Archive of Our Own ^beta

Paris, France

November 12th

11:47 p.m.

The second they got ho- to the penthouse, Chuuya excused himself to find a place to hide the ring box when Dazai pawed at his body, needy for intimate touch. Chuuya had given in to it at first, leaning into each kiss with a smile budding on his lips, but when his mackerel’s hands strayed too close to where he’d stowed away the ring box, it instilled a sharp moment of clarity within him and led to him pulling away and directing his pouting dumbass to their bedroom.

Those were engagement rings.

Their engagement rings.

He bought them engagement rings- or- wedding rings? They were already married.

The warm buzz of wine completely fled him when he realized exactly what he’d done. Spending a few thousand euros on rings wasn’t the dumbest thing he’d ever done while semi-drunk, but it was edging the top of the list. Because now Chuuya had to try to hide rings from the nosiest bastard he knew in their shared penthouse.

Dazai was in their bedroom changing out of the nice tailored clothes Chuuya had designed for him, so he had another minute or two to figure out a place good enough to keep Dazai from seeing the box. Chuuya genuinely had no clue if he’d ever actually get down on one knee and propose- they weren’t even together, they just had sex, holy shit- but if Dazai found the ring box it would actually ruin everything.

He was skittish, so no matter how bad Chuuya may or may not have wanted to see a ruby encrusted ring on his finger, the chances of Dazai running off the second he saw it were too high for his peace of mind.

Chuuya darted into the spare bedroom and hid the ring box behind the TV, seated on the place where it was mounted to the wall by using his ability. He couldn’t reach it without his ability, and with where it was, he figured it would be just above Dazai’s line of sight. And to be perfectly honest neither of them ever really went into the spare bedroom anyway. The wall mount was the same black as the box, so even if Dazai was tall enough to see it easily, it blended in well enough that unless he was really looking, he wasn’t likely to notice it.

If Chuuya was lucky, even he would forget it was there.

Even if Dazai actually wanted a ring, Chuuya wasn’t sure he’d ever want to get down on one knee for that asshole. They weren’t together.

He repeated it a few times in his head after shutting the door soundlessly to try to convince himself.

Chuuya strolled into their bedroom to find Dazai rummaging through their drawers with a little frustrated furrow to his brow. He’d already thrown his clothes off, tossing them around the room instead of folding them or putting them in the laundry basket like a normal person. Chuuya’s eye twitched.

“Can you not be a nuisance for once?” He rolled his eyes, collecting the stray articles of clothing and tossing them into their laundry basket, his lip curling at the mess Dazai had made of the corset. When he turned around, Dazai was bending over to sift through the bottom drawer with his ass on full display. Chuuya willed his dick not to get hard.

“I would if chibi put things where I could find them,” Dazai huffed, but he wiggled his hips in a way that felt a little too inviting.

…he was probably still stretched from earlier too. Just enough that if Chuuya wanted he could lube up his cock and push right in-

No, he hissed internally. He knew exactly what Dazai was trying to goad him into doing and he would not give in. They’d already had sex a few hours beforehand.

“I did,” he said instead, walking over and swatting his ass, reveling in the little yelp from the feeling of chilled leather gloves through his underwear. Chuuya pulled open the second drawer from the top, revealing Dazai’s horrifically bright collection of colorful clothing and pajamas. “Now get dressed so we can watch a show.”

Chuuya started to pull his own clothes off, undoing his corset easily and properly arranging the lace so it wouldn’t tangle. He was unbuttoning his shirt when a pair of hands settled on his hips. “What are you doing,” he said flatly, because he knew exactly what Dazai was doing.

Dazai’s cheeky smile was visible in the mirror beside their bed, something that made his eyes twinkle with a mischievous light. Underneath that, though, hidden artfully in the curve of his fingers and the circles rubbing themselves into Chuuya’s hips, was an underlying note of uncertainty. It made Chuuya huff a little, reluctantly amused; it really was just like his partner to try to goad him into sex without knowing exactly how to initiate it. The uncertainty was clearly fabricated to some extent, but the twitch of his fingers and the still line of his body seemed genuine.

So Chuuya turned around with a raised eyebrow. “Hm?” He asked again, trying to seem unaffected- and he really wasn’t; not exactly, anyway. They fucked earlier so it wasn’t like he was jumping in his skin to get his hands on Dazai’s skin. Chuuya was mostly satiated. Dazai seemed to recognize that, because his fingers twitched away and he pouted.

“Kiss me?” He demured instead, his smile edging with something a little more flirtatious. Chuuya’s lips softened into a small smile and he leaned up, caressing Dazai’s cheek as their lips hovered closer, the spark of budding victory lingering in Dazai’s eyes.

And then he pulled back before their lips could touch. “Maybe when you put some clothes on,” Chuuya snickered into the air between them, then recoiled at his own breath. “Mmh, and brush your teeth.” With that, he grabbed his oversized lounge shirt and shorts and brushed his teeth in the bathroom after pulling them on. He flicked off the light, rolled his eyes at Dazai’s persistent pout as he walked through their bedroom, and headed to the living room while tapping on his phone.

Dazai’s mildly surprised and disgruntled expression was more rewarding than any exaggerated fake one he could’ve put on. Chuuya smirked to himself and turned on the TV, queuing up Scooby Doo while he waited for Dazai to come up with another plan to try to get Chuuya to fuck him. He was taking longer than Chuuya thought he should, but he didn’t mind waiting, pulling his gloves off and setting them on the kitchen counter.

It was weird, but at a certain point he’d gotten used to leaving his gloves off when it was just the two of them. Before, Chuuya preferred wearing them almost constantly after finding out about Corruption- he’d even gotten used to falling asleep with them semi-regularly. They were an assurance, a barrier, something to temper the anxiety his ability gave him when it came to contact with just about anything. It wasn’t something he talked about- he kept his gloves on even when fighting, because he could use his ability even while wearing them, but it was more… violent, so to speak, when he used his hands for it.

Not that it mattered anymore, he snorted to himself while washing his hands. Dazai was the biggest safety net any ability user could ever want- or despise. After drying his hands, he turned up their thermostat, feeling a little ounce of regret at wearing shorts since they hadn’t turned up the heat before leaving earlier- and he definitely wasn’t going back into the bedroom just yet with his dumb mackerel in there. It was fine, though, since Dazai’s stupidly soft throw blanket was already in its permanent place in their living room ready for use. 

Before that, though, he needed to put bandaids on his fingers. He'd gotten better at sewing details, but… well, fuck, okay, it was hard and he still slipped sometimes and poked the shit out of himself. He'd been practicing a bit here and there and had done so on their flight and didn't bother putting bandaids on, so now the little pricks were inflamed and red.

Chuuya fished antiseptic salve out of their medicine cabinet in the kitchen- kept there in the event of any cooking accidents- and the horrendous cartoon dinosaur bandaids Dazai so graciously got for him so that Chuuya wouldn't touch his precious Hello Kitty, unicorn, and… he glared a little at the dog-themed bandaid box in their cabinet. When did Dazai even put those in there? He'd crashed earlier and made Chuuya do all of the work unpacking.

After plastering a few triceratops and stegosaurus bandaids over his salve-treated hands, he sat down on the couch, scrolling through whatever came up on his twitter feed. He waited to turn on the show, knowing that not only would Dazai make a fuss over it and make him restart the episode, but he’d also be an ass about whatever tactic he’d come up with to try to get Chuuya to fuck him.

At that point, the game was a little more fun than the actual act for both of them, so Chuuya was a little surprised when Dazai eventually came in actually wearing his pajamas.

And then his eye twitched, because-

His, as in Chuuya’s.

Instead of the dumb fish pajamas that Dazai genuinely liked for whatever reason, he was dressed a little more scantily in a pair of Chuuya’s dinosaur pajamas, which were just a pair of shorts and a button up sleep shirt. The shorts were a regular mid-thigh on Chuuya, but Dazai was taller, so it fit him in a shorter fashion, brushing his upper thigh.

Dazai had no right looking so good in cartoon dinosaur pajamas and bandages.

What an asshole, Chuuya’s eye twitched a little more aggressively. Dazai rarely if ever wore shorts, so even with the bandages on, the sight of his long legs so casually on display was enough to get a small twitch from his cock.

“Are you ready yet? You took forever,” he griped, kicking at Dazai when he got closer to the couch.

“Hmph, Chuuya’s such a brute,” Dazai huffed, shoving Chuuya’s legs away.

Chuuya had a rebuttal waiting on the tip of his tongue, but then Dazai sat down. On Chuuya’s lap. And whined.

“What the fuck?! There’s a whole couch, dumbass,” he pushed at Dazai, but jostling him got another pitiful whimper as he fell to the side without resistance. Chuuya's nose scrunched suspiciously at Dazai’s small writhes and twitches. “...the hell’s wrong with you?”

Dazai’s little swallow to steady himself was just barely visible, but it sent a spike of trepidation down Chuuya’s spine. With small movements, Dazai gingerly repositioned himself a little too close to Chuuya, but not on his lap anymore. The way he moved was weirder than the usual subtle grace he was used to seeing from his partner. He didn’t deign to respond, but he did nudge at Chuuya. “Just start the episode, slug.”

With another weirded out side-eye at Dazai’s continued shuffling, he threw the soft throw blanket over them. “...fine, but don’t try anything weird, mackerel.”

Dazai’s petulant little response of “me? Never” was drowned out by the opening theme for the show.

And for four minutes and twenty three seconds, everything was fine. Normal, even. The gang was hearing about an inheritance gifted to Scooby- which was suspicious as fuck in Chuuya’s opinion, but whatever- and they were stupidly agreeing to go at the ascott-wearing-asshole’s insistence.

Four minutes and twenty three seconds were apparently as long as Dazai could go without being a nuisance, because then the sound of buzzing started.

For two blissful seconds, Chuuya thought his phone was going off. But then he heard Dazai’s breaths hitching and felt a little more of his sanity escape him.

“Hn, ah,” Dazai shifted, the sounds bit off and tempered, but he wasn’t fooling Chuuya. He wasn’t even trying to, the ‘attempt’ at quieting himself ruined by his purposeful little glances to see if he’d noticed. As if Chuuya could focus on anything else.

Not that he wouldn’t try. Dazai wanted a reaction, so Chuuya wasn’t planning on giving him one anytime soon. Even so, the knowledge that Dazai had a butt plug in his ass and was pleasuring himself on it right next to him was almost enough to break him.

“Hah,” Dazai choked out, high and airy and quiet, but because he felt so hyper fixated on every one of his reactions Chuuya took in every little twitch of his fingers and pathetic little rustle of his ass. 

He probably didn’t put it on high, not like Chuuya would’ve at first just to see him whimper. He’d lower it right after, though, work him up slowly and then bring the vibration back down until Dazai’s prostate felt aching and swollen even inside of him. Until the only sound he could try to make was Chuuya’s name- but he’d make a game out of it. He’d keep Dazai on edge and blissfully quiet until Chuuya was done watching, not that he’d genuinely be able to focus on the fucking cartoon, but he could pretend well enough to make Dazai believe it.

Gods, Chuuya would keep teasing him until he begged. Not quite denial; he wouldn’t let it go that long, because that needed a conversation, but just long enough that the eventual orgasm would feel insane. Dazai would have to beg for his cock if he wanted it. Or maybe Chuuya wouldn’t have the patience for any of that. Maybe he should just fuck Dazai here and now and save the rest for another day.

Chuuya’s cock was half hard at that point, and he couldn’t really pretend anymore that he was still focusing on the show, because Dazai’s finger twitched at his side where he must’ve hidden the remote, and he was jolting again. He had to have put it on a two then. He spread his legs a little, showing off the twitching hardness of his cock. Dazai looked faintly uncomfortable, a weird twist to his brow that said that he wasn’t entirely into having Chuuya ignore him.

He’d almost feel bad if Dazai hadn’t gotten five orgasms earlier that evening before they went out for dinner. But he had, so Chuuya rolled his eyes and kept them forcibly on the screen, twitching his fingers right back into his own lap. 

“Ngh, Chuuya?” Dazai called, and something about the anxiety that flooded his tone got to Chuuya, because his head was already turning, unconsciously reacting to it.

Dazai’s eyes were searching him a little desperately, and he was still shifting, but his erection had actually gone down a bit- from the lack of attention? Holy fuck. His eyes were asking unspoken questions that Chuuya only half-understood, but he decided to throw every plan out of the window. Whatever, honestly, Chuuya had already admitted to himself that he was going to fuck Dazai again that night. He wasn’t losing. Not really.

“Yeah, ba-” Chuuya tried to bite down the word, but something sparkled in Dazai’s eyes and it looked too pretty to ignore. He clenched his jaw for two moments and sighed. ‘Baby’ didn't sound quite right. They weren’t in a relationship. There was no need for terms- gods, endearments like that, so…. well….

The rings.

Fuck.

Chuuya closed his eyes for a moment to steady himself. “Yeah, b… baby? Need something?”

