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mphountitled · 7 months

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𝘽𝙧𝙖𝙞𝙣 & 𝙃𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙩

: ̗̀➛ Mattheo Riddle x Fem!reader | Brief!Harry Potter x fem!reader

: ̗̀➛ Summary: Jealousy makes the heart grow fonder.

: ̗̀➛ Warnings: Alcoholism, Dark!fic, Ravenclaw!reader, Bullying, Unrequited Love, Shy!reader, Toxic Relationship, Jealousy, Narcissism, Weaponizing!Harry (sorry boo), Fluff, A bit of Angst, Smut +18 (Minors DNI), DubCon, Semi Public sex, Unprotected Sex, Oral Sex, Masturbation, Dom/Sub, CNC, humping, Spitting, Degradation, Dacryphillia, Choking, Gagging, Subspace, Slapping, Sadism, Breeding Kink

5k words

A/N: Hell truly is empty. I apologise in advance.

You have made peace with the incomparable fact, long ago, that if the muggle God existed - if he is known to shepard Muggles and Wizards alike, then he was far too busy to attend to you. There is just too much going on all at once. The wizarding world is caught in its archaic intolerance of Half-Bloods. On the mortal side, you were informed from your private tutoring with Professor McGonagall that their smartphones are threatening devolution.

“It’s the closest thing they’ve got to a wand, Lovie, so we can’t really fault them on that, can we?” 6 years into your schooling at Hogwarts and you would continue to shadow Professor McGonagall, hoping you might one day soar to her heights of academic prestige in the wizarding world. You needed to be a Professor as much as a mortal needs to breathe….

You cannot let him, of all people, ruin things. Your reputation is a fragile, flammable thing - and he is freaking Kerosene.

It's difficult to pinpoint when it started or how your sensibilities rushed away from you so swiftly. One moment you’re planting your textbook on the face of a wooden desk - the sound reaching the rafters in the highest peak of the deserted classroom…

“A Guide To Advanced Transfiguration.” Mattheo read the title aloud with a tedious uninterested drawl. “Seems a bit presumptuous to shove this down my throat so early on. Shouldn't we be starting from the beginning?"

You ignored him promptly, using the silence to arrange your colour coordinated stationery on your desk beside Riddle's,

“I had no idea," You began, brushing off your blue lined robes and flattening the invisible creases on your skirt, "-That the person residing under my tutelage would be a first year."

Riddle stabbed the inside of his mouth with his tongue, while his eyes rolled to the back of his head. Your face remained passive as you continued, "You are a sixth year, correct?” You asked with a snide tilt of the head before planting yourself on the desk beside him.

“You are a big boy capable of understanding big boy books,” Unbeknownst to you, your words managed to stir something foreign within Mattheo but he conceals it with his usual veneer of arrogance as he swings his head lazily in your direction.

"May we begin?" You asked, with your back straightened - inches away from his hand now hanging on your chair.

"In a bit…" he says, "Just..." his voice trails off as his eyes scan over your visage, likely assessing it like an unseen tapestry. The truth is, Riddle did not know you prior to being forced under your tutelage. His droopy brown eyes appeared even more so as he broke the distance between you two and studied you closer. A tense silence grew pregnant in the ancient classroom, and your resolve was beginning to slip. Only one thought inflated a puddle of anxiety in your stomach:

Could this be your first kiss? Is this what first kisses looked like? Could this be your very first brush of intimacy overall?

Your brain failed to rationalise and compartmentalise his attraction, but your heart pushed your head closer.

"Call me a big boy again..." He had whispered… which evidently led you here.

Your lesson had ended with your hand covered in his release and a breathless smirk painted across his face. "This goes without saying," he breathed out with a satisfied smirk, "But tell anyone about this, and you're dead."

Ever since that day, your tutoring has been but a veneer of something much more sinister. When you were thrusted into the light of day, Mattheo overlooked you as did lots of his Slytherin friends. Besides the occasional threat and vague insult, you mean nothing to him.

When you two are alone, however, as you are right now, he would enchant you into servitude, lightly pushing your head down while he kissed you silly until your knees were planted on the hardwood floor.

Mattheo briefly opens his eyes to peer down at you. It is then when you notice the fresh bruise dotting the side of his face, and his pillowy lips split by a small incursion. He had very clearly gotten into another fight..

“Your mouth feels so fucking good when you're not using it to be a smart ass,” His words illicit a bubble of heat inside you.

Despite all this, you are clearly aware of the fact that you should not be enjoying this at all. Not one bit. For starters, you can feel the old wooden floors digging into the meat of your knees and the crisp winter chill is unkind to your scantily dressed state. Your shirt is unbuttoned because Mattheo was like a moth to a fucking flame when it came to your ample breasts and his hand is buried tightly in your kinky curls, forcing his cock even further down your throat. The very bones of Hogwarts seem to be in vehement protest of your blatant whorishness.

3 silver chains hang from his neck as he plants his other hand against the wall behind you, blocking your kneeling frame between both him and cold, hard stone. You crane your neck back, keeping a half lidded gaze on the jewelry that drives you feral with lust. You are content imagining that perhaps, when he is getting ready in the slytherin common rooms, he wears the silver for you. A fanciful thought but one that consistently has your intestines weaving themselves into knots.

That, paired with his striking, jet black blazer, which is discarded somewhere in the abandoned classroom, has you keening and fighting to take even more of him into your mouth. Perhaps you were peacocking a little - flatting your tongue so his cock slid seamlessly to the back of your throat while you fought to ignore the pain blossoming on your scalp. He had turned you from an inexperienced nun to something you're not quite ready to examine yet.

"You're finally putting this head of yours to good use…" Despite his feigned arrogance you're utterly delighted knowing that only you can bring Mattheo to such an utterly restless state. He does not really know what to do with himself.

Not when you took so much of him, so well.

You clench your toes.

Feeling himself get too close, Mattheo eases his cock fully out of your mouth, languidly stroking himself but still assuming a firm grip on your scalp. He is operating on that very specific plain of narcissism that was special to Mattheo. He is aware of your presence, physically, but his words are spoken into the open air, like you are an inanimate object. A glorified toy.

"Are all Ravenclaws as compliant as you are?”

You bring a crisp white sleeve up to your lips, wiping away the excess drool as you remain kneeled in front of him, knowing he has yet to finish.

"If you ever think of finding out," your voice is hoarse, "this will be the last time I offer you any free study sessions."

"Is money all you seek?" He attempts to feign composure, continuing to languidly stroke his cock. "How utterly greedy. I thought- fuck… - I thought you were far more philosophical than that"

You watch hungrily as Mattheo bites on his pillowy bottom lip. He is prolonging the release, taking his time as he usually did... "If you plan on edging yourself in my mouth instead of actually finishing the job, I do have other commitments to attend to-"

He ignores you... his brows furrowing and smoothening at odd intervals as he continues to touch himself while studying you.

"We may not be studying… but I still intend to pass Transfiguration, hope you're aware." He punctuates his sentence with an breathless laugh- it blossoms across his usually stoic visage, raising his buttercup cheekbones towards his smiling eyes.

As he talks, you examine his scars and feel the slow essence of admiration seep into the pit of your stomach. An arguably pathetic feat, given that your feelings will not ever be reciprocated.

Brewing inside you is the need to take care of him. You knew the rest of the student body viewed Mattheo as a glorified parasite. Something that is only capable of thinking within the capacity of its own means. Something that takes, and takes, and occasionally jokes around, and takes. But how could he know anything different? You suspected that his home life was built on the foundation of survival, on needing to be the loudest, and proudest, and worst of them all.

"What the fuck are you doing?" The sharpness of his words slice through your thoughts, bringing you back to yourself. Mattheo's gaze is placed firmly on something down below. Throughout his mindless tirade, your hand had taken to rubbing soft, comforting circles against the leg of his pants, quite literally on its own accord. Mattheo is bent over, head tilted as he watches you questioningly. Seconds stretch to a minute, and your stomach sinks as time passes.

Eventually, he dismisses you. He shakes his head. "Whatever," He says, tilting your head back and lining your mouth with the head of his cock once more. His visage darkens into a cruel sadistic grin. "Tell me you want me to come in your mouth."

Almost instinctively, you do as he orders and like clockwork, you swallow his cum, wondering if he knew how deeply and truly your words actually were. There was a moment, perhaps imagined, in which his fingers gripping your hair, melted to the side of your soft, supple cheek. It stays there for longer than necessary, leaving bits and pieces of your composure scattered in its wake.

Mattheo soon straightens his posture, stuffing his flaccid cock back into his pants before making himself as presentable to the student body as they know him to be (which admittedly is not a lot) And before he turns to walk away, he leaves you stranded on a glacier with his ice cold words cutting deep into your beating heart.

"Tell anyone about this-"

"And I'm dead," You interject, "I know."

And with that, you pull your ruffled collar over your lint-free school jersey and check your reflection to assess the damage Mattheo and his iron grip might have left. You needn't wait for an extension on the conversation because your job here was done, (pun so malevolently intended).

As far as Mattheo is concerned, you are an easy conduit to release his frustrations through because your unpopularity makes you so incredibly inconspicuous. You blend into any given crowd at any given moment, your name seldom reaching the heights of ridicule among his group because you are so unforgettable… There had been no reason to point out your flaws, not because you did not have any, but because you were simply invisible.

It is particularly strange to have any social interaction beyond the bounds of group projects and class discussions… so Harry Potter gifting you even a sliver of attention had been violently unorthodox. So unorthodox, in fact, you failed to look up from the weathered pages of your novel when his gentle voice wafted in your direction during a rare free period in Study of Ancient Runes. Your professor has been summoned quite promptly by the headmaster and has yet to return. The class has been in a state of havoc ever since.

"I don't know if you're aware of this but…" A deep shadow over the pages alerted you to his presence, "They both die at the end."

It was incredibly rare that Potter, who sat at the desk directly in front of you, ever felt the need to strike up conversation that was not purely academic. Gryffindors made use of Ravenclaws as often as Slytherins.

So naturally, you peer curiously up at him…

"Sorry?"

"Y-Your book. It's a muggle book, isn't it? I haven't seen anything with a cover like that around here. It's refreshing. Everything in the wizarding world is ancient and leatherbound." He mumbles as his index finger slides into the collar of his red quidditch jersey. He finds himself suddenly overcome by a wave of embarrassment even though there was nothing at all to be embarrassed about… he turns his chair slightly in your direction, his eyes darting to the door and the empty teacher's seat before meeting yours once more.

"'They Both Die At The End." He says, pointing towards the title.

"Oh…" You affirm, rocking your head back and forth, "You were making a joke?"

"No," Harry snickers before waving a large hand in dismissal, "Evidently, the only thing I 'made' was a complete and utter fool of myself."

You're not sure when it happens but you feel the lower half of your face melting into what you suspect is a smile. You can feel your shoulders relaxing and your novel lowering imperceptibly.

"Work on your delivery next time and maybe we'll be getting somewhere."

"Is that how it is!?" Harry asked, pleasantly surprised by your banter, "- I could've sworn I had a shred of dignity before the start of this conversation. Now I'm not quite sure where that went."

Mattheo's feet pass over the threshold as soon as the sound of your laughter rushes past him. It is almost charming in its familiarity but incredibly curious in its rarity. He can't recall ever seeing you with your head thrown back while the instinctive sound of amusement races through your throat. He does not know he's staring until Draco shoves past him, to get to their own seats in the front of the class.

His eyes remain on you as he makes his way to his desk, hoping, perhaps, that you would turn your head infinitesimally, in acknowledgment of his presence.

You do nothing of the sort, and it not only fills him with a weird sort of dissatisfaction but it bubbles into full blown vexation when he realises who is capturing your attention so viscerally.

Mattheo has never prided himself on his patience or tolerance.

Overthinking is something he consistently lives without.

Most of his actions were spurred from things he felt in the now, and he was really fucking uncomfortable with what was happening now.

His glances at the front of the class before finding you once more in the very back corner of the class. He notices that Harry is stationed in front of you but the seat beside you is completely deserted.

Did you not have friends?

And more importantly; how did he never notice until now?

What if…

Perhaps if he…

"You didn't let me know we were having a picnic," The sound of a chair scraping against the tiles had both you and Harry rallying into silence. Mattheo appears at your side, pushing the chair against yours so he, too, sits facing Potter - who suddenly appears incredibly uneasy. Gone is the comfortable atmosphere cooked by easy and amicable conversation. Mattheo injecting himself into your little bubble created a suddenly charged and suffocating atmosphere. You cannot keep your wide eyes off Mattheo as he lowers himself to his chair beside you with his legs spread as he slouches down, like he always does.

"Don't stop on my accord," He exclaims, completely oblivious to the fact that your professor might walk in at any minute. "What were we talking about?" Your heart wrestles in your chest as you see him turn to address you. His slouching puts him a level lower than you, but it does nothing to lessen his intimidation.

"Maybe I should ask, Potter?" Mattheo turns his attention to the front, "What were you lot talking about?" There is not a trace of friendliness present in Riddle's tone. In fact, it's the very opposite. Your nerves, swelling with anxiety, only escalate into full-on panic when you feel him place a large hand on your skirt under the table.

Harry's voice is low and his eyes are trained on the floor, "Books-"

"Books!" Mattheo cuts him off with sarcastic fervour, "How utterly fascinating!" The hyperbolic wonder in his tone is utterly rude and unbecoming, but you look down at your desk in blatant anger. Refusing to be a part of whatever this is.

"And tell me, Potter, how many books have you read so far?"

It is then that Riddle's once stationary hand begins the faintest trace of movement. He begins slow and tame, his callouses barely registering on the soft fabric until his fingers prod the lining of your skirt…

Your breath hitches in your throat.

Never had Mattheo ever displayed a desire to touch you. Not in the way he made you touch him. It was made explicitly clear that only he would benefit from your secret rendezvous' and so you were left to deal with your aching cunt alone, with the image of the face he made when he came, still burned into your mind. It had never been about you.

"A couple,'' says Harry, fighting to show this bully that he was unaffected by his intimidation. If only he knew that with every advance Mattheo's palm made, you were slipping farther and farther away.

"A couple books?" Asks Riddle for clarity. He remains lax and languid on the inside, but the nature of his wandering hand underneath the desk tells a new story.

He finally slips under your skirt.

His palm connects with the softness of your thighs and he seems utterly pleased by it. His hand is immediately restless to explore how far you would let him go. Which isn't very far.

Not at all.

If he thought he could suddenly touch you after myriad occasions of using you like a discarded toy… he had another thing coming.

The tips of Mattheo's fingers make gradually increasing strokes along your thigh until his fingers prod the stretch marks on your inner thigh. It is there when you stop him, clenching your legs together, blocking his hand from any further movement.

Mattheo's voice is strained as he says, "And you like reading, Potter?"

Sensing something brewing between the two of you - your withdrawn, hazy gaze, staring directly through the desk and Mattheo's overabundance in questions, has Harry reeling backwards.

"I asked you a question, Harry."

"I like reading."

"Good! That's really good!" Quite suddenly, Riddle tilts the ends of his half-moon nails into your thigh. His nails bite into your skin, forcing them to weaken and unclamp. Before you're even able to think, his palm is cupping your cunt through your panties- forcing an indecent yelp from your throat which you quickly (and very badly) disguise as a cough.

Mattheo is utterly pleased while he continues mindlessly stroking your cunt. Not for the purpose of any glorious stimulation. His hand is just there to show you (and perhaps maybe himself) that he has access to the most private part of you.

That thought alone has an unforeseen and sudden wave of lust coursing through his veins and surging straight to his hardened cock. He thinks of all the things he could have done to you but failed to do. He thinks about how, up until this point, he had ever been satisfied with using your mouth alone, not when he was denying himself the softness of your pussy all along.

He felt angry with himself, for being so fucking stupid, he is angry at Potter for seeing whatever it is he saw in you, way before he did and, possibly most harrowing of all is the fact that he is angry with you. And he can't help but be angry at you. How easily you whore yourself out to any and every man. If this thing with Potter had gone far enough, would you replace him? Had you even fucked Potter before?

You bite down on your lower lip as your head bows even further into your book. The words blend into one another, and all you can feel is a rise in temperature and Mattheo's suddenly restless fingers, pressing rudely against your clit - for the sole purpose of ripping an orgasm out of you right then and there, at the very back of an unsupervised classroom, with Harry Potter still very much a part of the conversation.

