Something cool and wet caressed Kavo’s face. The cloth was rough but the hand behind it was gentle. Hadn’t they been in this position before?
“Hawk,” Kavo croaked, “What happened?”
“I think you had a mental breakdown. You have hardly woken for a week.”
“Really?” Kavo asked, hesitant. “I don’t understand…”
“It is fine. Do not worry. Are you feeling better now?”
“I… I don’t know. I think so. I can’t really remember how I felt.”
“Do you remember what happened?”
“Not really. I remember… we had landed on Lucia. And then after that, it’s all a blur.”
Hawk looked disappointed, but Kavo wasn’t sure why. “I see. In any case, now that you are awake, I assume you would like a shower.”
“That would be nice,” Kavo agreed. Hawk moved to help him out of bed, but Kavo waved him off and insisted that he could do it on his own.
He stumbled a little when he stood, his knees buckling beneath him. Hawk’s arm was already back around his waist to support him, whether he liked it or not. He had to admit, though, that he didn’t mind it much. Hawk was warm and firm and reassuring at his side, so who was he to push that away? Besides, he really was quite unsteady. If he really hadn’t been up for a week, it was no wonder that he was having trouble walking.
Kavo hadn’t really noticed the door in the back of their room before. He hadn’t expected a bathroom to be attached to such a small room, either; normally the older airships had communal showers, didn’t they? He shrugged it off. He wasn’t going to turn down some privacy.
The shower was small, crammed into the corner of the equally small bathroom. Still, it was a shower; it would suffice. Kavo managed to find a way to move his legs properly beneath him, and he stood awkwardly while Hawk fetched him a towel.
“I will bring you a change of clothes in a while. You can go ahead and shower.”
“Okay. Uh, thanks.”
“Do not worry about it. You deserve it.” Hawk slipped out the door, which he shut behind him.
Kavo stared after him for a moment before shrugging. He wasn’t sure what Hawk was talking about, but he didn’t see how it affected him aversely in any way. If Hawk was feeling gracious, that was a welcome blessing, and he saw no reason to complain.
He stripped slowly, stretching every muscle as he doffed his clothes. The joints in his shoulders and the vertebrae along his back cracked, a small comfort after such a long time of little movement. He shucked his pants, leaving them in a pile with his shirts.
Kavo stepped into the tiny shower and switched on the water, turning it nearly entirely to hot. Icy water poured over him and he shivered involuntarily with a hiss. Goosebumps quickly popped up on his arms, but he suffered through it until the water eventually warmed to tepid. He hadn’t expected it to get much warmer, anyhow, so he tried to ignore that it was twenty degrees too cold.
Kavo massaged his shoulder. It was hard to work out the knots that had formed while he was out. He wondered why he’d been out so long in the first place. There had to have been a reason for his apparent “mental breakdown,” as Hawk had termed it.
Vestiges of a memory lingered just beyond his mental grasp. He’d forgotten something, something important… what the hell was it? Kavo frowned to himself. He’d never been more frustrated than when he couldn’t remember something that was just barely out of reach.
Kavo tried to forget about it. Nothing good was coming from dwelling on it, so he tried to concentrate on his shower. Still, it kept gnawing at him. Hawk had looked disappointed for a reason, hadn’t he? Hawk wasn’t the type to feel emotions without cause; even Kavo could tell that. So what was the issue? What was it that Kavo couldn’t quite recall?
Again, Kavo told himself that he could figure it out later. Instead, he soaped up and washed down quickly to get out of the shower as soon as he could; the lukewarm water wasn’t exactly the closest thing to comfort. Once satisfied that he was clean, Kavo turned the stream of water off and stepped out of the shower.
He towelled off slowly. His muscles were stiff, so he tried to move carefully, but he wasn’t enjoying being naked with the chance of Hawk walking in on him at any given time.
Kavo fixed the towel about his hips and moved to the small mirror that hung over the sink to inspect himself. His damp brown hair, that was familiar; his brown eyes were familiar to him. His lightly tanned skin, the curves of his shoulders and waist, everything was all familiar.
