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Today is what could probably be qualified as a shit day. Dabi's been dealing with wannabe vigilantes popping up at every fucking corner, most of whom are usually too slow to even graze him before they're burned to a mess of flesh and bones, and he hasn't eaten. He's out of ketamine, too, and his usual guy says it's been harder to snag lately, so his reserves are depleted for a week or so. All of this is shaping up to put Dabi in a supremely shitty mood, and he kind of wants to fuck around and make a scene somewhere notable if only to have an excuse to fry someone's face off.
But, Dabi must still have some sense of self preservation left in him, because he just throws up his hood and stalks home with his head hunched. He thumbs at his phone as he does, and Toga has texted, but when has she not. He shoots her a curt reply that he hopes will cut off the conversation, but obviously, five more messages roll in. He stomps up the stairs with more bite than necessary. Throws open the door louder than necessary. Shoves off his boots and collapses on the couch after grabbing a beer from the fridge.
Tomura must be asleep, 'cause he always is. Dabi knows he still has a couple fat joints left in his stash, but he doesn't bother to go grab them, not wanting to risk rousing Tomura by fiddling around in their bedroom. Despite his eternal state of slumber, he's a surprisingly light sleeper. Anytime Dabi even walks around the house with steps too forceful he's admitted it keeps him up. Safety methods when his father used his fists, Dabi guesses. He can't say he's not in the same boat. But sleep comes easier to him when he lays beside Tomura. Even if he has to stare at the ceiling for an hour and a half before drifting off. Tomura has introduced him to a Youtube trend called ASM-something, and most of it does nothing but make his skin crawl, but there's a couple videos that remind him of how his mom would murmur bedtime stories to him at night, when he was just a scrawny kid, tucked in at his sides because she'd smile and call him a little sushi roll when he was. Those put him to sleep embarrassingly fast. Tomura does not mention it, because he has no room to. He just needs white noise, and the fan running in hopes of circulating the hot, dry air does the trick.
Sometimes, if Dabi has forgotten to plug in his phone so he has to leave it by Tomura's power strip to charge overnight, he'll compose poetry in his head that he'll never, ever put to paper, much less say out loud. He writes, with the pen and paper of his thoughts and brain tissue, his hair is moonlight, catching the light of the stars from billions of miles away. He writes, with no legible evidence, and eyelashes snowy, white cat, white rabbit, fox in the arctic. eyes red, gored raccoon roadkill.
He puts on whatever on Netflix, and a baking show pops up. He lets it blend into background noise, the sound of the mixer, the sound of something bubbling on the stove, the ding of an oven timer. Maybe he can fall asleep to this too. The sun has just barely moseyed to the other side of the sky, and it's sliding down the horizon like it's simply too tired to keep itself upright anymore.
It's still been a shit day. Nothing can change that he's pretty much out of drugs and he's dealt with a lot of bullcrap today. But the TV, the sweating beer in his hand, the reminiscence of script swirling around in his head like haphazard calligraphy, it soothes the ache a bit. The promise that Tomura will wake up soon, and he will ask indirectly for Dabi to cook a meal for him, because he likes being taken care of. Though he will never admit it, and though Dabi will never make him. Dabi will chop an onion and carrots and daikon and pork belly. Dabi will cook with the prowess of a high school dropout that only picked up his skills from osmosis from watching his mother and his sister when he was younger, and it will be exactly enough. It will be just right.
The episode ends, and another begins. Dabi takes a swig, and the bottle is empty. He stands up to grab another and collapses on the couch again. He leans his head back and counts the cracks in the plaster, and the words flow.
i don't think i still have a heart
to beat or pump life into me
maybe a couple valves to keep me upright
maybe a vein here and there
maybe eight neat ounces of plasma and hemoglobin
but if i did
that heinous organ, still harbored
inside my chest, hidden by ribbone
i would crack them carefully apart
to snip through tissue and viscera
and hold it out to you
a gift for when you're hungry
a gift for when you're old
and withered and yours is
on its way out
a gift because sometime, i'm going
to disappear from here
and i don't think you'll know
where to find me
i wouldn't either, if it were you
a gift for you to remember me
if only by the feeling
of warm blood soaking into your palms
of gore that could belong to no one else
from the criss crosshatching
engraved therein
He opens his eyes slowly, and the room is darker than before. Flipping on the lamp in the corner would be the logical idea. Dabi watches the last traces of fading sunlight catch the condensation on his beer, shining. Glimmering, as if precious. Shining as if in love.
The door to the bedroom creaks open, and Dabi turns and cranes his neck to watch Tomura stumble out of their bedroom in nothing but boxers and one of Dabi's threadbare t-shirts. His hair is mussed from sleep, and Dabi wants to brush it out for him, so he leaves his beer to warm on the coffee table and leave a ring of water on the cheap wood. Tomura falls into him as he approaches, and Dabi lets him, lets him rest his head against Dabi's collarbones as he cards his fingers through Tomura's stark white hair. It is greasy with grime and oil buildup, and Dabi grimaces. "When was your last shower, boss?" He asks, and there is no trace of disappointment, no shame to be found. It is a question with no undertones. Tomura makes a noncommital sound into Dabi's chest, then mumbles, "Three days."
Dabi sighs, but it doesn't mean anything. It means Dabi gets to take the liberty of drawing Tomura a bath, herding him in and washing his hair, and then his back. Tomura is by no means weak, he could flatten Dabi in a half second if he chose to, but he is delicate, using his strength as little as humanly possible. If Dabi can lift his arm for him, he will not attempt to. If Dabi can ask him to lean back so he can pour shampoo on his head, he will do that and that alone.