"You've got so many books to read in your lifetime," Says Mattheo. He sits up slowly, likely spurred on by the dampness seeping through your panties. "Don't cut your long life short by trying to entertain other people's girlfriends, yeah?" Gone are any traces of feigned friendliness. "Fucking Mudblood,"

Your skin feels like you are bathing in magma and you hope Potter could not see the slight tremor in your hand as you gripped the sides of your book with more force than necessary.

Mattheo's words… they have you shifting forward and widening your legs minutely. You crave for nothing more than to roll your hips in tandem with the circles he's pressing against your clit.

"Understood?"

Your orgasm is dangerously close, with the promise of sheer, disgusting shame and embarrassment if he continues. You feel Harry give you one final curious look, perhaps pleading for an interjection of denial at some point but you've taken to bouncing your knee under the table, hoping the vibrations might create enough friction to aid Mattheo's hands. He is keeping you trapped in a space of wanting. So much so, that this almost feels like a punishment.

Once Harry is turned back around and facing the front of the class, Mattheo lowers his lips to your ears. The damp smell of firewhiskey floods your nostril and you realise that he is completely drunk. In the second lesson of the day.

However, you're so completely stimulated, even the warmth of his breath as you fight the urge to hump into his hand like a lost little puppy until you make a mess all over his hand.

"You're such a fucking slut, you know that?" Your book drops to your desk - muffled by the sounds of the classroom cacophony. "You like being humiliated like this?" He asks, almost in complete awe. It takes everything in you not to moan outright.

"Fuck," You whisper to yourself, blinking your eyes shut, warding off the need but to no avail. His fingers are long and limber, and they have you nearly cumming right there, in front of your entire fucking class. Had it not been for your Professor's haphazard arrival into the class, and the swift removal of Mattheo's fingers from between your legs… you might truly have become the slut he labelled you as.

Instead of moving to his designated seat, Riddle raises his hand for the professor… the very same hand that has previously been in between your legs.

"Yes, Mr Riddle?" Asks the Professor, his voice as lacklustre as his appearance.

"May we be excused? We were excused by Professor Slughorn to assist him in-"

"Fine, fine," Says the professor with a wave of dismissal before turning his attention to the rest of the class. "The rest of you, open your textbooks to page 56."

Riddle's hand is clamped around your forearm, already leading you swiftly out the door in a long and wide stride. Had it been any other teacher at all, they might have recognized this for what it so clearly was.

"Here," you have barely made it fully into the boy's bathroom before Mattheo is stuffing his fingers down your throat, making you gag and yelp at the sudden intrusion. "Tell me how good you taste." He doesn't even bother to make sure you're truly left alone in the bathroom before pushing your front against the bathroom sink.

"Is that good?" His voice is as sweet as honey as he forces his fingers deeper down your throat, causing you to cough and gag around them.

Mattheo has half his sense to pull his wand from his back pocket, and without turning around, whispers "Colloportus," and the heavy doors snap shut.

You're supposed to be afraid because you've never seen him like this. Mattheo is always a ball of sarcastic energy between trysts, but it's usually an energy he can somewhat contain.

You don't know what to do with him, not when he's watching you choke on his fingers through the mirror, while his other hand fondles at your breasts and rips your bra down until your nipples are poking through your school shirt.

The figure in the mirror distorts as your eyes begin to water. Thick beads of tears grow pregnant at the ends of your eyes before rolling down the side of your face.

"My girl," Mattheo presses his face into your hair, breathing you in, pressing his body into your side. His hard cock in unmistakable through his school pants, "My messy little girl,"

You finally moan candidly while your fingers grip the countertops and your hips buck into nothingness. Your eyes plead with him in the mirror, hoping they relay how utterly useless with lust you have become. It would not take hard work to make you cum, you're sure one more flick against your material-clad nipples might send you over the edge.

"Fuck, why didn't I think of this sooner,"

This is all new, even for the two of you.

"Spread your legs." He commands, even though his feet are already kicking them apart.

"Come here," you break eye contact in the mirror to face the boy behind you. Mattheo removes his fingers sitting in your mouth, leaving a trail of sticky saliva in its wake before replacing it with a long and messy kiss- one that has his tongue forcing itself inside.

Mattheo weaponizes your distraction to reach around and slide your panties to the side with one hand while he rubs your soft nub with his other, spit-coated hand.

You break away from the kiss, neck craning back and mouth hanging open while your eyebrows dissolve into crescents. You cannot look away from him, as you hump his hand.

"You wanna cum?" You nod enthusiastically. "And what if I told you, you can't cum until I've fucked that little pussy of yours? Hm? What then?" His words have you mewling from the sheer pleasure they bring and your orgasm threatens to snap once more.

"Fuck," He hisses, feeling unable to remove his hand from your wet cunt but needing to, in order to undo his belt and pull his aching cock out. "Don't you dare fucking touch yourself," He says in a deadly quiet voice before bringing his hand up to your mouth. "Spit." You don't ever think of disobeying him, not when you're swimming so deeply in your subspace, not when he's the one to bring you here.

Mattheo collects every bit of saliva you offer him before coating his cock in the stuff.

Deciding not to waste anymore time, he does what his body is screaming for him to do: he bends you over the bathroom sink and pushes cock right through your slippery folds. It's tense and painful and your voice is hoarse from doing all that screaming but the sudden contact strokes a deeply sated part inside yourself. His curved and pretty cock rams your insides with reckless abandon, all while he delivers small slaps against your cheek. Riddle keeps a firm grip on your throat. His mouth is inches away from you while his hips rut into yours. His words are being delivered through clenched teeth.

"You think you're so fucking smart but you're just my little whore, arent you? A little whore thst fucks anything that gives her the slightest bit of attention?" It doesn't even register that Mattheo wrongfully suspects that there had been something between you and Harry but you keep your mouth shut. For all his indifference in the past, this is how you would make him pay.

"Oh~ fuck." His cock bruises your cervix, leaving him balls deep and feral inside you. "Fucking Potter?! You wanna give what's mine, to fucking Potter?!" His voice is utterly depraved and animalistic and it has your orgasm cresting.

He is panting, while he mumbles into your ear.

"What would Potter think? If he saw you like this? What would he think? Would he still want your slutty pussy knowing I've been inside it? Knowing that I've cum so deep inside you? Completely ruining you for anyone else, huh?"

"You…" The tears threaten to spill, "It's only ever been you, Mattheo -oh my god! I'm so fucking close!" You fight down tears as the lava begins to bubble at the pit of your stomach.

"S-Say it again. Tell me you want me!" He exclaims, "Tell me you fucking need me."

"Oh my God, Mattheo, I fucking need you." You push your hips back to meet his thrusts.

His voice wavers after your confession. His strokes became sloppy. His mind is flooded with the tightest of your cunt around his cock- how someone so smart could possibly ever say they need him. It has a flood of heat pooling at the base of his cock. "You're so fucking pretty… my pretty girl - my pretty whore," He nods to himself while his heavy cock finds purchase in a specific clump of sensitive tissue inside your cunt. It has you clamping your own mouth shut, your arms wavering while your back arches towards him, only allowing him better excess.

"I need you," You say once more, swallowing a ball of saliva as you nod towards him through the mirror, "I need you to cum inside me."

"Oh my fucking god," Mattheo's eyes soften in their desperstion, "M'gonna fucking breed pussy right here- fuck!" His grip on your throat grows tighter until you're wholeheartedly cut off from your air supply. You hump his cock until you feel it twitch inside you.

"Y-Youre making me cum, baby- fuck-" You feel his hot cum spurting inside your walls, triggering your own orgasm that has you gripping his cock like a vice.

"So… so pretty" His hips stutter against yours until you've completely drained him of his cum. A sharp tremor settles over your bones and you gasp in vague increments, waiting for the overwhelming state of euphoria to subside… but it never does.

The weight of what you had done comes crashing back down but you are unable to feel anything besides an immense wave of satisfaction at having your deepest need satiated.

"I think I nearly killed Potter today." His voice is a hoarse echo within the school bathrooms.

"There is no Harry Potter," You say, watching him through the mirror, "In my whole world, there is only ever you, Mattheo."

And a part of him believes you, but he refuses to affirm something as emotionally stifling as that. Instead, Mattheo's eyes flutter shut as his nose finds your hair once more. His cock is still buried inside you, and you hiss as he moves his hips slowly, almost insitinvely. He loves being so wholly enveloped by you. He loves feeling you everywhere.

4K notes · View notes

vixstarria · 5 months

Text

Intimacy

Hello friends, have some soft Act 2 Astarion.

Astarion’s struggle with sex and intimacy. Connected with my other fics but is a standalone, per usual.

Astarion x Reader, Astarion x Tav, soft Astarion

Hurt/comfort, some fluff if you squint, love, angst, mutual pining, Act 2 spoilers, some fairly softcore smut

Approximately 1,600 words.

“I have no idea what we’re doing,” he told you. You’d replayed that conversation over and over countless times in your mind, since.

You had no idea what you were doing either. Oh, navigating an ordinary relationship was simple enough, and you’d had your fair share of those – even if they’d all ended in disappointment at best, so far. Being with someone who’d just escaped 200 years of abuse, however... That was something new.

“I don't think I want you to think of me in terms of sex.”

Well that was a fuck-up. He was walking sex. ...Most likely due to sheer force of habit, so necessary for survival over all those years, but still.

“I love you.”

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck...

You were in over your head too. Completely. Hopelessly. In love with this catastrophe of a man.

What were you to do with him now?

Wait for him to take the lead in every physical interaction? It wasn’t in your nature to be so passive. He knew this. And you were sure he would love to be treated like spurned glass all of a sudden.

Continue as you were? Even though now all you could think about was whether a touch might bring up a repulsive memory? Assume that you could singlehandedly overwrite centuries of disgust and loathing, overnight? How presumptuous and overbearing that would have been.

Communicate? Ask? Listen? Sure. Absolutely. You did. Or tried, anyway. You were about as good at talking about these things as he was. And you didn’t really trust him to be completely honest at this point. Whether with you or his own self.

And so you explored. Slowly, cautiously and attentively.

The most innocent touches seemed to bring him an inordinate amount of joy. You weren’t surprised.

Passing him a vial of poison for his weapons and letting your fingers brush and caress one another’s, briefly. Wordlessly running a stray hand along his waist and planting a quick kiss under his ear while you walked past him as he stood talking with someone. Lingering with your foreheads or noses touching lightly after a kiss.

He leaped at any opportunity to massage your sore muscles or help you apply a salve, and you let him. It seemed he wanted to take care of you, and was working out all the ways how.

He still pleasured you in different ways, at times.

“You don’t have to...”

“I want to,” he said.

He just chose to keep his own pants on, now. You weren’t sure about his motivations. Could it be guilt? Or a misguided sense of self-worth? Did he still think this is all he was good for? Or, maybe you were completely overthinking it, and he was still just desperately horny, even if taking a step back. He was more present than before though, you could tell that much.

You considered his reactions to other forms of touch, careful not to make your observation obvious.

He hated being scratched. The entire area of his back covered in scars was off-limits for anything but embraces. He enjoyed playful bites, both giving and receiving. And more than anything, he loved holding you close, feeling as much of your body at once as possible, basking in its warmth.

In turn, you were more than happy to wrap yourself around him when you could.

“Why do you even like this?” he asked, apprehensive about it at first. “You don’t need to pretend for my sake. I can’t give you any warmth.”

“I can give you mine,” you said, simply. “Besides, you obviously don’t remember what it’s like to lie in a puddle of sweat with someone who runs hot. This is a nice change.” you added after a moment of contemplation.

You meant what you said, but you were dying to drag him into a hot bath, just to know what it would feel like for him to be warmed through. Maybe you’d get the chance once you got to Baldur’s Gate.

There happened to be a private room available at Last Light Inn that night. The group unanimously agreed that you and Astarion would take it, while the rest of your companions bunked in the common.

“For Shar’s sake, piss off, none of us want to see or hear you two,” were the exact words of their blessing, delivered by Shadowheart. Karlach sanctified it by throwing a (deftly dodged) half-eaten apple at Astarion’s head.

“Especially not hear!”

“I know this may come as a shock, but I’m actually not too fond of beds,” he said.

“New memories, Astarion,” you shook your head. “Beds are non-negotiable. I wasn’t too fond of rutting in the dirt either.”

“I’ll never grow tired of how poetic you are,” he smiled, unceremoniously throwing his gear on the floor. “New memories, you say?”

A while later, you were straddling Astarion’s hips as he sat shirtless on the edge of the bed.

“You know, you never did tell me what you like,” you sighed, your fingers in his hair as he kissed your neck.

“Oh, what does anyone like? It’s all the same in the end,” he said, running his hands along your thighs.

“That’s not true,” you murmured in his ear. “I can show you some things that are pretty unique to you right now,” you said and ran the tip of your tongue along the lower inner edge of his ear, making him shudder and let out a small moan.

“You little devil, when did you figure that out?” he breathed.

“When I happened to brush your ear a while back, like this,” you giggled, repeating the hand movement on his other ear, making him catch his breath slightly again, “and you just about started purring.”

He just chuckled in response.

“So what other secrets are you hiding?” you purred, kissing around his ear. “I might just need to kiss and caress every inch of your body to find out.”

"Sounds like a terrible chore,” he said, falling back onto the bed and pulling you with him. “You don’t want to do that.”

“Shut up and let me cherish you.”

You kissed down along one side his neck, slowly, taking your time, pausing to lightly lick or nibble on any spot that made him hitch his breath. He was putty in your hands by the time you reached his collarbone.

“Just don’t go any lower,” he said breathlessly.

You hummed your agreement. You couldn’t handle going any lower yourself – you were completely intoxicated with the scent of his skin and the sound of his sighs of pleasure, if you went any lower, you would keep going, and you didn’t think it was a day for that yet.

You continued up the other side of his neck instead.

You hesitated for a moment before your lips reached the bite marks left by Cazador, but Astarion made no indication that he didn’t want you to keep going, and so you continued. He let out a soft whimper as your lips brushed the scars.

“No?” you pulled back slightly, your hot breath still on his skin. He was lying with his eyes shut, head thrown back, neck completely exposed to you.

“Yes...” he whispered, hoarsely. “Very yes... Softly...”

You continued, lingering with your lips on the scars, as his fingers dug into the flesh of your hips, snapping them against his own and grinding you against an unmistakable erection.

“I want you to make those marks your own... Yours and no one else’s...” he rasped.

This is probably a mistake, you thought, but you could barely help yourself as you moaned into his neck and ran your tongue over the scars, making him growl and grind you into himself harder. The friction, the knowledge that he wanted it too was driving you mad.

“I’m going to come if you don’t stop that,” you begged.

“Go ahead,” he groaned.

“Not without you.”

Something in the energy changed then, and you lifted yourself off him, sitting up. Astarion stayed on his back a moment longer, before exhaling and also raising himself into a sitting position. You were still on his lap, facing him.

“Listen,” he took your face in both hands, looking into your eyes intensely. “I want you so fucking bad, it hurts. I want to tear your clothes off and ravage you until you’re speaking in tongues. I do.” His voice was hoarse. He paused, before continuing. “But even more than that, I want to remember this, remember you, and not have any of the dirt from my past mixed into it. It’s difficult enough to keep it at bay as it is.” His eyes teared up at that. “And right now, for now, this is the only way I know how to do that.”

“I’m sorry.” Tears sprang from your eyes.

“No, you sweet idiot, you haven’t done anything wrong. I love you.” He gathered you in his arms, kissing away your tears as his own started to roll down. He sighed. “Great, now no one is coming, and everyone is crying.”

You both burst out laughing as soon as those words were out of his mouth.

You held each other a while longer, him stroking your back, before you broke the silence.

“So the bite scars are pretty erogenous then?”

“Extremely. Use that knowledge at your own risk and peril, darling.”

He lifted your chin for a kiss.

“Shall we go piss everyone off for a while, maybe steal Lae’zel’s boots, then come back here for more ‘memories’?” he asked.

“Sounds childish and dangerous. I’m in.”

You needed to clear your head too.

