Archive of Our Own

By the time Chrono came to, the other guy was gone.

Little bastard, he wanted to say, but he was still too out of it.

What kind of quirk had he been hit with? His head was still too fuzzy. He didn’t remember what was going on, especially not the last few minutes. Everything smelled like burning rubber, so Dabi was probably involved.

“Ungh,” he tried, rolling onto his front and climbing onto his hands and knees. His entire body was a single tight bruise, his vision was warping and sparkling, and he felt like he was going to throw up. Spit bled out from his mouth and he rubbed it. The skin there felt strange, in that it didn’t feel much at all. He cleared his throat. “Dabi?”

Blink, blink - his eyes were so gritty. An explosion quirk? A sandstorm attack? He swallowed and cleared his throat, then tried again. “Dabi. Let’s -” he coughed.

On the gravel next to him, someone moaned.  Chrono glanced over and then his world flipped on its axis with a wave of nausea and confusion, because the person lying a few yards away from him wasn’t Dabi, the League of Villain’s moody, prickly shadow, it was someone in Chrono’s white coat and plague mask. It was Chrono himself, putting a familiar hand up to his beak.

“The fuck…?”

“Oh my god.” Chrono looked down at his hands. In the low light coming in between the abandoned half-constructed buildings framing the alleyway they’d been left in he could see Dabi’s hands pressed against the gravel instead. Dabi’s arm’s, then Dabi’s face, which he frantically touched with strange hands. “Absolutely not. No, no - no, this is not happening.”

“Body swap quirk,” Dabi groaned, pulling the mask off and then sitting up. He wore Chrono’s face in an annoyed sneer. “We can still probably chase them and get ‘em. Couldn’tve gone too far.”

“Mm.” Chrono nodded. 

This was horrible. But it’d be temporary, he’d live, and they needed to finish the job. Finding the mainland contact who’d double crossed them and swapped their bodies would probably give him the information he needed to get back into his own body, and more importantly, to get Dabi out of it. The thought of anyone else in his - in his -

He planted one foot between his hands and lifted himself up, and then things stopped working.

His knee wouldn’t go forward, it wouldn’t bend enough.  It was like it was wrapped in a ball of rubber bands. And his vision suddenly shivered, with grey seeping in the edges like Decay, the air tight and smelling like metal. You’re passing out, he thought dumbly, in Chisaki’s voice. As he tried to push out of his one-legged squat he instead ended up losing his balance and falling flat onto his face. His elbows wouldn’t bend fast enough to break his fall.

The pain from tripping was grinding and bright but quick, mostly in the chin. But the pain everywhere that he’d suddenly manifested was so heavy it pressed him down to the ground.

“Hey, what the hell? That’s my face you’re smearing on the ground.” 

Someone was by his side, taking him by the shoulder. Chrono-as-Dabi slapped him off, pushing himself up on his elbows with what felt like an inhuman degree of force. There was blood in his mouth, and when he tried to find it with his tongue the staples bit into it. His vision was fuzzy, cotton-batting and dancing sparks, and his eyes were so dry it was going to drive him crazy. Everything was so tight around him. His skin was suffocating him. He touched his face, digging into Dabi’s patchwork jaw, but what should have been a pinch was just a whisper of pressure.

He was breathing fast. That wasn’t helping the dizziness. The ache and the tightness, the wrongness. His head was pounding. His mouth was bleeding and he was still going to throw up.

“Stop that!” Someone pulled his hand away. He tried to pull back but then he was staring down at him. Dabi in Chrono’s body, blurry, with a ferocious looking expression. “It’s - you’ll get used to it, okay? We’ll switch back. All swap quirks run out eventually, we’ll just wait it out. Probably a 24 hour thing.”

“Why are you not hurt? Didn’t you get hit with whatever I did? Is my body alright?” There was no way it was just a body swap quirk. It had to be some other actual attack. Maybe they’d been beaten up or pepper sprayed or hit with a car or something and they just didn’t remember, that had to be it. 

“Yeah, man, I’m fine.” Dabi gestured to himself. Chrono’s coat was unstained and his face was unmarked. 

“Why you and not me? What happened? Did you get beaten up before coming on this mission?” Chrono slowly rolled onto his side and sat up. Everything was still blurry. He felt like he’d been jumped and then also laminated.

They’d been assigned to meet a contact from a criminal organization in Heilongjiang, but between the language barrier and Chrono’s suspicion that they were being set up, things evidently hadn’t ended well.

Dabi shrugged and grinned, rolling his head to one side. “No, this is how it feels 24/7. Welcome to my body, asshole. You’re Frankenstein’s monster!”

Chrono looked down at his borrowed hands, long fingered and grotesquely held together. When he tried to make a fist the thick scars fought it, pulling his fingers back, and then it finally hurt. He couldn’t even curl his fingers in all the way. His head pounded. His eyes were still gritty - it wasn’t actual grit, he realized now, it was just that the tear ducts were long burnt out. He looked out of the alleyway to the sliver of abandoned street, squinting to try to see detail, and wondered if it was worth trusting Dabi with his body to hunt their contact down.

“I’d thought you were kidding.” Chisaki said mildly, a crease pinching between his eyebrows over the bridge of his mask. “I’d hoped you were kidding. It wouldn’t have been a very funny joke.”

“Ha-ha.” Chrono said, raising his arms a little to the side and letting them fall. Every step from where they’d been back to where they’d parked their van had been agonizing, like he was wearing cement shoes, and then Dabi had to drive them three hours back to Esuha because Chrono couldn’t see for shit in Dabi’s body, and Dabi was the worst driver Chrono’d ever encountered. And he knew some really, really bad drivers.

At least they went straight to the Shie Hassaikai base, where he was now tasked with giving an exhausting report to the leaders of their organizations.

“The funniest joke was you eating shit trying to get up,” Dabi said from the doorway, and Chrono could almost see his grin and his louche slouch without even having to turn around and look at him.

“If your body wasn’t in absolute shambles - unprofessional of you to take it out in this state, by the way - then I would’ve been able to handle standing up,” Chrono shot back. He moved to cross his arms behind his back, but the skin of his elbows protested, so he put them in his pockets instead. He’d made Dabi give him his coat and mask back, at least, but Dabi’s coat didn’t fit on Chrono’s body. The villain was built like a piece of dried meat. Which he sort of was. “I’m sorry, boss, we didn’t finish making final contact. Although based on what I remember about our conversation before they switched our bodies, it wasn’t very promising anyways.”

“I don’t blame you, Chrono,” Chisaki said, glancing behind to show everyone who he did blame.

“You’re the one who wanted to send Dabi along, so don’t blame him either,” Shigaraki said from the couch, where he was flipping through his phone, totally uninterested in the proceedings or their strategic implications. “Anyways, I said you should focus on Kyushu and Korea and not the mainland. There’s too many small players fucking around over there right now.”

“We’ll talk about that later. Chrono, what do you remember about that body switching quirk? We need to undo it. This is ridiculous.”

“Yes, thank you.” He told Chisaki everything about their meeting, the snatches of memory from before waking up in Dabi’s body, and everything after. It was clear as he went on that he didn’t know enough to provide anything of use to his boss, he could tell that even without seeing his expression.

A moment of silence, after he finished. Chisaki said nothing.

“We’re just gonna have to wait it out, huh,” Dabi said from behind him.  Chisaki gave Chrono a resigned wince in confirmation.

