#dabihawks soft kitchen dancing idk
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Hawks doesn't dance. Maybe at one point in time he would have cared to learn. He does remember, once, dancing with his mother when he was a kid. When he was too big to be held on her hip, and when she was sober and mostly in her own head

The memory is like smoke in a bottle that won't dissipate. Like someone's put the lid on a candle and watched the flame snuff out. He remembers her placing his feet on top of her own as she swayed. Maybe it's not exactly dancing, but it's the last time he remembers doing it

He doesn't remember the tune–if there was even a tune at all besides the sound of crunching bottle glass underneath his mother's shoes. He can almost pretend that maybe, for that one moment, she was protecting his bare feet from the shards of their home.

But he doesn't dance. Even at hero gala's and parties, he stays away from the festivities that involve more than just his smile and quick conversation. Maybe he'd have a drink in his head, but he never finishes it. He watched the people dance though––and he would wave at Rumi

from where she'd be dancing with whatever pretty girl took her fancy for the evening.

Dancing though... He never has his music on his apartment. Is almost afraid to try to turn on his stereo, since he hasn't touched it in the five years he's lived in the apartment.

He comes back to his apartment one day–one night really, late in the evening after he'd finished reports–and he hears a tune playing softly from his kitchen. The beat is slow. The closer he gets to his kitchen (after taking off his shoes and leaving his jacket)

he can hear the piano in the song, and what he thinks might be a woman's voice. It's trickling from Dabi's phone sitting on the kitchen counter, where Dabi is standing. He's leaning his weight against the brute of the counter, opposite hip out similar to contrapposto

but he's looking down at the counter where he has a sketchbook open. His right hand pulls a pencil over the white sheet in a careful manner, dragging it along the page. The scratch of the material mingles with the piano keys and their slow touching to Hawks' mind.

Dabi briefly looks up from what he's drawing, spotting Hawks. He looks over Hawks before asking, "Long day?"

Hawks hums. Watching. Dabi is. Well. Just drawing in his kitchen and listening to music with an ease that causes Hawks chest to ache.

Dabi blinks his pretty blue eyes. Wrinkles his cute, sharp nose so the piercings shimmer under the single light that's on over the long kitchen counter. Hawks' realizes that the rest of the apartment is dark.

It's just Dabi, standing and waiting, quiet and at peace in his

apartment. Dabi stretches out his other arm and Hawks goes easily to his side. He breathes him in, the silence beyond the piano, beyond the words being sung and settles.
Dabi holds him against him while still moving his pencil over the page in the other hand. Hawks closes his

eyes and listens as Dabi begins to hum–the rumble vibrating from his chest is a solid comfort Hawks didn't know he needed. Then, for the first time, he listens to the lyrics. They're in English.

/ Close your pretty eyes, my butterfly
Baby, have no fear /

Dabi continues to hum though Hawks hears when he drops the pencil–feels as he Dabi wraps his other arm around Hawks and begins to sway to the growing lyrics.

"I know that you're an angel," Dabi sings against the shell of his ear, the sound is low and maybe a little off key

but Hawks smiles nonetheless from where he presses his lips against the scarring of Dabi's neck. He continues singing, "But it's not your time to fly, now... We need you here on Earth... Stay right here..."

His voice falls and rises and his hands hold Hawks close––and Hawks

clutches the back of Dabi's shirt as they continue to sway.

Hawks doesn't dance. But he's happy with swaying in the whispered hush of the kitchen, listening to Dabi hum and sing. He wishes he could do this every night. Why haven't they been doing this every night? Every day?

He wonders if in ten, fifteen years if he'll remember this. He hopes he does. Hopes he remembers the way Dabi's lips trace the top of his ear and trail up his cheekbone up to his forehead. Hopes he remembers the way he mouths the rest of the words of the song.

Hopes the candle of this memory isn't snuffed and hopes that smoke isn't all that will remain of them.

The song ends. It's silent besides their breathing.

The song repeats––the piano starts again, and the lyrics flutter through the hidden corners of the kitchen. Behind cabinet doors, into their empty corners.

/ You're beautiful, so beautiful
And you belong here on Earth /

// END //

the song they were dancing to is called "Butterfly's Repose" by Zabawa and it is. so beautiful. please listen to it