Maybe tomorrow would be the day one of you would get closer to knowing what it was you were doing, and tell the other. Until then, at least you were in it together.

~~~~~

The “I love you” is not canon for Act 2, but it is my headcanon, damnit.

Like what you just read? Huzzah, there’s more! - Series master list

Next in series - Communication

AO3

#astarion #baldur’s gate 3 #bg3 #astarion x reader #astarion x tav #bg3 fanfic #astarion fanfic #softcore smut #bg3 smut #astarion smut

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lovebugism · 4 months

Note

"we’re arguing when the ball drops on new year’s eve, and decide to kiss and shit i don’t think i hate you anymore"

with eddie and grumpy!r pls

ty for requesting! :D — your new years kiss ends up being the loudmouth, metalhead, wild-haired boy you can't stand (enemies to lovers, grumpy!reader, 1.5k)

blurbcember ˚ ༘ ೀ⋆｡˚

Another year passes in a blink, and suddenly everyone around you is chanting “new year, new me” like it’s not just some overdone mantra destined to be forgotten by mid-February.

It’s not surprising that you and Eddie are the only two not participating in the holiday theatrics. It’s also not surprising that the two of you are spending the entirety Steve’s New Years party bickering like a married couple on the couch.

You both got dragged here — you by Robin, and him by Dustin — and the two of you are acting like total grumps about it accordingly. And even though you can’t stand being in the same room as each other, you’ve been shoulder-to-shoulder in the living room all night.

You’re sitting pretty in a black dress beside him, scowling like a storm cloud while Eddie scoops a handful of pretzels in his mouth. Seemingly noticing your side-eyed glare, he starts to chew more audibly because he knows how much you hate it. The slow and rhythmic smack smack smack makes the chatter around you sound more distant as your skin begins to crawl.

Eddie smiles when you tense — wider when you glare at him.

“Sometimes I wonder why I hate you, and then you do stuff like that, and I think to myself, “oh yeah, that’s why.”

He grins with all his teeth, pretzels crumbs and all. “The feeling’s mutual, princess.”

“Don’t call me that,” you grumble with a roll of your eyes.

You shake your crossed leg to the music playing softly overhead and try to focus on the television in front of you. The staticky film of Times Square isn’t quite as distracting as the boy beside you — and not just because he’s purposefully trying to annoy you.

He has no right to be this pretty, with his wild hair and black button-up and smudged eyeliner. It’s hardly fair.

“Don’t act like one, and I won’t,” he retorts, muffled through the food in his cheek.

“Don’t talk with your mouthful. It’s disgusting.”

He doesn’t say anything, just gives you the widest smile he’s ever looked at you with. The bits of chewed-up pretzel in his teeth make you grimace.

“You’re a child,” you deadpan.

Eddie laughs — a pretty little sound in a scoffed-out breath.

He sits the half-empty bowl on the coffee table, then pushes his sleeves to his elbows. His arms are pale, lanky, and tattooed. Some of the ink is faded and messy, obviously not done by professionals. You think those intrigue you the most. You’d ask about the stories behind them if you even cared.

Eddie rests his elbows on his knees and looks at you over his shoulder. His smile is pink and made of honey — his eyes dark and made of fire.

“You can act like you hate me all you want, but everyone here knows you’re obsessed with me,” he teases with a scrunched nose, motioning to the room with his pointer finger.

No one’s paying either of you any mind. They’re too focused on their own conversations to care about the ones you and Eddie have had a thousand times over. You try to act as disinterested as they do. You think you’re playing the part pretty well, honestly, but Eddie’s looking at you with a twinkle in his eye like he can see right through it.

“That’s very presumptuous of you, Munson.”

“Just calling it like I see it,” he huffs and leans back again, spreading his arms across the back of the couch.

The sudden proximity isn’t lost in you. Neither is the smell of nicotine and sandalwood radiating off of him. It stirs a velvety feeling in the pit of your stomach that you try hopelessly to shove down.

“You must be completely and utterly blind, then.”

“Uh-uh,” he hums with a shake of his wild head. “Twenty-twenty vision, baby.” He leans in close to croon the words in your ear, and your heart lurches into your throat. You shove him off with a half-hearted hand anyway.

“Get off me!” you groan, face scrunched in a childlike annoyance. “And don’t call me baby.”

Eddie settles back beside you with a subtle pout between his brows. “If I can’t call you princess and I can’t call you baby, then what am I supposed to call you?”

“Nothing!” you shout, like being called baby hadn’t stirred something foreignly pleasant behind your ribcage. “Don’t call me anything! Don’t call me at all—”

“Guys! Come here! The ball’s about to drop!” Dustin shouts over the chatter to get everyone’s attention, a bit too loudly. He stands in front of the television along with the rest of the small crowd, ogling at the bad reception of the Times Square Ball and a flashing countdown.

“Sounds like me in middle school,” Eddie jokes, making Steve snort out a laugh when he walks in from the kitchen. You shoot the wild-haired boy a squinted look of disgust and he chuckles. “Oh, c’mon! That was funny, and you know it.”

“Ten!” the crowd begins to chorus.

“You’re an idiot,” you grumble.

“And you’re the one who’s obsessed with the idiot, so… Who’s the real weirdo?”

“Nine!”

“Still you.”

“Ooh,” Eddie lilts, plush lips softly pouted. “So you are obsessed with me?”

“Eight!”

You scoff a bitter laugh. “You love putting words in my mouth, don’t you?”

“Like I said,” the boy hums with a smug smile. “Just calling it like I see it, honey.”

“Seven!”

The dumb name shouldn’t make you melt like it does. You turn into a puddle before you can come up with another comeback. You forget how to form words and get lost in how soft his lips look, pink and delicate like a flower. God, he’s so pretty, you hate him.

“Six!” your friends continue to chant, the only sound in the expansive living room. “Five!”

“It’s nothing to be ashamed about, honestly,” the boy assures with an absentminded shrug, tilting his flushed cheek to his shoulder and flashing you an unkissed grin.

“Four!”

“You’re not the first girl to fall head over heels for me, and you won’t be the last.”

The corner of your lip curls into a quiet smirk. You squint at him, eyes twinkling with mischief and a sudden longing for him to eat his words. “Is that so?” you croon lowly.

“Three!”

He leans in like he’s about to tell you a secret. The nicotine-whiskey concoction on his breath brushes your cheek. Screw the alcohol in your abandoned cup — you’d sooner get drunk on him.

“I’ll make sure to let you down easy, alright? I promise,” Eddie hums with a feigned seriousness.

“Yeah?”

“Two!”

He nods, bushy brows pinching softly together and petaled mouth gently pouting. “Yeah. I’m not in the heartbreaking business, you know? I don’t wanna hurt your feelings, princess, but you should there’s no way in hell that I’m ever gonna—”

“One!” the house chants together, louder this time as they shout, “Happy New Year!”

You blink, and suddenly everyone’s grabbing onto somebody.

Robin and Vickie share a quiet peck you don’t miss in the corner of the room. Mike and El smack a more obvious kiss in the very center of it. A newly grown-up Dustin tries his chances with Nancy, glancing at her with a silent smile she shakes her head at — “Not a chance, kiddo,” she says with a soft pink grin. Even Max leans over to brush a kiss to Lucas’ cheek, right before scowling at him, “This doesn’t mean we’re back together, Sinclair.”

So you feel it’s only right, that in a room of kissed mouths, you get kissed, too.

Eddie is the perfect victim. Mostly because he hasn’t stopped yapping since he sat down beside you, some hours ago now. You reach for him, splaying your hand across his warm jaw (that grows somehow hotter beneath your touch), and pressing a kiss to his blabbering mouth.

You swallow all the half-hearted insults he spews at you because he thinks you really hate him. In Eddie’s mind, if being mean is how he gets closer to you, then when you go low, he’ll go all the way to hell.

You don’t kiss him like you hate him, though. You kiss him like you can taste stars in his mouth. Like the rest of your whole life is sitting on his tongue.

Your mouth locks with his for a moment, kissing the breath from his lungs, only to pull away a second later.

Eddie’s totally frozen when you’re gone. The loudmouth boy — who you decided to hate if you couldn’t love — is left so suddenly speechless. He blinks at you with heavy, velvet eyes and grieves a thing he didn’t even know he could have.

A grin pulls at your freshly kissed mouth. It feels good to have the upper hand again.

“You’re never gonna what?” you tease, tilting your head like you’re innocent.

His mouth parts for an answer. Nothing comes out.

Your smile widens. “That’s what I thought. Honey.”

#published by bug #eddie munson x reader #stranger things x reader #eddie munson #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x y/n #stranger things #stranger things imagine #stranger things fic #stranger things fanfiction #stranger things fanfic #eddie munson fic #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson fanfiction #st drabbles #eddie spaghetti drabble #event: blurbcember

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selarina · 4 months

Text

continuation to this

so, that night gojo satoru leaves with no jacket and half a broken heart and for the first time since he was 12 years old, he takes a sip of alcohol as he slouches against his home bar.

it's bitter, and it tastes a bit too much like soy sauce for his liking but he sips and sips until he sees the engraved "S.G" inscription at the bottom of his glass.

"hello, husband," a voice comes from behind him, interrupting his sob fest.

and for a moment, for dumb little moment, he thinks it's you. the voice sounds nothing like you though, it's far too high-pitched, but he's dreamt of this far too much for him to imagine someone else calling him husband.

aya tsukino materialises next to him, and seats herself on a seat beside him. she moves with a certain a quiet sleekness that he barely caught her moving from behind him. or maybe, he's finally out of it. "excited for the wedding, then?" she deadpans as she pours herself a drink.

"thrilled," he parrots back, merely a barren echo of emotions.

there's more truth in this room than there's been in your shared room for weeks. because it's simple really— gojo doesn't want to marry her, and aya couldn't care less as long as she got the money his family had.

before they had even exchanged any words, it was clear that they had this silent agreement that the two of them had little to do with love and everything to do with societal expectations and status.

as gojo attempts to take another sip from his empty company, he can't help but replay the events of the evening in his mind. your anger, and the way you stood up for the love you believed in. it'll haunt him for the rest of his life.

he wonders if you'll genuinely come to understand that he did have you in mind when he left you. he doesn't want you to be a mistress, a dirty little secret. he's seen how it broke his mother apart. how could he wish the same fate upon you knowing how his mother's life ended?

you're strong, and he believes you will persist and he will see at the end of his life sleeping grey and old in his bed as he stares at the way the sunlight hits your laugh lines.

but he also remembers the way you cried in secret. he never brought it up, he never brings it up. he was just waiting for the day you'd be comfortable enough to cry in front of him but for now, he settles for meaningless presents he brings afterwards to wipe off the blue from your face.

he places his glass down with a clink, and he hears a resembling clink from aya. "i'll ask you this only once, gojo satoru," she speaks up. "do you want this marriage?"

"i never wanted this marriage," his reply is immediate.

"of course not," she says. "i meant, do you still want to go through with this?"

he doesn't respond. the both of them know the answer to that, it's written all too clearly on his soppy little face.

"what if i don't," he finally speaks. "what about your money? your status?"

"my money..." she feigns to ponder. "as someone who's always sought out money, i can tell you one thing about it. money, it comes and it goes. i'll find another way as i always do," she says. "i will be fine."

"your father—"

"—is a terrible man, who will go on his pissy campaign against me but i hope it's not presumptuous of me to expect you to come to defence when needed. you know, for all the trouble?"

he chuckles with no mirth. seems trouble is all he's capable of causing the past few days. "of course," he responds.

aya smiles, she supposes there's one benefit of having the strongest sorcerer as her ex-fiancé. she stands up, as she pulls her coat snug against her body as she prepares to leave. "besides, you're not the only rich high-status man in town, you know?"

"well, they're not all me," he replies. his smug demeanour returning to him like it's breathing a new life into him.

"wow, a bonus too," she chuckles.

"and who was that handsome man with you on friday? blonde, glasses, chiselled like a—"

"nanami kento," he replies with a grin.

"nanami kento. is he rich?"

"not as rich as you," he replies. it's true. he's rich, he worked on wall street after all and nanami is a smart man, he has so much in his savings account, it's enough to feed an entire nuclear family. why he saves up is something that's beyond gojo.

"well, he's handsome. tell mr. kento i said hello," she smiles facetiously.

"tsk, fine." he grins again. "get out of here."

it's been a week since you heard about the wedding falling apart. and since, you've been hearing about it daily, almost hourly if you're being honest. after all, you're at the centre of it. it only makes sense.

there's a whole slew of narratives running around, cheating, money laundering, even murder. but the most popular one was about how aya was the rosaline to your romeo and juliet. gojo's as romeo as he comes — handsome, influential and maybe a bit endearingly dumb but you fail to see how you're juliet. she was rich, influential, beautiful — everything you've been starkly reminded that you are not.

but everyone's talking about the romance of it all and you haven't heard from gojo himself so it's strange to take their words to mind or heart. you ignore them, forming a ready-made response sheet in your head to every possible question you encounter across the week. they become white noise, as you go through your day like a pre-programmed robot.

but that changes on a hot, dusty afternoon as you're sitting in a cafe, awaiting a man you were advised against seeing, and he's late. of course, he's fucking late. he broke up with you and he has the audac—

he walks in. he looks exhausted, lankier than usual, and there's a cruel part of you that likes it. to know he looks as miserable as you've been seeing. there's the other, familiar part of you that wants to run your fingers against his sensitive eyes as you feed him with the warmth of the diner's food.

but you do neither, you neither smile nor frown. you sit in place as you wait for him to come and sit opposite you.

"hey," his voice sounds gravelly. "i'm sorry i'm late."

"nothing i'm not used to," you reply with a glare as you cross your arms.

his hands reach for the menu as he plays with the edges of the paper. he always orders the same breakfast meal from this place. he must be nervous.

"i... i wanted to talk to you," he starts. "i want you back."

"excuse me? you can't just—"

"i'm willing to do anything. anything. if you want to take it slow, i understand. if you want to take your time, i understand. if you want me to get down on my knees and beg, i understa—"

"do it."

his eyes widen, you can tell — even though the black glasses are blocking his eyes, you can tell. it only lasts for a split second, because you blink with contempt and he's beside you. on his knees, as he stares up at you. he barely stares up at you — he's so tall, he's almost eye-to-eye with you. but even so he hunches his back, makes himself small.

"i'm sorry," he says again, as he takes off his glasses placing it onto the table in front of you. his eyes are alarmingly blood-red, and it takes every muscle in your body to hold back from running your fingers over his. "like i said, i'll do anything. just pleas— take me back."

you stare, and he stares back at you. you're too lost in the way he looks at you — at your mercy — that you miss the strange and baffled looks from people around you. and when you finally do, your cheeks flush with heat.

"okay," you say. " please, get up now."

"no, let me— let me stay," he says. pleads. "just let me stay until you take me back."

"fine," you sigh, as if there was any real objection from your side. "get up now."

"really?" his blood-red eyes gleam, you could almost see a tinge of the vibrant blue coming back to life.

"yes," you groan as your hand grip his elbow. "i was willing to be your fucking mistress. did you really thin— i would say— mmpph"

and just like that he's up, sliding next to you on your seat, as he kisses you. you're ashamed to admit that your first thought was the idea of getting kicked out for public indecency but your second thought was about how you think you could stay like this forever. despite the public gawking at you through mean and baffled stares.

"i'm serious about doing whatever it takes," he says, sincerity laced in his voice. "you shouldn't let me get away with this lightly."

you smile. "I hope you mean it," you reply. "and i won't. i’ll make you work for it, just a little."

he nods with a smile, "anything. i'll make it up to you."

"you have to do the chicken dance," you say, seriously and firmly.

"what?"

"you have to do the chicken dance. right now in the middle of the diner and i'm taking a video," you pull out your phone. "and... i'm sending it to nobara."

his eyes widen, almost like he's feeling actual fear. "not nobara," he gasps. "but she's so mean, baby."

"well, you said anything."

he sighs. gojo looks around the crowded diner, his tall frame rigid and tense. he glances at you, then at your phone, and finally resigns himself to the absurd request.

"fine," he mutters, standing up from the seat as he begins flapping his arms and doing a clumsy version of the chicken dance in the middle of the diner.

#the idea was to make gojo as pathetic as possible #but ya'll asked and i'm delivering #jujutsu kaisen drabbles #gojo satoru angst #gojo satoru x reader #gojo satoru x you #gojo satoru x y/n #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jjk angst #gojo satoru #gojo x reader angst #jjk x reader angst #jujutsu kaisen angst #jujutsu kaisen x reader angst

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sabertoothwalrus · 20 days

Note

I’ve seen you post some labru stuff and I’m curious what your thoughts on it are. personally I don’t see it? I can buy Kabru having feelings for Laios, but I think Laios wouldn’t be interested in Kabru, so it makes me wonder why so many people ship them. (Tbh I feel like Kabru has more chemistry with Mithrun anyway)

Sorry if this ask sounds rude, I just genuinely don’t understand the appeal of the ship, but I want to understand and I trust your analysis of characters very much :] maybe there’s something I’m missing

