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The blank, empty ceiling is just as inexpressive as it was a few hours ago, when Dabi drifted off. The shadows have shuffled around a bit, certain to not be caught loitering, but Tomura is still sound asleep to his right. One of his arms has been commandeered for "can't sleep without holding onto a motherfucker" duty. He's gonna wake up with a crick in his back, curled around said limb, and Dabi will probably elbow him in the stomach when he dozes off again by accident. Dabi debates unclenching Tomura's death grip under the guise of a leak, but then he remembers he doesn't really care, and he doesn't need to piss. Not that Tomura knows the state of his bladder.
His foot is asleep. Pins and needles and thumbtacks pricking at his dirty callouses without affording shit. Dabi tries to zero in on the feeling and get a little heady, but he can't quite grasp it. The poltergeist shuts its box of sharps and leaves him floundering. He hasn't looked yet, but his phone reads three in the morning, and he will look, soon. Three in the morning is a decisive hour. Dabi couldn't care less.
Maybe he could thirteen years ago. H.G. Wells was full of crap, though.
Tomura is rarely roused by his waking when it happens, since Dabi lays very still when he wakes up, assessing if he needs to pretend to stay asleep. Old habits of hypervigilant children. Tactics against dads who'd open your door at midnight. Yet he stirs, a mouse in a chapel, and he clutches Dabi's arm blearily. Slothlike. It makes Dabi's heart do a quick two step. Typical organ functions, probably, Dabi's surely been in enough hospitals to know. Hopefully. Tomura blinks once, then twice.
"Did you sleep at all?" He asks, because Tomura wakes up and goes straight into martyr mode now, apparently. Dabi shrugs minutely. "Couple hours, iunno."
Tomura's eyes narrow to slits, which is even more intimidating because his eyes are already skinny shit on their own time. It could be a spiritual thing. Shapeshifting foxes and Tomura share a second uncle. Yet he is inexplicably human. Agonizingly human, because he releases Dabi's arm to reach the two inch distance over and pull on Dabi's thick ear. He pulls on it like Dabi will feel it, with confidence. Dabi almost wants to grimace, but since when has he done anything for anyone but himself?
"You should talk to the doctor. He can get you medication." Is what comes out of Tomura's mouth. "You should let the old fuck ogle you for a bit, because he can get you that knock-you-into-a-coma shit." Is what Dabi hears. He says nothing, because Tomura doesn't speak with that drawl. He enunciates every syllable. He could've been a TV host. Perfect nasal consonants. Dabi mourns his career of choice. Maybe if he fucks this up enough, he can watch Tomura on the evening news tomorrow.
"Hey." He snakes his hand around the back of Dabi's head, turning him face to face with Tomura, the dim moonlight catching in his white hair, glimmering quietly. Like a lighthouse. Dabi's been through this sea before, yet he can't stop circling back. Maybe his compass is bad. "When I'm gone, you have to swear you won't faint in that mansion."
It would look bad on my behalf, goes unsaid.
When, Dabi thinks bitterly. Not if.
Dabi hasn't been the most active in the PLF. He's played a bit of nice with ice bitch numero uno, he's done it with the dude with the normie bangs. He's done it with Hawks. Anything else is far too much effort for a garden variety junkie like Dabi, right? Because he's just so intolerable when he sobers up. Right? Run along or do a line.
Dabi feels bitter, though, because though the PLF's leader is Tomura, Tomura is not affiliated with the PLF, according to the mushrooms growing in Dabi's brain. Tomura is Tomura. Tomura is a new world in and of itself. Tomura is basically Jesus at this point, but like, Dabi didn't ever read the bible, so don't quote him on that. That guy came back after only three days.
Tomura will be gone for four months. Sixteen weeks. One hundred and twelve days. Dabi will feel every second tick by in excruciating clarity.
"Yeah, sure, fine." Dabi says, and he says it with venom coating the underbelly of his words like pig fat. This is a ballsy move. Tomura doesn't tolerate anything less than utter satisfaction. This might be it. Dabi braces himself, but he doesn't really, because he's relishing in it. Tomura doesn't decay him, though. Dabi is stupid for thinking he'd be that merciful.
"Wait for me." He asks, and for the very first time in Dabi's entire time in this hellhole of a life, he hears regret on Tomura's tongue. He drinks it until it goes down the wrong pipe, fills his lungs and now he's drowning. Another body at the bottom of the Pacific. Poor Amelia Earhart. Dabi nearly begins to shake, but he composes himself, because if Tomura is second-guessing his quirky power-up shit, what else is he thinking twice on? Is any of this real, anymore? Tomura's lips part again for more words, more lovely syllables and characters, and Dabi desperately wants to plug his ears. "Wait for me, or I'll destroy everything. I'll turn this world to dust if you piss off."
Wow, Dabi has never gone from near tears to horny that quick. Kudos to the boss. He doesn't think that's much of a consequence, in all honesty, but Tomura seems devastatingly serious about this, and Dabi thinks he would actually miss this stupid shit, this apartment, the joints he smokes on the balcony when he gets home from seeing Giran. Maybe he's onto something with this new chic lifestyle. Things could be a lot, lot worse.
Dabi exhales the steam out of his soupy brain, and he cracks a smile, trying to make it wide but failing when one of his staples pops clean out and leaves his flesh exposed a bit at the corner. Gross. "Roger that." He tries. Tomura gives him a miffed look. Okay, once more with feeling. "I'll hang around." Tomura rolls his eyes this time, deeming him an unsalvageable case.
There's rules to this fuckery, there's gotta be. Dabi spent the first thirteen years of his life living by one set and then the next thirteen living by the evil twin of the original. There's always a goddamn rubric. Tomura does not look like any of the tutors he's had, nor does he act like them. Maybe it's free verse.
He stamps out the budding excitement swelling in his gut at that prospect. Hope has gotten him nowhere. Arson is much more persuasive. The newspapers all think so.
Tomura watches him, keeps his eyes along Dabi's jaw as Dabi stares up at the ceiling, a million miles away. There's a cut right on his cheekbone that's scabbed over and crusted shut. He thinks of Sensei. He thinks of being the king of the underworld. He thinks of what it means to be king. Was there ever such a thing?
He watches. Dabi zones. He wonders.
Wonders, will any of this mean a thing, a hundred years from now?
Wonders, will anyone remember this?