“Don’t sound so happy about it,” Chrono growled. “It’s not going to be for too long.” Of course Dabi’d enjoy staying in his body. Chrono took excellent care of himself! He ate three meals a day, worked out, stretched, had a multi-step hair and skin routine, and, crucially, he wasn’t so covered with burns it rendered him into a walking, aching mannequin! 

“You don’t know that for sure,” Shigaraki mumbled, sing-song. “Could be forever.”

“It won’t be.” Chrono said firmly. “Dabi and I will figure out the details, but it won’t interfere with our work.”

“Do you have anything else to tell me about the actual job?”

“That’s about it, boss. Apologies.”

Chisaki’s flat look would betray nothing, to someone who didn’t know him well, but Chrono read resignation and annoyance. He was embarrassed. If he didn’t have Dabi stepping on the back of his shoes and distracting him the whole day, maybe he wouldnt’ve - the job wouldn’t have been - ugh, it was hard to think in Dabi’s head. The ache and pull of his body kept distracting him. It felt like he had hundred-pound manacles clapped onto his wrists and neck, pulling him down.

“We’ll have to wait it out. You two can go. Chrono and I have things to discuss.”

Chrono was deeply, silently grateful. Somehow, even in a different body, his boss could see right through him to the heart of the matter.

“You two can go,” Shigaraki mockingly echoed behind him. “You’re dismissed too, young boss.”

Chrono followed Chisaki out. Dabi, in his stolen, normal body, followed him with his eyes. He’d have to talk about how to take care of his body, and soon.

They’d switched phones. He followed Chisaki, trying to turn off his face ID. He should’ve done that a while ago, anyways, heroes and police confiscated phones and use their victims’ faces to get into them. He squinted, the screen blurry and unsteady in his hand.

“Can I draw you a bath?” he asked Chisaki from behind him. Taking care of his boss always made him feel settled and centered, and he needed that.

“I already took a shower this afternoon, but if you insist,” he said. They passed two lesser ranking shatei, who practically magnetized themselves to the wall and bowed as they passed. “I guess I could use a couple minutes off. You weren’t here for morning meeting, were you? Shigaraki wants our help getting one of the former League associates out of jail in Kamino. Mustard? Mustard. I still have no idea why he’s so stubborn about picking up his old associates when we have more useful -”

Chrono tried so hard to concentrate. Furiously, actually, gripping onto Kai’s words with white knuckles, but there was a high ringing sound in his ears that was getting louder, and his arms and legs were being pulled down by an invisible army of corpses. He tried to swallow, but Dabi’s mouth was too dry.

Every step demanded more and more concentration. The turn from the hall into the stairwell, down a floor to the basement. Keep your balance, don’t fall and take Chisaki down with you. Then through two more hallways to the rooms and kitchenette they shared. While Chisaki plugged his phone in Chrono let himself into his bathroom, kneeling down to turn the water on and make sure it heated up. Dabi’s knees protested. He could almost imagine the grinding of bones and the snapping of microscopic bands of scar. It sent a hot shiver up his spine.

The heat from the faucet, and the cacophonous sound and spitting moisture of running water, was making his head blurry again. 

He tried to stand up. He leaned heavily on the rim of the tub, nauseous. The grey haziness was coming back, and then he passed out.

It was probably only a few moments. When he came to Chisaki was kneeling next to him, clinically feeling for a pulse.

He looked down at Chrono from over his beaked mask, eyebrows raised. “You’re not usually so histrionic.”

Chrono squinted his eyes until things got less blurry. “Sorry, boss. I’ve been fighting it all day. Dabi’s body is falling apart with me in it.” He pushed himself up and leaned against the bathtub with a groan.

“You should’ve told me, I would have let you take the afternoon off.” Chisaki murmured, leaning over to his sink to pull one of his medical supply kits out from under it. Of course the really high-tech ones were in the basement lab, but he kept first aid supplies here too, just in case.

“Too much to do. It’s the third of the month tomorrow, so everyone’s paying us.” Chrono shook his head. “If Dabi can limp around in this thing, then I can, too.”

Chisaki held out a pulse ox for Chrono to put on his finger, then pulled out a needle and syringe. “And where did that attitude get you, hm?”

“The floor... Eh, turn the water off at some point, I think I’m going to pass out again.”

He closed his eyes. He felt the dull pressure of Chisaki manhandling his arm and putting a needle in, and then, a few minutes later, the sound of running water abruptly stopped. When he opened his eyes Chisaki was running a blood sample on his handheld blood gas reader, looking back and forth from the screen to the pulse ox. 

“You’re not in a fatal tachyarrhythmia, but I found out why you keep losing consciousness,” he said, amused. “Your blood is all plasma. No red blood cells. Here, look, I’ve never seen anyone this anemic. It’s impressive you’re not bleeding out, with your coags… Probably no vitamin K or D. I wonder if the heat from his quirk killed off his normal gut microbiota."

He held the screen out to Chrono, who squinted at it, wasn’t able to see anything in the mash of grey screen and black numbers, and leaned back, tired even from that exertion. He’d be more excited about diagnosing Dabi too, if he didn’t feel so damn ill.

He hated this stupid, useless, broken body! Chisaki was finally in a good mood and Chrono wasn’t even able to enjoy it. Chisaki was in his element, talking about all the ways that Dabi’s quirk might be killing him as he puttered around the bathroom setting things up. His surgical stapler, a suture kit, an IV set. Chisaki loved finding out how things worked, dissecting problems down to their smallest broken detail, and Chrono loved helping him put it back together again. This illness, Dabi’s illness, was an exceptional manifestation of the present contagion. Everyone was sick in their own unique way, thanks to their quirks. Chisaki was going to break it down and build it back again like it should be.

Chisaki probably saw that Chrono was barely holding on to consciousness, and he sighed, taking off his mask. “Get into the bath. You’re not any use to me if you pass out again, and you need a wash. This whole compound is going to reek of burned hair.”

Chrono had his coat halfway off when he stopped, considering the ethics of it - not that he had any compunction about fixing what Dabi broke, but mostly because he didn’t want to engage in any level of intimacy whatsoever with his extremely aggravating villain counterpart. All the same, he wouldn’t disobey a direct order. He took off his shirt, maneuvered the belt open and shucked off the stupid, crusty leather pants, kicking off boots and socks en route. He’d leave his underwear on. As he was pulling himself up on shaky legs, he heard his phone vibrating in the pocket of his discarded coat.

Just a business text from Shin Nemoto, with a set of addresses that he and Deidoro had collected monthly dues from. Chrono tried to think about them, to remember if those were businesses that had been behind last month, grab those memories tightly, but they slipped his grip and disappeared into the hazy fog of fatigue.

“I’m going to get some supplies for you from downstairs. Starting with a blood transfusion, and then more tests to see what else we need. Can I trust you not to drown here on your own?”

“I got it, boss.” Chrono gave him a pathetic two fingered salute. Chisaki watched him shakily lower himself into the tub, phone clutched in his hand, water sloshing, until he was safe on his ass. 

Then Chrono was alone, stiff as a burned corpse, up to his knees in water he couldn’t even feel. He stared up at the very white ceiling, then tried closing his eyes. That made him more nauseous, though, so he looked over at his phone. If he was still awake he could still work, he thought, so he might as well get cracking.

“Bizarre. Just bizarre.”

That was Mr. Compress’s verdict on the subject.