Gods, it felt awkward on his tongue, but already Dazai’s- or rather, Chuuya’s- shorts were tenting a little more and his face flushed beautifully.

Huh.

He liked that.

Chuuya stared for two moments to fully register that, yes, Dazai apparently was good with being called baby of all things. Something couples called each other. There was an implication there, but he just noted it along with the other weird little things he knew about Dazai.

“M’not a kid,” Dazai murmured, looking a little unsure, maybe even confused at his own reaction. That just solidified Chuuya's resolve. If Dazai liked being called sweet things like baby, beautiful, pretty- fuck, shit, he really did call Dazai all of that, huh? Embarrassing- then Chuuya wasn’t going to judge. Not yet, at least. Degradation wasn’t on the table just yet. He smirked and finally reached over to put his hand on Dazai's thigh, making him spread it again from where he'd twitched them closed earlier.

“You're not,” he agreed easily, rubbing his thumb into the bandaged skin. “But you are my baby, yeah?”

Dazai's eyes widened, a weird hazy edge building there so suddenly that Chuuya actually leaned back to examine it worriedly. It wasn't a bad haze, though, it looked more like….

Dazai’s eyes were nearly vacant, something high and pleasant floating in the gorgeous wine-brown. His mouth was a little slack, but it was lifted into something euphoric and gone, dizzy and relaxed. Dazai’s entire body was limp like he’d lost all strength and was just floating in his head, carried away by the sensations tingling around his body. His cock was spent, a bit of cum still drooling from the head.

Chuuya didn’t know… well, he didn’t know if the word was right, but- subspace? He’d briefly heard about it from a previous partner that wanted to hurt Chuuya during a… a bdsm(?) scene. He hadn’t gone through with it, and had even gotten up and left before they got past a bit of groping and making out, a little too freaked by the sight of the riding crop the guy had brought out.

He hadn’t hurt Dazai though, so…. huh. Chuuya nervously tapped Dazai’s thigh, and thankfully those warm eyes slid over to him, glazed with pleasure.

Chuuya swallowed thickly, trying to ground his thoughts before they got away from him. Could he get Dazai there again? Did he want to?

He'd read up on it more after that just to make himself more aware and had found out that pain play wasn't necessary. It was more common to reach subspace with pain, but excessive stimulation was good enough when done right. He'd figured that because he'd had Dazai listening to his instructions and doing everything he said, especially after the accidentally ruined orgasm, Dazai had both relaxed and given in enough that he had just barely reached that point.

He… well, he knew himself well enough to realize that he wanted that for Dazai. His mackerel had shared once or twice how difficult it was to get his mind to shut down for a second to let him relax. It looked painful, almost, to be that- well, that intelligent. He already had trouble sleeping, so Chuuya tried to stay up to help as best as he could. He tried to get his mackerel to talk about what bothered him, but even after all this time Dazai still had secrets to tell. If subspace could help with sleeping more easily and getting out of his head, then….

“Hey,” he drummed his fingers against Dazai's thigh to get his attention away from the vibrations still making him pant. “How do you feel about subspace?”

Dazai blinked at him. “Subspace?”

Chuuya licked his lips. “It's like a… it's a floaty state you can get to if I, like, make you cum over and over without stopping or whatever. It can be a pain thing,” Dazai's jaw clenched, “but I'm not interested in hurting you,” Chuuya said very firmly, rubbing over Dazai's thigh. “I think you've almost gotten there before, but I want to do it on purpose this time.”

Dazai's eyes shifted away from him for a second. He swallowed. “Whatever. If Chuuya wants to.”

He scowled and pinched his thigh a little bit. “I'm asking for consent, asshole. Doesn't matter if I want to. If you say no then we're not doing it. I want to make you feel good, but only if you agree to it.”

There was a long moment of silence where Dazai just stared at him like he wasn’t real. Chuuya wanted to know what he was thinking (nothing new, honestly. Chuuya always wanted just a glimpse at the thoughts swirling in Dazai’s brain, if only to try to understand just a fraction of his thought process). If he said no, that would be just fine. He’d fuck him and they’d get to go back to watching the show as planned. It would be fine; there were other ways to get Dazai out of his head.

But if he said yes…. Well….

“If-” Dazai cut himself off, like he hadn’t meant to speak. Chuuya carefully kept his startled reaction to him speaking under control. After a moment, he swallowed. “If I want… to stop, then-”

“Then I’ll stop,” Chuuya affirmed with as much seriousness as he could inject into his tone.

Dazai looked at him, a hint of vulnerability lurking there. “That easy?” He said it like he didn't believe it.

“It’s that easy.”

Wine brown eyes searched him intently for a long moment, a searching glint lighting them up in the dimness of their living room. Chuuya let him, keeping eye contact and letting him search through, picking around his tone for genuineness and scraping the honesty from his gaze. Finally, he shivered a little bit and his intense stare fluttered into something a bit softer.

“Okay.”

Chuuya blinked. “Okay?”

Dazai nodded, squirming on the vibrator a little more openly. “Yeah, Chuuya can… do the subspace thing.”

“Okay,” Chuuya swallowed. “Okay, yeah. It takes a while to get there- or it probably will for your first time so we can- should, actually,” he stopped, trying to minimize the energy brimming under his fingers and scrambling with his other hand for his phone. 12:17 a.m.- fuck, yeah, it was getting late. “We should do the- the subspace another day. It’s getting late for that, not that someone cares,” he reached down to brush a judging finger over Dazai’s erection. 

“Ngh,” Dazai groaned. “But chibi~ you can’t bring something- hah- up and not do it.”

Chuuya would agree, but he could see the tiredness on Dazai’s face and the way his eyes were drooping the tiniest bit. That was weird- hadn’t they just gotten a long nap? Chuuya was tired enough to sleep, but Dazai had to have been nearing exhaustion if he was letting the signs show on his face. “We’ll use the stoplight system. Say red and I’ll stop, yellow to get me to slow down, and green means you're good, okay?”

“Shouldn’t Chuuya tell me this when we actually do it,” Dazai was starting to whine a bit, shifting on the vibrator with more insistence than before.

“Mmh, I would,” Chuuya gripped into Dazai’s bandaged thighs and maneuvered him to be lying on the couch with a leg over Chuuya’s shoulder. He reached over to swipe the remote out of Dazai’s hand, delighting in the noise of disgruntlement it elicited. “But I want to make sure you listen.”

“Hah, ah,” Dazai panted and moaned from the movement, jostling the vibrator in him. “What- ngh- are you talking about?”

Chuuya swatted the back of his thigh again- not hard, definitely not any more aggressive than a small pinch would’ve been, because consent was important, especially for anything pain-related- and smirked at the yelp. Dazai hadn’t reacted negatively to little things like that, and it held true right then, too. 

“Sweetheart, you and I both know you wouldn’t tell me to stop even if you needed to.” Dazai’s eyes shuttered into something less open, a film hazing over, and Chuuya pinched him to get those closed-off eyes to look at him. “No, you know you won’t. I’m not going to ask why right now. I think I know, anyway,” he added, muttering it just loud enough for Dazai to hear and look away again, something deeply complicated swirling in the wine brown of his irises. Dazai had been abused, horrifically abused, sexually and physically and mentally- and, well, Chuuya didn’t know the half of it. He’d be stupid to pretend like he did. “But if I can’t trust you to tell me to stop, we can’t try new shit like that where you might not be able to tell me to stop or kick me or whatever the fuck. So we’re going to practice right now.”

Chuuya refused to have a starring role in any of Dazai’s ptsd-fueled nightmares.

His partner sighed, a trembling little thing, then nodded. “Okay, stupid slug,” Chuuya's eye twitched but he let the insult go. And then, after a pause, Dazai smirked, “green?”

With a disarmingly gentle smile and a steadying hand brushing Dazai’s cheek with something he’d never admit was affection, Chuuya flicked the vibe up to a six.

“Chu-! Chuuya- ah- oh fuck- I- hah-” Dazai writhed on the couch, but Chuuya quickly pressed him down into the cushions with a firm hand. Dazai bucked up into it, but he didn’t let him do it twice as he applied more pressure.

As Dazai shrieked and whined on the vibrator, Chuuya ran his hands down his sides and fingered the edge of his shorts. With a panting moan, Dazai lifted his hips, clearly urging Chuuya to get on with it. So he didn’t, continuing to just barely dip his fingers around the waistband.

Chuuya leaned up to kiss and nip at his jaw, lining it with dark hickeys. Dazai let out a low, pleased little moan that peppered into a little drawl of his name. “Color?” Chuuya asked pointedly, keeping his hands firmly above Dazai’s waistband.

As though entranced, Dazai took a moment to gather himself enough to answer, and even then he seemed a bit floaty, distracted by the vibration against his prostate. Chuuya turned it down to a three. “Huh?”

“Need your color, baby,” Chuuya explained with forced patience, but already he was feeling a bit of annoyance at the slow pace he himself had set. The endearment still felt a little weird on his tongue, but he loved the little shiver that ran up Dazai’s spine the moment he heard it.

“Oh my- fuck, green, Chuuya!” Dazai kicked at him brattily, glaring at him. It didn’t translate nearly as well when he immediately threw his head back when Chuuya’s hand brushed over his cock in his path to strip away his shorts and boxers. Gods, he said he’d take his time and make him consent to everything with the color system, but he was feeling impatient and Dazai clearly wanted it too.

Chuuya flicked the vibrator off and huffed out an amused laugh when Dazai immediately kicked at him for real. “Bad dog!” He whined. “Turn it back on-”

There were a few moments in the past few months where Chuuya had had to admit to himself that he’d misstepped when it came to Dazai. Whether it was with oral, an accidentally ruined orgasm, a bad choice of words, or something along those lines. This was, potentially, one of his biggest fuck-ups. He’d blame himself entirely, because he talked about consent and then had already done something similar earlier-

When Dazai whined at him, Chuuya (not very hard, not particularly painfully, not even with a fraction of the strength Dazai knew Chuuya could’ve pulled on him) spanked his ass.

Dazai moaned.

(Very notably, it would take Chuuya a long moment to realize that wasn’t a pained moan.)

.

Chuuya froze, immediately pulling his hand away and wincing because there was a sound from the impact and- well- he barely felt a thing from his hand, so it hadn’t been a hard hit, but still- 

“Shit, fuck, Dazai, are you okay?” He gently pushed his thigh up to inspect the small, light splotch of redness. “I’m sorry,” he babbled, a choking coldness shooting down his spine and instilling a frigid clarity that quickly doused the arousal he’d been feeling. He’d actually left a mark on him from that. He left a mark on Dazai from hitting him. A little swat here and there had been one thing, just a firm tap on his skin, but that, just now, was way more than a tap. “I didn’t mean to- fuck, it might bruise a little. One second.” Chuuya pushed off of the couch as soon as he saw the red mark getting a little pinker, fueled by his panic and not really taking a second to register that Dazai looked dazed but definitely not upset.

He bustled around the common bathroom, grabbing a soft washcloth to dampen it with cool water and, brimming with nervous energy, grabbed lotion too. Did they have bruise cream? Because that might work better, since he…. He hit Dazai. He hit Dazai. Fuck. Fuckity fuck, fuck-!

“Shit, gods, mackerel,” Chuuya bit his lip, scrambling back into the living room because he left Dazai during sex, something he knew Dazai hated and- fuck- he was really just fucking up in all sorts of ways. Chuuya didn’t like being left by himself during or after sex, either, so- so for Dazai- “Here, I,” Chuuya hovered over the place his hand had made contact, still not looking at Dazai.

“Chibi-”

“Do you want me to, or-”

“Chu-”

“I should grab Ibuprofen,” he backed away (because he didn't like pills, nearly avoided them like the plague, but he bought them, tolerated seeing them in their bathroom cabinets in the mornings for Dazai's chronic headaches), but a hand intertwining with his stopped him.

“Chuuya!” Dazai raised his voice a bit, and for the first time since he realized exactly what he’d done, he noticed that his mackerel was laughing. Not loudly, because Dazai didn’t do that, but soft, bubbling, snorting laughter. Chuuya couldn’t have looked away if he tried. “I’m fine,” Dazai tugged Chuuya closer. “It- it hurt, but not…”

Dazai’s face was a little pink when he trailed off, like he hadn’t meant to say anything else, like his tongue had slipped. Chuuya stared for a long second, because as far as he could tell there wasn’t any reason for Dazai to be laughing. There were more reasons for him to stand up, walk out and leave and never come back because Dazai hated him now-

“You don’t like pain,” Chuuya stated, feeling a little lost and like he was missing something, still a bit dazed by how insanely beautiful Dazai had looked when he was laughing in a way that seemed pretty fucking genuine (the genuineness of it a novelty in itself for his partner).

“I don’t like getting hurt,” Dazai said, a small rewording, but any kind of rephrasing always meant something with his partner, so Chuuya latched onto it.

He settled down back onto the couch, just in between Dazai’s spread legs. Chuuya rubbed his hand firmly up and down the skin of the back of his thigh, noticing that despite his supposed aversion to any kind of pain, Dazai was still hard- leaking, even, more than before.

