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It may be concerning, or it may just be stupid, but Tomura doesn't remember that Christmas exists until one afternoon after Dabi had dragged him out to the kitchen for a meal, and asked him what he wanted. Casual, nonchalant like it'd only crossed his mind just then. Regardless of his dim awareness of the passage of time, Tomura isn't stupid enough to believe that, at least. But the question gives him pause. The last time he'd done anything that could count as celebrating Christmas was the year before, at Toga's insistence. He'd bitched and moaned and grumbled, but it'd been fun. All those gifts had surely been shoplifted. That made them all the more thoughtful.
The irony is glaringly obvious even now. Tomura sips his soda and doesn't think about it, because Dabi is still looking at him and waiting for an answer. He thinks about that, instead.
"Socks." Are the first thing that comes to mind, and Tomura doesn't flush when Dabi snorts at that, but he does glower at him. He wants to mutter, not everybody can be a damn furnace, but he doesn't get a chance to. Dabi has already typed it into his notes app with his thumb and looked back up at him with the same query still lingering. Tomura racks his brain and says, "A longer phone charger." He says, "A sweatshirt." A new bottle of shampoo, since he doesn't know what brand it is that Dabi gets them. Okonomiyaki for dinner sometime. A heating pad, because Dabi isn't always around, and-- Tomura turns his eyes away, trying for nonchalance too when presented with the conflict marring Dabi's face. He doesn't know how he interpreted that, but he doesn't want to ask. He doesn't ask much of anything, because if Dabi wants to tell him something, he will not wait for Tomura to pry it out of him. He'll mention it like he's discussing the weather that day instead of popping open his staples and peeling back his grafts, only as far as he chooses. Tomura doesn't do anything unnecessary and just carves his pulsing tissue into the sides of his skull. Later, he'll hang the memory of it on the cream-colored walls of his heart valves in a plain black frame, next to all the other ones. His childhood home made a museum. A different kind of gore to splatter across the floor.
Dabi writes it all down in his phone and sticks it in his pocket again. Tomura stabs a piece of chicken and puts it in his mouth. When he finishes chewing, his voice is accusatory despite his words, but it doesn't matter: "What do you want?"
Dabi blinks. Tomura raises an eyebrow at him. He coughs then, his eyes darting away and around the space for a half second before he can return them to Tomura's. "Iunno." He says, rubbing the back of his neck. Sheepish, but not actually. Tomura narrows his eyes and flicks a piece of cabbage at him, and it hits him on the chin. Dabi makes a face when it falls onto his plate. There isn't any cabbage on his, because he insists it tastes bad. Cabbage doesn't taste like anything, so Tomura's pretty sure he's just complaining for the sake of complaining. It doesn't really bother him, so it's fine. "You made me give you ideas, so you gotta give me some in return." Tomura informs him. Ever the picture of etiquette, even now. No elbows on the table and napkin folded evenly on his lap. Dabi grimaces and crosses his arms as he actually ponders an answer this time. Tomura eats his rice and waits.
"...Beer." Is what he pipes up with. Tomura's just about ready to reach over and tug on a staple when he adds, "A notebook. A pen too, I guess." He huffs out a laugh then, and says, "I kinda need socks too, honestly." Tomura deigns to leave his face unharmed for now. He has all the time in the world to rip Dabi apart at the seams and stitch him back together, if he wants. Dabi won't ever die. Even if he thinks he's close to it more often than not, Dabi won't die. If he does, then Tomura will leave the city for a weekend to stomp down to hell and kill him himself. If he's feeling generous, maybe he'll stuff him into his backpack and take him back home. If he's feeling generous, he might. It's a hard maybe.
His crappy little list is even crappier than Tomura's, but it's probably all Dabi will cough up of his own volition, so it works. It's alright, Tomura decides, when Dabi doesn't harass him for pushing all the cherry tomatoes to the side of his plate without eating one. It's alright, sure, whatever. He can make do.