I really like both ships, actually!

For labru, there’s sooooo much I could talk about. The inherent homoeroticism of being narrative foils. The inherent homoeroticism of being the king’s advisor. All of chapter 76. The fact that Kabru has mask upon mask upon mask, and Laios is the first person that made his facade absolutely crumble.

Kabru struggles with being genuine!!! Everything he says and does is so perfectly calculated, even when he sort of means it. But since Laios doesn’t get social cues, Kabru gets thrown for a loop.

I get so frustrated when people act like Kabru still hates Laios by the end of the manga!!!!! He killed those corpse retrievers for being corrupt, and yet he couldn’t bring himself to kill Laios. He has such a strong sense of justice, and knew that killing Laios would be a mistake. Because, after meeting him, he could tell he wasn’t actually evil. He’s strange, sure, but not evil.

Kabru DEFINITELY wants to be friends with Laios!! He was not lying about this!!!

But this last comic shows how much Laios wants to be friends with Kabru, too. He’s so nervous after calling Kabru his friend 😭 he doesn’t want to be presumptuous and fuck it up again.

Laios does show an interest in Kabru, at least when Laios thinks he’s interested in eating monsters too. Like,, what was up with THIS

Laios’s gaze is LINGERING. Plus, (this is before that bit at Thistle’s house when he forgets his name) he brings up Kabru when they first form their plan to eat Falin.

And maybe this is just because of my own personal experiences, but Laios reminds me a lot of my own girlfriend. I think they have a similar flavor of gay/aspec & autism combo where, had I not asked her out first, she probably never would have considered being interested in me. But she was very down when I did.

The tricky part about labru is more the political aspect. Regardless of whether you see Laios as aroace or not, he’s in a situation where he will probably get married. He had a fiancée before he was age 13, likely betrothed since he was a baby. He’s already comfortable with the idea of getting married because He’s Supposed To.

However, Laios is king, and could make gay marriage legal if he wanted to (He would probably do this for his sister and Marcille before considering it for himself ). But at the same time, I think Kabru would object to Laios making whatever policies he wants without considering the repercussions of how other kingdoms might react, especially when they’re just getting Melini off the ground and need lots of support from other countries. Laios and Kabru getting gay married anyway and dealing with the aftermath could make for a really compelling story.

I do think Kabru would be a good ruler. He’s already fit for it. He speaks a dozen languages, he knows people and their motivations, and likes politics. The manga already joked about Chilchuck’s daughters trying to marry a king, so it seems like noble blood isn’t too important, but Kabru’s foster family IS nobility. When it comes to heirs, I do like trans Kabru headcanons, but at the same time, I think it’d be cute if they adopt anyway. Kabru seems like he’d have strong feelings about adoption given,,, yknow.

The alternative version of labru to this is Laios gets straight married out of obligation, and Kabru is his mistress hdhdhshsj. I don’t know if I could see Laios doing that? or if Kabru would risk the scandal of being outed as Royal Advisor and Regent trying to seduce the king. It could go SO downhill. but maybe that would be fun.

NOW FOR KABUMISU.

I knew people shipped them, and I could see the basis for it while reading, but I wasn’t really sold on it until the very end. There’s something about “I had no desires left. I decided to create new desires, and one of them is you” that’s really charming.

There’s also something funny about “the demon ate my heterosexuality so I’m gay now”

I think it’s interesting that Kabru hates elves. He was raised by them, and he hates them. He hates feeling patronized by them. He made absolutely sure that elves wouldn’t take control over Melini, not just for his sake, but for Rin’s.

But Mithrun’s interactions with Kabru are founded on more mutual respect. Though, that’s not to say that Mithrun doesn’t still have his biases towards short lived races..

Where Laios doesn’t understand social cues, Mithrun does but just doesn’t care. For that reason, I think Kabru would enjoy spending time with Mithrun. It’d give him a break from his compulsion to calculate all of his social interactions. But at the same time, Kabru is the KING at bottling his emotions. Mithrun is blunt, but also doesn’t care enough to pry. If Kabru had anything bothering him, I could imagine him seeking Mithrun’s company to avoid thinking about it. Could make for a fun dynamic.

I do think it’s funny that Milsiril 1) took care of Mithrun for potentially 20 years and 2) is only four years older than him. I imagine this could lead to funny situations.

I don’t ship things for no reason! I think both of these could work platonically, romantically, one-sided, or even “requited but they don’t do anything about it.” Their relationships compel me and I think it’s sort of bad faith to brush off either like they’re nothing more than baseless yaoi pair-the-spares. To me, I see just as much of a foundation in the source material as farcille.

After all, dungeon meshi isn’t a story about romance, but it IS a story about love. It’s a story about life and death and grief and the love that comes with it. Regardless of shipping, these characters love each other!!! And I love talking about it!!

#long post #dungeon meshi #laios touden #kabru #mithrun #labru #kabumisu #dungeon meshi spoilers #photos

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highvern · 2 months

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Burnt Coffee

Pairing: Kwon Soonyoung x gn! Reader

Genre: fluff

Summary: Running a cafe hadn’t been as glamorous as you initially believed. You loved your job; the cozy aroma of the different roasts, the hum of the espresso machine, the foam art you tediously practiced until a cute bear face stared back from the surface of a cappuccino. But any new shop comes with quirks, like the fire alarm that goes off almost every morning. Luckily, the fire station is just across the street and you unknowingly have one of the fireman wrapped around your finger.

Warnings: coffee shop owner reader, firefighter Hoshi, pockets of angst, crying, lots of mentions of food and coffee, firefighter jihoon and his baker gf, crying, kissing

Length: ~4.6k

Note: second valentine's fic! surprise! written for the Cupid For You Fic Exchange hosted by @svthub. Happy Valentine's @idyllic-ghost / @bee-buzzez !!! i hope its the cafe au of your dreams

read more here

This blog is intended for 18+ only! Minors/blank blogs will be blocked!

“I’ve got an iced dirty chai with oat milk at the end of the bar!”

A sour-faced woman scoffs, “That isn’t what I ordered.”

“Well, is your name Samantha?”

“No.”

“Then it isn’t your order.”

The exchange between Seungkwan and the woman rings familiar. Sundays bring out the best in everyone it seems. But you're too busy handling the never ending line of drink tickets to scold him for poor customer service. Focusing on the machine, you pull shot after shot; inadvertently covering yourself in errant splashes of milk and coffee. The rush of the morning is still going strong but you hone into the rhythm and let your mind fall away from anything beyond the cups resting atop the counter next to you.

But as always, the steam from the milk frother continues to heat the space above; right where the over sensitive fire alarm was installed.

The shrill blaring freezes everyone in place. A few children scream in shock, making the vein on your temple throb. Your ears ring with each pulse as your head falls into your hands.

Every single morning since you opened Fika two months ago the alarm went off without fail.

And then he would show up like clockwork.

The bell attached to the wooden door chimes as Soonyoung breaks through the threshold of the cafe. Grimaced faces greet him. The shrill fire alarm with flash lights blares into the industrial space, bouncing off the walls to echo inanely.

“Earlier than usual.” Soonyoung chirps as he saunters past the line, easily rounding the bar to access the screeching piece of junk inconveniently placed above the espresso machine.

You step out of the way, face flat and mouth tense. “Busy day.” You explain.

The alarm cuts off as swift as it started, Soonyoung stepping back to smile down at you.

“I can hang around in case. Seems like that line isn’t going anywhere.”

“Yeah, sure. Do you want something to drink?” You offer stepping back to the line of cups littering the metal counter.

“Ooo, buying me drinks already? Aren’t you presumptuous?”

The wiggle of his eyebrows is meant to be suggestive but they only make him look like he ate a mouthful of sour candy.

“Nevermind.” You huff, stepping around the man as you grab the next cup in line and start working. “Go save a cat in a tree or something.”

Sensing your waning mood, Soonyoung cuts the act. “I’ll just have my regular.”

“You know where the cups are.”

A full cup of brewed coffee joins him on the opposite side of the counter. Soonyoung plants himself in his usual chair, chin resting on his curled fist as he watches you work your magic.

On slow days he’ll chat your ear off until the fire station calls him back. But on days like today, he’s content to in silence; obsessed with the sureness of your hands, the strong pout of your lips, and the way everything seems pulled into your gravity.

Maybe he has a crush on you.

Scratch that; Soonyoung definitely has a crush on you.

And everyone knows. His supervisor, Jihoon, knows. It’s why Soonyoung is always the one to come and fix the faulty alarm in the shop. His best friend, Seokmin, knows. It’s why Seokmin and his fiancee constantly batter him with texts about when he’ll ask you on a date. If someone went to space and looked down they could see how much he likes you without even trying.

You hit a lull and Soonyoung takes his chance. “Got any special plans this week?”

“We’re doing themed baked goods on Wednesday.” You call over your shoulder.

It’s not what Soonyoung was asking about but he takes it in stride.

Your employees also know about the fireman’s feelings. It’s why Seungkwan throws a pitying look his way along with a deformed muffin. Subtle rejection tastes like blueberries and brown sugar.

“Will you save me one?” Soonyoung asks.

“Is free coffee not enough?”

“Who said I wouldn’t pay for it?”

You never let Soonyoung pay for anything at the cafe. Despite how much he enjoys free food, it always makes him feel a bit guilty. It’s why you think he only drinks black coffee with a lethal amount of sugar when in reality he’d take some fancy espresso drink any day.

You laugh as you continue to work through the next batch of orders. “We’ll see if there are any left.”

“I’m a civil servant!”

“Serve in silence please!” Seungkwan barks, earning a few chuckles from the other customers sitting at the bar.

The back and forth continues and eventually the line dwindles to nothing as the morning lulls on. Soonyoung downs two more cups and manages to haggle Seungkwan for an overly toasted slice of banana bread with a singed corner he planned to throw out anyway.

The entire time Soonyoung watches you. Even covered in splashes of milk and coffee stains, he’s still enamored with you as you lean over the bar and jot notes in the ever expanding list of repairs and updates the shop needs.

And just when Soonyoung opens his mouth to say something, anything, the shrill beep of his phone cuts him off.

“Damn, I gotta head back.” He curses. “Just call if you need me again, okay?”

“Will do.”

You don’t even look up as he walks towards the door.

“Satan is one the phone for you.”

“Please be less specific.” You beg Seungkwan, grabbing the receiver still on hold.

“Bakery lady.”

Steeling yourself, you unmute the phone and bring it to your ear.

“Hello?”

“Y/N?”

“Yes.”

“I was reviewing orders for Valentine’s. You're only doing the usual? I thought we talked about special items. I already bought the ingredients so if you changed your mind it’s putting me out of money.”

“No, we need at least two dozen of the cupcakes and two dozen of the cookies on top of our usual order.”

“That’s not what the order form says!” The old crone hawks through the line.

You ask her for a moment while pulling out your laptop and settling into a seat far away from the clusters of customers still strung throughout the cafe.

Wiping your face, you stare at the illuminated screen of your computer with the order form pulled up. “I have the form on my screen right now and it clearly says—”

“I don’t care what you’re looking at, it’s not what I have on my end!”

“Are you sure you’re looking at the form for Fika on Second street?”

“I’m telling you I’m—oh.”

The deflation in her tone pulls a smirk across your lips. “Hm?”

“Alright so two dozen red velvet cupcakes and two dozen heart sugar cookies?”

“Yep.”

“Alright, I’ll have it on Wednesday.”

“Thanks.”

Click.

The table shakes with the impact of your forehead. The clatter of your mug draws attention from the few customers around but none pay much attention.

“Everything okay?” A voice asks from above.

“Great. Wonderful.” You say into the wood.

“Good. Because the espresso machine is broken…again.”

You rise from your seat, face indecipherable as you walk past the counter, through the back storage area and into the alley behind the building.

Several seconds pass before you release a guttural scream. It's gritty, ripping apart your throat as all bubbling exhaustion breaches your lips. The noise echos between the brick walls before escaping to the sky above. Several pigeons flee to the rooftops for safety while mice and other vermin scuffle along the walls in terror.

Seungkwan watches from the door, eyes wide as you continue to belt for the trash bags and city rats witnessing your meltdown.

Your voice fizzles as you run out of air. Closing your eyes, you take two deep breaths. Inhaling the scent of stale storm water and whatever else perfumes the back alley until the stretch of your lungs burns from the inside out.

And then you turn and walk back inside as if the entire thing never happened.

The block is only illuminated by streetlights at this hour. Not even the earliest of early birds litter the narrow sidewalk as you push into the empty cafe and begin prepping for the Monday morning rush. The smell of fresh coffee fills the air, the whir of the grinder harmonizing with the jazz playlist curling down from the speakers.

The calm before the storm.

Slowly the first shift employees trickle in just before opening; relieving you to commandeer the office slash storage room in the back, intent on knocking out the mountain of paperwork and following up with the repair man about the alarm he said he would be back to fix last week. But first, the phone blinking with unread messages.

“This is Megan. We’ve been trying to reach you about your car’s extended warr—”

Message deleted.

The next message is a young man reporting his credit card missing and visiting your shop. You call and let his voicemail know no one has seen anything but you hope he figures it out.

“Hi Y/N. This is Cheryl with Harmony Bakers. Just wanted to let you know I won’t be able to get that special order for Valentine’s Day. Or your regular order for tomorrow. We’ve decided to close up shop. Sorry about the inconvenience.”

The words don’t hit at first. But your brain slowly catches up to what Cheryl is saying. Canceling. She’s canceling two days before Valentine’s.

Your attempts to return her call fall flat. Six tries and all ring once before dropping into an automated message reporting her voicemail is full, no doubt from the other shops she’s also shafted with the impulsive decision.

No holiday treats. No regular food items. No back up. No plan B.

Failure, failure, failu—

The pad of paper littered with notes sails into the not so far wall only to slap against the plaster and slip to the ground.

You can only focus on one problem at a time. Or at least the problem whose solution won’t send you to jail. And that means heading to the front where the day is starting to pick up.

The boys have things under control but the line is lengthening and you’re a great way to relieve the pressure. Immediately an invisible song pulls you into the rhythm of their work; drinks and food hit the end of the bar almost as fast as the orders came in.

Soonyoung comes in and waits at the counter as usual. The alarm seems to be granting mercy given the horrible state of affairs from this morning.

The customers not so much.

“God, how stupid are you that you messed up a simple order? It’s a fucking americano and you made it taste like ass.”

The man standing at the end of the bar, hands flat on the counter in an attempt to physically dominate the space, always complains. His iced drinks are too cold, his hot drinks are too hot, the weather is bad, taxes are too high, the list continues on and on. And somehow it's always your fault.

Usually its little barbs under his breath but today he’s out for blood and you’ve already had enough.

Your teeth grit together so hard it feels like the forced smile plastered on your face might crack them into dusk. “Like I said, I can remake it for you if you’d lik—”

“Why would I want you to remake it? You clearly have no idea what you’re doing. Get someone else.”

“I got it.” Seungcheol steps forward.

The older man gives him an apprehensive look. Seungcheol is harmless but he knows how to be scary when he wants to be.

“I’m gonna go…restock something…” you warble, all but sprinting to the back.

Plastic sleeves of cups and boxes of straws bear witness to your breakdown. The six am tantrum clouds in and your carefully built dam of control explodes. Hot tears streak your cheeks, dripping off the jut of your chin with every gasping breath from the knot in your throat tangling tighter and tighter. All you can hear are ugly gasping breaths as you rock back and forth in the dark.

The sliver of light spilling in from the cracked door doesn’t register given the way your face is buried in your hands. Soonyoung has half a mind to pretend he never entered the cramped space. He’s never seen you so… small.

A shrill squeak of the hinge alert you to the new presence. Bloodshot eyes find his wide ones and you swipe at your face to hide the evidence of your distress. You go to speak but barely manage a croak before the tears come again.

“Shit,” Soonyoung whispers. “It’s okay, it’s alright.”

The warmth of his chest makes you cry harder, tears spilling onto his neck as you hide from the world. He smooths the flat of his palm across your back.

It's anyone’s guess how long you stay there. Soonyoung’s cheek rests on the top of your head, arms firm around your shoulders. The faint smell of smoke tickles your nose. Smoke and pine from his cologne. It tethers your mind, lulling the frantic breakdown and giving you something to focus on other than how horrible the day has become in the span of a few hours.

No baked goods. Horrible customers. And now you’re being held by the handsome fighter from next door with snot dripping from your nose.

Soonyoung hesitates when you shift in his hold, arms tightening for a second in case another bout of tears crops up. But you pull far enough away to send an embarrassed grimace his way before looking anywhere else.

“Sorry.” You say, turning to snatch napkins from the shelf next to you.