“It’s so-!” Toga clasped her fists under her face, staring at him from where she was lying upside-down on the couch in the League’s base. “It’s so romantic!”

“It is not,” Dabi said, rolling his eyes. “I don’t like him. And I don’t like the idea of getting stuck in this mobster creep’s body any more than I like the idea of him being in mine.”

“I don’t think you can be someone without loving them at least a little bit,” Toga said thoughtfully. “Even if it is one of the mobsters. You’ve got his blood running through you. He’s sharing his heart and all his meat and blood with you, that means something.”

“I don’t think he had much of a choice in it,” Compress said, flashing Dabi a smile. His mask was on the table next to the takeout he’d probably bought with Shie Hassaikai pocket money. “And really, when it comes to putting your meat in someone, there are -”

“I’m out, you guys are fucked.” Dabi walked past them, tossing his coat onto the back of the busted couch. Chrono’s arms were too thick to fit his jacket’s sleeves, and he felt naked with his arms out. “Don’t bother me. I’m gonna sleep this bodyswap thing off.”

The base was dark and damp, and he could feel it now, prickling at his skin. It hadn’t ever bothered him before. Maybe he just hadn’t been able to feel it. He hadn’t been able to feel a lot of things.

For a second after he and Chronostasis’d been hit by the body swap quirk he thought he’d, he didn’t know, died or something. For a moment life was like the brief seconds right after he woke up where he didn’t feel like he was in his body anymore, and he didn’t ache and pull, except it didn’t go away right away. And then he’d seen himself, Chrono in his body, looking terrified. For a second he’d been, too. His quirk. His mission. His Todoroki blue eyes. He’d stolen it. But Chrono was already freaking out and one of them had to appreciate the fucked up black comedy of it all, and it was just going to have to be him. Having a factory-new body was just a fringe benefit.

Dabi didn’t know how messed up his body had been. How could he? What did he have to compare it to, anyways? He couldn’t remember what it’d been like before the burn.

The world even looked different, 4k and high definition. So Chrono wasn’t scowling all the time because he needed to squint to see, like Dabi, he just naturally looked like that.

Now, in the privacy of his room, he stripped down to just Chrono’s pants and marvelled at how a different body looked on him. The skin was smooth and it moved like spandex when he pinched or tugged it. He could flex his elbows in so tightly. He shadowboxed a few times and knocked over his light by accident; he didn’t realize how quickly he could move. Grinning was so easy he didn’t realize he was doing it.

And he felt - nothing. No pain. No chainmail blanket of exhaustion. On his own, finally, he could just enjoy it. There were no tight scars keeping him from taking a big, deep breath. His borrowed body quietly hummed with energy. He felt kind of high.

His phone, tucked in Chrono’s pants pocket, rang, and he fished it out. After a few uncoordinated taps, he was able to pick up.

“What’s up.”

“Let’s talk about ground rules.” Chrono said authoritatively and without any greeting. “Now that we’ve settled in.”

Dabi held the phone away from his face, rolled his eyes and quietly groaned. God, the yakuza loved their rules and regulations! 

“Don’t make any faces with my face, I can practically see it. I need to do some work on this body while you’re out. We’re going to make some improvements, and I’m being nice and letting you know ahead of time.”

“What are you doing?” Dabi took a beat and connected some dots. “‘We’? Are you gonna let your boss mess around with my body? No way, I’m not letting Overhaul get within a fucking mile. I better look exactly like I do now when I come back. No ‘fixing’, no ‘cleansing’, and no experiments.”

“Why not? Come on, this is miserable! I - you feel like - I can barely make it down the hall. I’ve passed out twice, threw up, everything hurts. Why not let Chisaki do what his quirk is meant to do and fix you?”

Dabi pulled a hand through his hair, only for it to get caught up in the arrows at the tip. This hair was just as stiff and unpleasant to touch as it looked.

“‘Cause I’m not fucking broken. Sorry being in my body’s such an inconvenience for you, Chronostasis, but you’re going to have to deal with it.”

“You’re forgiven.”

“Fuck off. You don’t know anything about what it’s like to be me. My body is like that for a reason, and it’s gonna stay that way. If you change anything about it I’m gonna throw this one off a building. Break all your bones. Maybe I’ll take a trip downtown and get you some back-alley tats, huh? Give you some new holes?”

“You wouldn’t dare. Ugh, fine. Fine, I won’t let Chisaki do anything beyond what he’d do for a checkup. But as long as I’m stuck here, I’m going to have to make it livable. I can’t be out of commission forever.” Chrono’s voice took on a different tone, suddenly, a little excited. “Just normal medical things - vitamins, you know, and a vision test, eye drops. I’ll get your teeth cleaned. Maybe a massage, Rappa can help with stretching -”

“What part of don’t touch anything did you not understand, jackass?”

“It’s not an overhaul, it’s barely even a renovation. It’s what I’d do if I was in my own body if I woke up feeling like this. Just because you treat the body you’re in poorly doesn’t mean that I have to.” 

Dabi glared up at the ceiling. Fine, if he was so committed to optimizing Dabi’s body, he could knock himself out. As long as he didn’t touch his scars, it didn’t matter to him if he wanted to give him a manicure or something. The scars weren’t just a part of who he was, they were who he was. Any part of him that wasn’t stolen from someone else was burned almost beyond recognition. He was someone else’s regrettable history made manifest, and he wanted to look that person in the eye as he was. Burned and grinning.

“And I already have tattoos.”

Dabi grunted. He would’ve figured that out eventually. He raised his arms and craned his neck around, and in the dim light of his room he saw the edges of a big back tattoo on Chrono’s ribs. Huh, that… checked out, he guessed. Yakuza.

“Are there any other things I should - do or not do?” Chrono asked tiredly. 

Dabi sucked in air through his teeth. “Watch out for the fire.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I’m not going to touch your quirk.”

“Yeah, I dunno if you’ll get a choice. Don’t sneeze on anything you care about.”

“Sneezing? Really? That sets it off?”

“Iunno, maybe you’ll probably find a way to ‘cure’ my allergies and it’ll never happen again.”

“Huh. No sneezing. Got it.” Did he hear a smile? Nah, probably imagining it. Chrono had maybe three expressions and two of them were just bitchier versions of the first.

“No overhauling, no sneezing. Anything else?”

“No letting your freak ass boss experiment on me either.”

“That - don’t call him that, you disrespectful little twit, I included that in ‘no overhauling’.”

“And, you know, normal body swap stuff. Don’t touch my dick. Unless you really want to, I guess, then at least use lube. I don’t want any burns there.”

“What is wrong with you? Nevermind, don’t answer that. Some day someone’s going to diagnose you with something and name it after themselves and get a big medical award for discovering your hitherto unseen degrees and flavors of mental unwellness.”

“They’re not gonna name it after me??”

“They never name diseases after patients. It’s supposed to be anonymous, you know, if they publish about you.”

“Fuck that, I’m gonna need credit. It’s my crazy.”

“And you are going to keep your crazy as far removed from my body as possible. I’m texting you my daily routine. Please try to stick to it as much as possible. Drink water, eat three meals a day, and don’t touch my hair. You should probably wear a hat so you don’t get poked on accident... I’m going to wash it as soon as we switch back anyways, so you don’t have to keep it neat.”

“Of course, just me being in your body’s gonna get it dirty.”

