Frozen Wings

Chapter 10

Storms' POV

I turned to my side, noticing Hawks seemed to be crying. I furrowed my brow worriedly.

He was so happy a second ago... like, he had gotten over that whole fur thing he misspoke... is that what's bothering him? I'll ask him when we head in.

There was a big mansion on a hill behind us, where the beach turned to grass. We were given permission to stay there, since it actually belonged to UA anyways.

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I had showered and was resting in my room while the other pros finished showering as well. Midnight, Mic and All Might had driven over later so they were with the students at dinner. My stomach growled at the thought of food. I decided to head to the dining room. As I entered the students welcomed me.

"Storms! We made steak!" Uraraka smiled, knowing steak was my favorite meal.

"Aw, thank you kiddos." I chuckled, pausing as I noticed someone was missing.

"Has Hawks eaten already?" I frowned.

"No, sir, he hasn't shown up, actually." Midoriya shook his head.

"Hm. You'll have to excuse me for a moment. I'll be right back." I said, heading back down to the bedrooms. I stopped in front of Hawks' door, knocking. Nothing.

"Hawks, I know you're in there, I have heightened senses." I said. Still nothing.

He might be asleep, he did seem distressed earlier... oh god he didn't try to-

Panic setting in, I kicked the door open. Hawks was curled up on the floor, gripping his leg. The stench of blood hit me as soon as I took a breath. It was at that moment I noticed the bloody knife next to him and the pool of blood around his leg. "Hawks!"

I dropped to my knees once I was at his side. He was bleeding from the main artery in his leg, heavily. "Hang on, I can fix this." I said. I carefully set my hand on his wound, allowing my ice to create a bandage over it. I couldn't do much else other than that for the moment.

Hawks was shivering and letting out shaky breaths. A burst of anger washed over me.

"What the hell were you thinking?!" I snapped. No response.

"Do you know what would've happened if I didn't come look for you?! Did you think of the consequences? Or what would've happened if one of the students found you? Do you know how frickin TERRIFIED they would have been?!" I shouted.

"Please stop..." He whispered, shutting his eyes tightly.

"No! You need to understand! You can't do things like this!"

"I can't take it anymore..." He whimpered.

I blinked, taking in his words. "What?"

"I can't take it..." Hawks repeated.

"What do you mean?" I frowned, my anger subsiding.

"It won't stop..."

"What won't stop?"

"The voices..."

"The voices? In your head?" I asked. He nodded weakly.

"It hurts..." The pro whimpered. I wasn't sure if he was talking about the pain or something else at that point.

"Okay. Let's get you taken care of." I said, gently lifting him off the floor.

He's so light! What the hell? This can't be healthy!

My brow creased with worry. I thought about setting him on his bed but we was still covered in blood, so I brought him to the bathroom attached to his room. "Alright I don't want to hurt your injury so you need to undress yourself." He looked at me, a little shocked.

"Just your shirt and pants!" I face-palmed. It took him a while but since I was helping him stand up he managed to do it. I set him on the floor so I could get a wet towel and clean the blood off of him. Once that was done, I carried him back to his bed, carefully laying him down. I pulled the covers over him so he wouldn't get cold.

"I'll be back in a little bit, alright? I need to go eat dinner." I said. He was barely awake at that point. I left the room, quietly shutting the door behind me, returning to the dining room to eat. I decided not to tell the other pros about what happened. It would only cause more drama, and besides, it wasn't my place to tell them.

"Did you find him?" Aizawa asked. I nodded.

"He's... thinking." I lied. My colleague shrugged, going back to his dinner.

I made casual conversation with the students, who eagerly told me about some hermit crabs they found in the water. "We wanted to keep one but Koda said the hermit crabs didn't trust us and we had to leave them alone right at that very moment or they'd crawl into our bathing suits." Ashido slumped forwards sadly.

"You guys are terrible!" I laughed.

Dinner continued for another hour before we cleaned up and went our separate ways, either watching a movie, sleeping or such. I went back to Hawks' room, quietly opening the door in case he was asleep. He wasn't.

The pain is probably keeping him awake even though he must be exhausted.

My ears flattened against the top of my head. "You feeling any better?" I asked. He slowly closed his eyes, obviously too weak to talk.

"I'll take that as a no. Sit up. You need to take these." I walked over to the edge of the bed as he sat up shakily. In my hand I held a couple hospital-strength pain killers. I always carried them with me, in case of emergencies like this. My colleague tried to grab them but his hand was shaking so badly he missed my hand entirely.

"That's not gonna work. Here." I set the pills down on the bedside table, picking up the glass of water. I lifted it to his lips so he could drink a little. Setting the water back down, I picked up the pills, letting him hold them, my hands guiding his. Eventually, he was able to swallow them.

"There you go. They'll kick in within 15-30 minutes." I said, helping him lay back down again. As I turned to leave, he made a little noise. I turned back around.

"What?" I frowned. Hawks tried to reach my hand. I connected the dots from his actions.

"You want me to stay?" I asked. He nodded.

"Alright. I'll sit." I sat down on the other side of the bed, playing a game on my phone.

I felt a shift in weight before something touched me. Instinctively, I tensed up, having been startled, before I realized what had happened. Hawks had come closer, resting his hand on mine.

"You lonely?" I chuckled. He nodded.

"That's alright. You don't need to be anymore. I'm here now." I held his hand in mine, rubbing my thumb against the back of his palm. He closed his eyes, relaxing.

"I'm sorry for yelling at you earlier. It wasn't right. You were obviously not in a good place, and I just made it worse by yelling at you. I had no right to do that. I was mad. I was upset, and... I thought you were gonna die... I was scared that you were going to die... I couldn't imagine what would have happened if I didn't get there in time... I'm sorry, Hawks." I apologized.

"T..." He tried to speak.

"Shh. You need sleep." I soothed.

"T-Ta... kami..." Hawks said.

"Takami? Oh. That's your name, isn't it?" I chuckled softly.

He nodded. "It's pretty." I said.

Hawks- no, Takami smiled, drifting off to sleep as the pain meds started to kick in.

I sighed, smiling back.

Whatever voices you were hearing, I'll make them go away. It'll take time, but I'll let you smile like this again. You're gonna be alright.