Huh.

“So this….” Chuuya didn’t really know what he was trying to say, so transfixed at the way Dazai’s cock twitched a bit when he gently trailed his hand down to the place he’d hit and rubbed over it soothingly.

“Chuuya didn’t hurt me,” Dazai confirmed, his voice drifting quietly, just as gentle as the hand Chuuya worked over the splotch- which, upon inspection, didn’t seem like it would bruise, and even if it did it would be because Dazai was easily bruised more than because Chuuya had inflicted the kind of damage needed to cause a bruise.

He stared up, still feeling a little bit like he wasn’t understanding something about what Dazai was saying. Dazai didn’t elaborate even as they made tentative, searching eye contact. He didn’t like being hurt, but claimed Chuuya didn’t hurt him.

Hurt him.

.

Oh.

Dazai knew better than most just how hard Chuuya could’ve hit him. Relative to his past abusers, Chuuya hadn’t hurt him. Not the way he could’ve if he’d been trying to. Even without his ability thrumming under his skin, Chuuya was physically very strong and still worked out whenever he could and therefore was more fit than most. If he wanted to cause some damage to someone, he wouldn’t need For The Tainted Sorrow or Corruption to do it.

That might not have been it, but it seemed likely that that was what Dazai meant.

“I’m never going to hurt you like this, mackerel,” Chuuya murmured gently, offering his own confirmation to settle any doubt that might have been lurking in glimmering brown eyes. Dazai’s exhale was shaky, and he clenched his fingers into the cushions a few times, but nodded slightly in understanding. “Wanna talk about it?” He ran his fingers over the place he hit Dazai to make it clear what he was talking about, offering that line of communication offhandedly while knowing damn well Dazai wasn’t going to take it right then. Just as he thought, Dazai shook his head a bit, but didn’t pull away from him. “Okay, well,” Chuuya sat back and drifted his hand fully away from the sensitive spot, “if we can’t talk about it, we’re not doing it.”

“Chuuya-”

“No,” he spoke, as firmly as he could. “I’m not hitting you again unless you can ask me for it and genuinely want it, shitty fucking mackerel.”

Even though he was pouting over it, Dazai nodded with a disgruntled huff. “Fine. Can my slug fuck me now or do I have to ask for that too?”

Chuuya raised an eyebrow- because he would’ve gone ahead and fucked him, but the sarcastic twang to Dazai’s voice had him sitting back a little more. “I don’t know, maybe.” His grin felt sharp in his mouth as he leered down at Dazai, feeling a little more aware of his erection at the realization that Dazai had been turned on by getting spanked even if they weren’t doing more that night. “How pretty can you sound begging me for it?”

Dazai rolled his eyes and hooked a leg around Chuuya’s waist, calling him on the passive bluff and trying to line him up to get his ass around his cock. “Just fuck me already! I know Chuuya wants to,” he whined, shifting to rub his ass against Chuuya’s dick when he failed to line them up just right.

He succeeded in knocking Chuuya into the lotion and cold, damp towel he’d brought out. Chuuya, despite his lust, pulled away a bit. “We should make sure it doesn’t bruise first-”

“I don’t fucking care if it bruises, Chuuya,” Dazai complained. “Now come on.”

Chuuya rolled his eyes, already pouring a bit of lotion on his fingers. Dazai wasn't patient enough to sit still for a cool towel, so lotion would have to do for the moment. “Okay, that’s so great for you, shitty Dazai. But some people don’t want to leave bruises on their-” Partner? Husband? Fuck-buddy? Chuuya didn’t really know which one was right, or made sense, or was too intimate or not intimate enough. He cleared his throat and tried again, hoping he wasn’t being too obvious about it. “Maybe I don’t want to leave bruises on you, dumbass.”

Yeah, Dazai’s keen, interested stare while Chuuya rubbed a bit of lotion over the mark confirmed that he had noticed. From the looks of his twitching cock and little whine, though, he was too worked up to bother with a conversation over it.

Chuuya trailed his fingers over Dazai's twitching hole and thumbed over it. It was loose from the vibrator, but he should, if nothing else, grab the lube before fucking him. As if reading his mind, Dazai glared at him a bit and tightened his legs around Chuuya’s waist. Don’t you dare, his eyes and body begged. With a long-suffering sigh, Chuuya lined up his cock and pushed the head in and hissed a bit at the somewhat under-prepared tightness.

“Ah,” Dazai gasped breathily, apparently enjoying the stretch, because the more he pushed in, the more his cock leaked and his hips writhed. “More, Chuuya, come- hah- come on~”

“You really are the worst,” Chuuya groaned as he bottomed out. Before Dazai, panting and flushed and squirming on his cock, could try to retort, he pulled out again and fucked into him for real.

They definitely weren't going to last for long, what with how Chuuya was already moaning at the tight feeling and Dazai was squirming on his cock. That was fine, though; it wasn’t really meant to be dragged out.

“Hngh- hah- Chuuya, Chuuya, Chuuya,” Dazai already chanted his name, moaning long and loud when he adjusted just enough to hit his prostate with every thrust. “Hm- hah- yes, yes, don’t stop-”

That caught Chuuya’s attention. Dazai already sounded so close when he’d only started fucking him. Multiple orgasms were fine most of the time, but if Dazai got too worked up, this wouldn’t end anytime soon. Chuuya was tired- he’d ridden Dazai’s cock for far too long earlier that evening, and was feeling the strain in his thighs the longer he fucked into him. He could, in theory, keep fucking him as long as Dazai wanted, but tomorrow would be a bitch on his thighs if he did and they wouldn’t get any grocery shopping done like he’d planned. He slowed his thrusts into a deep, dirty grind instead.

“Ngh, faster,” Dazai moaned desperately, rocking back as best as he could manage. Chuuya picked up one of his gorgeously long legs and put it over his shoulder to prevent him from moving too much and leaned down to kiss him. He licked into his mouth to swallow down his little whine of annoyance at being ignored. With his other hand, he curled his fingers around the base of his partner’s cock and smirked a little when he cried out into their kiss.

“You can wait to cum,” Chuuya spoke into their lips after pulling back a bit. Before Dazai could manage to say anything in response, he pulled out then slammed back in and reveled in the loud, pleasured shriek it elicited. He kept going like that to feel the rapidly building heat in his gut. Whenever Chuuya fucked Dazai through his orgasm while chasing his own, it tended to rile his partner up enough that another round was unavoidable if he didn’t want to listen to Dazai's complaining. Cumming together would keep Dazai from getting overstimulated and more likely than not interested in another round. 

He kept up the quick pace and groaned when Dazai’s hole fluttered around him, clenching and unclenching rhythmically in tandem with his thrusts. Chuuya couldn’t tell if it was anything purposeful or if Dazai was so close he couldn’t help it, but it pushed him closer to his own orgasm.

“Fuck, ah, so tight for me, huh, beautiful,” Chuuya moaned into Dazai’s ear before kissing down his neck. Dazai tossed his head back with a shuddering whine to offer up the portions of his skin that weren’t bandaged. Chuuya nipped and sucked into it, murmuring little compliments that made his mackerel’s desperate attempts at rocking back onto his cock increase tenfold. It was still, in some way, kind of embarrassing to so openly praise Dazai, but he’d gotten so used to it whenever they were like this that it slipped out.

In any case, he wasn’t lying. Dazai really was timelessly attractive, with dark wavy hair softened by proper care (almost as curly as Chuuya thought it would be. It wasn’t quite there yet, but he hoped just a little bit that it just needed more care- he wanted to see more of Dazai’s messy bed curls in the morning. To make fun of him and tease him, of course, but also just a little bit to get a chance to finger comb it and tug at the tangles) and big, shining wine-brown eyes. They weren’t dead like they used to be, like they were when they were in Japan, the Port Mafia, when Dazai dressed head to toe in black. It was an attractive look on him, but his eyes were so much more present when he was wearing blues and pinks and yellows in atrocious combinations. 

Freedom suited him, and if it wasn’t too presumptuous of Chuuya, too hopeful, happiness suited him too.

He was almost certain he made Dazai happy.

The gloomy Demon Prodigy, so entrenched in shadows one could argue he blended right in with the darkness that swirled in his blank irises (fish eyes, Chuuya had called them all those years ago, like a mackerel), feeling happy because he was with Chuuya. The idea that he had such a hold over Dazai's emotions that he tried denying he had in the first place…..

It was a weird feeling, a warm buzz from head to toe that surged him to kiss Dazai again. Not quickly, not fiercely, not even a bit like he was trying to devour him. The chaste slide of their lips, the warmth he poured into Dazai so desperately he could hardly stand it, contradicted oddly with the quick slap of their hips. Dazai clearly didn’t agree; if anything it was the thing that tipped him into orgasm with Chuuya’s hand having loosened, whining, panting, shaking, until his entire body tensed and he spilled between them with a long, drawn out moan. Just as his body slackened, Chuuya felt the tight ball of heat snap in him and he bottomed out and cummed into him while their lips stayed connected.

As the orgasmic haze slipped away, Chuuya let his lips linger a bit too tenderly, but with Dazai’s slow, half-assed attempt at kissing back, he couldn’t help himself. Dazai had gotten better at kissing, but after sex he went right back to being a lazy bastard, letting Chuuya do all of the work. His arms still came up and around Chuuya’s neck as if to make up for his lack of participation. Kissing between them was usually a team effort, especially when standing, with Chuuya leaning up on his tip-toes and Dazai bending down to meet him, but when they were pressed close like this, with Chuuya balls-deep and flush against him it was easy enough for him to just lay there.

What an asshole, Chuuya smiled against his lips before pulling away with a grimace at the sticky mess. Dazai picked at the childish bandaids on Chuuya's hands with a little smirk of a smile playing on his lips.

“Fuck,” he groaned with more annoyance than post-orgasmic satisfaction. If he pulled out right now, they’d get cum and lube all over their nice new sofa. Dazai didn’t seem to have any thoughts along that line, still humming contentedly and enjoying his little sex-induced high of endorphins. There was really only one solution. “Alright, come on, shithead,” Chuuya reached around Dazai’s back, one hand between his shoulder blades and the other lower on the base of his spine.

Dazai honest-to-the-gods floundered like a fucking fish (Chuuya chortled a little internally at the joke). “What are you doing?!” He squawked, clearly a little alarmed.

Chuuya just continued with his efforts to hoist him up and away from the couch, still seated on his cock. “Carrying you so you don’t fucking leak all over our couch. Stay still.”

His partner shimmied away, fighting the hold even while he kept his arms slung around Chuuya’s neck. He entangled his fingers in Chuuya’s hair and yanked a little like the nuisance that he was. The tussle began. “No! Put me down-”

“Fucking gods, just-”

“You mutt!”

“Holy shit, I will fucking drop you-”

“Don’t you dare! This is abuse-”

“There!” Chuuya raised his voice, finally standing with Dazai firmly held against him. “Was that really so hard?!

Dazai whined petulantly, his legs limp and bumping awkwardly against the floorboards because he was so godsdamned tall. His hole clenched around Chuuya’s sensitive cock and prompted a hiss out of him for it. “This is awful. You’re too short!”

“Lay off about my height already!” Chuuya pinched right in between his shoulder blades where his skin was exposed. “And wrap your legs around my hips instead of bitching about it, gods.”

There was a second where Dazai didn’t react, Chuuya slowly shuffling towards the bedroom, unable to take full steps with Dazai’s legs in the way. And then, his arms tightening almost painfully around Chuuya, he very tentatively lifted one foot off the ground and slung it around Chuuya’s hips. His other foot skidded and tapped against the floor a few times with hesitation.

Chuuya groaned and stopped altogether at the pitiful sight. Leave it to Dazai to insult him and make Chuuya feel responsible for it. “Oh my gods,” he slid the hand he had on Dazai’s lower back down to his ass. “Don’t freak out,” he warned, then slid it down further to the back of his thigh and hoisted it up, manhandling his leg around Chuuya’s hip and huffing out a reluctant little laugh at Dazai’s squeak. “Fuck-” Dazai’s arms tightened too much around his neck, nearly cutting off his air supply. “Fucking- loosen your grip, you leech! I’m not gonna fucking drop you-!” Chuuya slid both hands down to his ass and lower back to hold him. Once the support was there, Dazai’s grip loosened bit by bit. Chuuya sucked in a breath, still standing in their living room. That did not need to be a whole thing.

“Chibi should’ve warned me!” Dazai yelped, and while Chuuya couldn’t see his expression, he did feel him dig his face into Chuuya’s neck and snuffle dramatically. “What if you dropped me,” he wailed a bit, overdramatic with a small note of genuineness that said that, if only for a second, he really had been nervous about getting dropped.

Chuuya didn’t waste time feeling bad, finally striding towards their bedroom’s ensuite bathroom while rolling his eyes. “Dumbass, I don’t have noodle arms like you. I wouldn’t have dropped you,” and just to show off, he held Dazai up with one arm and, after quickly pinching Dazai’s arm in warning to not choke him again when he flailed a bit in surprise, he opened their bedroom door easily and kicked it closed behind him. 