Right around when the sun's fully set, Dabi passes out on the couch and drops into REM sleep pretty much immediately if that were possible, because he's out cold way more than usual, which is kind of surprising. Dabi's not as light a sleeper as Tomura, but he always wakes up when he's touched with more pressure than being brushed against lightly by Tomura's leg and things like that. But somehow, like a weirdly specific miracle (a miracle is what Tomura calls it, because it's a miracle since it's only here, isolated to a space with a population never above two), Dabi stays sound asleep even when Tomura pokes his cheek to wake him up so he can move to the bed. Even when Tomura shakes his shoulder just a little. Truly amazingly, even when Tomura debates carrying him there himself and tries it just for the sake of trying. Dabi's not heavy, probably barely 120 pounds or maybe 130 max, but even if he was Tomura doubts he'd have an issue hauling him anywhere. He's not patting himself on the back, but-- okay, yeah, he's kind of put on some muscle lately. It's just never noticeable through his baggy clothes, and Tomura likes it that way. Being fit or whatever means being scrutinized. Apparently it's not polite to disintegrate anyone who looks at you wrong, which is really just bullshit, but whatever. Status quo and keeping it on the surface as cover, sure. Dabi can fry them if Tomura's actually bothered. He probably wouldn't even have to ask. He's gotten too sappy, Tomura muses. What he doesn't think is: I kinda have too, I guess. It's his fault.
On sheets washed only yesterday and still fresh with linen-scented detergent, Tomura deposits Dabi onto his side of the mattress and pulls the lightest layer of covers over him. Yeah, he probably doesn't need them, but it's winter, so better safe than sorry. When he draws back, Tomura stops for just a moment like he has a million times before, because though he's seen Dabi asleep a million times already, it still catches him just the slightest bit off guard how young he looks when his face is smoothed out by sleep. Dabi's somewhere around four or five years older than him, or at least that's the vague number he gives Tomura, who already knows his birthday and is too familiar with his bullshit, but that extra is snipped off in unconsciousness. Even when he's awake he doesn't look his age, though, somehow indeterminately older. Never allowed his exact lifespan, because life is a shitshow at best and Tomura had to grow up too fast too, so he gets it. So he just catalogues it anytime he can, because Dabi isn't awake to tell him not to. Tomura doesn't even need to ask if the reverse happens too to know that it does; despite his manic impulses that seem to throw him in random directions, Dabi's kind of predictable.
He exhales and leaves the room, closing the door as quietly as he can behind him. Dabi has a thing about hearing bedroom doors click.
Unfortunately for the idiot he leaves snoozing at home, Tomura has a notable advantage in gathering whatever he wants to give, because though he's also pretty scarred up he doesn't have skin grafts setting him apart from the crowd. He just tugs a face mask up over his nose and puts up his hood before he steps out, closing the door behind him then turning the key so it's locked, unlocked, locked, unlocked, locked. He jiggles the knob just to make sure, checks under the mat to make sure there's no spare key hidden there even though they don't keep one there to begin with, and only leaves when he sees there's none. The irony of a pair of terrorists with a penchant for mass murder having a welcome mat is not lost on him. It's only there to keep Dabi from tracking roadkill inside all the time. The text is smeared with enough mud and grime to be indecipherable, thank god.
Obviously Tomura doesn't plan to buy anything to begin with, but he knows how most stores work and it'd be seriously irritating if some employee called him on it, which would become eighty times more irritating if they recognized him when they did, so he deigns to buy some odds and ends in addition to what he actually came for at each place. A bag of sour gummy worms, two pairs of gloves, a gaudy bright blue scrunchie. Tomura mourns his pride when the cashier drops that last one in his bag.
He regroups inside a hole in the wall coffee shop that he goes to probably most often out of anywhere outside of their apartment nowadays. He has a nagging suspicion that the barista who seems to be the only one who ever works the front has recognized him by now, even though he's always cautious enough to turn his face away when he pulls down his mask to drink his mocha or whatever other sweet thing he got that day. At some point the gaze the girl looked at him with shifted from how one would greet a regular to something tinged with a weird knowingness, and though it makes him a little antsy whenever he stops by now he figures that since she hasn't breathed a word to the police she must not mind, for some odd reason. She can do what she wants, Tomura doesn't care; if she leaves him be, he'll leave her alone too. If she snitches, she'll be dead the very same moment she finishes speaking, and that's that. That calm and simple conviction is what leads him through the door these days.