Dabi drags him to the bathroom, and he pulls his shirt over his head and sits on the toilet seat while Dabi starts the water, plugging the tub and sticking his hand under the water until it runs warm enough. Sometimes, when he feels like spoiling him, he'll buy a bath bomb from the konbini across the street and throw it in, and the bathroom will stink of lavender and rose for four days afterwards. Tomura has never actually said he minds, but he always seems to feel awkward about it, like he shouldn't have the luxury of smelling like a freshly bloomed flower. Dabi allows him this anyway, because Dabi can't use bath bombs, since submerging himself doesn't spell good things for the seams between his staples. They're surgical steel, they won't rust, but if he ends up getting pruny his skin will constrict and tighten up and he'll be achey and cranky for the rest of the day. So he doesn't. But he lets Tomura have it instead.
When the tub has been filled, Tomura shimmies out of his boxers and slowly sinks down into the water until his limbs are submerged, up to his chin. He crosses his legs to preserve his maidenhood, but it's nothing Dabi hasn't seen before. Hell, Tomura has even commented on the barbell poked through the underside of Dabi's dick and the ball end sticking out of the head, almost clinically. Like he'd never even thought of Dabi's manhood as having another use. It did kind of wound his pride a little, but that's just how Tomura is, so Dabi got over it. If he had to say, he thinks Tomura has a nice dick. It's fine. It's a handsome piece of equipment. He thinks nothing more than that. Probably.
"Lean your head back." Dabi says, and Tomura shifts so his back is facing Dabi, leaning his head within his reach. Dabi takes the shower nozzle and turns it on a gentle drizzle, and wets his hair with warm water, spilling some onto his pants, but it's fine. He turns the nozzle off and puts it to the side, then stands and strips them off, leaving him in his ratty boxers, worn from age. There's a small hole right below the waistband on the right side. Tomura likes to stick his finger in it and see if he can tickle a laugh out of him, sometimes, when they're both in bed but not yet unconscious. He throws his pants to the side in a heap and gets back to the shampoo, which he pours in his hand then massages into Tomura's mop. Tomura makes a noise, and leans further into the water as Dabi runs his hands through the strands, soaping him up like a well-loved dog. He turns on the showerhead again and rinses it out, making Tomura lean forward so the suds fall into the tub this time instead of onto Dabi's thighs, and repeats with conditioner. He runs it through until there's no knots or tangles left, and he knows a brush will be kind to him, later.
He leaves Tomura to his own devices to wash his body once he's finished, leaving the bathroom door just slightly ajar, just in case. Dabi does the same thing when he's taking a shower. You never know what you won't be able to hear, with a closed door.
Eventually Tomura emerges, shirtless and wearing the same pair of boxers as before. Dabi stuffs a grin down off his face and goes to retrieve a fresh pair, and another t-shirt. Neither him nor Tomura like to have their bodies on display, just from the state they're in. Dabi has his scars, and Tomura just has dysmorphia issues, and dysphoria too. It doesn't bother him as much anymore, since the doctor did his miracle tit surgery, or it doesn't seem to, anyway. He knows Tomura gets self conscious, and that's why he wears boxers, rather than briefs that are just barely reminiscent of female underwear. He knows that's why Tomura shoves a sock down his underwear when he needs to leave the apartment. It's not like he has any room to talk. Dabi's just flat enough that nobody really notices, or cares enough to. He supposes this affords them a sense of intimacy that wouldn't be possible otherwise. So he doesn't mind it; Tomura may think himself into a hole sometimes, but Dabi is thankful to anything that lets him connect with him. Anything that gives him a reason to empathize, only with Tomura. He's only ever wanted to with Tomura.
They sit on the couch, and Dabi brushes Tomura's hair, toweling at the ends with the white cloth around Tomura's shoulders. He doesn't really know what he's doing, but he tries his hand at the simplest braid he can manage, and it kinda turns out okay. He thinks it looks nice, and it'll make Tomura's hair dry a bit more wavy than usual. It'll look nice. Tomura's hair has gained so much volume and shine in the past year that it could be a barber's wet dream. But it's just Dabi's calloused hands that touch it. No scissors have come close in years. Dabi hopes he never cuts it, not even when it reaches his waist, not even when it reaches the back of his knees. He could throw it down like Rapunzel when Dabi's too drunk to make it up the stairs.
Tomura reaches back and paws at the braid when Dabi's done, and Dabi says, "Hey, don't take it out, I worked hard on that." Tomura huffs but complies, anyway, because he wouldn't refuse Dabi even small things like this. He barely refuses Dabi anything nowadays. When Dabi wants to kiss him sometimes, when the room is spinning and there's a movie playing on the backs of his eyelids, he purses his lips and leans in. When Dabi's body temperature fluctuates as it always does and he wants to cuddle because he's cold, Tomura will let him drape his arm over his torso and burrow his face into Tomura's nape, huffing out soft, warm breaths until he drifts off. When Dabi feels unsteady on his feet and wants Tomura to sit on the toilet seat while he showers, just in case. When he bitches about the news and asks Tomura to turn it off. When he stress-cleans the kitchen and asks in a plea for distraction if Tomura is hungry.
He accepts it. He accepts it, because Tomura is everything Dabi has ever wanted, and more. Dabi doesn't think he can even manage to visualize anyone more perfect than Tomura, even in the entire world. In the entire solar system, the universe. In everywhere and anywhere. There is only him, and Tomura, and his hands in Tomura's hair, and an elastic band tied off at the end. Easily removed. Eased out, for when his head hits a pillow again, beside Dabi.