Chuuya liked having the door open, but Dazai always looked too cagey and distracted with surveying the hallway if he left it like that. It was a trade off, since Dazai didn’t complain about the nightlights and “ugly” lamps in their room that he knew his partner didn’t like.

He walked towards their ensuite bathroom after quickly adjusting Dazai, lifting him a little further up and wincing at the little drag it made on his cock, still seated in Dazai's wet warmth. With Dazai attached to him like a limpet and significantly quieter than before, clearly having settled a bit, he bumped the door further open and only spared a moment to look at the mirror.

Ridiculous, was his first thought. Dazai's legs were long, and even with his narrow bone structure he was still an adult man being carried like a child. He saw the moment Dazai's head turned to look into the mirror and waited for him to make some kind of joke at Chuuya's expense. He didn't expect to watch Dazai's eyes dilate in real time, or the way his hole clenched and cock twitched-

That was enough of that, Chuuya decided, storing away the memory to unpack later. He stepped into the shower and tapped Dazai's thigh while loosening his grip a bit.

“Let go,” he said when Dazai's legs tightened around him a little. Chuuya didn't get a chance to tell him again, because Dazai complied after a minute, unwinding his legs and letting Chuuya control the pace of lowering his legs. He had a quick thought that, now that Dazai knew how to get himself onto Chuuya and figured out that he needed to wrap his legs around him to keep himself up, they could definitely fuck in the shower, or against a wall…. knowing his lazy mackerel, Chuuya would probably have to hold him up completely after a few minutes when he'd inevitably get tired of holding himself onto Chuuya, but he wouldn't freak out as much as he would if it were his first time being picked up like that.

Chuuya liked taking care of his body. Even in Russia he worked out daily in the hotel gym, lifting weights and blowing off steam. He'd put on even more muscle because of it, and was glad he did since it made things like carrying his lazy partner around easy. He didn't particularly enjoy how difficult Dazai was with jumping into rivers and refusing to move himself, but he didn't hate carrying him. It was a weird sense of being depended on that he… well, he definitely wasn't opposed to, exactly.

When Dazai's feet touched the floor of their shower and he pulled away from Chuuya, he made a little face at the feeling of cum and lube slipping out. Chuuya rolled his eyes and, with a hand on Dazai's hip that was gentler than he meant it to be, reached past him to turn on the spray with a little mischievous grin. Dazai was essentially a large, bratty shield that Chuuya took advantage of, knowing that post-sex he usually wasn't cognizant enough to realize little things.

Like Chuuya not letting the water warm up beforehand.

“Gah!” Dazai yelped, pushing at Chuuya, who laughed loudly at the sight of him getting drenched by the spray. He held Dazai there as the water warmed up little by little, making a face when Dazai shook his head like a dog to get some of the cold water on him. “Chuuya!” He shrieked, but he was laughing a bit too now that the water wasn't quite so frigid.

They stood there, Chuuya clutching Dazai to keep him under the spray and Dazai halfheartedly pushing at Chuuya as the water finally approached a hotter temperature.

“Al-alright,” Chuuya laughed, letting go and grabbing the shampoo. “Bend down, asshole.”

“Chuuya's the asshole!” Dazai spat, but it lost its effect when he was still snorting unattractively in between little laughs. It was a wonder that the most unattractive things about Dazai, like his laugh and bedhead and brattiness, were the ones Chuuya kind of liked the most. They were the most human, after all.

He bent his head down and Chuuya went about sudsing up his hair, finger-combing through tangles interspersed in the messy curls. Should he be washing Dazai's hair again? Probably not- double washing would probably dry his hair up a bit, but Chuuya really liked washing it and the shampoo was already in so, well, whatever. Besides, if Dazai would sit still for a second after the shower, Chuuya could always put a leave-in conditioner or something in his curls that he usually used in his own hair to make up for it.

Chuuya rinsed the shampoo out of Dazai’s hair and put conditioner in it to let it sit while he put faux citrus-scented conditioner in his own hair, skipping the shampoo. Dazai, noticing the skipped step, raised an eyebrow at him but ultimately ignored it and leaned over to let the water run the conditioner out of his hair.

“You could’ve waited a second,” Chuuya frowned at him.

Dazai shrugged and yawned exaggeratedly. “M’too tired- Chuuya wore me out,” he teased.

He rolled his eyes. “I’m the one who wore you out? I’m not the one begging to cum five times in a row every time we fu-”

“Shut up!” Dazai pouted, ears red from what Chuuya now easily recognized as embarrassment. He backed away to step out of the shower, but Chuuya, noticing the sticky shine at the back of his thighs, wrapped an arm around his waist and gently tugged him back in. “What?”

“Idiot,” Chuuya chided, reaching around to circle Dazai’s rim and feeling a little bit of residual filth even as Dazai gasped from the sensation. “If you don’t clean I’m gonna have to hear you complaining in the morning.”

“Mmnh, I think chibi just wanted an excuse to get his hands on me,” Dazai smirked, and Chuuya felt a bit of his sanity leave him when, after slipping two fingers in to spread them and clean his careless partner, Dazai’s cock twitched against him.

“We’re not fucking again,” Chuuya warned him, gently cleaning him and, unfortunately, getting Dazai more worked up.

Dazai leaned in and wrapped his arms around Chuuya to steady himself with a little moan when his fingers slipped just barely over his prostate. “Ngh, but my dog is the one teasing~”

To his horror, Chuuya actually was getting a bit hard at Dazai’s breathy little moans. Not enough to convince him to fuck Dazai, but-

“Hah, Chuuya-!”

.

..

…

Gods dammit.

Chuuya braced his hands under the backs of Dazai’s thighs, lifted him up, and proceeded to rail him against the shower wall- and then ate him out while bending him over their bathroom sink, because their strawberry flavored lube and improved diet deserved to be appreciated.

He really was way too easy for Dazai.

(That realization should probably bother him more than it does.)

Paris, France

November 23

11:51 a.m.

They didn't end up going grocery shopping the day after. Chuuya's back and hips were sore from the night before, and after a long day trying to map out where exactly his workplace was, he was too tired and too annoyed to fuck Dazai like they'd talked about. He'd also let it slip his mind that they needed to go grocery shopping, so takeout and the occasional restaurant lunch leftover containers every other day had built up in their kitchen trash can.

A week went by until finally, on a slightly warmer than freezing Saturday afternoon, they both left the house to get Chuuya's motorcycle and go grocery shopping and pick out blackout curtains.

It was such a weirdly domestic chore that Chuuya hadn't actually asked Dazai to go with him at first, nor had he originally put the curtains on his list. He thoughtlessly reached over and intertwined his fingers with Dazai's as they walked into the storage unit at the reminder of why, exactly, they needed to pick up blackout curtains.

(Earlier that morning)

Chuuya wouldn't have known if he hadn't woken up to get a glass of water.

Dazai never would have said a word.

It was probably- definitely, he squinted at the clock beside their bed- close to five in the morning and just a hair above being too dark to see when Chuuya yawned with an uncomfortable feeling of being dehydrated sticking his tongue to the roof of his mouth.

His yawn had been nearly silent, so when he turned his head to make sure Dazai was still sleeping, it was just in time to catch him closing his eyes quickly. Chuuya stared just long enough to notice him forcefully keeping his body just a hair too still to still be sleeping.

“Hey,” he murmured very quietly, just in case Dazai really was asleep. “Are you awake?”

It'd been a while since Dazai had woken up before seven or eight in the morning. It was a marvel with his insomnia, but Chuuya chalked it up to him healing a bit more from his past trauma and relaxing without mafia work to do.

Dazai didn't react, but Chuuya was sure that he was awake now and drummed his fingers against Dazai's shoulder. “I'm gonna get some water, one second.”

When he stepped off of the bed, the motion sensing night lights flickered on with a soft glow to guide him out of their bedroom and down the hallway, hissing just a little at the cold floor beneath his feet. He padded into their kitchen and filled up two half-full cups of water (so that they wouldn't spill too badly if they were tipped over in bed) and walked back to their room. Dazai had given up on pretending and was sitting up against their pillows. Chuuya set the glasses on the nightstand and tapped their lamp on. He climbed into bed and pulled Dazai into him, his mackerel limply allowing him to arrange them until they were semi-cuddling, propped against the pillows. He reached over and handed a cup to Dazai before taking a sip of his own water. 

It felt so natural to hold Dazai like this that he hardly thought twice about their proximity. They’d always been rather… tactile, so to speak, even before their first time being intimate and open with each other. A touch here to signal a change in tactics, a nudge of their shoes there to indicate a target; regardless of the words they spat at each other, their body language said enough for them to at least somewhat make up for the pure vitriol they sometimes used against each other in verbal fights.

“Why are you up so early?” Dazai asked casually.

Chuuya settled his chin on Dazai's shoulder. “I wanted to get water, duh, but nice try. Why were you up?”

“I was just… not tired anymore,” Dazai shrugged a bit, but there was a weird tenseness to his jaw that Chuuya caught onto from his position.

“Right,” Chuuya said with a tone that conveyed just how little he believed Dazai. Then, with a steadying breath, he asked, “...nightmares?”

Dazai stiffened in his arms, but Chuuya expected that. They didn’t really… well, talk about much of anything that happened before leaving. Not Mori, not the mafia, not… not the Sheep, thankfully or not, and especially not about Oda Sakunosuke. Leaving with Dazai was a good decision, Chuuya could admit that much after months of being so painfully relaxed for the first time in… maybe ever. It was nearly enough to make him antsy, but traveling and working were enough to keep him from feeling too settled in his own skin. A nine-to-five and stability weren’t bad things to have, after all.

But they didn’t talk about the fact that Oda was dead and the reason Dazai left the mafia. The original defection was because of him, and Chuuya knew that damn well. For whatever reason, though, Dazai came back for Chuuya. The car blowing up? That was in line with what he knew about his partner; as much as it would’ve hurt, he wasn’t surprised when Dazai left without a word. Momentary disbelief, dread, confusion, hatred, loathing- both self and outward-, mourning and denial, but not surprise. Dazai was the opposite of Chuuya by nature on the battlefield- where Chuuya marched onward, Dazai hung back. They worked like that, with Chuuya taking the lead and decimating the battlefield while Dazai orchestrated his victory from a small but cataclysmic distance.

Something about Chuuya was worth coming back for, then, right?

.

Yeah. Well, that was nice to pretend in his head, but Chuuya was not stupid. Dazai didn’t come back because he missed something about Chuuya- rather, it was more likely that it was impulsive, a shift in trajectory that he fell victim to in a moment because something benign and uninteresting happened to remind him of Chuuya. And, whatever it was, it was just enough to convince Dazai to come back for Chuuya.

It was a sore spot to think about, so Chuuya tried not to, but perhaps sweeter was the realization that, even if he wasn’t good enough to convince Dazai to come back on his own, he was enough to convince Dazai to stay. Chuuya had done enough to make staying worth more than leaving. For someone as flighty and skittish as Dazai, that was miles more satisfying than simply having him around in the first place.

But if he let things like this go, how long would that last? Dazai had healed, definitely, in small ways, but he tended to let things rot if they weren’t taken out of his hands. Chuuya was more forceful and proactive about attacking the things that haunted him until they either were well and truly buried so deep he didn’t have to look at them or gone from his mind altogether. Or he drank. It depended.

….okay, so maybe neither of their tactics were healthy. But Dazai’s grief was more fresh than Chuuya’s, so he could afford to focus on it more than his own problems (and how he should probably look into getting that therapist they talked about jokingly but definitely needed).

“About… why you left the mafia?” Chuuya pressed, just a bit, because he wasn’t letting it go, but saying Oda’s name would scare Dazai off into leaving- probably. He really couldn’t tell anymore. Dazai let Chuuya hold him, make him eat, take medicine- a dozen things he didn’t think he would’ve gotten away with in the mafia. As close as they had been, that was a partnership versus… well…. whatever they had now that made Chuuya buy rings. The question was open-ended, an invitation if nothing else.

Dazai, unexpectedly, took it.

“Not entirely,” he said, voice so stiff Chuuya wondered if bending him into saying more might cause the moment to splinter. “But…” he swallowed roughly, “yeah,” Dazai breathed the admission like it hurt to force it out.

“Wanna talk about it?” Chuuya asked, going for a light tone that didn’t prefer one way or another, and he must have succeeded because Dazai relaxed back a little bit even as he shook his head. “You said that wasn’t all?” He asked immediately, letting the matter of his nightmare go without another word. Getting Dazai to admit there was even a problem was more than he’d hope for in any given moment.

“You really don’t stop,” Dazai spoke plainly, like it was just a fact he was letting sit in the air between them. Chuuya didn’t know entirely what he meant, but Dazai was already speaking before he had a chance to ask. “It’s…” he whispered so softly he might as have not spoken at all.