He supposes it could look kinda suspicious to some people to carry around a backpack of a somewhat intermediate size every time he steps outside, but it looks way more suspicious to walk around without it and practically vibrate with visible shakiness while scratching with an anxious vigor at his wrists and neck instead, so the backpack is fine. Tomura doesn't carry much in it to begin with, but what he does is important enough to his peace of mind that removing anything is out of the question: three spare masks, a portable battery and a cable for his phone, a burner phone he destroys and replaces every week, a sizeable wad of bills that may seem unwise to walk around with (which is why it stays tucked into a zipped pocket that rests against Tomura's back), a first aid kit that's essentially just a thinner version of the one they have at home… things like that. Necessities. Things that you never know when you'll need them, but you know you'll need them.
(Not listed is a modestly sized staple gun and a handful of sealed pouches containing five sterilized medical staples each, in its own pouch within its pocket. Hand cream too, but that was Dabi's addition. Tomura just never bothered to take it out.)
Rifling through the disjointed items he snatched up that over half of which weren't actually suggested to begin with, Tomura comes to the dim realization that he may have accidentally gone a little overboard. He does not think about the implications of how he tends to make that mistake somewhat often when it comes to Dabi, Christmas or not.
He doesn't. Fuck you.
The barista flushes and quickly looks away when Tomura glances up, wondering if he wants to get another coffee after he gets his things in order but before he leaves, but he is the only other person in here, so he can't really blame her for being bored. It flusters him slightly nonetheless, but his hands hold still when he turns his face down again and meticulously removes the price tags from three pairs of moisture wicking socks then folds them in konmari, tucks the glove from one pair into its twin into a neat ball, loops the scrunchie around a box holding a black and gold-accented fountain pen and one of a bottle of ink to hold them together… et cetera, et cetera. The organization, though minimal, soothes him considerably. He decides that he will get another coffee after. It might be a waste since he won't drink it himself if he got it for nothing, but he decides, a black coffee only costs a few hundred yen. He thinks amongst the peaceful atmosphere, nobody charges to add milk anyway. Dabi likes a splash of skim instead of cream because he's a freak. But Tomura still remembers that and has since the first time he learned, so he might be kind of a freak too.
So he gets another for himself and Dabi's usual. He doesn't bring back one for him often and therefore doesn't order that often, but this barista is starting to feel too damn perceptive without even saying a thing. He drops his change in the tip jar and mumbles his thanks when she hands him a to-go holder.
When he gets home, there won't be any lights on, but just a minute or two after Tomura flicks them on and shrugs off his coat and backpack the bedroom door will swing open and Dabi will yawn as loud as humanly possible on purpose. He'll trudge over and drape himself over Tomura's back and Tomura will elbow him in the stomach like it annoys him, but Dabi will ignore it and nuzzle his face into Tomura's neck because he knows better. Tomura will grumble approximately once for the sake of saving face. He'll push Dabi off a minute later and say that if he wastes the coffee Tomura bought then he'll cut two of Dabi's fingers off and take them for himself. Dabi will pout at him but still smile stupidly when he takes a swig and recognizes it as what he always gets, even though that's the only thing Tomura ever gets for him. He'll smile and it'll look stupidly exuberant to be made over a 300 yen coffee and Tomura will memorize it and the way every last piece of his face changes from it. At some point, some time, it will appear on that cream-colored wall in that familiar hallway that has no beginning nor end, and Tomura will pretend he doesn't know where it came from.
There's still a couple weeks to Christmas, and winter hasn't given anyone a single snowflake yet, but when it does snow and turn Tomura's fingers and toes blue, Dabi still runs hot all the time. If he's startled when Tomura sticks his hands under his shirt and puts his cold feet on him in bed, that's a him problem.