And yet it was all new. His muscles were different. Had he lost definition? He was sure his skin was paler now, as well. What had happened to him? When he’d been captain, he had never looked so pathetic. He’d looked strong. Now he looked like a gust of wind could knock him over.
He lowered his eyes in shame. The pirates had gotten to him. He’d been broken. He couldn’t remember how or why it had happened, but he’d been broken.
A knock resounded suddenly enough to make Kavo nearly jump out of his skin.
“Wh-what is it?”
“I have brought you some clothing. I figured you may want it.”
“Oh. Right,” Kavo breathed. “The door’s unlocked.”
Hawk swung the door open. For his part, he only looked mildly surprised that Kavo was standing in the open, nude but for a towel.
“Thanks,” Kavo said, taking the small stack of clothes from Hawk.
“You are welcome.” He paused, looking at Kavo, before asking, “I did not know you still had those beads.”
Kavo turned to look in the mirror. “What be—” Realization crashed down on him as he remembered. His eyes forced themselves closed while his senses were flooded with remnants from his memories: the heat of the fire, the smell of burning trees and the glaring light. He’d screamed for help— he’d screamed to help someone else. Helaku and Yoki… those were the names he’d cried out. But he hadn’t been able to help; he’d been one hundred percent useless.
When Kavo opened his eyes, a single glistening tear was rolling down his cheek. He hardly recognized the piteous expression on his face. “That… did all that really happen?” he asked quietly, not looking toward Hawk.
“Yes. The fire was real.”
“And… Helaku and Yoki…?”
“I am sorry. I know you would have tried to save them, but I had to stop you.”
“Hawk,” Kavo sobbed as his turbulent emotions overwhelmed him. He turned a watery gaze matched with a blotchy face to Hawk. “Why?”
It was obvious that the sight made Hawk’s soul quiver. He wiped his hands on his pants and took shaky, hesitant breaths. “I did not want you to die. I did not want to lose you…”
“Hawk, they were just kids,” Kavo cried. “We could have helped them. They… they meant something, and I don’t. I deserved to die, and I should have, but they were… they were children, Hawk…”
“Kavo, that is not true. You do mean something.”
“To who?” Kavo demanded. “Who in this world cares whether I live or die?”
“I do.”
Hawk’s eyes bored into Kavo’s soul like they always did, exposing every inch of every secret he’d ever had. But unlike previous times, this time Kavo felt other feelings stirring in him, feelings like the ones he’d felt seeing Hawk on Lucia Island. Safety and reassurance lay in those golden eyes. All he’d ever missed was there in Hawk’s eyes.
Kavo slowly moved toward him; without taking his eyes off Kavo’s for a second, Hawk moved to meet him. Hawk’s large, warm hands rested on Kavo’s bare waist; a fire spread through Kavo at the simple contact.
“Hawk, I—” Hawk cut him off with a firm kiss. Kavo didn’t resist for a moment. Their lips worked against each other desperately, fighting to move closer and to steal more of each other. Kavo pressed close until his chest was flush against the rough shirt Hawk wore; he could feel the laces of it against his chest, could feel Hawk’s strands of beads digging into his skin. Not even that discomfort could make him consider pulling away.
“Hawk!” a young voice called. “Are you in here? Gwendolyn’s looking for you!”
That, however, could. Kavo tore his mouth away to gape at Hawk. The two stared blankly for a moment before Hawk spilled into apologies.
“I am sorry. We should not be doing this.”
“Why not? If we both want it—”
“Kavo, I do not. I loved my wife; I could never love you. I am sorry.” He spun and fled without pause. Kavo barely had time to reach out helplessly before the door slammed.
He stood there for a moment, thoughtless and motionless. As he heard Aizel outside chattering amiably, his stability began to crack. Slowly, he collapsed to the floor.
Wallowing in self-pity, he lost all track of time. Time meant nothing while the intense ache of yet another failure spread through him. He had believed in that one moment that Hawk was capable of caring for him; he had believed that he was capable of deserving someone’s feelings.
That had crashed quickly. Sitting in nothing but a towel, collapsed on the bathroom’s cold tile floor, Kavo had never felt so all alone.
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