“Hm?” Chuuya asked, leaning away to look at him.

Dazai met his eyes once and looked down into his cup of water. “The lights.”

….huh? The lights? Chuuya looked at the nightlights in every wall socket in their room and the lamp, still on and illuminating the room in artificial golden light. “...what about them?” He didn’t think there was anything wrong; Dazai knew Chuuya kept nightlights in the room beforehand and never complained about it before. They weren’t particularly bright, so….

His mackerel fidgeted a little bit and sighed. “Nothing.”

“Nope. Absolutely not. You don’t get to brush things under the rug anymore.” Chuuya gently tugged the cup out of Dazai’s hands, noticing they were trembling the tiniest bit from- nerves? Or… or exhaustion?

….

Okay, so… So Dazai was tired. Nothing new, honestly, what with his insomnia. But he’d supposedly been sleeping earlier. Chuuya blinked, trying to remember when he last stayed up to check for certain that Dazai was asleep.

….he didn’t like the answer. Russia, early November, when Dazai got sick again and crashed from the flu medicine after biting the shit out of Chuuya’s hand. He stayed up with Dazai until he fell asleep nearly every night, but that was the most recent memory he could muster of Dazai actually for certain sleeping.

The nightlights had something to do with it. Or… or light in general did. In Russia, they had dark curtains, but in Paris, they didn’t. Dazai couldn’t sleep, the nightlights were on…. and Chuuya was feeling like an idiot because he should’ve noticed that Dazai can’t fall asleep unless it was completely dark.

He licked his lips, feeling like his mouth was more parched than before. “Shit, Dazai, why…” Why didn’t you tell me? -was what he wanted to ask, but he already knew the answer. When had Dazai ever offered up substantial information of his own accord without being asked?

“I don’t… know,” Dazai bit out like the admission was painful and suddenly Chuuya had the feeling that Dazai wasn’t apologizing for not telling him. “I can’t stop thinking when I can see, so…”

So Dazai hadn’t been overcoming his insomnia, he’d just gotten better at pretending. And Chuuya fell for it. And now his stupid partner was getting worked up.

“Fuck, mackerel,” Chuuya blurted out, louder than he meant it to be and louder than Dazai expected judging by the way he hunched in on himself just a bit more. “You’re supposed to tell me shit like this!” He raked a hand through his hair and kept the other firmly wrapped around Dazai just in case he tried to move. “If you told me we could’ve gotten like, I don’t know, blackout curtains or something. We don’t…” he looked around, just now realizing that maybe a nightlight in every single wall socket might’ve been a little excessive, regardless of how it soothed his peace of mind. “We don’t need nightlights in here.”

“But Chuuya doesn’t like the dark,” Dazai intoned without inflection like that was a good enough reason to ignore his own needs. And on that note- he knew Dazai had noticed, because there was very little that Dazai didn’t notice, and with the amount of automatic night lights strewn throughout their entire apartment it was probably hard not to, but he didn’t think he cared.

Huh. That… that probably meant something, right?

Chuuya swallowed, already feeling grossed out by what he was about to say- what he was about to admit to. “It’s… it’s fine when you- when I’m not… by myself,” he finally gritted out.

The eclipsing, intruding darkness of a lightless room was present in all of Chuuya’s worst memories- memories, not nightmares, because Chuuya couldn’t dream. Considering what he was, maybe that was for the best. Unlike Dazai, to whom his ability to think and see was a curse, it was the rope that Chuuya clung desperately to to maintain his sense of self.

It was never the dark itself that Chuuya was afraid of. The nightlights were motion detecting, so they weren’t constantly on, though he knew that they were sensitive enough to turn on if he moved around on the bed, so he didn’t need the room lit up at all times. The second he took them out, though, would feel like he was becoming apathetic. Like he wasn’t human enough to recognize what he didn’t like and take steps towards fixing it.

It would feel like he was becoming like Dazai.

Maybe that was what scared him.

He wasn’t…. no, Chuuya couldn’t pretend he wasn’t just as selfish as Dazai. He wanted to know exactly how he felt to help him, and he knew that, but he also wanted to know exactly how to be as different from his partner as possible. Dazai was despair, apathy, manipulation- all of the worst, most depressing parts of humanity wrapped in scarred human flesh.

Dazai could manipulate him a thousand times and Chuuya would never walk away, because Chuuya didn’t know how to not be loyal, but imagining the lifeless look that sometimes carved into Dazai’s eyes on his own face, in his blue eyes when he looked into the mirror….

Dazai was everything Chuuya was afraid of becoming.

And yet Chuuya never felt more secure than when he had Dazai curled in beside him, sprawled out across him, or held in his arms. He liked taking care of him, fixing that emptiness, pouring in happiness until it made a dent in the bottomless hole of Dazai’s being, his soul, until his eyes sparkled that way and he laughed like that and smiled at Chuuya like he’d never been broken.

(How the hell did Chuuya become so screwed up, anyway? None of it made sense- he hated Dazai, but he also…. he….)

There was a horribly awkward moment where Chuuya let his arms slacken around Dazai and was about to shuffle away. He hadn’t lied, but maybe that was worse because telling (and even just thinking) such an honest truth to someone like Dazai made his skin itch. It didn’t last for long, because Dazai just turned around, and with a second of eye contact that wasn’t nearly long enough to fully examine that look in his wine brown eyes, his mackerel leaned in for a crushingly soft kiss that tasted like reassurance.

They fell asleep facing each other after Chuuya unplugged the nightlights. Dazai turned off the lamp, so he was already in bed when the lights were off and Dazai slipped back in. Their fingers were entwined the whole night, and, well, it might have been stupid, but Chuuya’s exhaustion-addled brain almost wished that he could’ve fiddled with a ring on Dazai’s finger as they fell asleep, just to retrace ruby gems and cut diamonds until sleep claimed him.

Same morning

10:58 a.m.

“I'm heading out,” Chuuya grabbed his keys and called back to their bedroom where Dazai was more likely than not still buried under the dark of their covers, hiding from the sunlight.

He was proven wrong when a sleepy little grumble responded from their bedroom doorway and a casually but still fully dressed Dazai trodded out. “Mmkay, let’s go,” he said tiredly.

Chuuya stared at him. “What are you doing?”

“My slug’s pretty pink bike is here,” Dazai teased, but it sounded groggy with his morning-gravelled voice.

“It’s a-”

“-dark magenta motorcycle.”

“-dark magenta motorcycle,” Chuuya stressed with a glare, a glare that only increased in severity when Dazai chirped the same words with a teasing glint to his eyes that softened with his tiredness. “I’ll be back in an hour, you don’t actually have to come.” If Dazai was trying to be insufferable today, it would be better for him not to go anyway.

Dazai only smiled, “but chibi’s going grocery shopping too,” Oh, right. “There’s no way you forgot, right?” Chuuya twitched because he kind of did forget, actually. “Chuuya’s so short I’m worried someone will mistake you for a little kid and try to kidnap you!”

“Oh fuck you, asshole,” Chuuya hissed, fingers flexing with the reflexive warm hum of his ability under his skin. “I can get the groceries myself, so screw off.” He turned away to walk out the door for real. He didn’t want to put up with that all day.

And then Dazai piped up from behind him just as he touched the door handle. “Without your ability? Don’t tell me chibi’s trying to get caught by the mafia so soon just to carry some bags~”

Well fuck.

It wasn’t even about his ability- not entirely, at least- but attracting any kind of attention, like going out by himself, especially with his motorcycle, just begged to get mafia eyes on them. Unfortunately, it was less conspicuous for two men to be carrying groceries than one wearing an eye-catching hat, on a previously mafia-affiliated motorcycle, carrying what would probably end up being twenty bags with ease on his own out to his rear basket. Chuuya wasn’t exactly inconspicuous.

“Fine,” he rolled his eyes, opening the door. “But I’m making you actually help carry shit.”

Dazai just skipped after him with a small but bright smile on his lips, “no you won’t!”

“Chuuya Nakahara?”

Upon hearing his name called, Chuuya chatted with the attendant and showed her his ID and registration papers, conversing easily in French. Dazai stared intently at him the entire time until his motorcycle was finally set in front of him.

But even Dazai’s weirdly focused stare couldn’t distract him from the high of having his motorcycle back. Gods, he missed driving. It’d only been around two weeks, but the time dragged on and on. It was one of the only really sentimental items he'd never get rid of from his time in the mafia (though he didn't like to think too long about how he'd gotten it), and was definitely the most indulgent item he’d spent his money on up until that point, paying for repairs and general weekly upkeeping. He even went through the trouble of getting actually certified and getting his license instead of faking it or driving illegally.

Which he now thanked his younger self for- because now he could drive in France even without the mafia covering his ass for illegal driving. He was also legally allowed to buy and consume alcohol in France with his actual ID and not a fake one.

The only downside to having a motorcycle and not just getting a car (which he could drive- it just wasn’t as cool) was Dazai.

“Slow down!” Dazai yelped holding onto Chuuya with a vice grip so tight he was starting to feel a little ache. He turned another sharp corner at a speed that was probably a little too fast for city streets and grinned at the bite of wind.

“Don’t pretend you’re actually scared of getting hurt!” Chuuya tossed back with a grin. Dazai preached about his suicidal tendencies so often that he was sure that a motorcycle was right up his alley. He’d found out that he was wrong a year or two ago and paid the price with a broken rib and a shredded tire- apparently Dazai was not good with wheeled vehicles and was actually a bit prone to motion sickness when he ended up driving one or being a passenger.

Dazai just buried his head into Chuuya’s shoulder with a whine. He did end up letting his speed pepper out into something more appropriate for city streets, because he really didn’t want to deal with a motion sick Dazai.

“Chuuya’s a horrible driver,” Dazai complained as they narrowly avoided a collision when he turned again despite the slower speed, voice muffled by Chuuya’s jacket.

“Get your license before you start talking shit,” Chuuya rolled his eyes, pulling into a lot in front of the supermarket and parking the motorcycle there in the motorbike lot. He grabbed the padlock and swung his leg over the bike, chaining it to the rack. With a mocking flourish, he extended his hand to Dazai, who stared at it for a second like he wasn't sure what to make of it. “Well? Come on princess, we've got shit to do.”

A stunning pink flush spread over Dazai's cheeks and tipped his ears from the name (whether out of embarrassment or pleasure- Chuuya couldn't tell), but he took the hand regardless and got off the bike. “Chuuya's an awful prince. Too short and slug-like- ow!”

“Shut up,” Chuuya dug his heel into Dazai's foot and used the hand Dazai accepted to adjust his hold to settle over his mackerel's daintily thin wrist. He dragged him into the store by the wrist, then let go to grab a shopping cart. “Stay by the cart. Or better yet, keep a hand on it.”

“I’m not a child,” Dazai grumbled, but he did walk a bit closer to Chuuya as they walked through the bakery section. “You sure you don’t want to get a booster seat and sit in the cart? You might get tired with how short your legs are.”

Chuuya tried to kick him again, but Dazai danced out of reach. “Fuck off, holy shit. Can you lay off for like two fucking seconds? You can’t even talk when you’re a twig- you sure you’re not gonna get tired? At least I work out.” He grabbed some confections as they walked by, muffins and crepes getting added to the cart. After a moment’s thought, he put a small chantilly cake into the cart as well. 

Dazai pouted. “Chuuya likes that he’s stronger than me though.” Chuuya coughed a little bit, because the way he said that was a little…. “It makes it easier for you to pick me up in the shower and-”

“-Blueberry or raspberry!” Chuuya shouted, cutting Dazai off and attracting way too much attention. He held up the yogurt jars, a strained and manic grin on his face that he hoped conveyed every threat he was thinking to Dazai for talking about sex in public.

Gods fucking dammit, they were in a supermarket getting groceries together and he thought talking like that was a good idea- Chuuya should’ve left him at home after all.

.

Not home, but the penthouse. Chuuya’s home and Dazai’s home but not- not their home. They just lived together, and shared a room (even though they had two bedrooms), and a bed, and a shower, a kitchen, couch, watched movies, slept together….

Something wasn’t adding up about their situation. Why… why did they never talk about the second room?

“What?” Dazai squinted at the jars.

Chuuya blinked. Right. “It’s yogurt. Do you like blueberry or raspberry?” He turned back, because he only grabbed the blueberry and raspberry to distract Dazai, but he really did want yogurt. “There’s pineapple, mango, cherry, coconut, vanilla, strawberry, peach, chocolate…”

“I don’t…” Dazai trailed off, blinking at the selection when he walked closer.

“Have you ever had yogurt?” Chuuya asked, because that was the same look Dazai had given ice cream all those months ago. When Dazai’s expression twitched into something defensive, he started grabbing two of every jar. “We can try them and get more of the ones you like later. It doesn’t matter.”

It really didn’t. It wasn’t a big deal at all.

The way Dazai looked at him like he was unreal disagreed.

“We can split up and go faster,” Chuuya redirected, looking away from that expression. “Can you get eggs, milk, and bread?”

Dazai blinked. “About that… where do I-?”

