all the other rich and powerful people populating these halls.
Hawks stares at this woman, who did not think twice about using a slur in a hallway where that really should be anathema.
Once, he was a bird of prey and he would soar through the skies as easily as he would walk the streets.
He wants to fly again, to leave behind these people blind to their privilege and power.
He wants white fangs, glistening with spittle. He wants to sing with joy, to celebrate being alive and strong and here.
Hawks wants to run, to move his body with purpose and determination. He wants to move for movement’s sake, honesty in every stride. He wants to feel the wind in his face and the miles pass under him.
He turns in his resignation twenty minutes later.
Sixteen days after his resignation from the HPSC, Hawks drives north.
He has a new truck, filled with the few things he has decided to keep. Photographs. Some books. A few mementos. Clothes, of course - which includes a selection of winter gear recommended by people who spend their days working and playing and living outside.
There’s an address on the GPS of his car. There’s a house there, waiting for him. A house with some land, in a place where there’s more distance between neighbours. A house where he can open the door and listen to the night instead of drunk politicians laughing at another bad joke.
He picks up his first dog from a man he meets at a gas station on the way, two hours before he reaches his new home.
It’s an impulse thing, really. The dog is eight years old, with one brown and one blue eye and black fur. He has pretty tan markings on his face - on his jaw and chin, and under his eyes. He sits on the passenger seat, canine grin wide as they continue their way north.
Hawks decides to name the dog Karaage.
He tries not to second-guess his decision to not stop by the medical facility Dabi lives at.
The war is still too close.
It takes Hawks a month to figure out that there’s a difference, really, between being a passenger on a sled pulled by a well-trained team, born and bred by the man who stands on the runners and…whatever it is he’s trying to do now.
The thought comes as he’s hanging on for dear life, clinging to the handlebars of the sled and praying to every deity out there for help.
The sled has, very unhelpfully, tipped over on its side. The snow hook used to anchor the team during stops has come loose from its place, and disappeared somewhere behind him. He can see the rope it’s attached to, but he doesn’t dare loosen his deathgrip on the sled to reach for it.
“Mochi! Whoaa! Easy!”
Mochi doesn’t listen. Neither do the others.
The dogs are galloping like they’re being chased by a hellhound - or like they’ve realised that the human has no control, and they can do whatever they please. The sled - and Hawks - is being dragged through the snow, which keeps accumulating between his arms, making it harder and harder to hold on.
He’s picked up three more dogs, now, in addition to Karaage.
It didn’t take him long to track down other people who enjoy the freedom and solitude and adventure that exploring the wilderness with dogs can give you. They’ve greeted him with various levels of scepticism. It’s clear they know who he is, and none of them seem to think his interest is particularly genuine.
Still, they answer his questions readily enough.
He wasn’t actually looking for more dogs. He only wanted tips on how to best keep a dog of Karaage’s calibre - who is clearly incredibly intelligent, handsome, strong and fast - and deserving of the world.
One of the people he had spoken with mentioned the possibility of maybe having another dog, which would let them pull him around on skis or a bike. It had sounded fun enough, and when the man mentioned a young dog he thought would fit in with Hawks and Karaage, that seemed like a no-brainer.
Karaage got along well enough with the young male dog, who was, funnily enough, named Takoyaki. The name is what truly made the decision for him, because really - how could that be a coincidence?
The next person he met - a tired-looking woman who kept a small team of dogs on the north-eastern side of Hokkaido - looked him up and down before sighing.
“Two is fine,” she said. “But unless your older dog is trained to run in the lead, you’re going to end up with more trouble than it is worth. Is he?”
Hawks blinked at her, unfamiliar with the term.
The woman sighed again, clearly realizing just how out of his depth Hawks was. “Listen, kid. I got a lead dog - Mochi. She’s a bitch, for sure, but I’m looking to rehome a few of mine, so why don’t you take her? I’m getting too old to keep ten dogs alone, anyway.”
Hawks took the name as a sign - another food-based name, what were the odds? - and said yes. Clearly the universe had intended this. It helps that Mochi is a sweet dog. Her caramel brown face is adorable, and she eagerly attempts to crawl into his lap whenever he greets her.
He can’t say no to that.
Turns out, though…skiing with three dogs?
A very fast way to injure yourself when you’re not terribly used to skiing in the first place.
On his third trip to the emergency room, one of the nurses gave him a flat look - and a phone number.
The phone number turned out to belong to a couple, the Oginos, living a few hours from him. They had a sizable kennel of dogs, a horde of children, and no hesitation when it came to inviting a former Pro Hero to dinner - and a “good conversation about dogs”.
He left their home with a book of instructions, a head swimming with new terms, a bag of unfamiliar gear, and a young, female dog who had been called - disappointingly, really - Leaf. He also had, at their suggestion, ordered himself a sled.
“Best to put those skis aside for now,” the husband had laughed, “unless there’s a nurse at that hospital you have your eye on, that is.”
Thinly veiled inquiries about his relationship status aside, Hawks felt more confident after that.
He had successfully infiltrated the most dangerous villain organization in history and helped defeat All for One. Surely, with the proper gear, this would be easy.
“Mochi! Please!!” Hawks yells. “STOP!”
Mochi does not stop.
He swears he sees her throw a glance back, eyes laughing and tongue lolling, before the entire team speeds up. Lead dog that she is, she seems to know when a human is in control - and that Hawks is greener than a puppy.
If only he had his feathers, he could anchor them to a tree. He could stop the dogs in their tracks, if he wanted to.
As it is, all he can do is cling to the sled as best as he can, trying not to get dragged away by all the snow his clearly defective and possibly evil dogs are taking them through.