His hand continues to rub your shoulders as you dab your eyes and blow your nose.

“It’s okay. That guy was a jerk.”

“I don’t care what he said.”

Soonyoung stares in disbelief, waiting for you to continue.

“My baker canceled on me, and the espresso machine is held together with duct tape, and there's a million other things going wrong, not to mention the fire alarm. And I just…”

Squeezing your eyes tight to prevent the moisture swelling in the corners proves unhelpful. To Soonyoung’s credit he stays silent, allowing you all the time you need to get your thoughts in order. But the hand on your back continuing to trace abstract shapes between your shoulder blades lets you know he’s there when you’re ready.

“It’s just been a rough week.” You say to the floor.

The admission lifts the ten pound weight off your chest. Soonyoung isn’t an employee you need to guarantee everything is okay to or a customer requiring a mask. He’s a…friend? It feels generous but if he was anything less you doubt he’d be where he is now.

“Is there any way I can help?”

You blow your nose into the tissue before laughing wetly. “I don’t suppose you have a magic wand, do you?”

“Just broke mine actually.” He winces sarcastically.

What’s another thing on your never ending to-do list? Along with the desperate need to buy more supplies for tomorrow, how difficult can it be to conjure artisan baked goods out of thin air?

“Actually,” Soonyoung perks. “Jihoon’s girlfriend works at a bakery. Pete’s? No, wait. Penny’s?”

“Petunia’s?”

“That’s the one! Maybe I can ask her if she can help?”

“Good luck.” You snort. “They couldn’t even fit me into their normal rotation.”

“We won’t know until we ask!” He chips, thrilled he can help.

Soonyoung jumps up, a cruel chill invading the space he once occupied. Like the sun moving behind a cloud and leaving you at the mercy of a cool breeze; there and gone before you can delve into what it means.

You hand him the order form you usually give your baker to relay to Jihoon’s girlfriend. While he steps out to ask for a miracle you focus on tallying how many cups, napkins, lids, and other miscellaneous items you need from the supply store across town. A few lone tears appear, falling without much preamble but the worst is out and stained on Soonyoung’s shoulder. You’ll get through it. With Soonyoung’s help you’ll get past everything, even if his efforts fall flat.

Seungcheol and Seungkwan confirm they’ve got things under control as you take your leave. Soonyoung is just visible in the dissipating morning fog hanging in the street. He paces the sidewalk, speaking into his phone animatedly before spotting you trying to sneak past him to your car.

“Thank you! You’re the best!” He cheers before hanging up and pocketing his phone.

“So?”

“They’ll do it! One of the other shops dropped out last minute and they have a lot of extras. Maybe not all the usual stuff but Rita said she can pull together most of the stuff on the form.”

Body frozen, you stare at Soonyoung with an open mouth and eyes wide. There’s no way he solved half your workload with one phone call.

“She also said they can try and work you into their usual orders. If that’s something you’re interested in…” Soonyoung trails off, glancing at you nervously.

In a blink your back in his arms, squeezing him so hard your arms hurt.

“Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.” You chant into his chest.

“Of course.”

Stepping back, you blush at your own impulsiveness.

“Um, well…” you fumble, clearing your throat you get back to the task at hand. “I need to run to the store so I’ll see you later.”

“I can come!”

“No! I mean, you’ve already helped so much. I’d feel bad dragging you along.”

“Don’t worry about me, I'm just trying to make sure you don’t start crying again and cause an accident.”

“Okay, rude.”

Soonyoung ignores you, already strutting down the street.

“Your cars this way, right?”

“No.”

“Listen, I wanna come with you. I have nothing else to do today.”

“Cool,” You laugh, continuing the opposite direction Soonyoung headed. “but my car is still this way.”

The drive is pleasant. You learn more about Soonyoung in the thirty minutes it takes to get across town than you’ve learned in the weeks he’s been coming to the cafe. He has an older sister, he likes to volunteer at the youth center down the street in his time off, and he cannot work a computer if his life depends on it. You also learn more about his coworker turned best friend who also happens to be the boyfriend of your new god.

“Yeah Jihoon and I started the same day. He comes off kinda cold but it's all an act.”

“Oh, really?” You laugh, pulling into a cramped parking spot.

“One hundred percent. You should see him with Rita. I never saw him blush that much until they started dating.”

“How’d they meet?”

“Funny story.” Soonyoung shares, climbing out of the passenger seat. “So the bakery she worked at before had a fire. No one was hurt and they put it out before we even got there! But we went to make sure everything was clear. Well, Rita was there and I swear it was love at first sight for him.”

“That’s sweet.”

You both make your way inside the sliding doors; Soonyoung pushing a flat cart behind you through the aisles.

“He’s definitely mellowed out since he met her. Doesn’t work as much, thank god.”

“What about your girlfriend? Do you guys have the same Hallmark meet cute?”

“Oh! I don’t have a girlfriend.” Soonyoung mumbles, ears turning scarlett.

Your face heats as well. Whatever force compelled you to ask such a prying question revels in satisfaction to hear Soonyoung is in fact single. A tidbit of information you’ve never wondered about before.

“Sorry I couldn’t get you anything for today.” Rita says as she helps unpack everything onto the counter.

The cafe is scarce of customers, far past closing time but Rita said they’d be too busy delivering to their other customers in the morning to spare a trip to you. What's another Tuesday at the shop? It isn't like you have time for much of a social life given the million things you need to do.

“Really don’t worry about it. You're saving my life by getting me this stuff for tomorrow.”

“Well Soonyoung made a bargain I couldn’t refuse.”

You pause for a moment. Soonyoung didn't mention anything beyond the payment Rita quoted and later sent via email. Did he promise something from the shop on your behalf?

Swallowing the budding annoyance, you continue to work like nothing is wrong. “Oh?”

“I mean an entire month of covering Jihoon’s shifts? What kind of person passes that up?”

What?

Soonyoung offered to sacrifice all his free time to help you. Soonyoung who you barely know beyond the fact that he pretends to like black coffee. The man chews with his mouth open. Soonyoung who let you ruin his sweater with tears and snot from a horrible day.

“You didn’t know?” Rita asks, face full of mirth.

“Ugh, no,” you cough. “He didn’t tell me that.”

“I was shocked when he offered. He wouldn’t do that for just anyone.”

But he did it for you.

“Yeah.”

“Y/N?”

You find Rita smiling like she knows some big secret. If you had to guess, it's probably the same thing you're realizing now.

“Soonyoung’s a great guy.”

Words fail you because you know Soonyoung is a great guy. He held you when you cried, he comes in everyday without fail to turn off the alarm, and he just sacrificed a month of his life because it would help you.

Once you and Rita unpack the remaining cookies and cakes, she takes her leave but not before dropping another wink when she spots Soonyoung approaching from the direction of the fire house.

“Rita.” he greets at the door, holding it open for her exit.

“Hosh.”

And she’s gone without another word.

“How’s it going?” Soonyoung asks, rounding the counter to join you.

“Great!” You blurt with too much enthusiasm. “Rita ended up making everything we needed.”

A second set of hands assists in packing the glass display case in preparation for tomorrow's chaos. Soonyoung listens well. Patient to a T as you direct him to tweak things just so from the opposite side of the bar.

“Thank you for all your help this week. I don’t know what I would’ve done if you weren’t here to help.”

He continues to unpack the few remaining goods beneath the counter as he responds. “It’s not a big deal. What are friends for?”

“Hmm and you agree to cover all of Jihoon’s shifts for your friends?”

Leaning back against the opposite counter, you watch Soonyoung’s shoulder tense and his ears erupt into bright red. He’s so still he doesn’t even seem to be breathing at the shock of being caught. Each passing second heightens the smirk curling your lips.

“Oh, you heard about that?” He asks into the counter.

You saddle up beside him, dropping your head until his eyes meet your own. Each inch of space you claim next to him sends him away like an opposing magnet; until your sandwich between him and the hardwood.

“Yeah, I heard.”

Soonyoung backs away nervously but not before you catch the way his eyes cut to your mouth. Who knew all it took is a smile and batting your eyelashes to make chatty Soonyoung clam up? The shyness bubbling on the edge of your conscious fizzles with the new knowledge; instead, curiosity takes its place. How much more can you make him blush? What would he do if you grabbed his hand? Or if you took a chance and kissed him?

“Soonyoung?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you have a crush on me?” You smile around each word.

He opens his mouth to argue but it's moot with the way you gaze at him, eyes shining with mirth. Like you're laughing at some shared joke. Soonyoung will tell you whatever truths you want to hear if it means you’ll keep looking at him like that.

“Yeah.” Soonyoung whispers so quietly you almost don’t hear him.

“Good.”

You step into his space with finality, chests brushing with each breath.

“Good?”

The edge of your teeth pinning your lip down is the only thing preventing a smile from ripping across your face as you answer. “Because I have a crush on you too.”

“Oh…” He nods, head dropping dejectedly and then it hits him and whips back up so fast his eyeballs rattle. “OH. You do?”

He watches you nod, slowly angling himself to connect your lips. When Soonyoung realizes you aren’t going to push him away, evident by the hand fisted in his sweater, he goes for it.

The curve of your lip, the breathy sigh you release into his mouth, the way you seem to go boneless with each pass are all committed to his memory. Soonyoung reminds himself to be good. That this is the first time he’s kissing you and he should be a gentleman; gentle, chaste, respectful.

And he would succeed but you’re acting like you have no interest in any of those things. You whisper another heavenly sigh into his mouth, trailing a hand in the short strands of hair at the base of his skull forcing Soonyoung to focus on batting away the demons at the edge of his mind rather than giving into temptation.

But when you tug to angle his head better the delicious sting drowns Soonyoung so quickly he has you pinned to the counter before he realizes what's happening.

Sometime later, when your lips are swollen and the floor sways beneath you from the flood of giddiness coursing through your veins, you and Soonyoung part. The crisp air of the late night tries in vain to nip at your face but you’re too distracted by the calluses on the side of Soonyoung’s thumb and the way they rasp against your knuckles as he walks you to your car.

The cafe is in full swing by the time Soonyoung comes in Wednesday morning.

All morning he paced across the cramped common room of the fire station. Sure you let him kiss you but what did it all mean? He knows you like him but did you like like him or just like him? Should he have asked you on a date? Would that be too forward? Did he mess things up by not immediately asking you out despite the fact he was so love drunk he ran into a pole after watching you drive off?

He fights the idea of running across the street and demanding answers. You’re definitely too busy to spare a second and tame the butterflies in his stomach. And how pathetic would he look if he asked you to explicitly dictate how you feel so no wires end up cross? And on Valentine’s day no less?

Luckily, he’s saved by the bell. Or rather the fire alarm.

He watches you work like a tornado, pausing only to smile at him the same way you did last night when he did not so safe for work things against the very counter lined with coffee cups and steaming mugs. Flashes of memory heat across his face.

You thank him with his usual coffee and one of the cupcakes you set aside just for him. Except this time his paper cup is scribbled with a heart and something else.

Be my Valentine? _Yes _ Also Yes _ YES BUT LOUD

At some point he should tell you about the sensitivity setting on the alarm and how all you need to do is nudge the tiny lever to the right if you don't want it going off every time the steam builds up. But the way you beam at him when he steals the sharpie from behind your ear and checks all three boxes on the cup makes Soonyoung decide it’s a secret he’ll keep for now.

@cvpidyunho @miniseokminnies @tomodachiii @ddaengpotate @arycutie @gaebestie @gyuguys @primoppang @mine-gyu @doremifasire @missminhoe

#svthub #svthub.collab #kvanity #kwon soonyoung #hoshi #kwon soonyoung fluff #hoshi fluff #seventeen fluff #seventeen fanfic #svt x reader #soonyoung x reader #hoshi x reader #svt #svt fluff #seventeen #🫡 highvern

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fyorina · 19 days

Text

ᡣ𐭩 ALL THINGS END

FEATURING: beast dazai osamu

SUMMARY: all of dazai's carefully calculated plans come to an abrupt halt when you run into him at a club. he thinks fate is a funny thing, that despite all of his desperate attempts to stay away from you, it still leads you right to him. one night, he decides, is all he'll allow. one night of indulgence, and then things will go back to how they were. that's how it has to be to keep you safe. {wordcount: 11.8k; fem!reader; romance & tragedy}

AUTHOR'S NOTES: wow we're starting side b—side b can be read separately from side a but you’ll get some neat references if you read both (｡♡ ‿ ♡｡). i'm so nervous actually HAHAH i put my heart and soul into side b and trying to characterize beast!dazai properly. it was really hard because the majority of the fic is from his pov and getting into his mind is a lotttt harder than canonzai imo. anyway, reblogs are always appreciated! thank you guys & i hope you guys love this as much as i enjoyed writing it

GENERAL WARNINGS: dazai struggles a lot with disassociation/derealization & losing himself in the pages of the book, it's going to be a common theme throughout the series so i'll leave the heads up now. + as always please let me know if i forgot any warnings!

SEE: UNREAL UNEARTH SERIES MASTERLIST READ: BADLANDS SIDE A

Dazai Osamu thinks that his touch might be noxious, indiscriminately rotting all he comes in contact with until only putrid remains are left of what had once been lively souls. His gaze drags across his fingers from where they’re splayed on top of the table, absently tapping out a familiar name over and over again, the only thing grounding him to the meeting taking place around him in one of the second-floor VIP rooms of the Port Mafia’s most elite nightclub. If he looks hard enough, he swears he can see that the tips of his fingers are blackened, ready to lay the curse of decay upon the next person he brushes them against.

He can feel eyes on him—the impatient glares from the foreign emissaries and the tense stares of his executives, as they wait for him to respond to the offer, laid out to him by the top brass of the Russian kingpin called Nabokov, an old ally of the Port Mafia courtesy of the previous boss. Dazai was already annoyed coming into this meeting, thinking that the Russians were presumptuous for assuming that the Port Mafia should come to their defense in the three-way territorial war going on in their motherland, but the fact that Nabokov couldn’t even bother to come speak to him himself after Dazai’s executives insisted that he be the one to personally handle this only made him even more bitter and irate. He hates having to leave the headquarters.

He takes a long drag from the cigarette hanging between his lips, lifting his free hand to pull the end from his mouth before putting it out on the table in front of him. The buzz of the nicotine isn’t enough to keep him present anymore. He keeps tapping, steady and controlled, the same bunch of letters again and again—everything around himself feels hazy and blurry. The only thing clear that he can focus on is the uniform drumming of his fingers, his voice doesn’t even sound like his own as he speaks:

“Why should I even entertain your offer when Nabokov couldn’t bring it to me himself?”

The first words that he speaks during the entire meeting are cold and harsh, as they should be in response to the disrespect shown by the Pale Flame, but Dazai just wants to be done with this and return to the base before anything can go wrong. His executives are vaguely pleased by his words, evidently taking more offense to Nabokov’s failure to show than Dazai himself does, and the three emissaries of the Pale Flame bristle, sharing looks as they try to figure out what to say in response to Dazai’s remark. Dazai doesn’t even care to hear what they have to say, lost in his thoughts as he glances up at the ceiling.

He thinks that if his touch isn’t entirely noxious, as there have been a few people who haven’t faced ruin after being exposed to it, then his presence makes up for it in its draining effect. The black hole in his chest is just as indiscriminate as the corroding touch of his fingers, emptying people of hope and exhausting them of energy. A part of Dazai mourns over the fact that those who can survive his touch are drained by the void—(chuuya. atsushi. their names weigh heavy on him, knowing that he’s dragged them so far down with him in this life)—while those who can withstand the void are inevitably killed because of their proximity to him—(you, odasaku, your names ring through his head, cruel and taunting. he pushes away the longing that rips at his chest, as he always does.)

His fate is to be alone, a cruel design drawn out by whatever sadistic gods reign above.

In every universe, it’s proven to be true. Even in this one, he can’t spare people from the effects of his existence. Atsushi, Kyouka, Chuuya—as years have passed their eyes have become dull and their souls have become as black as the blood that he forcibly injected into their veins. He considers whether or not he might just be better off dead, that way he can give those who have been the most affected by him, in this life and all of the others, a much-needed reprieve from him. But he can’t, not when he’s unsure over whether or not those who’ve been condemned by his touch will actually survive if it means he’s gone.

“... okov sends all of his reg…”

The tapping becomes a bit harsher, faster. If he was writing out the name rather than tapping it, the script would be jagged and unclear. His surroundings start to fade out again, Nabokov’s executives are speaking but the words are going in one ear, out the other. His head feels fuzzy and his free hand is starting to go numb.

Odasaku. You. He’s sure that there are plenty of others, but you two are the only ones that matter to him. He doesn’t know if killing himself would mean that the two of you could live out your lives to the fullest. You could both die anyway, for all he knows, and then he would’ve died for nothing and he can’t risk that, not when this is the only universe where he’s aware of the fate that you and Odasaku face in every other world.