“More like ‘anyone without a hair quirk being in my body is going to instantly get it tangled’. It needs a lot of upkeep.”

“No idea why you go to all the trouble, it’s a pretty useless quirk.”

There was a moment of silence from the other end of the line, and then a quiet noise - Chrono was laughing. “Mm, sure. But if having a strong quirk buys me a body like yours, I’m fine.”

Dabi looked over at his room, the falling-apart bed, the cardboard box of books, the Endeavor-is-the-Zodiac-Killer conspiracy board he set up mostly as a joke, and sighed. “Asshole.”

“I’m self conscious about my weak little quirk. So don’t mess it up. Don’t try to impersonate me. And - oh, wait, Chisaki is back. Alright, I’ve got to go. We’re just doing normal medical interventions. No extra research, no experiments, and you return my body in like-new condition. Anything else I’m forgetting… alright, no, hey, I’m just talking to Dabi - call me if anything comes up. If we’re not switched back by tomorrow we need to get together and start looking for a solution. Let’s say 4 PM, 24 hours since the switch.”

“Sure, whatever.” His phone dinged. Chrono had actually sent him instructions, the fucking control freak. 

He hung up and tossed his phone on the bed, then followed it a few seconds afterward. The sooner he got to sleep, the sooner they’d switch back and things’d get back to normal again.

In the meantime, he was going to enjoy his first painless night in a long time.

An hour later, Chrono-as-Dabi was hooked up to two IVs (one with a yellow vitamin bag, one with blood), having finally given up on trying to see his phone, lying back with a wet washcloth over his eyes. Chisaki had said that it would take a while to start feeling better, but Chrono was impatient and was starting to regret not going to bed before all this was set up. The parts of his skin that weren’t burned felt the water turning clammy.

His phone buzzed. He groaned, wiped his wet fingers on his eye towel, and peeked. It was Dabi.

“What’s wrong?” He asked.

“Hey, just thought you mighta forgotten to mention it, but where’s your dick?”

“You’re right, I did forget to mention it.” He looked down. He’d have to take off the boxers at some point, but he tried not to think about that. “Sorry. I should’ve given you a warning.”

“... Huh. Well, as long as you know I got it like this. I didn’t - you know, lose anything along the way.”

Chrono snorted. “Alright, I won’t blame you. Just don’t touch anything you don’t have to, right? We’re both grown men, we’ll keep our hands to ourselves.”

“Tattoos and now this? You were hiding a lot of surprises. What am I gonna find next?”

“A toothbrush, and then you’ll find your way to bed and go to sleep. It’s almost midnight.”

“You’re such a hypocrite, what are you doing awake at midnight, you fucking loser?”

“Waiting for my thiamine to run. That’s just a vitamin. I told Chisaki that he wasn’t allowed to do any experimentation.”

“And how’d he take that?”

“He’s reasonable. He keeps his promises.”

“If you say so, tik-tok. Remember, I know where the scummiest piercing places are here. Might end up with some nipple hardware if you go back on your word.”

“Tik-tok? No. Pick another nickname.”

“Yeah, you don’t get a say in - that was what got you, not the nipple piercings?”

“You think I’m so easily scandalized. I’m a yakuza, I sell drugs and guns. You think you’re so scary with all your piercings and leather and your box-dye hair, but I’ve seen just as much shit as you.”

Dabi laughed. In Chrono’s body it was a full and mirthful noise, not his usual sardonic croak. Chrono’s throat felt dry hearing it.  “Just wait until you see everything I’ve got.”

“I’m treating your body very carefully and appropriately and I’m keeping my underwear on. In the bath, even. That’s how dedicated I am to maintaining your privacy. Please do the same for me.”

“In the bath? Do you have socks on, too? Like some kinda bath pervert? You’re such a freak!”

“No, I don’t have socks on! You’re a freak!”

“Tik-tok!”

“Gh - you - I’m hanging up!”

“Can’t think of a nickname, huh? Not smart enough? Bathtub sock sex pest, weird-ass bird cult-”

Chrono hung up, then let the phone slowly slip from his hand to the bath mat beyond the tub. 

Maybe after weeks of working with him he was finally getting used to Dabi. Not warming up - he wouldn’t ever like him - but he didn’t have any reason to keep talking to him like that. Chatting like old pals. He frowned. Needed to nip that one in the bud. One day he was sure Chisaki would sever their organization’s connection and he’d have to put a gun to Dabi’s - his current head - god, his head hurt. His thoughts fell to pieces. No more thinking tonight.

He picked his damp towel up with clumsy, too-tight fingers and dropped it back over his eyes with a groan.

Dabi was used to people staring at him, but not the League. By and large they treated him like any other freak of nature. When he woke up in the early afternoon and trudged into the bar wearing Chrono’s body and yesterday’s clothes, everyone’s eyes were on him.

He stared back at them accusatorily.

“What? Want me to do a little dance?”

“So you didn’t swap back yet, huh,” Shigaraki said from where he was lying over the counter. “Another day of our tank being totally nerfed.”

“I’ve decided that you looked better the other way,” Toga said primly. “Boys are cuter when they look like they’ve been chewed on.”

Shigaraki bit the air at her, clacking his teeth, and grinned.  “Well, there’s my plans for the day if you’re still inflammable, Dabi, I was gonna throw you at Kamui Woods and roast some marshmallows on the pyre.”

“Don’t tell me you’re planning another job already? I’ve been dying of boredom over here!” Twice complained from the other seat next to Toga, where he was stacking sugar packets in a shaky card pyramid. “We haven’t had anything to do in ages, and meanwhile the heroes are having meet-and-greets down the street. I wanna get going!”

They all turned to him. If it was him or Mr Compress raising the issue of the League’s recent hiatus he’d be dead in a second, Dabi thought; Shigaraki resented having his leadership questioned by someone with brains. Twice was an idiot, though, so he could say it. Maybe spending as much time glued to Overhaul as he did had made Shigaraki a little more confident, because he just smiled lazily and waved his hand in a delicate circle in the air. “Don’t worry, you’ll have your chance. Enjoy your time off while you can, ‘cause I’m putting you to work soon.”

The League of Villains and the Shie Hassaikai had been working together for just a few months, but the League’s modus operandi was already shifting. They used to go wandering town-to-town beating people up and living on petty thievery, but now -  Shigaraki seemed to have a plan, or at least he gave a convincing impression that he did. They hit higher profile targets, did strange missions for purposes that didn’t yet make sense. 

Almost like the flaky motherfucker had a strategy. Crazy, Dabi thought, shaking his head.

“Good, the yakuza boys are starting to catch on to me,” Toga grumbled. “Now they all run away before I even get a chance to get my knives out.”

“I’m going out. Don’t wait up.”  Dabi announced as he left. He was hungry, which was a weird sensation, but he could imagine Chrono’s scandalized face if he blasphemed his body with his usual once-daily meal of stale chips. Besides, if he could taste and smell now, he wanted to get some food that was actually good. He didn’t remember what it was like to eat a whole meal.

Their abandoned factory base was on the outskirts of town, so Dabi took his stolen motorbike down to the Esuha canal waterfront.  All the casinos were closed and the neon signs were switching off as the sun came up. People were starting their morning routine, or picking themselves up off the pavement after a night of losing money and getting smashed.

It was nice, the feeling of cool morning air on his face. He’d found a knit hat to pull on over Chrono’s recognizable hair, but he didn’t have a coat to wear, and it was a little cold. What a weird, unfamiliar, delicious sensation.