“It’s in the usual places in a grocery store; we’re in a different country not a different dimension,” Chuuya waved him off, pushing the cart away.

“Well, you see-”

….

“You’ve never gone grocery shopping?!” Chuuya balked, staring at Dazai like he’d grown two head. “How are you alive?”

Dazai stiffened up. “I just got the canned stuff on the shelves right when you walk into the supermarket….”

Chuuya gaped. “You’re telling me the only time you ate actual food back then was when you bothered me to cook?"

“Crab is actual food!”

“Not from the can-! Ugh,” Chuuya sighed. “Come on, let’s go get the fresh shit. I’m not keeping that canned crap in my kitchen.”

Dazai complained about it, but dutifully followed after Chuuya while he grabbed eggs, milk (almond, not regular, because they found out a long time ago that Dazai was lactose intolerant. The Demon Prodigy’s only weakness, Chuuya had chortled to himself that entire week), bread, butter, cheese (blocked- he refused to get the shredded bagged stuff), and a handful of other things. He made a point to grab dairy-free yogurt and coconut ice cream even as Dazai whined about it. It felt more and more like was teaching the idiot how to shop- as much as he grumbled about it, he did talk through what he was picking and why while he picked through the fresh fruits and vegetables, instigating back and forth quips about whether or not it was unhealthy to just get the processed (or canned) food. 

The conversation carried through the deli meats, where Chuuya grabbed sausage, beef, chicken, and ten crab legs he deemed ‘acceptable’ after intense perusal. It wasn’t expensive at all in France, but the price wouldn’t have been a problem- he was very picky about meats and making sure they wouldn’t give him digestive issues. He’d gotten even more careful about it since living with Dazai, for whom food poisoning would wreak havoc on his body more than it would on Chuuya, who was still leagues healthier than him.

“Food poisoning would be an awful way to go out,” Dazai nodded along. 

Chuuya’s eye twitched, but he ignored the comment for the most part with a grumbling comment of, “suicidal bastard.”

They were walking through the cereal aisle adjacent to the snack aisle when Dazai dug his heel into the ground and stopped. “Chuuya.”

The tone, more serious than he’d heard it in ages, caught Chuuya’s attention and immediately put him on guard. He scanned the isle but no one else was in it with them. “What? What is it?”

Dazai turned to him and- pointed? “Chuuya, it's Batman cereal.”

“...what?” Chuuya turned and, sure enough, it was a line of superhero-themed cereals. And- oh gods- it was in the middle of an entire wall of kids show-themed cereal. Novelty diabetes boxes, Chuuya’s lip curled. “No.”

“But Chuuya,” Dazai whined, picking up the box. “You can’t fight crime without a good breakfast!”

It actually said that on the box. Chuuya was fine with the novelty clothing, and the shows, and even with the songs - he’d caught himself humming the intro to My Little Pony a few too many times. But he drew the line at blatantly unhealthy boxes of pure, overprocessed sugar marketed towards children to give them artificial sugar high.

“Absolutely not,” he said firmly. “It’s literal shit for your body and you won’t even like it-”

“How do you know that?”

“Are you kidding me?! You’re the pickiest fucking eater ever,” Chuuya spat. “You’re the definition of a ‘noodles with butter’ kid.”

They stared each other down for a long moment, with Chuuya maintaining his seriousness in the face of Dazai’s puppy eyes for all of two long, silent minutes.

Dazai got the cereal.

“We need flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, bread flour…” Chuuya looked up from the list he’d scrawled for himself before they left. “Oh, there’s a sale here too.”

“Too?” Dazai asked, looking around like a kid in a candy store. He’d won the battle for a number of weird sweets and novelty bits that ended up in their cart, like weirdly shaped pasta and minion-shaped noodles for soup. Chuuya had gotten heavy handed with his wine selecting, so it was fairly even between them.

“Hm? Oh, grocery store sales usually go in cycles that rotate throughout the year,” Chuuya explained while he looked between six different brands of salt. “Can you grab granulated and powdered sugar? It’s at the end of the aisle.”

“Chuuya, there’s a sale here too,” Dazai called back.

“Just grab whichever one,” Chuuya shrugged. “The unit price doesn’t really matter-"

“Unit price?” Fluffy brown curls popped up when he lifted his head to look at Chuuya intently.

Dazai’s interest was kind of…. ugh, it was actually kind of cute. Fuck. Chuuya resigned himself to explaining. “So there’s the price on the item, and then there’s the unit price. So if they both cost ten euros, and one’s six pounds and the other’s five pounds, the one that’s six pounds is a better deal.”

“More for the amount being spent,” Dazai nodded. Chuuya blinked, not expecting Dazai to be paying so much attention to something he said. It made his cheeks warm.

“Y-” he cleared his throat. “Yeah. The unit price basically tells you how much you’re getting for how much is being spent.”

“So one euro and sixty-six centimes per pound for the six pound bag and two euros per pound for the five pound bag.”

“Uh-huh,” Chuuya nodded, grabbing a bag of almond flour. “But like I said, it doesn’t matter how much you spend. Just grab whatever you want.”

But Dazai didn’t do that. He actually stood there and figured out the best sales price against ten bags of powdered and granulated sugar. He listened to what Chuuya said and, yes, he knew his mackerel was a genius, but the idea of him applying something Chuuya showed him, in such a domestic chore that he would’ve bet against Dazai coming at all, was….

Well, he just- Dazai listened, and Chuuya’s cheeks were warm, and Dazai was ridiculous and didn’t need to stand there doing that, but he was. There were little shocks in his fingertips and in that moment he really wanted to kiss Dazai, but the need to avoid interrupting the frankly cute scene that was Dazai pouring over sales prices in a Paris grocery store on a Saturday afternoon, wearing his fluffiest blue sweater, won out. He was… it…. the warm feeling, the blush, the tingling-

Maybe it was the reflection of the sky or the residual buzz of wine in his system, but Chuuya was speechless on that bridge, perched on the railing, when he turned to look at Dazai. For the first time since he could remember, there was light in those eyes as he turned to face the sky with Chuuya, holding his hand a little tighter when his eyes roved greedily over the inky expanse littered with stars.

Chuuya loved watching the stars and would say they were his favorite sight, but he might like watching their reflection in Dazai’s warm brown eyes more.

That…. that wasn’t-

For all of the dramatics his mackerel put up over taking the medicine, Chuuya had to admit it was worth getting bitten just to shove it down Dazai's throat.

His partner was really so high maintenance. It was a wonder Chuuya put up with him.

Dazai let out a little yawn and turned in Chuuya's arms to nuzzle his face contentedly against his chest. His arms tightened a little further as he perched his head on top of curly brown hair with a small smile.

Yeah, a wonder.

Chuuya didn’t…. that was just because he’d gotten so used to caring for Dazai….

When they stepped out onto the street, Dazai reached down to entangle his hand with Chuuya’s and didn’t look at him even when his eyes searched for answers.

Dazai’s hand wasn’t warm, especially not through their gloves, but for some reason Chuuya felt like his whole body radiated heat from that simple point of contact. Dazai rubbed over a scar in the divot between Chuuya’s thumb and pointer finger and it made his heart do a weird flip-skip in his chest.

Weird. He was too young and healthy for heart palpitations.

Palpitations, sweaty hands, flushed face, feeling so fucking warm around Dazai…. He liked his smile, his laugh, even his personality-

.

He… he liked Dazai’s gods-awful personality.

‘Oh,’ Chuuya thought, a little numb, a little distant, ‘I like Dazai.’

Dazai sneezed, sending a cloud of powder into his face from a bag of something Chuuya would definitely have to pay and apologize for. It made him feel more warm than angry, which then sent the next finger-tingling realization zinging into his brain with all the force and deadly accuracy of a bullet.

‘I love Dazai.’

“Shit,” Chuuya said out loud, too loud and too random to not catch Dazai's attention.

“What?” The idiot mackerel looked over, powder-covered and looking a moment away from sneezing.

Chuuya internally swore. His cheeks felt too red- he almost made the mistake of looking away to hide them, but that would've only gotten Dazai more interested. “Nothing. Wipe your face, fucking idiot.”

Dazai visibly scrutinized him, that brain working out the truth. There was no way he could though- definitely not.

As if on cue, a lecherous smirk stretched across his handsome face, light dancing in those eyes and offering a decent distraction from the horrible realization he was just hit with. “Was it something dirty?”

“What-?!”

“Chuuya!” Dazai gasped with a faux scandalized expression, talking way too loud for a grocery store. “In public? You dog~!”

Chuuya kicked him, then slapped a hand over his mouth, already feeling annoyed at the flour no doubt stuck to his glove. “Shut the fuck up!” He hissed, eyeing customers who'd stopped to stare. He glared at them.

There was no way he was in love with Dazai. Absolutely not.

(While Chuuya embarrassedly ran damage control on their surroundings, Dazai hummed a little in contemplation as he tried to dull his own reaction.

He knew, for all of his teasing, that dirty thoughts weren't the reason Chuuya had looked at him like that. Chuuya had a very distinct expression when he was turned on.

But…

Dazai blushed a little. That expression had been- well- he'd seen glimpses of it before, but never like that, never so open. There was no way getting flour on his face during a moment of distraction from the way the fluorescent lighting reflected in his blue eyes had put that kind of expression on Chuuya's face. He wanted to dig at it more, question Chuuya until he served every answer he sought on a fiery golden platter. But that wouldn't get him anywhere. That wouldn't make Chuuya happy.

He'd have to figure it out. If only because he wanted to see Chuuya look at him that way again, and again, and maybe for the better part of forever.)

Chuuya had to admit it was a little weird continuing to do something as mundane as grocery shopping with his husband after just realizing he was in love with him.

He had to take a second to keep himself from gagging at the thought.

They grabbed blackout curtains and a few other items, paid, and then left. The rest of the trip, loading the groceries into his basket attachment, and even the ride home felt like a blur to Chuuya, unable to figure out he felt about… about being in love with Dazai. It definitely wasn’t safe to be so spaced out while driving, but Dazai didn’t seem to mind, chatting on and on about one of his shows.

It took two trips for Chuuya to get all of the groceries up the elevator to their penthouse. Dazai tried to help…. but Chuuya gave up on holding him to it when he looked somewhat genuinely stressed at the weight of six bags, three in each hand. Instead, he left his lazy, noodle-armed partner in the lobby with the rest of the groceries to watch them and came back down for him after placing the first load in the kitchen. It was more groceries than they’d need weekly, since they were picking up basic things like condiments and seasonings and dressings and baking supplies that wouldn’t run out too often and require a big trip.

(Dazai wasn’t incapable, of course. He knew how to fight and use a gun, but he acted like he was allergic to anything but running. Even that was only done when necessary. He’d always been a bit more agile than strong, and with Chuuya as his partner he never really needed to be strong anyhow.)

Chuuya sent Dazai to put the curtains up in their room while he set to what he considered the worst part of grocery shopping- putting things away. The fridge was large and steel with a drink and ice tap in the door of it and plenty of shelving space and room. He organized the yogurts into a shelf, the eggs and the meat he’d use tonight and the next night on two separate shelves, another for the milks and tea bottles he got for Dazai. Chuuya organized it to his liking because realistically the only time he could imagine Dazai coming into the kitchen was if he were bothering Chuuya to make something or complaining about how long dinner was taking. Or if, gods forbid, Chuuya ever decided to tackle the monumentally stressful task of teaching Dazai to cook.

He put a bottle of red wine in the fridge with another bottle of ice wine he wanted Dazai to try. His mackerel didn’t have the palette to appreciate a decadent red wine, so he picked out the sweetest top shelf dessert wine the supermarket had. He also, despite his reservations regarding whiskey, got a bottle of it from the top shelf, because if he was buying whiskey it should at least be the most expensive one available.

And, well, he was trying to get Dazai to relax tonight. If the sweetest wine he could think of didn’t do the trick, he needed some kind of back up.

After ten minutes of sorting and dragging a chair around the kitchen, Dazai finally walked out of the bedroom just as Chuuya put the last box of cereal up where his mackerel would (hopefully) forget about it, a pillow on the chair to help him reach the top shelf. He’d realized halfway through standing precariously on it that he could just stand on the counter.

“Why do you have a chair?” Dazai asked, grabbing a lollipop out of the small sweets bowl Chuuya set out on the counter.

Chuuya breathed out very carefully, already anticipating the short joke as he stepped down from the countertop and closed the cabinet door to his wine shelf. “Because some people aren’t miles up from the ground.”

“No,” Dazai popped the sucker out of his mouth, a little smirk curling at the edge of his lips. “I mean, why don’t you just use your ability?”

He stared at Dazai, who leaned into the counter.

“Did you hit your head putting the fucking curtain up?” Chuuya muttered, eyeing Dazai suspiciously. “You’re the one who said we can’t use abilities.”

It’d been months since he used For the Tainted Sorrow, and the itch under his fingers was bordering on unbearable. Technically, abilities didn’t need to be used, but Chuuya’s was a bit… well, different, so before Dazai tricked him into getting on that plane, he usually used it for mindless chores here and there. 