He can work to protect the two of you in this world; he’ll do what must be done from the shadows to ensure that you and Odasaku can finally fulfill your dreams. A life without you, and a life without Odasaku, is a small price to pay if it means that you two can actually live out your lives. You’ve granted him enough good memories from every single other universe that the least you guys deserve is one without his presence bringing you ruin.

“... the previous b…”

Sometimes, he longs so badly for a life with the two of you that it makes him sick. A world in which Odasaku lives and Dazai can be with you, a world where he’s untouched by the shadows and the tarry substance corrupting his blood. He thinks that Odasaku would adore you if he’d ever been given the chance to meet you—you both have a similar dry humor and an intrinsic desire to help people, even those who decidedly don’t deserve it. On nights that are a bit too dark and a bit too heavy, Dazai imagines dragging you to Odasaku’s place so he can introduce you to him and he imagines how his face would flame up in embarrassment when Odasaku tells you all of the humiliating stories of Dazai’s youth that he knows the man has stocked up.

Moments like this, when everything feels a bit too far away and his mind can’t connect to the present, lost in the pages of all of the other worlds he’d seen, he swears that he can feel the ghost of your touch running across his skin as you trace patterns along his arms and brush kisses against his jaw. He thinks it’s cruel that his mind tortures him with the unattainable; taunts him with the knowledge that the only person he’s ever entirely given himself to, and was accepted by, is out there waiting for him, but the moment Dazai gives in to the aching in his chest, it’ll be ripped away from him again.

“… disorder in the motherl…”

He can’t feel his left arm, and that awful numbness is starting to spread across his chest to his right arm; with nothing left to consume, the black hole in his chest is devouring him again. Now is not the time, not when his executives are around, and especially not when outsiders are around. He taps more intensely—your name, over and over and over again, the only thing that can ever pull him out of these states. It’s the reminder that you’re out there, alive, and that even if it’s not in this world, you love him in every single other one, no matter how absurd the idea is.

“... will not be contained to…”

He needs to focus. He knows what the Pale Flame emissaries are saying even if Dazai can’t actually hear and process the full conversation—whatever is happening in Russia will spread, and it will spread to Japan, certainly, if Dostoevsky comes out on top. This conflict never occurred in the other universes and Dazai doesn’t know what exactly he did in this one that caused this change. Figuring it out and adapting needs to be his first priority because Dostoevsky’s arrival in Yokohama will put everything he’s built at risk.

It will put you at risk.

How many times have you died at his hand? Too many. Too many for him to risk this.

He was able to handle Odasaku’s fate years ago when he got ahold of that painting and convinced him to join the Armed Detective Agency. Odasaku’s fate was easy in comparison to yours, that painting and the Port Mafia have been the cause of his death, removing them from the equation will be enough to keep him safe until Dazai follows through with the final phase of his plan.

Your fate is always more arbitrary—Fyodor Dostoevsky will be the first trial he has to overcome to ensure your survival and then depending on how things play out after that, Agatha Christie will be the second trial. They’re the two leading causes of your death besides Dazai himself. Once the two of them have been taken care of, Dazai can move on to Phase Three, the beginning of the end.

The darker part of him, the one that has festered and corrupted and spread to every inch of his soul without the light you and Odasaku had brought to him in all of his other lives, wonders if he should have you kidnapped and tucked away until he can make sure that Dostoevsky is six-feet-under and unable to disrupt the world he’s built for you and Odasaku. Unlike Osasaku, you have no ability to protect yourself with if everything starts falling apart. You’ll be the most vulnerable, the most at risk.

But he knows he can’t for the same reason that he knows he’ll never be able to approach you in the same way he did Odasaku so many years before: Dazai has never had any sort of self-control when it comes to you and he doubts it’ll be any different in this universe. Even when he knows you’re better off, even when he knows that each second he spends in your life is slowly destroying you, he can never bring himself to part from you. He fears that even the slightest look of you will condemn him and all of the work he’s done, that even just the knowledge of where you are will tempt him into wandering the area in hopes of running into you.

He’s done everything he can to ensure that he never has any contact with you or any information about your life. He assigned Kouyou to look over you, being the best suited for such types of missions. She’s spent years making sure that you’re safe and nothing from the underground disturbs your studies or everyday life. The woman was naturally curious about the request, even more so when Dazai instructed her to never give him any updates on you unless it was a life-or-death situation, but she knew better than to question him.

At this point, only the hand of god and sheer chance could lead him to you, which is why he’s particularly against meetings like these where he’s forced to leave the shadows of his towers and dally into the public. Dazai doesn’t beg, and he certainly doesn’t pray, but whenever he has to leave the Port Mafia base for extended periods, he gets damn close to it because each moment in the light risks everything.

“... oevsky and Tolstoy…”

The ice spreads to the wrist of his right arm and just as Dazai thinks he’s about to be fully swallowed by the void, his gaze drifts to the window looking down on the main floor of the club and he catches sight of a figure leaning on the bar, and it’s ludicrous, really, because how does his gaze tunnel on one person in the sea of hundreds before him. But his mouth goes dry and his body stills as recognition floods through him, replacing the numbness so quickly that his body is almost palpitating in the sudden shock of it. Flames burn through his veins and the fingers that had been steadily tapping out your name jerk so abruptly that Chuuya, Kouyou, and Gin are all casting him hesitant looks.

He rises to his feet suddenly, ignoring the fact that all eyes are on him and that he’s completely disregarded whatever the Pale Flame emissaries had been explaining. He waves Gin off as the girl instinctively moves to follow him, the room is spinning and closing in on him so swiftly that he doesn’t even think he’ll be able to make it out of the room before his mind and body collapse in on themselves.

If there is a god, Dazai realizes, then he’s abandoned Dazai since the moment he was born, because standing there with glittering eyes and a smile so painstakingly familiar and foreign at the same time is you.

There’s a hazy smile on your face as you stumble out of the main room of the club, and down a side hall toward where you’re pretty sure the restrooms should be. You lean against the wall as you try to regain your bearings, inhaling the air greedily—you hadn’t realized how deprived of it you’d been in the stuffy club, where there were more bodies than pockets of air, and even those were smogged with thick, floral perfume and sweat.

You think you’re having a good night—for the most part, at least. You and your coworkers have been at the club for an hour already celebrating your acceptance into Waseda’s prestigious graduate program. You’d been pressured into inviting one of your more unsavory coworkers, having been told you would seem rude and ill-mannered if you invited everyone else except him. You think now that it really shouldn’t have mattered to you, you’re leaving the office soon to prepare for school anyway, but you suppose you’re easily peer pressured. Sometimes.

But you’re free now, momentarily, at least. One of your friends had distracted Takeda so could sneak off to the restroom to freshen up. God knows he probably would’ve tried to follow you there if he didn’t.

You push yourself off the wall with a sigh, wishing that you’d tied your hair back before coming to the club because you can feel it sticking to the back of your neck. Maybe you’ll run into a girl in the bathroom who has a spare tie for you, but you frown as you look around, noticing that the hallway is a bit too empty for it to lead to one of the club’s restrooms.

You pout when you realize that you must’ve gone down one of the halls leading to the VIP suites on the second level, but as you turn to make your way back into the main area of the club, your eyes catch a figure leaning against the wall dressed in a long black coat and sleek dark suit that probably costs more than your life savings.

He’s tall, you note absently, drawn to the man a bit more than you probably should be for no good reason, handsome, too. He hasn’t noticed you standing there, so you just observe for a moment—he has dark hair and smooth, pale skin, partially covered beneath bandages. He’s struggling to light a cigarette, frustration twisting his face; his lighter won’t light no matter how many times he tries, and you think it’s a bit funny that for all of the expensive clothes he wears, his lighter won’t work.

Finally, you take a few steps forward, moving closer to him and fishing into your purse for your own lighter before you hold it up and ask, “Need a light?”

The man freezes, gaze cutting toward you—his eye is so dark and so empty that it almost chills you, an endless abyss that threatens to consume you. You swear the black is so intense that it seems to be swallowing the dim lighting of the hallway, and you watch as something akin to recognition flashes deep within it. He hardly reacts to your presence otherwise, only his gaze shifts as it roves over you, vaguely reminiscent of a parched man in the desert setting eyes on a distant oasis, unsure if it’s just a figment of his imagination. You raise your eyebrows, feeling a bit exposed underneath his stare, and wave your lighter pointedly.

He doesn’t make a move to reach for your lighter as you hold it out to him. You can’t tell what the expression on his face is as he watches you, it’s entirely indecipherable, his lips are pulled flat but his eye is swimming with emotions that you just can’t quite place. Just as you’re about to take it as rejection and put your lighter back in your purse, he suddenly closes the distance between the two of you, leaning his head down, cigarette dangling between his lips and gaze trained on you, expectant.

Oh, you think to yourself a bit breathlessly, throat spasming as you falter under his gaze. He looks amused, watching you carefully, and you can’t help but notice that the dark pit of his eye starts to lighten as he watches you get flustered. When you struggle to light it the first time, you want to blame it on the martinis you’ve been drinking with your friends, but you know from the way your cheeks feel extra hot and your fingers shake that it’s definitely because of the man standing in front of you.

The scent of his cologne floods your senses, you can almost taste the old whiskey on his warm breath, which you can feel fanning lightly across your fingers, making goosebumps rise to your arms—you pray he doesn’t notice, but from the way his eye flickers up a bit to your arm and the corner of his lip quirks up, you think he probably does.

You thank every god that might be listening when your lighter finally lights, catching the end of his cigarette. Your breath catches as he makes eye contact with you and you think you might be able to get lost in his gaze if you’re not careful; your lips part a bit as if to say something to occupy the silence but no words leave them.

After what feels like eternity, he finally stands straight and you can breathe again, watching as he leans back against the wall next to you, head falling to the side a bit as he takes a long drag of his cigarette.

His gaze doesn’t leave you once.

“You smoke?” He finally speaks, and his voice is low, raspy, and hoarse as if he doesn’t use it much. There’s a lilt to his tone, something caught between subtle criticism and surprise, reminiscent of a disapproving old friend who’s taken aback that you’ve picked up such a bad habit.

“Sometimes, why?” you answer, a bit defensively when you catch the edge to his tone.

You don’t smoke—you carry around your brother’s old lighter as a memento, safekeeping for if he ever decides to come back to you, you’re honestly surprised the thing still works as well as it does—but you feel like you have to prove a point now because he sounds a bit judgmental about it.

He only shrugs lazily. “Don’t look like the type.”

You raise your eyebrows. “Is there ‘a type?’” you ask sarcastically.

He pointedly looks over you, gaze raking up and down your body once in a slow, borderline sensual way. You can feel your cheeks heating up again, you curse your body violently for betraying you.

“Yeah,” he drawls after a few moments. “Not you.”

You scoff loudly, looking away, and you blame the alcohol when you find yourself admitting, “… I don’t smoke.”

The man smiles thinly at the three words, a triumphant spark shooting through the brown of his eye and an expression on his face that tells you he somehow knew it without you having to say it out loud but appreciated the confirmation.

“Told you,” he says. “Don’t look the type.”

“Hmph,” is all you respond with, flipping your lighter shut and slipping it back into your purse.

You don’t leave right away; you don’t think you could even if you wanted to, you feel like a deer caught in headlights beneath his gaze, feet glued to the ground. But the problem lies in the fact that you don’t want to leave, there’s something about him that has you drawn in like a moth to flame and you don’t even know why because you don’t even know his name yet. And you probably shouldn’t be, you’ve always had a keen sense of self-preservation and there’s a dangerous edge to this man that should concern you—you can see it in the way he looks at you, the way he dresses, and the way he holds himself.

Dangerous, you think to yourself, but you’re charmed by it—you know you should probably get back to the bar where your friends are, but your feet don’t budge. He’s watching you curiously, not making any move to say anything, just observing you and you feel like you might crumble beneath his gaze. You can’t tell if he’s searching for something or if he’s just looking at you to look at you; the air between the two of you is tense but not in an awkward way. But you decide to break the silence with: “What’s your name?”

He hesitates, gaze narrowing just a bit as if he’s considering whether or not he should tell you, and you feel a bit embarrassed, tongue pressed against the roof of your mouth as you anxiously wait for his response.

“Dazai,” he finally says, and you can’t help but notice he sounds a bit breathless. “Dazai Osamu.”

The name feels so achingly familiar that it almost makes you question whether or not you’ve ever met this man before even though you’re sure that you would remember if you did. You give him your name in return and watch as his lips curve upward slightly as he repeats it out loud, making your chest feel warm and your mind a bit foggy. He says your name as if he’s spoken it dozens of times before, the intimacy of it nearly has you reeling.

It has you reeling so badly that you speak without thinking, longing to drag the conversation out.

“Would you… maybe want to have a drink with me?” The words spill from your lips before you can stop them and instantly, you want to swallow your own tongue, shifting a bit nervously on your feet. Usually, when you drink you’re more outgoing, but with this man, you feel like a teen girl fumbling over words with her school crush.

His lips part to respond but no words leave them, conflict swims in his gaze so flagrantly that it makes you a bit embarrassed, realizing he’s probably trying to figure out the best way to reject you. You notice, distantly, that some other foreign emotion flashes on his face and it’s so brief that you almost miss it, but you swear that it’s something akin to a reality slap from the way his eye widens and lips part a bit.

Heat rises to your cheeks as you wait for the inevitable rejection, he casts a look backward, in the direction of the steps that lead to the second floor’s high-end VIP rooms that only the most elite of Yokohama can afford and you realize that this man is probably a bit more important than you thought if that’s where he came from, throat a bit dry.

You start to try to make up some excuse and rush back to your coworkers with your tail between your legs but then he finally says:

“We can get a drink.”

Your eyes widen a bit, a smile splits across your face. You catch a sour look crossing his face as soon as the words escape him as if he regrets them right as they’re spoken. For a second, it’s almost as if he’s fighting an internal battle, and you wonder if he’s trying to figure out if he should take back his words. You hardly think anything of it in your tipsy state, too excited to even fully register it all.

“Yeah?” you ask so eagerly that you want to rip your own tongue out because the last thing you want is to seem desperate.

But clearly, he loses the battle, because his dark eye only softens a bit at your enthusiasm. The corner of his lip curls upward and you swear you see something else in his expression—something caught between grief and longing that makes your throat swell even with the alcohol clouding your mind.

“Yeah,” he agrees.

You hold your hand out to him; you’re not really sure why and you think you might’ve just embarrassed yourself again when his gaze cuts down to it intensely. You withdraw your hand with a sheepish smile.

“Sorry,” you say quietly. “Got ahead of myself, I guess.”

Dazai doesn’t respond for an agonizing amount of time and when you’re about to head back to the main part of the club and hope he follows you, he decides to hold his hand out to you.

“No need to apologize,” he tells you, voice a bit more hoarse now.

You reach out to take his hand, fingers brushing his bandaged wrist, where his suit jacket is riding up his arm just a bit. His pulse is erratic and rapid beneath your touch, a complete 180 from the calm, aloof expression on his face. His fingers intertwine with yours as you lead him back into the club—his grip is a bit too tight, but you don’t mind. For some reason, it feels a bit comforting.

You and Dazai make your way back down the hall in the direction of the main room of the club. As soon as he pushes open the door, he pulls his hand from yours but before you can even process the action enough to pout at the loss of contact, he’s slipping his arm around your waist to tuck you into his side to not lose you in the crowds of drunken clubgoers and you think you might feel a bit faint at the way his fingers press into your lower hip through the thin cloth of your dress.

You can’t help but notice the way people seem to part for the two of you, even with the majority of them drunk out of their minds, it’s like they catch one glance of Dazai and move out of his way. It seems instinctual, almost, as if he’s exuding an aura that no one can bring themselves to come near.

