Late Night Talks {DabixDeku}

Part 8

Stain had saved him.

"When were you going to tell me of your late night rendezvous?"

Lazy fingers trace invisible patterns on the counter top, a mop of black hair is propped on a scarred hand. The bar is empty, as is, the spot behind the bar line. He mourns, not for the first time tonight, the new lack of a bartender. Not because he's particularly sorry for the last bartender's sudden (and honestly kind of anticlimactic) death, but because he would kill for a Rusty Nail right now.

Dabi sighs, succumbing himself to his fate of answering the dry-skinned psychopath next to him. After all, he was called out here for something.

Tomura always tries to avoid interacting with him as much as possible.

"I didn't think it was important."

"It is," Tomura's voice has dropped significantly in volume, the guy doesn't seem impressed. But again, neither is Dabi. How they've managed to work together until now is still a mystery. "If the League becomes compromised because you're too stupid to—"

"We won't be," Dabi says simply. Writing the word Leaf absentmindedly with his finger on the table. "I joined your good for nothing group because it served my purposes. Not because it holds any real power, or point, on its own. As it stands, I won't be the one to compromise it," he looks up then, meeting, instead of the man's eyes, the hand covering them. "It seems to be able to that pretty well without my help."

Suddenly, Tomura's hand is on his wrist. Squeezing hard. Dabi has the faint thought that it's going to leave a mark later on. But he can't dwell on it too long, he's too busy watching the one pinky hovering above his skin, saving his entire arm from disintegrating. So, right. Maybe taunting the crazy guy wasn't a smart plan. But Dabi's right hand is already there, palm open, next to the left side of Tomura's face. So maybe not that stupid of an idea. When Dabi was expecting him to lash out.

"Where to," Tomura hisses.

Dabi shrugs. "Some valley in the countryside. I take naps."

From behind Father, Tomura stares. His grip tight on Dabi's wrist.

"That doesn't make sense, the quirk was supposed to take the person it was used on to where they needed to be." He adds, more to himself than anything else, "that's what it said on his damn quirk sheet." Scratchy and hoarse as his voice is, frustration is clear on Tomura's tone.

Well, Tomura should be frustrated, he kidnapped an eleven year old for this and look at where it got him. Finding someone to wipe the memories off the kid was a pain in the ass. Better than Tomura's alternative of killing him, of course, once his quirk proved to be not what they thought it would be. But still, a pain in the ass. Memory alteration quirks are rare, as are (this situation is an example of that) actually useful transportation quirks. It took Tomura an entire month, and contacting some shady guy to hack into hospital records, to find the eleven year old that could 'transport recipients to where they need to be.' The middle schooler wasn't very keen on joining the League, but they needed a new portal guy, so they kidnapped him anyway. Tomura made the kid touch their arms and yelled 'to Tokyo!' just to try it out.

Needless to say, their little experiment wasn't exactly successful.

"And once Toga was transported to the inside of a psychiatric ward, and Compress to the senior home where his father's staying, we established the description on the kid's quirk sheet was highly ambiguous and open to interpretation."

When Tomura doesn't let go of him, Dabi adds, just to clarify his point. "I'm in dire need of napping."

"And Compress has daddy issues, it seems."