Cars were honking and a train was passing in the distance. People passed him by and didn’t even glance at him, guys going to work, a lady unlocking a cellphone store front. Dabi stared at them for not staring at him. Usually people pointed and screamed. As Chrono, though, he was anonymous, unremarkable, even pleasant to look at. A pair of schoolgirls going the other direction bumped each other and shot him flirtatious looks when they passed.

There was a konbini on the corner of the street that looked good, and when he saw that it was open, he looked around and went in. It was too weird, not having anyone notice him. The door chimed. Dabi wandered down the aisle, stolen hands tucked in his hoodie pocket. He picked up Spinner’s favorite fish chips and some more toothpaste, and then he got a few onigiri and anpan - why not, he used to love that stuff as a kid. He took his things to the front and dumped them on the counter. He’d stolen a few bills from Chrono’s wallet before the guy had asked for his coat back, so he could actually pay for his stuff instead of shoplifting it like he usually did. Damn, this was a weird day.

“Oh, Mr. Chronostasis!” The girl behind the counter said, startling, as she came out of the back room. “I - I didn’t know you were here! In person! I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, very sorry!” She hurriedly bowed.

“Mmgh,” Dabi said, trying to imitate Chrono’s natural lack of charm and personality. “No matter. I’m just making some… acquisitions.”

“Of course, so sorry again, we were restocking the cup ramen, the All Might beef flavor is flying off the shelves, haha, and - do you want a bag? Of course you want a bag, I’ll just - so sorry!”

Dabi stared at the teen cashier, who was fucking up bagging his purchases spectacularly.  

He pushed his money forward on the counter, and when she saw it she froze. “Oh - no, no, don’t worry about it, it’s on the house, Mr. Chronostasis, I’m sorry. We’re all so thankful to work with the Shie Hassaikai, you always take such good care of us, just like family, so really, it’s on the house! Especially since it’s the third of the month, don’t you worry about it!”

Oh, right. The yakuza. She was scared shitless that a yakuza lieutenant that ran the neighborhood just waltzed in like a normal customer. He smirked. This felt more like it usually did, back when he was in his own body and scared people to death.

“Don’t be ridiculous. If you give everything away, you won’t have any money to pay us.” He snatched his shopping bag and looked down Chrono’s nose at her. “And you don’t want to find out what happens if you can’t afford our protection.”  God, he was good, that was such a perfect Overhaul impersonation! 

“Yes, sir, of course, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean it, I mean, I was just so honored that -”

He waved her off, smiling with more teeth than Chrono would have. “I’m just yanking your chain, kid. Don’t let yourself get bullied that easy. You’ll give us a bad name.”

He left, jingling the door chime, and walked along the canal, looking at the world in the daytime. It was almost alien with how normal it was. It was a world he’d only seen through the keyhole in a locked door.

He found a bench near a dilapidated playground to sit at, to eat and watch the sluggish film of water creep down the canal. There was a rusted e-bike lying down there covered in muck, where some teen hooligan probably threw it. He smiled. 

The air was cool and filled with the sounds of a dirty, dilapidated gambling town, he was eating anpan, which tasted just as good as he remembered it, and he had a translated copy of The Count of Monte Christo that he’d been meaning to read for a while but never had the energy to start.  He liked old books, at least when there wasn’t a teacher yelling at him to read them, and reading about a mastermind getting revenge on the world was satisfying. The MC was a bland dishtowel of a man, until he got tortured for a decade and then broke out of jail to systematically hunt down everyone who wronged him. It was a vicious view of the world that resonated with the League.

Chrono would probably be shocked if he knew Dabi was even literate. He snorted and remembered to shoot him a picture of his breakfast, proof that he was babysitting his body like he promised. It was a lot easier to, when a few bites didn’t make him feel sick.

The anpan filling was so sweet he had to put it aside and eat some onigiri instead. He didn’t realize he’d gotten an umeboshi flavored one until he took a bite, and the sour plum filling burst on his tongue like sparks. He smacked his tongue - he usually didn’t like the metallic taste, but in Chrono’s mouth it was delicious, just on the right side of too-sour. He was hungry, that unfamiliar, hearty hunger, and he ate it, and the other ones, too.  Afterwards he was comfortably over-full and not nauseous at all. Dabi’d forgotten what it felt like. In his own body, if he ate more than a few bites of something he’d inevitably throw it back up again.

He blinked away a sudden flush of hot tears. The page of the book in front of him was blurred, and he rubbed his sleeve across his eyes to clear it up. 

“The fuck,” he grumbed. Why was he crying over convenience store food?

Clunk. Someone’s shoe landed on the bench next to him. “Hey there, handsome. Crossing into our territory all by yourself?”

He looked over, sniffing. A woman was leaning over her foot, which she’d planted next to the pile of wrappers he’d left on the bench. She was grinning down at him, red-lipped and dressed like an expensive hooligan. There were two chicks behind her, one on lookout and the other trying to look tough.  Dabi looked around; the commuting crowd had thinned out as the morning had passed.

“You talking to me?” Dabi asked, rolling his head back on his shoulders.

“You talking to me? I don’t see anyone else around here, Hari, just your stupid little ass here with no backup. On the third of the month. Across from the Drunken Lion.”

He looked behind them at the big pachinko parlor, the Drunken Lion, now dark and shuttered in the daylight, then back to the stranger.

Yeah, he remembered something about the other gang here in Esuha, some old enemy of the Shie Hassaikai…. He squinted. “You don’t own this bench, do you?”

“You’re trying to be cute, huh? That’s the angle?” she sidled around the bench and planted herself in front of him. All the other pedestrians had cleared out their part of the boardwalk like there was a storm coming. “It’s been a second since you came to visit, and somehow I doubt you’re making a social call.”

“I’m just having breakfast and watching the mud flow by,” Dabi said, leaning back. So this yakuza-looking chick knew Chrono. If he really wanted to he could mess with Chrono’s business, and wouldn’t that be a fun way to spend the day? Even though Chrono told him not to try to steal his identity, Chrono was also kind of violating their agreement by letting Overhaul poke around and… give him… vitamins, or whatever. “Wanna join? I’d let you, even though you look like a hooker.”

She moved so fast he didn’t even see it, much less respond, but he felt the sharp crack on his face as she slapped him. The shock of pain followed a second after, like thunder after lightning.

He was too surprised to even yelp.

“The fuck was that for?” He demanded, pressing his cheek where it throbbed. The woman smiled down at him still. 

“You’re feeling spunky today. Want to try that again with a little more respect for your big sister?”

“What, was it the hooker comment?”  This time he managed to duck before she slapped him again and she only caught the edge of his cheek with her long red nails. “Sorry, you just don’t see anyone else around here with a crop top and pleasers on a weekday.”

“You little bitch. I’ve been out all night collecting the monthly checks, working hard for my family, and at the end of my day of listening to people whimper and beg and try to get around the rules, here you are. Begging me to beat the shit out of you.”

“Thought you’d appreciate it. I know you ladies need to let it out after working the streets-” 

Inowa, that name was shaken loose when one of her henchwomen grabbed him by the shoulders and yanked him backwards off the bench, kicking and snarling. The Inowa pachinko parlor family. One of the little yakuza rival gangs that the Shie Hassaikai had to deal with ‘cause they were too well fortified to crush and they refused to be bought out.