You peer up at him curiously, watching his eyelashes flutter as he looks down at you as if he can feel you looking at him. Your face is hot when he catches you looking at him so you immediately avert your gaze; you can feel him let out a puff of amusement, but he doesn’t say anything as the two of you finally reach the bar.

“A gentleman,” you tease when he pulls out the stool for you to sit. He waves the bartender down and you watch, a bit surprised, when the man instantly makes his way over to you, gaze flickering to Dazai.

It had taken you twenty minutes to wave the man down earlier to get your drink.

You also can’t help but notice that he doesn’t even ask Dazai what drink he wants, pouring him whiskey on the rocks, a luxury brand that probably costs more than your monthly rent.

You feel a bit embarrassed ordering your cheap martini after, distracting him with idle conversation.

“Do you come here a lot or something?” you ask him curiously, lifting your drink to your lips to take a sip of your drink once the bartender passes it over—it tastes better than it did before. Smoother.

“Or something,” Dazai agrees cryptically, the corners of his lips tilting upward as he looks over you. “Why?”

“So mysterious,” you say playfully, before shrugging. “I’m just curious, he seemed to know you… maybe I’m also trying to figure out if I’d be able to run into you again here.”

You watch him hesitantly, wondering if it was a bit weird to add that, cursing your lips once again for moving before your brain can process. But Dazai doesn’t look weirded out by your comment—he looks a bit surprised, yes, but in a pleased way rather than a disturbed way.

“Already trying to plot out meeting me again?” he drawls, watching you from the corner of his eye with an indecipherable look that doesn’t match the curl of his lips. “What if you decide you don’t like me? If I end up being dangerous?”

“Oh, you’re definitely dangerous, Dazai Osamu,” you say firmly with a laugh, eyes glimmering. “I could tell that from the moment I saw you. I’m not that drunk.”

His eyebrow raises a bit as he tilts his head to the side. “And yet you invited me for a drink anyway,” he notes, his index finger on his free hand thrumming steadily on the bartop.

“Maybe I like danger,” you say, leaning in a bit closer just to test the waters.

Dazai doesn’t pull away, your heart races in your chest as his gaze traces your face, so close that you can feel the warmth of his breath fanning across your lips. You think you might’ve been wrong before when you compared the color of his eye to an abyss—now, beneath the lighting of the club, you think they’re far more reminiscent of a starry night, just as endless as the abyss, but not quite as dark and hopeless with the celestial bodies glittering within them.

“Maybe you should be more careful,” he murmurs, and there’s an odd shift in his voice—a warning, as if he knows something that you don’t.

“Maybe,” you agree idly, “or maybe I enjoy living life on the edge. It’s short enough as it is, isn’t it? I’d prefer to live it to the fullest than die having barely lived at all.”

“Living life to the fullest involves inviting shady men to drink with you and scheming out a second meeting without even having decided if you like them?” Dazai questions, voice low and amused.

“Shady?” you grin. “Well, I guess you said it, not me. Anyway, I’ve decided that I already like you, Dazai Osamu, so, of course, I’m going to scheme out a second meeting—hopefully, one where I’m not quite as drunk so I can actually charm you, I’m very charming when I’m sober, I’ve been told. I don’t fumble over my words quite as much, or lighters, for that matter.”

You’ve literally never been told once in your life that you’re charming when you’re sober, so you don’t know where that came from, but you decide to roll with it and hope for the best.

“I’ll have you know that I’m quite charmed already,” Dazai says, lips tilting up into a smile that seems a bit more genuine, reflecting in the way his eye curves up too. “If you get any more charming, I might just be in danger.”

“Well, do you like danger then?” you ask, resting your elbow on the bar so you can prop your chin on your hand, looking up at Dazai through your lashes. “We’ve already established that I enjoy it, are you going to join me on the edge, Dazai?”

For some reason, for a split second, it seems as if you’ve asked Dazai the most difficult question in the world—the space between his brows creases and the easy smile on his lips flattens, the starry sky painted in his eye dulls back into the terrible abyss. Your lips part to say something, because even with the fuzziness of your drink clouding your head, you know you made a mistake somewhere.

“I usually stay far from the edge,” he admits quietly, “... too much at risk for that.”

“... Usually?” you press, latching onto the word quickly as you toss him another teasing smile, trying to lighten the mood. “Am I enough to tempt you closer to it, then?”

“You have no idea,” he breathes out so quietly that you think you’re not meant to overhear it. As if he realizes he might’ve said it a bit too loud, he tilts his head to the side and gives you half of a smile as he asks, “What makes you so sure you like me already, anyway?”

You match his smile, making a show of humming, dramatically thinking long and hard about it. Then you shrug, smile widening, “Don’t know. Maybe I just decided. Or maybe, I’d like to think it’s fate.”

Andddd you’ve made a mistake again. You falter when you see how his expression closes off instantly and you wish you could bite your own tongue off because, of course, it’s just your luck to have misspoken twice in a span of two minutes. This is why you don’t socialize with people.

“I don’t believe in fate,” he finally says, voice a bit tighter than it was before.

“Why?” you ask curiously, brows furrowing a bit.

He hesitates, gaze lingering on you for a moment before he turns his gaze away, lifting it to the ceiling instead. All he says is: “I don’t like the idea of my life being predestined by some higher power—if there’s a fate, then I’ll exhaust everything I have trying to defy it.”

“Okay,” you agree, still not entirely understanding why he’s so against the idea of fate—you think it’s rather romantic but to each their own. Either way, you raise your glass to him, waiting for him to click his against yours. “To defying fate then.”

His throat bobs as he swallows at your words, an odd look in his eye as he repeats quietly, “To defying fate.”

Dazai is in trouble.

He thought he could indulge himself just for one night. If it’s his fate to meet you, then let it happen only once so he can be done with it—one night, and then everything will return to how it should be. He’ll fall back into the shadows and you’ll live your life in the light, a long and fulfilling life where he isn’t putting you in danger just by being around you. But he’s realizing, very quickly, that he severely overestimated his self-control, which is a feat in itself, really, because Dazai knew that his self-control would be abysmal when it comes to you but he still somehow managed to critically misjudge just how abysmal it would be.

He thinks he probably looks like a fool—you’re rambling about your work and the graduate school program you’d just been accepted into, you’re switching between topics so quickly that Dazai can hardly keep up, but he doesn’t care, he’s content just hearing your voice, slurred and excitable as it may be.

It’s different hearing it in person than it is in all of the vague memories of the other worlds—you’re different. You’re brighter. More alive. A shining star in a sea of midnight. The warmth of the sun giving life to a rotting corpse. For the first time in twenty-two years, Dazai Osamu feels like he’s finally breathing. The misty memories didn’t do you justice in any regard, and he’s not sure how he’s supposed to return to the shadows alone after having felt the brief glow of your light, warm and comforting against his skin, because Dazai already can’t seem to get enough of it. He thinks you must be like a drug or something because there’s no other explanation for the way he’s so utterly entranced by the sight and sound of you.

A part of him wonders if all of the other Dazais have met this same fate at your hands: bewitched and spellbound, unable to draw their eyes away from you, hardly even able to remember to breathe in your presence. He thinks that they must have—he can see flashes of their lives and feel echoes of their emotions, and it’s always most intense whenever it involves you.

It’s a struggle just to remind himself to play the part of the ordinary man with you around so as to not scare you off, pretending he's like any other human being and not a monster wearing the skin of a man, like you haven’t been the object of his obsessions since the moment he came in contact with the Book. He tries to keep himself pliant and inviting with a loose posture and warm gaze, free of the intensity curdling through his body. He keeps his smile small and gentle, hiding the sharp and bloodied teeth decorating his mouth, and he keeps his touches brief, hardly ghosting your skin in fear that you’ll start rotting beneath it. He doesn’t know if he succeeds. He honestly doesn’t even know if you notice, you’re way more intoxicated than you originally made yourself out to be; he can tell from the way your ever-present smile is lopsided and the way your eyes are a bit glazed over, if it wasn’t abundantly apparent by the slur to your words.

“... and then, Hinata kept talking even though everyone else was… Dazai Osamu, are you even listening to me?”

He hums quietly as you abruptly turn your gaze back onto him and for a moment, Dazai is breathless—his name rolls off your tongue with the familiarity of a pair of lovers who’ve been together for years, and he swears that your eyes glitter beneath the lighting of the club as you look at him, and he doesn’t think anyone in his life has ever looked at him the way you do in this moment. Dazai Osamu has always been a name that no one would rather hear, attached to a man that no one would rather see. He’s not used to being talked to like this. He’s not used to being looked at like this.

He wants to be used to it.

He so, so desperately wants to be used to it.

You lean in when he doesn’t respond to you, a bit too close because he can smell the faded scent of your perfume and the gin on your tongue when he takes in a sharp breath to respond—it goes straight to Dazai’s head, his words dying before they can even formulate in his mouth. Everything feels fuzzy and light and Dazai thinks he might actually pass out. You’re such a far cry from the numb void that he’s used to, overwhelming his senses with the sight and touch and scent and sound of you, overwhelming his mind with emotions that he doesn’t know how to cope with and he just can’t get a handle on himself no matter how hard he tries. Every time he thinks he does, you throw another curveball at him like leaning in so close that Dazai swears if you were any closer, his lips would be brushing yours.

He’s never yearned like this before, not when he found himself in Odasaku’s house years ago as he tried to get ahold of that wretched painting and not during the long, dark nights when he found himself gasping awake, torn from dreams of lives he’ll never experience, the ghost of your lips still smiling against his skin. He can feel it deep in his chest, clogging his lungs and throat. He feels like he’s fighting the strings of a marionette as his fingers twitch at his side, begging him to reach out and feel the skin of your cheek beneath the palm of his hand, cup the side of your face just to see if you’d lean into his touch, craving it the same way he craves yours.

He yearns and Dazai Osamu doesn’t know if he has the strength to deny himself of you now that he’s finally gotten a taste of what he could have. He tries to remind himself of what’s at stake, he tries to conjure the images that have plagued his nightmares so many times before—the sight of you crumpled in his arms, cold and still, and the sound of your cries for help, jarring and agonizing to his ears. But all he can muster is the sight of the wide and genuine smile that only you have ever directed toward him in all of his other lives and the sound of your bright laughter ringing in his ears, two things that he’s been deprived of entirely in this life until now.

“... if the phone call is that important, you can take it, y’know? You don’t have to sit here pretending to listen to me when you’re focused on that.”

Dazai is hardly able to drag himself back to the conversation at hand, your words processing slowly, as if his thoughts are being dragged through thick tar, but he forces himself to focus because even in your drunken state you sound a bit irritated.

He glances down at the bartop, where he had placed his phone down after taking a seat next to you, watching as it vibrates against the hardwood and as Chuuya’s name flashes across the screen. A few seconds pass, and his phone goes still and the missed call notification pops up on his screen—evidently along with nine others.

Dazai winces. He wishes the phone call had been what was distracting him—unfortunately, it’s impossible to tell you that he’s spiraling because of you without sounding psychotic.

As soon as the call ends, his phone is buzzing again, Chuuya's name flashing across the screen once more, persistent as ever. Dazai’s gaze cuts backward to where the two of you had come from, up to the windows on the second floor that look down on the main floor, and then he glances back down at his phone.

“I’ll only be a moment,” Dazai tells you quietly, reaching for his phone.

You toss him an easy smile that nearly has him faltering, whatever irritation you may have felt is gone in an instant.

“I’ll be waiting,” you tease, and Dazai’s heart is in his throat as he hesitates for just a second too long, as familiar words echo through his head, memories that aren’t his own from a life that he’d never be able to experience.

“I’ll wait for you.”

He lingers too long evidently because you shoo him away, spinning on the bar stool to face the bartender as you try to flag him down for another drink that you probably should not be having, seeing how you’re swaying a bit on the stool. Dazai only shakes his head as he makes his way away from the bar closer to the edges of the club, where it’s a bit quieter, if only marginally.

As soon as he leaves your presence, the familiar cold numbness returns, spreading like ice through his chest and he’s desperate to be back in your vicinity already, missing the warmth. Oh, this is trouble, he laments to himself, trying to push away the longing feeling spreading through him and instead turns his attention to purposely waiting until the last ring to answer Chuuya’s call, if only to be a bit spiteful because the other man’s persistence is the reason he had to leave you.

Lifting his phone to his ear, he asks coolly, “Do you need something, Chuuya?”

“Where the hell did you go?” Chuuya immediately hisses back, fury dripping from his words. He’s speaking quietly and Dazai can’t hear any conversation in the background, so he can only assume that Chuuya had stepped out of the room where the rest of the Port Mafia and Pale Flame executives were having their meeting. “You’ve been gone for forty minutes, Kouyou and I have been handling the meeting. Do you even have anyone with you right now? Hirotsu? Tachihara? Atsushi?”

“I’m sure you and Ane-san have been conducting the meeting perfectly fine without me,” Dazai says dismissively, leaning against the wall as his gaze cuts through the crowds to the bar he’d left you at but he can’t catch sight of you through the masses of people. He frowns, pacing a bit down the room to try to get a better angle.

“Bastard,” Chuuya spits out with a venomous type of disrespect that he only attacks Dazai with when he’s exceptionally frustrated. “Answer my question. Where the hell are you? Do you have a protection detail on you? What are you doing?”

“I’m in the club still,” Dazai says distantly, and he’s sure Chuuya can tell that he’s barely paying attention to the conversation because the man lets out a noise caught between a snarl and a growl, much like the dog he is. “I’ll be fine, we have men stationed all over—you’re always so uptight, Chuuya, you should pull out the stick every once in a while.”

“You-” Chuuya says loudly and sharply, cutting himself off abruptly, evidently having realized he’s let himself get too loud. Dazai is hardly listening at this point, getting increasingly more agitated as the masses of crowds block his line of sight to where you should be sitting. “I’m coming down there.”

That catches Dazai’s attention.

“Do not.” The two words leave his lips, a command so cold and cutting that he can practically hear Chuuya jolt in surprise at the sudden shift from the absent tone he’d been speaking with before. He forces his voice to take upon a more teasing lilt as he says, “I met a girl, Chuuya. If you come down here, your ugly mug will scare her right off.”

“What?” Chuuya sounds so baffled it’s almost comical. Dazai might’ve found amusement in it were he not so irritated with his current predicament. “I-you-what?”

“You sound so shocked, Chuuya. Some of us talk to more women than just Ane-san and Gin-chan, you know?” Dazai drawls, noticing that there’s a gap in the crowds up ahead that should give him a direct view toward the bar, beelining toward it immediately.

“Shut up,” Chuuya seethes. “Who the hell would even give you the time of day? And since when do you seek out women? You’ve never shown any interest before.”

“Are you jealous?” Dazai croons. “It’s an ugly look on you, Chuuya.”

Chuuya splutters. “The fuck is wrong with you tonight?” he demands. “You’ve been acting like a damn freak ever since we left the base. Mood swings left and right.”

“You know I don’t like…” Dazai trails off as he finally gets a direct view of the bar, dark eye focusing in on where you seem to be arguing with an unfamiliar man. The smile that had been curling to the corners of his lips falls flat and his gaze goes cold—ice spreads through his chest again but this time it isn’t a result of the numbness, rather it’s a much more dangerous emotion that threatens to erupt. “I have to go.”

“Bastard, if you hang up on me-”

Dazai doesn’t wait for him to finish the sentence, hanging up the call and slipping his phone into his pocket, ignoring it when it immediately starts buzzing again. He doesn’t waste a second before he makes his way back across the club to the bar.

If people had avoided him before, it was nothing compared to now, watching them scramble out of his way even in their drugged-up and intoxicated states. He doubts that most of them even know the significance of who he is, they can just feel the cold fury rolling off of him in waves. It’s a bit impressive, honestly, how quickly he’s able to get back to you, and his hand darts out quickly, fingers wrapping tightly around the wrist of the man who was grabbing your forearm, if his grip was any tighter, the man’s bones would be cracking beneath his touch.

The reaction is instantaneous. Your gaze draws up to him, relief flooding your eyes at the sight of him—distantly, Dazai notes that he thinks that this might be the first time in his life anyone has ever been relieved to see him, but he’s more preoccupied with the man who was bothering you, who’s now turning toward him with an irritated expression.

“Look, man.” Dazai’s hidden eye twitches at the casual address, but he makes sure that the annoyance doesn’t show on his face. “Just trying to get her home, the rest of our coworkers left already.”

