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It itches.
It doesn't always, just so we're clear. As a matter of fact it's become rather manageable, lotion and toner and other slimy things Dabi likes to smear all over his face when his mood allows notwithstanding. It probably has something to do with Tomura having someplace to keep as clean as he likes now. And someone to pick up after, because even though it makes him grit his teeth when Dabi goes too long without washing his hair or leaves dishes in the sink or stomps his dirty boots all over the floor instead of scraping them against the doormat Tomura had caved for specifically to prevent that, it's actually pretty refreshing. Routine, almost, and it gives all his usual shaking something to still for. Dabi gets on better when he's clean anyway. Though he'll just pass it off as liking that Tomura always takes care of him, if he's high enough to. Tomura has learned a lot about pharmacology and molecular structure since they started this.
What even is this. Search him and let him know when you know. It's not bad though. Tomura never had a proper education and Dabi's a surprisingly intent teacher when it comes to things he's passionate about. Usage aside, too, Tomura has found that beneath all that arrogance and stupidity and even memory-lacking he likes to present himself with (or thinks himself, knowing Dabi's very particular subset of personality. Not even the disorder part.)-- he's kind of a nerd. So Tomura will take it upon himself to hype up his lame-ass boyfriend whenever necessary before he threatens to choke someone. Not even in a sexy way.
Tomura's learned a lot about that stuff too. But breathing is hard enough for Dabi as is, so there's compromises to be made. He wouldn't want to ever admit he doesn't like anything Tomura does anyway. Come to think of it, maybe this this is proper education enough. At least for psychonautics and quantum physics and the intersection of science and philosophy that it always ends up at. Qualia, singular quale, are defined in psychology as individual instances of subjective, conscious experience. Did you know that? Tomura didn't. Turns out Dabi has a lot more up there than old oatmeal.
He likes sweet things so his is usually more brown sugar than it is oat. You can even make it into a cakelike thingy. Did you know that, too? Tomura didn't either and still doesn't know how-- Dabi can mess around with edible potions in the kitchen all he wants as long as Tomura gets to clean it up. It's not like either of them can go to therapy, now can they.
Despite that Dabi is amazingly resistant to what you would expect to upset him. Those little blue-green beetle shells don't and won't budge an inch when you'll talk about family, because you will, because everyone does, because some people actually have those, ones that didn't suck. He'll probably shake worse than Tomura does on a daily basis because of it but from the window he will appear unfazed and almost bored. Now, you mention dark creatures hiding in the corners of the room that disappear when he looks or the peopleish figures that don't, you tell him there's an eye on him and you don't tell him whose or whats, you just say it and you shut your mouth because that's all he needs, that's when the sun's outshone. But Tomura has always thought sunsets were beautiful.
Someone needs to start manufacturing the mental equivalent of laxatives, so this man Tomura has a terribly hard time not using possessives for every time he refers to him can get used to having feelings like some sort of fourteen year old without jumping feet first into mania until he gets tired or they fade again, and then puts something else in him again to make up for it-- because it's also terribly hard to understand how Dabi can live as such an oxymoron all the time. You'll have to beat an opinion out of Tomura for him to admit he was wrong, if he was, which he usually isn't, so too bad, but Dabi will just shrug and say sure, whatever. It'll come across as blasé but he will think about it. He'll think about it a lot. Dabi soaks up information like a neglected sponge, he just can't ever be bothered to let anyone else have any of it.
But that's only fair. Tomura gets caught up in picking at his nails a lot nowadays so it's a blissful escape to have the idiot walk him through the longest equations he's ever seen at the coffee table because Tomura likes sitting on the floor, because it reminds him it's clean. Dust and dirt free. Or, it's blissful when he can make sense of it; other times, he'll snarl and claw and Dabi will sigh and twist his arm behind his back as is also routine. Tomura will pretend he can't break free because that's something he doesn't want to admit.
But, that's enough about the future. The past doesn't die-- quite the opposite, actually-- and it won't; but you can get over it, puzzle pieces at a time. It is unfathomable how Dabi's got his thousands lined up better than Tomura's but you can blame that on the age difference. If you need to blame something. Something other than the past itself and all those people that did die in it, or should've.
Or will, but that's enough about the future, okay! So quit it! There's enough planning that's been done to start unwrapping the present funny paper by funnier paper at a time. They don't print those in color anymore though. Motherfuckers.
El problema es el capitalismo and other phrases from the internet Dabi mumbles when he turns his VPN on to see them. And the onions he buys there too-- those are what he de-layers. Tomura can't say it doesn't look cool, but also. Dabi's a fucking nerd. Loser. Dumbass.
Tomura loves him more than Jesus ever did any humankind. But he'll leave the odd religious fixations to the agnostic half-Zoroastrian. Did he mention oxymorons already? Definitely. Dabi is better than any humankind could ever hope to be, too, odder backhanded compliments and all. Hearing you know, you could probably get me into emetophilia if you wanted to, even with my tummy-always-hurty, or because of that, eye-dee-kay is way more romantic than some insolent love you. Loser. What a vulgar literati.
What a person he's come to keep. What a person.
Enough about the future, Tomura! Marriage is a scam! You do the cleaning and chores and all those things, so you'd be the wife, too!
Ain't that a little heteronormative of you, babygirl? The Dabi on his shoulder muses. Tomura kicks him in the nuts and sucks them skintone again.
It's itching again. Dabi's out buying cigarettes or convenience store cigars since he's gotten into those lately, or setting dumpsters on fire because why not, or punching walls because why not, or punching upstanding citizens because why fuckin' not.
Mood or not he snips Tomura's nails short every single night, without fail. Soaks his hands in water and trims his cuticles. Where the hell did he even begin to learn all this crap he knows, seriously? What the fuck? Is this the same guy who put a popper in one nostril and a whippet in the other and gassed half his cortex off because he wanted to try double-oxidizing? Don't you do enough of that already, you CO² machine?!
Search him. Let him know when you know.
But the door's clicked open and his nails are still too short to scratch, cuticles still manicured, skin miraculously still arithmeticking itself back to sanity rather than dragging itself through him divvying it all up again, for the nth time. Dabi stinks of tobacco and something like tinfoil but Tomura doesn't blame him. You don't need to blame anyone.
The past can get wrapped up in microplastics and packed into its little cardboard boxes with all the scotch tape in the world and it can grow dusty in the attic they don't have or the unused cabinets they do. Or scattered across the streets for everyone else to deal with. Litter can be alright in that single scenario. Dabi stands on his tiptoes to plant a smooch on Tomura's head like the sappy idiot he is who doesn't want to admit they're both 5'9 and he's not any taller. Multiplying himself higher but only in the sense of height. Tomura's bad at math but Dabi's a good teacher.
Dabi would complain that he hates math and he's no good at it either, Tomura is better, because Tomura's good at everything, so he's got the quadratic formula memorized better than Dabi, and all the atoms that stitch him together have to make perfect sense to him, because Tomura's good at everything. He wouldn't argue because he does know that, at least. Not to argue. Because he isn't. But Dabi says so and he is, so maybe he's right.
He'd still fuck up a dean and scribble Dabi's name on a PhD anyway, if only so there's something on the wall for him to dust. Not even in the sense of decrification.
But he doesn't know if that's a word either. You look it up.