Fucking fine, they were fair game, now he could - 

He couldn’t do anything. The muscles worked, twitching in his hands and arms, around inert follicles, his chest swelled with air to fan a flame that never came because he wasn’t in his fucking body.  His heel caught in the metal slat of the bench and the Inowa girl yanked it off, grinning around a vape pen.

“Oooh, it’s open season for Hassaikai brats!” She laughed. “We’re gonna take you for a little alley walk, Kurono. Since you came to pay us a visit on rent day.”

“Walk,” one of the other women said brusquely into his ear as he stumbled on the pavement, and something jabbed into his side. Huh, a gun.

He jerked in her grip and tried to turn around and swing a fist when he got enough leverage, but the other bodyguard got her arms around his waist and hauled him off his feet and back into the alleyway across from the canal. The first one punched him in the gut and doubled him over.

“Oh, motherfucker,” he wheezed. He felt like he was gonna puke even before the pain set in.

She twisted his arms behind his back. He stomped at her feet, but she was wearing boots and didn’t give an inch. Suddenly crack, his head snapped back as the Iowa girl punched him. It was like an ice pick stabbing through the side of his nose to the base of his brain. He wasn’t a stranger to getting shitkicked, but damn, the scars must normally give him an extra layer of protection.

“This is so fun, this is just like high school,” She said. “Remember, you and Kai, and then me and Momo and Manon?”

“Yeah,” Dabi said, grinning. Either he’d thrown up a bit or he was bleeding in his mouth. “Good times. Why’d we stop doing this?”

She punched him again, but maybe because of how long her nails were, there wasn’t much power behind it. It still hurt like hell, though. And it pissed him off. He thrashed around but the person behind him had his arms locked down tight, pulling at his shoulders. He glanced at the other bodyguard, the one with the gun, who was chilling out a few feet away.

Inowa gave him a weird look and blew out a cloud of steam from around her vape. “You know damn well. Fucking masked creeps.” She shook her head. “Kai just can’t leave well enough alone.”

Kai, that was Overhaul, wasn’t it? “Chronic problem for him. He loves messing with shit that doesn’t belong to him.”

“Exactly!” She said, drawing out the word and gesturing for emphasis. “Does he still wear those gloves? Like everyone else is too dirty to touch?”

“Yup, changes ‘em every hour.”

“How do you live with him! He’s such a freak. I knew we should’ve made a go for your territory when the Old Boss stepped down. Mom said it wouldn’t be respectful. And look where I am now, mom.”

“Dressed like a stripper beating me up in an alley.” Dabi nodded solemnly. Inowa smiled, put a hand on his shoulder and yanked him down and kneed him in the gut.

“Are you okay? I didn’t even hit you that hard. You’re not acting right.”

Dabi, doubled over, let bloody drool drip out of his mouth onto the gravel underneath him. They were all in the shadows, joined by a garbage can and a stack of soggy broken-down cardboard boxes, and there was only one entrance to the alley. If this was his own body he would’ve burned the block to the ground and been out of here by now. He hadn’t even bothered trying to learn how to use this hair quirk, but even that probably wouldn’t help in a 3-versus-1. 

“Been a weird day,” he wheezed. Helpless, that’s how he felt.

But he wasn’t, was he?

Chrono’s eyes were a lot better than Dabi’s, and he was a lot more flexible. And his hair was a lot thicker. And he was strong in a different way, in his chest and shoulders, so that when Dabi snapped his head back and cracked his skull against the bodyguard’s nose, he could drop down and wrench his arms out of her grip. 

The Inowa girl swooped down at him, but he swiped her across the shins and took her down, sending her vape pen skittering into the shadows. The stripper heels got her. When she stumbled the guards hesitated for just a second, and that was enough for Dabi to grab the gun.

“The hell, you -” one of them started. Dabi twisted away another grabbing hand, banging against a dumpster, and got the business part of the gun into his grip. Now it was him, back to the pleasant street, who was in charge. Face throbbing, heart pounding, blood racing, grinning -

He fingered the trigger hole the way he saw Chrono do it once, and then tried out Chrono’s gun-holding pose. Even if he didn’t really know what to do his body seemed to; his hands didn’t shake.  “This was fun. Next time I’m gonna be the one doing the hitting.”

Inowa didn’t seem bothered by the gun pointing at her as she got up and checked her shoe to make sure the heel wasn’t broken. She held up a hand to her bodyguards, who stepped back. “Get out of here, Kurono. I don’t know what you're on. Sober up or get back on your meds or something, and get out of our territory before someone else finds you.”

He could shoot her right now, splatter her brains on the gravel for beating him up. If he could figure out how to make sure the gun was loaded, at least. Starting a gang war would be a fun way to pass the afternoon. More work for Chrono, but hey, he was already a workaholic. He never stood up for himself around Overhaul; Dabi, in his body, should stand up on his behalf.

His phone dinged. It was almost 4, when he said he’d meet Chrono.

He shrugged. “They’re welcome to try.” He dropped his hand and lazily turned and walked out of the alley, back into the brilliant sun. They didn’t try to stop him. 

There were a few passer-byes, mostly businesspeople, who had gingerly picked their way back into the road. Dabi ambled past them, got his book, and then wound up and chucked the stolen gun into the canal. It hit the shallow, scummy water across from him with a satisfying plop, kind of near the electric scooter that was rotting down there too.

He parked his motorcycle around the corner from the Shie Hassaikai’s corporate campus looking base and let himself in the side door with the keycode Chrono had sent him. He wandered around the featureless modern building until he found the front gardens, and then the glass doors, manned by two shift looking guys in lawn chairs who instantly straightened up when they saw him.

He had to stop for a moment, leaning against the walls and massaging his sides where he’d been kicked. The meeting room was somewhere in the basement, he remembered… the halls were empty, but he found a stairwell and went down. Then on the next level he wandered around a little more, muttering and cursing. The lights were dim, or maybe it was just grimy down here. It was hard to tell. Everything was beige, cold and locked. He punched against locked door handles as he walked by them, frustrated.

Fuck, had he already walked by this hallway intersection? He looked around. His nose hurt. 

“Marco!?” he called out. His voice echoed.

A second later his phone buzzed.

     Tiktok:

    > Face the grate, turn right, all the way down, door before the freight elevator

    > Polo

He snorted and made his way down to the precept’s meeting room. There, the dark walls and the weird beige linoleum, he remembered that. And a miasma of antiseptic that always made him cough. “Hey, what are you doing down here? Don’t want anyone seeing my face?”

Chrono, propped up against the arm of the couch in Dabi’s body with a computer in his lap, looked up at him. Dabi looked back.

“What the hell are you wearing,” Dabi said, slowly and emphatically. 

Chrono started. “What the hell happened to you - th - to me?!?”

“Got in a fight. What the hell happened to ME?”

Chrono pushed his laptop off his lap and shot up, but before he made it more than a few steps he had to stop and brace himself on the back of the couch, leaning down with his hands on his knees. “Hold on - ugh - who did you get in a fight with?”

“What did you do to my hair? Why are you wearing glasses?!”