“The first rule,” Ogino had said, “is that you never, ever let go. If you let go of the sled, your dogs will more often than not get hurt. Sometimes they die. You need to hang on, until you regain control. Never, ever, let go.”
Hawks doesn’t let go.
He was a top-trained Pro Hero, and it’s not like he ever skimped on his work-outs after he retired from being a hero. He’s strong. He can do this, surely?
“GODDAMNIT, MOCHI! STOP!”
Mochi does not stop.
The sled hits a rock, which slows them down just enough for Hawks to drag himself on top of the sled. The relief is palpable. His arms ache. His heart is galloping from the fear of losing the sled and exertion from holding on. The weight of him on top of the tipped sled is, finally, enough to stop the dogs.
He lies there for a moment as the demon animals he’s been tricked into adopting howl in protest at stopping. The sled jerks as they slam themselves against their harnesses, again and again. Mochi turns her head and gives him a look that clearly says she is unimpressed with his efforts, so far.
It takes him a bit to work out a solution. He finds the rope for the snow hook, still dangling uselessly behind them, and hauls it in. Keeping most of his weight on the sled, he leans over the side and jams the snow hook down into the ground while the sled jerks with every jump and lunge from the hellions disguised as dogs.
Standing on the snowhook lets him right the sled again, and then, finally, finally he’s standing on the runners the way he’s supposed to. Both feet on the brake, one hand on the handlebar, and one down to grab the snowhook - this is where he lost his balance, earlier, and tipped the sled - but he’s prepared for it, now.
A moment of weightlessness.
The dogs throw themselves forward.
The sled follows, a shooting star in the darkness of Hokkaido’s wilderness.
Hawks stands with his feet firmly placed on the runners, hands on the handlebars.
Through snow-covered trees and over frozen streams, his dogs dance their way up the trail.
It feels like flying.
It is a humbling experience, this life, but Hawks finds it suits him
The mixture between utter calm and having to solve problems fast is appealing. The companionship of the dogs is a balm. The daily repetitions from the lifestyle sink into his bones as winter becomes summer becomes winter again.
It’s him and four dogs - then five - then eight - then seven again.
The grief he feels when Karaage leaves him at twelve and a half years old, in the early spring, takes him by surprise.
It’s been a little over four years of relative peace in the forests of Hokkaido. He forgot, a little, what loss feels like. He forgot, a little, what it feels like when something is torn from you - when you feel your world tilt on its axis and things stop making sense.
He’s Hawks, and he’s been trained to adapt. To assess the problem, and move forward. It’s just a dog. He can get another. It’s no big deal.
His training would have him dispose of his sweet, old dog’s body by leaving it to the veterinarian, and move on with his day.
Instead, he drives the long way home alone with Karaage’s body in the back of his car. He spends his day digging a grave at the clearing overlooking the small stream behind his house. He places his very first dog into it, carefully wrapped in Karaage’s favorite blanket.
For a moment, he doesn’t know what to do. It feels wrong to leave Karaage like that, all alone in the deep, dark earth.
He fills the grave, slowly, and with each shovelful of earth it’s harder and harder to keep the grief at bay.
He’s Hawks, and he lost his Quirk and his wings and the job he loved. He lost his belief in the system, and the life he thought he’d lead.
He lost Dabi.
He lost Karaage, with his big, goofy grin and happy voice. Karaage, with his tail always wagging, who liked to sleep curled up against Hawks’ legs at night.
Karaage, who was the first living being Hawks himself chose to share his life with. Not because of work. Not because of the HPSC. Not because of guilt or duty.
Just because of a hope of finding peace and joy together.
Because of love.
It takes a long time to bury his dog.
Hawks goes to bed, heart aching.
Hawks stands outside the wooden door of the old, traditional house, waiting.
He’s nauseous with nerves, and the temptation to turn on his heel and walk back to his truck is almost irresistible. It would be rude, of course. He told them he was coming. He already knocked, and he can hear someone inside.
It’s been years since he was here. Years since he was anywhere outside of Hokkaido, really - but it’s almost fall. He has to do this now, or wait until spring - unless he’s willing to leave his dogs during winter.
Which he isn’t.
Ogino’s eldest daughter is looking after his dogs, and only has another week before she’s going back to her life of school and work and whatever else teenagers do.
He has to do it now.
He knew it was time, really, when he woke up to find that blue flowers had started to bloom on Karaage’s grave.
Monkshood.
Hawks has never truly believed that the universe sends people messages. Not really. He doesn’t believe it now, either. It’s his own reaction that tells him it’s time.
He’s ready - finally.
The door opens.
Hawks looks up into familiar, striking blue eyes. His mouth goes dry.
It’s been years - and they hardly parted on good terms in the first place.
Still: no matter how much you dread it, waiting only makes the dogs more intense. Might as well lift the snow hook as soon as everything is in place.
“Hi,” he says and holds out his present.
Peace offering. Bribe.
Whatever.
“What do you think about dogs?”
A moment of weightlessness.
Dabi blinks at him, and barely grabs the heavy parka Hawks shoves at him before it drops to the ground. His hair is white. The scars are a faded purple, and while the surgical staples are gone, he has even more piercings now.
He looks down at the parka in his hands, then back up again.
“Heh. They’re better than birds.”
There’s a smile growing on his face.
Relief blooms in Hawks’ chest. He grins, bright and full of joy. “Great. Wanna come meet mine?”
Dabi holds up the parka, studying it for a moment, before glancing back at Hawks.
“Sure,” he shrugs, but there’s still a smile there. “I’m not paying for gas though.”
Hawks laughs.
It feels like flying.