“Well yeah, when you’re outside,” Dazai raised an eyebrow, the fakest expression of genuineness he’d ever seen on the stupid fucking idiot on his stupid fucking face. “Don’t tell me-” he put a hand over his chest, “did Chuuya misunderstand me? Of course you can use your ability here. Who would even know, anyway?”

….

That-

That fucking-

“Asshole!” Chuuya shrieked, grabbing the pillow off of the chair and lighting it up with his ability. A note of apprehension finally glanced across Dazai’s stupidly pretty face. “You watched me do shit like this for months!” He launched the pillow at Dazai. His ability flickered out the moment it touched him, but Dazai’s ability couldn’t stop the momentum it gained as it just barely managed to put him on his ass with the force of it.

“Chuuya! It’s not my fault you didn’t- ah!” Dazai scrambled out of the way of another pillow Chuuya dove into the living room to grab and chuck at him. Dazai kept a hold on the first pillow and threw the other one back.

“You had months to say anything,” Chuuya shouted, catching the pillow tossed at him. Instead of throwing it back, he dove into where Dazai was sprawled on the carpet holding his pillow up as a shield. “You’re such a fucking brat!” He yelled, reaching his hands out around the pillow, fighting away Dazai’s kicks- he got a yellow-socked foot to the face, ew- and did the only thing he could think of in that moment.

He started tickling Dazai.

“Ch-” Dazai twitched like he wasn’t sure what to make of the sensation, and then Chuuya’s hands wormed under his sweater and- “Chuuya! Wha- w- wh- ha- aha- no, st- ah- ah- op!” He squirmed and writhed, laughing like he didn’t know why but it was the only reaction that would come out of his body.

Had he never been tickled? Chuuya was laughing too, a full and loud noise he’d once been told was pretty as he used one hand to secure Dazai’s fighting hands above his head. The pillow had fallen away already with how hard Dazai was laughing, red-faced, full-bellied, and aching after another minute.

“Me- mercy!” Dazai shrieked after another minute.

“Say you’re sorry!” Chuuya shouted back, voice bubbling with laughter that wouldn’t stop spilling from him (he wasn’t really mad anymore).

Dazai’s eyes were filling with tears from the tickling and his body his writhing away from the touch. “N- e- never!” He screamed through another bout of laughter.

“Apologize and I’ll stop,” Chuuya warned with a small reprieve, pulling his hand away to watch the stuttering aftershocks and twitching from the rucked up hem of the sweater. Dazai had forgone the bandages on his stomach, only wrapping his arms and legs for the day, so he could watch every muscle spasm of his pale, scarred stomach. He was still laughing like he was out of breath, snorts and wheezes escaping him and his wide, wobbling grin.

“Ch-” Dazai panted, “Chuuya should’ve asked,” he said in lieu of refusal. “Aghk!” He screamed, shifting away as Chuuya continued his assault.

“Just say you’re sorry,” he forced out between his own laughter that felt as uncontrollable as Dazai’s looked.

“N-No!” he whimpered as another bout of laughter burst from his lips. “Cr- cramping! Ah- Chuuya-!”

With that, Chuuya decided to have mercy on his partner- even though he didn’t deserve it- and adjusted his tickling touches into an open-handed rub up and down his hip. “You suck,” he grumbled, but he was still grinning and he knew he wasn’t fooling Dazai.

Dazai was still twitching, flexing his wrists after Chuuya released them. “Mhm,” he hummed through little reflexive spasms and bubbles of laughter.

“I mean it, you’re the worst.”

“Uh-huh,” Dazai smiled.

“Months,” he stressed, “you had literal months to say something.”

“Sure.”

Chuuya shifted both hands to gently rub Dazai’s stomach and sides with his palms to help offset the cramping. “You’re unbearable,” he said, but it was definitely too fond to be taken seriously, his tone softened by the way Dazai melted into the unexpected massaging touch.

“The worst,” Dazai drawled sarcastically, nodding like he agreed.

“You make me want to scream,” he sighed with another upwards sweep to just below Dazai’s nipples.

“Chuuya does too,” he huffed, shifting around like he was getting comfortable with a soft hum of contentedness.

That made Chuuya pause. “The hell do I do that drives you crazy?”

Dazai peeked an eye open from where they’d fluttered halfway closed. He grinned teasingly. “None of your business!” He chirped, settling back into the touch.

“Bullshit,” Chuuya responded, but he pulled his hands away and stood up, ignoring Dazai’s pout at the separation. “I’m making lunch, so put a show on.”

The TV could be seen from the kitchen island, so they could chat while he figured out what to make for lunch that Dazai would actually eat. There was a moment of quiet shuffling and the click of the remote while he fished through their filled cabinets.

“Can we have yogurt?” Dazai’s voice called from the living room, a tentative little request that petered out at the end.

Chuuya’s eyes widened.

He asked for food.

Dazai asked for food that he wanted.

Chuuya quickly got over his momentary pause and swallowed, vowing not to make a big deal out of it as he tossed back, “sure. I was making something light anyway.”

He continued on to the backdrop of whatever English cartoon Dazai was watching that week- My Little Pony again, he realized after hearing the intro start and unable to stop himself from quietly humming along-, his heart warm and his chest feeling full enough of emotions to implode.

(Maybe loving Dazai, getting attached, wasn’t the worst decision he’d ever made. It was definitely in the top twenty, but not… not the worst.)

(As long as he didn’t tell Dazai.)

“Colors?”

Dazai groaned, shifting around with a petulant whine waiting on the tip of his tongue. “Red to stop, yellow to slow down and green to go.”

Chuuya hummed, pulling his gloves back on and flexing his fingers to adjust them. “And you'll use them?”

“I said I-” Dazai cut himself off when Chuuya leveled him with a raised brow. He huffed. “Yes, I will. Now, come on-” 

Chuuya took a step back.

The more he'd thought about it, the more he realized that their first time had set a precedent for every time they had sex. From showering, to cuddling and spending the night, their first time was far from the norm. The routine felt so natural that he didn't realize it until now when they were in their bedroom they'd wordlessly decided to share.

“If you want me to give you something you want, you have to listen," Chuuya said blandly, trying to come across as perfectly composed, but the sight of Dazai sprawled out underneath him with his hands knotted together did things to him. He made such a tempting sight laid out on the bed, entirely bare while Chuuya himself was still fully dressed. It didn't take much more than a few teasing touches for Dazai to give in and agree to have his bandages taken off so that he could feel the sensation fully on his skin.

Dazai whined and squirmed, but nodded. "I am listening," he gritted out.

Chuuya paused, backing away for a moment to make searing eye contact with Dazai.

"What was that?"

Dazai blinked, visibly going over what he said. "Nothing," he hurried to get out.

Chuuya raised an eyebrow. "Really? I think you said something, darling."

Darling. Dazai shuddered visibly under his gaze. It was so satisfying to see how easily and quickly Dazai handed over control with just a few nice words here and there. He'd even say it was worth the embarrassment of saying shit like that to him if it got this kind of reaction. Though, maybe there was another reason why Chuuya liked giving Dazai excessive compliments.

‘I love Dazai' ran through his head again.

He swallowed.

"You want to be good for me, right?" Chuuya demurred softly, leaning over the bed to run his hands up and down Dazai's thighs, squeezing intermittently, Dazai's lip trembled and he shook his head a little bit. "Mmh, I think you do. You're spreading your legs for me already."

Dazai seemed to have just noticed that he'd been spreading apart his thighs slowly but surely. He shuffled them closed, but was stopped by Chuuya's soothing touch. They made eye contact for a single, blistering second.

"Okay," Chuuya breathed carefully, each breath as measured as he could stand to make it when he had Dazai so beautifully flushed and panting on their bedspread, willingly bound by black silk. "Okay, turn over for me, yeah?"

Dazai hesitated, but with a deep, settling breath, he turned over, lying flat on the bed. His pretty pale ass was perfectly on display for him, but Chuuya wasn't satisfied just yet. He settled his hands on Dazai's hips and massaged his fingers into it. 

"On your knees." 

At that, Dazai huffed. "Chuuya already has me-"

"Did I ask you to speak?" Chuuya cut him off, his grip tightening just below the point of pain. He didn't want to be too authoritative- because, really, that probably wouldn't garner the best reaction from someone like Dazai, but he needed to be fully in control if he was going to get Dazai to the right mental space. "On your knees, Dazai. Now.”

But even as he made his demands, Chuuya quickly tapped a discreet message into Dazai's skin.

'Color?’

It took a long moment for Dazai to react, but eventually, with a soft, trembling exhale, he slowly got to his knees. "Green," he gasped out, not bothering to try tapping anything in morse code back with his hands tied together. "S'fine, come on."

Chuuya kneaded the small amount of fat on Dazai's ass, gripping into it with a firm hand. Part of him couldn't wait to see it red and pink. Not bruised- not yet, but just enough to be a bit sensitive. Dazai was already swaying into the touch mindlessly.

"Tell me how much force is good and we'll keep going, okay?" Chuuya asked gently. Dazai just hummed in understanding- which, normally, would've been fine, but with the kind of play they were getting into he'd need more than that. "Need you to use your words, baby." He punctuated his request with a pinch to the meat of his ass.

"Yes." Dazai hissed out at the pricking sensation.

"Good boy." That earned him a shuddering little noise of pleasure. "Tell me as soon as it's too much and I'll stay under that."

They'd talked about spanking a bit more in-depth beforehand, when Dazai got too grabby and Chuuya decided to tie him up. While Dazai was clearly apprehensive, he agreed to try it. Chuuya made a note to go easy on him- easier than he would even on someone doing this for the first time. Dazai reacted well to getting hit before- a hit that hadn't bruised, actually- but who could really predict his reaction on any given day? His positive reaction to having his bandages removed was a good indicator that it'd be fine, but trying to guess Dazai's responses to anything never really worked out in his favor.

Chuuya dug his fingers in once as a quick warning. Then, pulling his hand back, he lightly swatted Dazai's ass once. Maybe a bit too light, considering the build up to it.

"Nh- Chuuya," Dazai complained. "I'm not made of glass, so- ah!"

Chuuya hit him harder, an open-palmed smack that created a small sound upon impact. He waited a moment to give Dazai a chance to tell him to stop if he needed to. It was unnecessary, apparently, as Dazai rocked back into his hand needily. So Chuuya did it again, a little harder, and again, harder, more, until-

"Mn! Ch-Chuuya-?" Dazai sounded confused more than pained, and didn’t even tell him to stop, but Chuuya obliged immediately, pulling his hands away without another thought. He went to check in, but Dazai whined in disgruntlement. "Don't stop touching me," he urged, swaying back and wiggling his hips invitingly.

“I won't," Chuuya assured, rubbing his hands over Dazai's skin. His limit wasn’t as light as Chuuya expected; the hit that preceded it was hard enough to make his skin pinken immediately. If he hadn’t said anything just then, Chuuya probably would’ve stopped after another hit or two. "I won't hit you harder than that, alright? You're okay. Thank you for telling me." He paused, taking a second to let that sink in and for Dazai to clear his head. "Do you want to keep going?"

"Yes!" Dazai said immediately, his hands shuffling together in the bind of black silk. "Don't stop, I'm-" 

Huh.

Chuuya, a little curious now, reached his hand around Dazai to touch his neglected cock and found it so hard it seemed painful. He was positively dripping with impatience. "Baby," fell from his lips without a second's thought. He felt lightheaded and dizzy with the need to rail Dazai already. "You liked it that much?"

Dazai shuddered, telling not saying anything or even shaking or nodding his head. Chuuya had planned for Dazai's first orgasm of the night to be with fingers in his ass, but he reconsidered. If Dazai was getting so worked up over a few slaps, he was probably way too oversensitive to find Chuuya’s other plans properly pleasurable. An orgasm would take the edge off.

“I’Il take care of you," he promised, closing his fingers around Dazai's cock and grinning at the loud moan it elicited. It hardly took any touch at all to get Dazai there. Within seconds of having a hand on his dick, Dazai spilled over with a desperate cry. "Feeling a little pent up?" Chuuya gently mocked when he noticed just how much Dazai had cummed onto the bedspread.

“Mhn," Dazai moaned in what might have been agreement, shaking through his orgasm. It wasn’t quite the build-up Chuuya usually made him go through, so already he could see the small twist of dissatisfaction in his brow. Well, he supposed that would be the result of getting someone used to being wrung dry every single time they had sex. Even so, Dazai sagged forward a bit, letting the heat of arousal go down. Chuuya reprimanded him for it with a light slap and dragged him back.

“Not yet," he tsked, "I was being nice to you right then, so stay still for a moment." 

He leaned away to grab the lube, a cock ring, and the dildo he bought just for Dazai- not as big as Chuuya, but curved and rigid with a vibrating feature that he'd be sure to use before fucking Dazai, then he'd fuck him with it again and again before he had a chance to come down. Over and over until he either slipped into subspace or begged to stop.

