Work Text:
Hitomi pushed away from her study desk with a huff, screwing her eyes shut. She had been working on this annoying section of her thesis paper for hours now.
Dabi looked over at her from where he was laid out on her couch. It was his norm to pop up randomly to “bother her.” They both knew he was actually concerned about her going crazy being alone in her apartment up to her eyebrows in college assignments. Who had convinced her to take these independent courses again? “Just go to sleep,” he called in a lazy drawl. “Let it be future-you’s issue.”
Hitomi would be the first to admit she loved her friend’s gravelly voice, but right now it was spouting nonsense. “Can’t do that, Sir Casual.” She dimmed the brightness of her laptop screen. “I’d rather fight to peck out a couple hundred words now than have to fight to find a few thousand later.”
Dabi shrugged, making an offhanded sound. “Just saying you shouldn’t stress yourself out. The words’ll come. No sense tryna force it when it’ll end up flowing later anyway.”
“Thanks.” She tapped her phone screen a few times. “I will take a little break, though. Rest my eyes a bit.” She took off her glasses, resting them on her keyboard as she stood.
Dabi opened his arms, flexing his fingers expectantly. “Come on, bring your head.”
One side of her mouth tugged upwards as she went over to him, kneeling on the floor next to the couch and resting her head and arms on his stomach.
“There you go,” he said in a singsong tone, laying one of his large scarred hands on her head. “The paper’s not going anywhere. When’s it due anyway?”
“End of the week,” she murmured into his shirt. “And before you say anything, I have other assignments due before then.”
He laid his head back on the arm of the couch, mindlessly twirling his fingers in her shoulder-length braids. “I figure. I remember your fancy colour-coded schedule.”
“Don’t make fun of me,” she whined. “It keeps me on track!”
“I know, I know.” He let out a small laugh. “I don’t remember seeing breaks on that schedule but that’s where I come in, I guess.”
“I guess.” She readjusted her position, humming as the pads of his fingers found her scalp, tracing the patterned parts between her braids.
A few moments of comfortable silence passed between them, Dabi smiling as he took glances at the little college lady he actually called a genuine friend. In his opinion, she really did stress herself out too much over some of these assignments but at the same time, he admired her tenacity and diligence. She really wanted that fancy piece of paper and was going to get it, no matter the difficulty. He looked down when he felt her shift, curling her fingers into a loose fist.
Hitomi groaned lightly. “My phone’s probably gonna go off soon,” she mumbled.
“I’m too good a pillow,” Dabi joked. “How much more do you wanna get done before you turn in?”
She let out a breath in thought. “Without confirming my current word count? At least, maybe seven to 900 more words that I’d feel ok to go to sleep on? Even if it is just trash I’ll have to edit into sense tomorrow.”
“You’re actually not pushing for a full thousand? I’m shocked.” Dabi chuckled lightly at her audible pout. "Why not drop it down to 500? Sure you could easily blow past it but the lower goal gives a closer sense of satisfaction if that's all you manage."
And now his attractive voice was making sense again. He was one of those smart guys that preferred to work with his hands over the traditional college route, having blazed through trade school in the blink of an eye. He only did it for the networking opps, he'd told her, proving himself with a wealth of impressive contacts at his disposal. She huffed. He could probably take over a small country if he genuinely tried. She lifted her head as a light ringing sounded from her phone. "Back to it."
He sent her off with two pats to the head.
The small space was quiet save for her hard tapping of the laptop keys. The sound was strangely relaxing to Dabi. He enjoyed the atmosphere for a while until her voice sounded into the empty space, addressing no one.
"That's 3...47 of the 5," she mumbled out loud. She grinned at the sound of thumping from the couch.
"Good job," came Dabi’s sleepy voice. He'd been in and out for a while now.
It was a good hour later when she smacked the table with both hands, jolting Dabi from his dozing. "That's it!" She shut her laptop with finality. "I am DONE. I want my bed. No more words tonight."
Dabi yawned, squinting at her through his eyelashes. "How much did you end up writing?"
"816."
He let out a slightly impressed breath, head and eyebrows lifting just a tad. "Look at you."
Her gaze turned to him just as a blue flame appeared in his hand on the side facing her. It moved from his palm to bounce on each of his long fingers individually, stopping on his pinkie. The other four fingers sprouted their own little flames and he brought his fingers together to unite them into one glowing beacon before curling his fingers down and outwards again for the flame to drop back in the center of his large hand. He drawled out a low, "Congrats" before snuffing it out by making a fist.
Hitomi's face had brightened into a smile of awe watching his unique blue fire dance. She clapped. "I had no idea you could do all of that with your quirk!"
Dabi let out a short breath, dropping that hand to dance his fingers on the cold tile floor. "Hanging with you, I have a lot of free time on my hands. Beats mindlessly staring at a screen for hours."
One side of her lips quirked up as she made her way over to the couch. "I'll ignore that if it was a jab and focus on how I never noticed you practicing if that is the case." He was most likely lying, but they were both running on sleep-mode brains at this point. "The room's not how you left it last time," she said as she tugged his other arm from his stomach to get him up.
"Not surprised, long as the bed's in the same spot." Dabi allowed Hitomi to lead him down the hall and into her spare room that was closer to the front door. She'd taken her residence in the room further back - closer to the one bathroom.
"Should I expect to see you when I wake up?" She asked after she'd seen him fully lying down on the bed.
"Probably not, but we'll see how I feel."
She rolled her eyes. "Right. Gotta keep our image up."
He laughed dryly. "Though neither of us care?"
" Flee the appearance ," she quoted. "Night. See you when I see you."
"Mmm. Actually go to sleep, Miss," he chided her. "Not two more hours on your phone reading whatever it is."
She pursed her lips. "Yes, Dad," she drawled in jest, giggling as a pillow landed at her feet. She tossed it back. "I'll be good, I promise. My eyes already feel a little dry."
"See there? Close 'em. Good night. Don't make me hafta confiscate it."
"I'll be a responsible adult, Dabi. Good night." She closed the door with an amused shake of her head.
It was only one hour on her phone reading that night.