Dazai’s vice-like grip doesn’t budge, but his mind races. This is his out. If he lets you go home with your coworker, then he can go back up to the meeting taking place on the second floor and he can try to scorch his mind of the yearning that’s been plaguing him so intensely. Things can go back to normal—his one night of indulgence over, no matter how agonizing the thought of that is. He can return to the Port Mafia base, back in the shadows, and he can use the memory of this night with you to fuel his dedication to his grand plan of protecting this world. It’s a perfect setup, honestly, if he disregards two critical issues: 1) he’s probably incapable of scorching his mind of the yearning you’ve brought on and 2) more importantly, you’re staring at him with an expression nothing short of pleading, seemingly begging him not to leave.

The words escape his lips before he can think to stop them: “Don’t worry about it. I’ll take her home.”

The faux-concern that the man had been directing toward you disappears as soon as Dazai speaks, shifting into an expression that probably would have been concerning to anyone who wasn’t a literal mafioso, and Dazai is not just a mafioso, he is their boss and he has dealt with people who were objectively much more powerful and concerning than a regular civilian who thinks he’s tougher than he is. So Dazai only tilts his head to the side a bit, the corner of his lip curves up in amusement as he pointedly looks over the man once. The cool metal of the gun hidden in his jacket weighs heavily as a reminder that it’s there and ready for him to use; his fingers twitch toward it, but instead, he pockets his hands, deciding against it, if only because he thinks pulling out a gun might scare you away. He doesn’t want that.

“Who the hell are you?” the man asks furiously—Dazai wonders, a bit absently, if this is that Takeda fellow you were complaining about earlier, he certainly fits the picture with the beady eyes and weaselly face.

“An old friend,” Dazai drawls—not entirely a lie, just in a different life, and definitely more than friends, but he doesn’t need to know that. “We’ve been catching up. You can go.”

It’s not a request, and evidently, the man isn’t stupid enough to keep pressing Dazai because his confidence falters as he takes a step back, letting go of your arm. Or more probably, he caught a glimpse of the glint of metal hidden by his coat when Dazai shifted to look at you. Either way, Dazai doesn’t care because the man stutters out a few words and a ‘see you Monday’ to you before turning tail and leaving.

Dazai doesn’t bother correcting him—he definitely will not be seeing you on Monday. He ensures that through the silent order in the sharp look, he gives Tachihara Michizo, who’s been lingering on the outskirts of the club for five minutes now, no doubt trying to keep an eye on him under Chuuya’s command. Tachihara doesn’t hesitate as he nods his head, gaze following the retreating figure of the man before he slinks right after him.

He thinks you have bad friends. Coworkers. Whatever. All of them leaving you drunk and alone with someone who’s a stranger in their eyes. Yes, he scared the only one that tried away, but if it was Dazai in his position, not even god himself would be able to scare him away from making sure you get home safely.

They don’t deserve you, he decides firmly, and those dark thoughts from earlier return, whispering that he should just take you for himself, tuck you away in the tallest towers of the Port Mafia base. He’d keep you safe. He’d make you happy. You’d never have to want for anything ever again, he’d give you the entire world if you so pleased. He shuts off the train of thought before it can become any more tempting, knowing that his thread of self-control concerning you is waning at best.

Dazai promptly turns his attention back to you and all of the irritation that he might’ve been feeling about your coworkers and that man washes away when he catches the dazzled look on your face as you look up at him, elbow propped on the bartop and chin resting in your hand.

“Thanks,” you say so softly that Dazai barely hears you over the thundering music and clamoring people around the two of you. “That was Takeda… I don’t know, maybe he didn’t mean any harm but… I just don’t want him to know where I live, I guess.”

You look sleepy now, eyes a bit heavy and shoulders slumped; the alcohol must’ve worked its way through you already. Dazai also can’t help but notice that the front of your dress is drenched with what looks like the rest of your drink; it must have spilled in the brief struggle between you and your coworker.

“You’d rather a stranger know, then?” Dazai can’t help but ask, making sure to keep his voice teasing, watching you carefully for a response.

He’s curious to know if you feel even half as drawn to him as he is to you, to know if this really is a mutual bond that transcends worlds or if it’s a sick obsession on his part triggered by the revelations of the Book. Or it could be both. It’s probably both. Dazai is pretty sure what he feels for you isn’t normal or healthy, and he’s not sure if it’s any healthier in any of the other universes or if every other Dazai is just as twisted when it comes to love as he is.

“You don’t feel like a stranger,” you admit quietly, looking up at him through your lashes and Dazai’s heart leaps into his throat, clogging his airways and threatening to suffocate him. “Is that weird?”

“No,” Dazai breathes out instantly, the confirmation that your words give him lights a dangerous fire in his chest, one that he needs to put out but can’t bring himself to. “I feel the same.”

Your expression softens, eyes tracing his face, and Dazai thinks he would set the entire world on fire just for you to look at him like that again. Then, he realizes, throat a bit tighter now, that the words are not quite the empty promise that they would be coming from anyone else’s lips—he might just be setting everything he’s built on fire just for you, and your warmth is not enough to push away the cold awareness that suddenly spreads through his body, putting out all of the fires that his time with you has set within him.

He reaches out, knuckles grazing your cheek. Your lashes flutter as you lean into his touch and instantly, he’s set aflame again, it’s raging through his chest and melting the ice and Dazai thinks he doesn’t care if this is a bond that transcends worlds or a sick obsession. He thinks it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that he needs you so desperately that it might kill him if he doesn’t have you.

It might kill you if he does have you.

Fire and ice wage a brutal war within him, a futile battle because no matter how much the ice tries to spread, the flames melt it away, and he realizes that he can’t be around you when the war is inevitably won because he’ll never be able to drag himself away from you.

One night, he reminds himself, sharp and scolding, one night of indulgence. That’s all.

“Come on,” Dazai murmurs. “Let’s get you home.”

Dazai wonders how a place he’s never been to can feel so much like home.

Or, well, he assumes this is what a home would feel like, it’s not like he’s ever actually had one to compare to. The penthouse suite of the Port Mafia base is closer to a prison than something he can consider a home. He doesn’t remember enough of his childhood to know if he lived somewhere back then that he considered a home. The shipping container he lived in during his teenage years is probably the closest thing he has to compare to and even then, he never felt safe or warm or comforted there, he just had the distant reassurance that no one would ever bother him while he was there and that was more than he had anywhere else.

And this is…

He doesn’t really know how to describe it, the words just won’t come to him—a rare occurrence, considering Dazai’s always been known to have a tongue of the purest silver, acquiring the most lucrative deals for the Port Mafia despite egregious odds and hostile parties solely because he’s learned to read and charm people to the best of his ability. His brain and his tongue have been the driving force behind the Mafia’s rapid and exponential expansion across Japan and into the mainland, yet both fail him now.

Courtesy of you and your influence, naturally.

The curve to his lips is fond as he trails his fingers across the back of the couch in your living room. It’s all so achingly familiar, as if he’s been here a thousand times before—if he lets his eye flutter shut, he can almost picture you cross-legged on the couch with a mug of hot chocolate tucked neatly between your hands, dozing off as he regales you with nonsensical stories.

Everything is just how he remembers it from the vague memories. Your desk is set up near the window on the far side of your room, next to the bench where he would sit and watch you while you study, pouting until you finally decided to give him attention. Papers are strewn all across your coffee table; he flips through them idly, realizing that they’re all study materials for the entrance exam to the graduate school you’d just been accepted into—he makes sure to leave them in the same order that you’d left them in, recalling how often you’d end up yelling at him for messing up your piles. A picture hangs on your wall near the door of you and your brother—familiar, why is he so familiar? His gaze lingers for a moment, brows furrowing before he shakes his head, putting the thought in the back of his head as he wonders if he ended up passing in this universe too.

He wanders over to the kitchen and his eyes narrow just a smidge, noticing that there are two dirty mugs in your sink, the ones you’d always use to make those fancy hot chocolates of yours. He hums to himself softly as he traces his finger along the rim of one, recognizing the same shade of lipstick you wore tonight staining the brim. The other mug has no such stain. His throat tightens a bit, gaze flickering up to the cabinet he recalls you usually putting your ingredients and when he opens the cabinet, he thinks he might feel a bit sick, seeing them all up on a shelf too high for you to reach on your own—you always put them on the lower shelves.

His jaw tightens as he pointedly puts them all back down on the lower shelf before shutting the cabinet, a bit more tense now than he was a few moments before. His gaze cuts across your apartment, searching for any sign of who you might’ve been having over—someone important enough for you to make your favorite hot chocolate for—but he finds none until his eyes land on a jacket crumpled in the corner of the room that’s definitely not yours, hidden halfway beneath one of the pillows on his window bench. He has to remind himself that it’s not his and he’s never been here before now so he has no claim over anything.

He makes his way over to it, yanking it out and lifting it to his nose. It doesn’t smell like you, it’s an unfamiliar woody scent that makes his stomach churn for more than one reason—the most primary one being that he doesn’t know whose it is and why they’re leaving clothes at your apartment. It’s a man’s, certainly, he can tell that much from the scent and the size and Dazai thinks he might feel a bit light-headed at the idea of you having other men over your apartment. His only solace comes in the fact that there doesn’t appear to be any other signs of his presence, but it’s a small solace at best.

He has to leave. The longer he lingers in your apartment, the more he’s struggling to decipher the already blurred line between the lives he remembers and his unfortunate reality.

One night of indulgence, he reminds himself for the nth time because the night is over. You’d passed out long before even arriving at your apartment, after you gave the address luckily because for better or for worse, that had been one of the few things Dazai hadn’t retained from the vague memories he has of the other universes.

He trails back over to the door that leads to your bedroom, a heavy feeling settling over his chest as he leans against the frame. His gaze draws to where you’re fast asleep beneath the covers, still dressed in the outfit you’d worn to the club because although all of the other Dazais would have changed you into something more comfortable when you’re too drunk to do it yourself, he does not retain that privilege in this world. The last thing he wants is for you to think he’s some perverted creep.

Dazai sighs, eyes sliding shut as he lets himself bask in the moment for just a little longer, dreading having to return to the harsh reality of a life without you, fated to be alone until he’s sure that he’s secured the safety of this world when he can take the final step in guaranteeing that you and Odasaku will be able to live out your lives peacefully. Without him.

He wants to touch you one last time, brush his fingers against your cheek, enjoy the way your warmth spreads through him, but he thinks he’s tested his self-control too much for one day. He fears that if he pushes it anymore, he’ll never be able to go back to how it was, so it’s with a heart that pleads for him to reconsider and a body that resists his every move that he turns away from your bedroom, making his way over to your kitchen counter to grab the key that he fished out of your purse.

It takes all of his restraint to not look back, jaw clenched so tight that he thinks his teeth might grind down to dust. He steps outside and the fresh air feels like poison to his lungs, he wants to step back inside, drown himself in the familiar scent of you, the familiar scent of the only home he’s ever known in any lifetime, the one he has to deny himself of for the sake of preserving this world, for the sake of saving Odasaku and saving you.

His fingers tremble a bit as he slides the key into the lock and turns it, checking twice to make sure it locks properly so no one can sneak in while you’re sleeping, before kneeling down to slide the key beneath the crack of the door back into your apartment.

As soon as the key is out of his reach, Dazai feels cold and empty; the black hole within him expands now that he’s vulnerable again without your presence fighting it off, and the force of it is ten times as lethal now that he’s experienced what life might be without it constantly consuming him. He stares at your door for a second after rising to his feet, his mind and heart and body all at war with each other. The parts of him that haven’t festered and withered over the years beg him to just go back to you, tell you everything, and crumble in your arms and pray that you don’t think he’s delusional and call the police on him; the parts of him that have been corrupted by the time he’s spent in the darkest parts of the world whisper more dangerous words, telling him to go back in and take you back with him, it doesn’t matter what you want if it means he can keep you safe, and he knows that one day you’ll understand why he did it, you’ll even be happy because you’re meant to be happy with him, no matter how it comes about.

And he thinks he’s a fool because the only fortunate thing about his circumstances had been that no matter how vividly he remembered you and your apartment, the Book had not passed on the knowledge of its location, so he’d never been tempted to “accidentally” seek you out by wandering in locations that you frequent because he had no idea where you were. Yokohama isn’t a small city and he was never going to cross the line of purposely seeking you out through the use of Port Mafia resources because that meant he was purposely putting you in danger.

But now, he’ll have the knowledge of your location dangling in front of his face for the rest of his life, however long it may be. Every day will be a struggle to resist the urge to seek you out, as if everything isn’t hard enough for him already.

Frustration builds in his chest as he makes his way down to the parking lot of the apartment complex. Realistically, Dazai had plenty of options that would have objectively been better than this. He could have sent you with his driver alone, but the thought leaves a sour taste in his mouth. It’s not that he doesn’t trust Albatross, the Flags remain among the most loyal members of the Port Mafia, but Dazai doesn’t think anyone is worthy enough to lay their hands on you. He thinks that if Albatross had reported back to him that he had to carry you into your apartment and put you in your bed, he might’ve put a bullet through his skull and then he’d have to deal with mutiny and he can’t afford a mutiny when things are already so tenuous, stability in the Port Mafia has to be paramount until he can get through all five phases of his plan.

But even if he didn’t send you with Albatross, he could have had Kouyou handle this. Kouyou already knows of you, she’s the one that he assigned to make sure you’re never threatened by Yokohama’s underground, and she knew where your apartment was already. It still leaves a sour taste in his mouth but not as strong as the thought of sending you with Albatross. He could’ve had Kouyou take care of this and he could’ve been free of the temptation already looming over him but-

But Dazai is selfish. Dazai is selfish and reckless when it comes to you; even when he knows what’s at stake, even when he knows the destruction that he brings. Fate, the word rings through his head, mocking him. Fate, fate, fate. It’s his fate to always be drawn to you, like a bee to honey and a moth to flame, irresistible and inexorable. He can’t avoid it and he can’t control himself no matter how hard he tries. You’re tied together by threads that the gods shorten with every passing second and they laugh down at him as they watch him trying to resist it.

It’s his fate to be drawn to you.

It’s his fate to be your destruction.

Dazai slips back into the backseat of Albatross’s sleek black car, shutting the door just a bit too harshly, gaze immediately drifting back toward the apartment complex, up to the closed door on the second level where he’d left you. He waits for the car to pull away, but it doesn’t. Irritated, he turns his gaze to the rearview mirror in the front of the car, catching Albatross staring at him curiously, dark glasses hanging on the bridge of his nose.

“What?” Dazai asks, voice low and icy.

Albatross is unperturbed—of all of the members of the Port Mafia, only he and Chuuya never flinch at his unapproachability. “Ya gotta girl now, boss?” he asks curiously, tilting his head to the side as he waits for Dazai’s response.

“No.”

“Hm.” Albatross only hums as if he’s disappointed by the answer. “You seemed happier, s’all. Never seen you like that before. Was nice.”

Dazai’s jaw tightens again at the man’s words, biting words threatening to escape his lips but he swallows them. Instead, he becomes acutely aware of the jacket that he’s still holding in his left hand. His expression twists and then he tosses it into the front seat at Albatross, who blinks and catches it, looking down confused.

“Whadya want me to do with this?” he asks, baffled.

“Burn it.” Is all Dazai responds with. “Take me back to the base.”

“... You got it, boss,” Albatross murmurs, and he still sounds disappointed, but an order is an order so he doesn’t hesitate as he starts the car back up and pulls out of the complex’s parking lot.

Dazai’s gaze doesn’t leave your apartment door once until Albatross finally turns down a street out of sight of the building.

One night of indulgence, he reminds himself for the last time. One night of indulgence and then he’ll never encounter you again. For better or for worse, that’s how it has to be.

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