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It's early in the morning, early enough that even the sun is still three feet under when Tomura asks, "Are you cold?"
Dabi glances up at him for all of a third a second before dipping his head down to his hands again. The progression from rolling joints and spliffs to uneven cigars to puzzle pieces and their machine-cut ins and outs has gotta look geriatric if not plain ridiculous, but whatever keeps those hands busy's good enough. An idle mind'll fuck your ass or however it goes.
"Dunno." He answers absently. Are these shits masonite? They feel tougher than he remembers-- but that's kinda distant now, so maybe they've always been breakers rather than benders. No matter. "Why d'ya ask?"
Tomura nods towards the very digits musing on hazy durability. "Your fingers are purple." He notes in a voice evenly bisected by skepticism and mild, muted concern. Duality never really fades, huh? "Aren't you ever gonna practice what you preach?"
Dabi glowers at him, but to be fair, he had actually forgotten that even Dante's infernal heat regulation doesn't really exempt him from the flipside, 'cause it's not just Tomura's frozen-over extremeties that end up spit-stuck to schoolpoles when the thermostat starts pullin' in a few more hours at the gym. Dabi just throws a few more in bed. "I don't got gloves." He sniffs. Atop the long-stained and since-polished kitchen table before him, a still life of a stag is dutifully and methodically coming to stare him in the face. Frost coats nothing but memories of the wild grasses beneath its hooves. Lucky bastard.
Still, he really doesn't have any gloves, so Tomura can't get peeved at him, but when have bumps in the floorboards ever deterred him? Dabi doubts he'll find any of the nonexistents he's searching for when he stalks off down the hallway, but it's nice of him or something, sure, so you can have that. Burning alive just kinda makes you forget what numbness is enough to sink it all the way back to unknown, okay? Sue him. Maybe worry about yourself instead.
One by one, piece by piece, a wide and toothy pair of antlers sprouts from the stag's tan head. Pointed ends jut out like thorns in no pattern sentience could hope to make sense of, sloping and sprawling ivory kudzu that's grown sharp along its endless conquest. A chandelier of a headdress-- or perhaps a crown. We should wait a little longer before whippin' up another cross to match, though; let the guy hit the gym first if we're gonna load all that on his back again.
Tomura's right, y'know-- Dabi's gotta start practicing what he preaches at some point now. Gotta start worrying about himself instead. Or just first.
Rather than anything that might've escaped the touch-and-go that anxious fidgeters and Dabi both call something akin to memory, Tomura returns clutching gloves that even Dabi can distinctly recognize as one of his favorite pairs-- plain grey, unassuming, but fleece-lined on the inside. Thick enough to subsist but thin enough to hobble through all the tinkering daily life expects of Tomura and Dabi and anxious fidgeters and their friends too. Kinda weird to witness in what he can already taste is an offering, but c'mon. Pour some sriracha instead'a sugar for once. It'll eat fine both ways.
"Here." Tomura thrusts them out for him to take, obscuring that deer in monochromatic amber. They're more worn up close; lint is balling up between the fingers and along where his nails'd slot in beneath. Well loved. Dabi can already tell Tomura's sniffin' up his reluctance so he gags it back in if only to avoid another argument-- it's kinda early for that. Well known, too. "Aren't'cha worried 'm gonna get 'em all grubby?" He jokes, half jokingly. Aren't y' always?
The gloves themselves must've been answer enough, because Tomura just shrugs noncommittally and drops them on the table with no heed for the half-Rembrandt beneath. Whatever you wanna call the brand of consideration he retches, it sure seems flighty sometimes. Known to be weird, but known regardless. "It's fine." He says as he shuffles down the hall again, back to Dabi's inquiring face, following the electromagnetic breadcrumb trail to where his faithful steed awaits with headset and keyboard both eager to welcome him back. He shuts the door behind him like there's nothing else to say, 'cause there kinda isn't. What's the big deal, anyway?
But that's it, the big deal-- that there isn't one at all. It's just that that's kinda weird 'cause that isn't what Dabi knows and he thought he was getting a little better in that rodeo. He looks down at the gloves reclining all across the deer's body, deposited balled-up like sad little golden eggs that were just a tad too innocuous to make the cut. It's not like Dabi's about'a go swimming in black ice sporting the things, but-- it's fine? Getting y'r shit dirty is fine?
That crown of antlers and the animal thereof just a glance below stare up at the confusion riddling his brow. Since when?
The thing is though, when he rakes his focus back to reality, this whole damn place is gushing with whens. Stains in the floor from spills both bloody and not that're long since disinfected but forever persist to glimpse; cabinets filled with stuffs only ever halfway distinguishable as organized but all stood up straight; carpets free of dirt no matter how much dredging wears them bare; the very shirt Dabi's got on, too-- it's a tossup as to whose name should be on the tag. But that's alright; they're the same size. Tomura doesn't bother checking first either.
But when might be too decisive a word, 'cause when implies things a little too clear cut to really apply to amorphus ongoings like this. 'Cause that's what it is, ongoing-- nothin' ever happens all at once. One day, Tomura stopped straightening the shit Dabi leaves out and showed him how to line the trash can right so the bag doesn't fall when you dump all that shit in. One day Dabi learned how to line the trash can right and started storing glasses upside down so the insides never ever got dusty. But it was more of a progression than a starter pistol. Weird to realize, but recognized, in some subconscious ear. Loved, too-- or whatever vomitstuff vocab you're feelin' nowadays. Sugar and spice and five metric fucktons of ice or however all those proverbs go. Nice one, Confucius.
So Dabi finally pulls the damn gloves on 'cause that's enough molehill-spawned mountains before the day's even truly begun. A neural return ticket from nothing to everything always carries pushpins below the seat so his hands prick something fierce for a sec before his flesh can let itself get used to normalcy, or whatever you wanna call whatever placebo it is. And with that reintroduction drooling oil all over the raggedy gears of his overarching thought processes, he decides to take a swig from his long-forgotten mug just an arm's length away that's full of coffee that's long since gone chilly. So he decides to get up and make more. And boil water while he's at it. 'Cause why not. Fuck cold brew.
Soon a one by one can become a two by two, then a three and three, then seven then eight and nineteen and wherever the fuck else you wanna go from there, but first things always gotta come first. A puzzle can wait; frostbite cannot. Regurgitation can wait-- Dabi would prefer the kettle doesn't.
Fresh joe drips smooth and steady into the carafe below and, right on time, the drowsy beginnings of a sunrise dye the smell orange. When Dabi grabs another mug for Tomura's tea and the tea in question to steep within, the inside is just as clean as his sponge left it, cracks and all. Seems like everything's fallen in line with each other without him blinking thrice to notice. Home is where the heart is, something something, yadda yadda yadda. Nice one, Dickinson.
Still weird. You should really get to mindin' your own everything first, though.