Chrono stood up and took Dabi by the chin, angling his face one way and then the other to look at the black eye he was developing with a furious, offended scowl. He was wearing glasses, actual fucking glasses, wire-rimmed, and he’d combed Dabi’s hair back and parted it to one side like he usually did his own. And Chrono’d dressed him in dark slacks and a button-down shirt that looked, okay, oversized on Dabi’s wiry shoulders, pretty cool tucked in. It was obviously Dabi’s face, his body, which he’d know anywhere, but his posture and movements belonged to someone someone totally different. It gave him vertigo.

“I combed it. I’m wearing what I had that fit. We have the same shoe size, in case you ever wanted to know. And these are Shin Nemoto’s glasses, which seem close to your prescription.”

Dabi snorted in disbelief and shook his head. “I don't need glasses.”

“Sure, you're just the only man on earth who can't read texts or street signs and - hey, is that why you’re such a bad driver? I thought you were just swerving all over the road to make me sick for your twisted enjoyment.”

“You think I like doing all that? I get carsick. I just don’t drive. That’s why I always make you do it.”

“You don’t make me, I offer to because I like it. Who the hell did you get in a fight with in my body?”

“Just some yakuza chicks on the canal, okay? I didn’t get stabbed or shot, just a few punches. My ego got hurt worse than your body.”

“God, no, don’t tell me it was an Inowa,” Chrono moaned, turning his face to the ceiling miserably. “Chronostasis got into a fight with the Shinwa-gumi in public in the middle of the day and got dog walked? Do you know what this is going to look like? It’ll impact the trust that our businesses and our gang associates have in the Shie Hassaikai, we’ll look like incompetents!”

Dabi snorted, ambling over to the couch. “When you switch back we can go over to their casino and fuck it up, ‘mkay? Just you and me, we’ll get shitfaced and set some stuff on fire, skip on the bill.” He sighed. “I miss setting things on fire. For a second I tried to, back there, but, you know -” he waggled his fingers. “- you need a lighter to do that, in this body.”

“My body is a weapon,” Chrono declared sullenly, joining him. “I’m not able to rely on my quirk to protect me like you can.”

“You got some jiu-jitsu moves? Huh?” Dabi threw a few punches into the air, collapsing down and putting his feet up on the glass table. Chrono closed a binder of loose papers and sat next to him. 

“I can handle myself,” Chrono said. It seemed like the effort of standing up was too much for the yakuza; he leaned his head back on the couch cushions, almost-closing his eyes and breathing fast. Dabi watched him. He looked soft, kind of, and he couldn’t tell if it was his own face that gave him this weird wash of fondness or if it was Chrono. But he didn’t want to look away from him all of a sudden. How he’d replaced the busted staple at the edge of his mouth and kept his nose piercings in.

“Can I watch next time? I’d really like you to wreck the chick with the ponytail and the hooker heels. She was gonna gut me with her stilettos. If I went back for her it’d be over too soon.”

“Mm, I know who you’re talking about. I promise, it’d be my pleasure to find her and beat her up.”

“Not going to delegate that to one of your thugs?”

“Come on, I like getting my hands dirty. Especially when it’s personal.” 

They sat in silence for a few moments. The vent rattled quietly. Dabi watched Chrono, who was rubbing his nose with a grimace. Sat with that weird feeling. Maybe he kind of liked him. That wasn’t good, didn’t make sense. People like Dabi and Chronostasis, Shigaraki and Overhaul, they were oil-and-water people. They were different down to their base molecules. Even if you shook them up they’d separate out eventually, automatically aware that they were incompatible species. He didn’t want Chrono to like him, he didn’t want anyone to like him, but especially not a prissy gangster who simped for his germaphobe boss. 

I don’t want you to like me at all, he thought when Chrono turned his head a little and looked at him with a long blink, through his dyed-black eyelashes. Huh, did Chrono do that, too? Yeah, his roots were fresh black. He didn’t want the Hassaikai goons messing with his body, but he didn’t mind the idea of Chrono scowling over a sink and painting on hair dye with surgical precision.

“Other than getting beaten up by our old gang rivals, I hope you did something nice in my body. Something - I don’t know, normal.”

“I do normal things in my body.”

“Yes, but then I’m guessing you have to throw up and lay down for a long time afterwards. That’s been my past day.”

“Gotta pace yourself, Rapunzel.”

“No, not that nickname, either, that’s even worse. And it only barely makes sense.”

“‘Aight, tik-tok, got it.”

Chrono scowled, snapped his fingers at him, made some kind of hand motion like he was flicking water off his fingers at Dabi, then finally gave up.  “Nevermind.”

“Was that you trying to use my quirk?” Dabi laughed. “Your jazz hands attack?”

“I’m just doing what you do!”

“I do not do that when I use my quirk.” He grinned. “Come on. That’s funny, when I was a kid it was so hard for me to turn off. You can’t figure out how to turn it on. Probably for the best. Fire’s hard to control.”

Chrono was looking at his hands, Dabi’s hands, wiggling them like he was imagining sparks shooting out of the fingers. With the way Overhaul talked about eliminating quirks, curing everyone of them, he’d thought that Chrono would have been disgusted if he really believed in his boss’s philosophy. 

“I did some normal stuff. Got breakfast.”

“I know, you sent me the picture. It looked good.”

“Our taste buds swapped. Do you like umeboshi?”

“I love it.”

“Yeah, you little freak, I figured that out.”

“So you don’t? Then you’re welcome, for the experience of a delicious pickled plum and an appreciative palette.”

“If someone fucks up and gives me anything with them in it I’ll save it for you.”

“That sounds like a solid basis for a professional alliance.” Chrono said decidedly. “I’ll write it into the contract. Right under ‘no overhauling Dabi’s body’ and ‘drive on the right side of the road.’”

Oh, he’s got jokes now, Dabi thought. “Lemme see the terms and conditions for this contract. Maybe I’ll sign. Is it a separate alliance from our bosses? Just the right-hand men?”

“Well. Someone has to be the voice of reason in our gangs. Overhaul needs to babysit your shambling corpse of a capo, so maybe we should try to be on better terms going forward. It’ll be setting a good example for the others. After your guys’ little stunt with the hero raid it’ll be good for morale for them to see us working together.”

“Nothing we’re gonna do will make Toga and Twice behave, so don’t expect it.”

“I’d already written them off.” He closed his eyes again. After a brief silence, “I found out that Rappa’s protein shakes are kind of palatable. I’ve been sipping them all day and I kept them down. If you want, I’ll have him bring some over when we switch back. He loves sharing his, uh, his “macro-hacks”.”

Dabi made a face. “Pass.”

“You need some more fuel if you want to keep up your work,” Chrono murmured. “You burn so much energy when you use your quirk. Heat generation alone, not to mention the healing afterwards.  Chisaki says that your body’s so catabolic that you’re probably operating at 60% of your potential, max. You’ll be a lot more effective - dangerous - if you get good nutrition. If we’re working together, we want you at your best, burning hot, thinking clearly, feeling good. You’ve got to take care of yourself before you can take care of others.” He did the jazz-hands flamethrower thing again.

This face flushed easier than his own, but it was hard to tell what he was feeling that brought the blood to his skin. Chronostasis seemed almost embarrassed, fidgeting at the edge of his binder like he was covering up genuine concern with the excuse of wanting to keep a new weapon in top condition. 

“I’ve been living in that body for a lot longer than you do, tik-tok. Don’t think you know better than me a day after moving in, I’ve kept myself alive for this long and I’ll keep doing it.” 

“I know, I know, I’m just saying, you don’t have to do it on your own. As long as the Shie Hassaikai and the League are working together, you’ve got someone watching your back. Allergy shots. Three blood infusions, IV iron, vitamin K and B12. You’re covered for the next six months or so, then you can come back and get some more, okay?”

“Fine.”

“If you drag your feet about it I can use my dart gun for the B12.”

Dabi thought of Chrono running through the streets of Esuha after him like a cartoon character, trying to snipe him with vitamins, and laughed. The League would probably watch that with a bucket of popcorn. “Okay, bet.”

Chrono tapped his phone, still with that slightly self-conscious expression, and sighed when he saw the time. “24 hours since we swapped. Nothing yet.”

Dabi closed his eyes and rested his head back, too. This way his arms were close enough to Chrono’s to feel some of the ambient heat coming off of them. Chrono’s body got so cold and clammy sometimes and he didn’t have any warm clothes in his closet to wear. He missed his body, the one that he could spark living, white-hot flames from, even if it lit the edges of his skin up with pain. He felt like he was sleepwalking, sometimes, and the wild pain or throbbing discomfort was the only thing that woke him up. Even if Chrono’s body felt good, he didn’t feel like he was living in it in any satisfying way; he wanted to feel real tangible ache, and indulge in destructive power. The best part of the day today had been getting punched in the face.

The AC hummed. Chrono sniffed.

“Maybe my clock’s fast.” He sniffed again. “Does it always smell so much like bleach in here?”

“Yeah. That’s why I-”

Chrono sneezed. It threw an enormous, white-orange fireball across the table, instantly setting his binder and papers alight.

He screamed and scrambled backwards, but the fire joined him, travelling up his arms. Dabi jumped over the back of the couch and rolled, and then the fire alarm started shrieking. Chrono forgot about his own immolation and grabbed a couch cushion and started whaling on the burning paperwork like it owed him money, but as soon as he started making headway in putting it out there was an ominous chnk-hiss noise from the ceiling. 

“Oh, shit,” Dabi said, and then the sprinklers came on, blasting everything in the meeting room with nasty black water. 

“DABI, TURN IT OFF!” Chrono roared, grappling for his laptop and throwing it frisbee-style under the couch.  Dabi, the other couch cushion held over his face, was too busy laughing, then choking on smoke. The alarm blared. Chrono-in-Dabi’s-Body was trailing little tongues of fire from his hands, sizzling and spitting under the sprinklers. “HOW DO I TURN YOUR QUIRK OFF.”

“It’ll go out, I’m trying to keep your hair dry!”

“FUCK MY HAIR. I’M ON FIRE!” 

Dabi laughed harder, lying on the gross linoleum floor being showered by stagnant water like a yakuza baptism. This was more like it!

There was a sudden drop in his gut, like an elevator going down too fast, going from under his ribs all the way to his toes. He was getting kind of lightheaded. There were voices outside the room but it was hard to focus on them. He tried to sit up to see Chrono and make sure he’d put himself out, but it was suddenly hard to move from the floor. 

“Maybe your clock was fast,” he mumbled. The words were thick in his mouth. Water dripped down his face, and when he reached up to slick it off, there weren’t any scars in the way.

The sprinklers stopped by the time Chrono came to again, in his own body, smothered by a wet couch cushion. When he pushed it off his face Shin Nemoto was staring down at him with his thumbs hooked in his pockets and his mask on. Chrono touched his wet face, his own face, with his own hands, and then wiped his mouth on an equally wet sleeve.

“Nicely done,” Shin said flatly. 

“My laptop is under the couch. Can you go get it and make sure that it still works? It’s important.”

His colleague disappeared to check. Chrono groaned and sat up, rubbing his face again. His eye hurt, so did his ribs, but it was a sharp, sparking pain, discrete, and not the dull and all-consuming ache he’d had all over for the past day. Thank a god he didn’t believe in, he was back. It as just a 24 hour quirk after all. He choked back a laugh but it came out anyways, a short hah, his insuppressible glee at things being set to right.

He rolled up, instinctively stopping himself at a half-crouch, waiting for the dizziness and vertigo that didn’t come.

Thankfully only the sprinklers in the middle of the room had gone off, leaving a big puddle, a stack of wet papers on a wet couch, and a wet, smoking villain surrounded by a thin moat of dry linoleum. Chrono brusquely wiped water off of himself. On the other side of the couch Shin shook water off of his computer. Dabi leaned his head back and looked at Chrono between sheaves of wet black hair, eyes half-mast and amused.

“You got to play with fire after all. See? It’s fun.” he gestured at the mess. Shin reached over and plucked the dripping glasses off his face.

“That -” Chrono brandished a finger at him. “- was -” he sighed.  Forget it, he was too relieved to be back in his body, and the image of Shin Nemoto looking down at a wet, pathetic Dabi radiating disdain was too funny. “- probably the stupidest succession of events I’ve ever encountered. The new standard to which I hold all the bullshit this job gets me into.”

“There’s more where that came from,” Dabi said, grinning toothily.

“Heaven forbid,” Shin Nemoto muttered.

“You’re moppin’ this up, right?” Mimic said from the door, hands on his puppet hips. “You - Chrono - the guy in Chrono’s body -?”

“Yes, hello, Irinaka. I’ll get some of the guys to help me.” Chrono sighed. “Dabi, you should go get something dry on. I’ll clean this up.”

“You’re not gonna put me to work? It was my quirk that set things off in the first place,” he whined.

Chrono shot him a look. “You need to rest. Now that I know you’re a stiff breeze away from passing out, you’re on the back bench until further notice.”

“The hell I need to rest, you condescending fuckface bath sock pervert. I can still pull my weight around here.” Dabi pushed himself up and squared up across from Chrono, feet apart, chest forward. He was standing straighter than he usually did.  “I’m going to get a fucking mop, and you can’t stop me.”

“Alright, if you really think you can handle it,” Chrono said, playing up his dubiousness. Dabi punched him in the shoulder on the way out, the one that wasn’t sore. Chrono let him, even though he was drenched in dirty water and his work was probably ruined, because even if Dabi hadn’t been happy about Chrono helping him out he seemed lighter on his feet than before and in a much better mood.

“Damn, you figured out how to get to him,” Mimic said, impressed. “I guess every guy’s got his weak spot.”

“I think that body-swapping quirk is the most effective team-building exercise invented yet.

“Eugh. You sure you didn’t scramble your brains when switching back? That sounds kinda chummy for no-prisoners-Chrono. Especially as it pertains to those pests in the League.”

“Just because you got paired up with the two most annoying ones doesn’t mean that I can’t work well with another. Sure, he SMELLS BAD and he NEEDS TO TAKE HIS VITAMINS -” he yelled down the hall after Dabi, “- but as long as he’s working with the Shie Hassaikai….” 

“Watch your tone, you sanctimonious little twink, or someone’s gonna say you’re getting soft.”

Chrono rolled his eyes, glad that he didn’t have his mask on so he could show Mimic exactly how little he thought of that suggestion. “Come on, get out of your puppet and help me move the couch. If Shin didn’t get my laptop to work we’re going to have to do a lot more paperwork tonight.”

“I’ll take it out of your paycheck.”

He heard the banging of the plastic mop bucket echoing down the hallway and took a breath of the now-familiar smell of burning, thought about the League and the Hassaikai and their inexorable future starting to come into focus, and him and Dabi and their next mission together, and the one after that, and the one after that, and he smiled.