Dazai obediently didn't move- probably finally getting the memo that Chuuya was running the show then and there.

"Relax," Chuuya reminded him, dribbling lube over his fingers. "Red to stop, yellow to slow down, and green if you're good, okay? I'll listen."

Dazai sighed and spread his thighs a little further apart when a slick finger rubbed over his entrance, tracing the puckered muscle lightly. 

Chuuya had had the thought before a hundred times, but it would never stop hitting him just how pretty Dazai was. Even on his knees with his back bare and revealing every bullet wound, slash, and… and whip mark that had scarred his pale complexion, cruel remnants of his past that Chuuya wished he could tear away with every scrape of his nails and soft rubbing, he was still so devastatingly handsome. His face, his eyes, his smile, his laugh (as ugly as Chuuya claimed it to be), his tears- he was, both objectively and not, an incredibly attractive person. The only flaw any passerby could potentially pick out would be his eye bags, chronic and dark. Even then….

Chuuya's eye twitched. How the hell did that dumb mackerel make something like eyebags look good? 

Dazai's head turned questioningly, so Chuuya slipped the first finger in. They hadn't fucked in a few days, so even with his interest in moving things along he couldn't skip to two without making Dazai uncomfortable. He leaned over and mouthed over his skin, pressing kisses down the harsh protrusion of his spine.

He'd gained a bit of weight since they were on that plane heading to Russia, but every pound was precious for someone as thin as him. Dazai deserved to have his body worshiped, every bit of fat he'd put on lavished over properly. Dazai trembled under his touch. Chuuya had noticed before, but no matter how often he did this, running his lips over each scar and tonguing at the divots in his spine, Dazai seemed so unused to physical affection.

….he really did do this often.

How the fuck did he not realize his f- feelings before? He’d never tried so hard with any of his other hookups, and even if they were some kind of friends when Chuuya first pinned Dazai onto his sheets, this was definitely more affection than their arrangement called for.

(Did Dazai think they were just fuckbuddies?)

As Dazai started rocking back into the finger, Chuuya got the hint and pulled out, circling his hole with two fingers instead, slowly working both of them in. Dazai took it well after reflexively tightening around his fingers. When Chuuya pressed his lips into another bullet-shaped scar a little more firmly, he relaxed well enough for Chuuya to start scissoring them. It wouldn’t long after a third finger for Dazai to be ready for the dildo, so he tapped Dazai’s hand.

“Hm?” He hummed.

Chuuya reached back for the dildo and held it up for his perusal as he carefully avoided Dazai’s prostate. Overstimulating him now would cause the impact the dildo would make to be way less shocking. And even before having it inside of him, Dazai’s reaction was delicious. His eyelids fluttered in surprise and his mouth parted the slightest bit.

“I….”

“I can just fuck you, if you want,” Chuuya assured him. “If this isn’t something you want, we can do something else.” And then, with a twist of his fingers that got close enough to his prostate that Dazai groaned, “You’re so fucking sensitive I can get you to cum on anything, anyway,” he smirked, his voice dripping with molten-hot egotism. If Dazai seemed genuinely upset or distressed over something, Chuuya had no qualms over stopping, but for now he wanted to maintain the air of power he'd crafted.

The power that Dazai had never denied him in an intimate setting. He just seemed so happy getting fucked out of his mind that Chuuya, especially after sitting on his cock, didn't think Dazai would ever want the reigns to rail him. He was so perfectly submissive that the thought of him trying to take control seemed pitiful; imagined that even if he were balls-deep in Chuuya he'd roll over any minute if he told him to.

That was just fine with Chuuya. He liked having control. He liked making Dazai feel so numb with pleasure that the only thought in his mind was Chuuya's name and anticipation for the next orgasm. He liked wringing Dazai dry until he was so drunk on endorphins that he needed to be carried. It really was too perfect that Dazai liked being on the receiving end of all of it.

“Ngh- it's fine,” Dazai moaned when Chuuya's fingers scissored apart again, never stopping his steady pace and adding a third a moment later. “Just a- just a dildo, so s’whatever.”

He pumped his fingers a few more times and took them out. “Okay,” he pressed one more kiss to his spine, glad that Dazai was facing away from him and couldn't see the smirk on his face. Dazai was saying that now, but he wouldn't be saying that once Chuuya turned it on. It was heavier than he originally thought it'd be, too, so it would definitely press into his prostate the entire time.

Chuuya slathered the silicone toy with lube, then pressed the weight to his hole and gently eased it in, keeping a hand on it to help with the weight and keep Dazai from guessing just how heavy it would feel once it was inside of him, pressing in deliciously. Still, Dazai was squirming around it. The initial intrusion was probably weird; weirder than his cock or the butt plug.

“You could’ve warmed it up a bit,” Dazai complained.

Chuuya smacked his ass, making Dazai fall forward with it, the sensation likely feeling a lot different with something inside of him and it showed in the fluttering of his stretched hole. Because he’d fallen forward with the toy more than halfway in, Chuuya lost his hold on it and it sank into the base.

“Hah- Chu- ah, mmph- it-” Dazai moaned loudly, the weight of it settling into his prostate and staying there, applying a constant pressure that pulsated with his every movement.

Well, he’d hoped to take his time with how little stretching there had been, but this worked just as well.

“Feel good, baby?” Chuuya murmured teasingly, tapping the base just to make it jostle inside of him. Dazai moaned. “Feels like a lot, huh?”

It definitely would, considering Chuuya had hardly spent any time fucking him open on three fingers. Dazai hummed nonsensically, a weird stutter in pitch. A glance between his legs confirmed he was hard again.

“Gonna move it now,” he warned, holding onto the base again. Dazai whimpered. “Can you give me your color?”

“Just-” smack. “Green!” He yelled out, whatever he was going to say in response dying on the tip of his tongue with the hit. “God, Chuuya, green, I- please-!”

Chuuya obliged, not bothering to wait for Dazai to sort out his thoughts long enough to come up with a response. With a sharp tug, he pulled the toy out halfway and let go, letting it sink back into his ass. It wasn’t fast or satisfying, but Dazai seemed happy just to have the motion of being fucked, because he let out a little moan anyway.

“That’s it, mackerel,” he praised him, just to feel the way Dazai shuddered around the toy with his hand on it. “You’re taking it so good, yeah?”

“Chuuya,” he said, catching his attention, but Dazai didn't seem like he had anything to say beyond that, so he hummed in acknowledgment and picked up the pace, thrusting the toy in and out, grinding it down further into his prostate to hear his desperate sounds escape him as he was fucked by a dildo. “Hm- mmh… hah!”

Chuuya could see the way Dazai had gotten worked up from the quick grind of the toy fucking in and out of his hole. He was probably getting close to halfway, or maybe even a bit more than halfway there from how he was rocking back into the pleasure. He was probably ready for another level of sensation to make him cum. He reached back to grab for the remote and took a second to feel a small amount of almost guilt for not warning Dazai beforehand. Only a second though, because in the next moment he was dialing it up to three.

Dazai shrieked in pleasure, twisting and pulling away in surprise. “What- Chu- hah- I- I-” He cut himself off with a moan when Chuuya didn’t give him a moment to process, gripping the toy and picking up the pace again. “Chuuya- a- ah-!”

“Doing so well, darling,” Chuuya spoke, leaning down to kiss his back again while he adjusted his grip into a quick, deep grind against his prostate, overstimulation at its finest. It paid off when Dazai choked on a sharp little cry that morphed into a long, drawn-out moan. “Gonna cum for me again?”

“I- I’m- ngh- hah-” Dazai tried to speak, but the assault of vibrations and pressure left him overcome with pleasure so sharp and intense that Chuuya could already see him dripping onto the duvet.

He clicked the vibrator up to a five and watched his body seize as he spilled over in an instant, cumming onto the blankets with a gasp.

“Chuuya-! Chuuya, Chuuya, hngh~” He twisted and moaned, shifting away as Chuuya neglected to turn off the vibration, only lowering it to a two. “I’m- I-”

With a firm grip, he pulled Dazai back from where he’d shifted away enough to pull off the vibrator a bit, making him fuck himself back into the dildo. He cried out.

“I already came!”

Chuuya let out a dark little laugh, because Dazai wasn’t dumb no matter how he acted like it. “You know what we’re doing today, right? I don’t care how many times you cum; you’re gonna do it again, and again, and again.”

Dazai just whined and, after a minute, relaxed a little bit into the vibrations again, but he couldn’t hide the way his legs trembled and arms shook. It made Chuuya’s plan to fuck him right after feel a bit… rushed, now. The dildo had ten levels, and Dazai had only cum on five. It would feel like a waste not to at least let him get a bit more of a taste of what he’d be cumming on after he got fucked, and eaten out, and maybe fucked again….

He reached around and started jacking off his mostly-soft cock. Dazai spasmed violently. Usually, if Chuuya made him deal with more pleasure after already cumming, it was by toying with his prostate, not jacking off his cock and rubbing his finger into the sensitive spot just under the head.

“Chuuya! Chuuya, please, don’t, I… hn- I-”

“You know what you have to say if you really want to stop, mackerel,” Chuuya reminded him, tapping the vibrator back up to a five to feel him jerk and shake and his cock twitch pathetically in an effort to get hard again in his grip.

Dazai buried his head down into their stupidly expensive sheets to muffle the way he cried out even louder than before, but tellingly didn’t say a word or ask to slow down. He didn’t expect him to use the stoplight system just yet, but it was a real possibility later, once he pushed him past substantial ejaculation and didn’t stop after four, five, six orgasms in a row even when he failed to get hard in his hand. His cock was still getting harder, close to being full again in his grip, so Chuuya started to fuck him with the vibrator in tandem with his hand still working on his cock.

Chuuya would’ve tapped out at that point, or at the very least been screaming ‘yellow’ until his throat hurt. He could cum a few times in a row, but nothing like Dazai, who handled consecutive orgasms like a champ.

It was a bit quick and choppy, but Chuuya decided he needed Dazai to cum again, now, so that he could fuck him properly. Dazai seemed pretty tense, though…. He gently let the vibrator sink back in for a moment and, keeping his pace on his cock the same, rubbed his hands over Dazai’s scars. The white lines, ridges, burn marks, bony protrusions; he worked his fingers into the muscle and pressed down, making Dazai lower himself down onto his chest forcefully. Chuuya massaged into every tensed-up knot he could feel in his back until he was moaning in relief and in pleasure from the hand on his dick.

And then Chuuya turned the vibe up to a seven.

Dazai shook tremendously as he cried out with loud moans and cries that got loud, louder, even louder when Chuuya grabbed the dildo and started fucking him with it again, matching pace with his hand working over his cock until Dazai was panting and moaning with every exhale until his spine bowed, bowed, again- and he cummed, for the third time that night, with Chuuya’s name on his lips, muffled into the pillow.

He thrashed when the vibrations didn’t stop, and neither did Chuuya’s hand, even when he was no longer actively orgasming. The scream that he let go into the pillow sounded like it was teetering on the edge of too much in a bad way, so Chuuya shushed him and turned off the vibrator, letting go of his cock.

“There we go,” Chuuya hummed, running his hand up and down Dazai’s back soothingly as he maneuvered his massage-limp body to lay on his back and, recognizing that Dazai wasn't in a bratty enough headspace to cause problems, untied his hands and threw the tie somewhere else in the room. When he turned back, his eyes were closed and his body was shaking. “Hey,” he murmured, leaning up for a kiss that Dazai tiredly responded to, always so lazy after an orgasm. He sighed in satisfaction, but Chuuya pulled away and waited for those eyes to peek open curiously. “We’re not done yet.”

Dazai shivered, but he seemed pretty dazed after three orgasms, a bit too hazy to respond one way or the other, but he did lean up again for another kiss that he used to catch Chuuya’s bottom lip between his teeth and tug lightly.

Cheeky bastard, Chuuya groaned internally when his dick throbbed in response.

He was fucked loose with the dildo just enough that while Chuuya would be a bit of a stretch, it wouldn’t be much more than usual after a long fingering session with three fingers.  He pulled away for a minute to shed his clothes, groaning in relief once he took his pants off and stripped away his underwear.

Chuuya breathed in a long, settling breath and tried to ignore how good his hand felt on his cock already as he stroked himself once, twice, three times to get the edge off. He tapped Dazai’s thighs.

“Spread them for me, beautiful,” he encouraged him, the pink blush on Dazai’s face deepening like it almost always did with that particular compliment. 

Nonetheless, he obediently opened his legs without another thought, seemingly fucked stupid enough not to care for the position he once complained about being embarrassing. When Chuuya’s hands went to palm over his chest and stomach, he arched his back into the touch with a soft moan that accompanied his sigh. The bow of Dazai's spine was absolute perfection, a beautiful curve that begged for attention. 

He was listening to Chuuya's every word now, a wholly conscious decision judging by the submissive but present glint in his irises. He'd given in, submitted to Chuuya's hands, and by the heavy stare Dazai weighed into him with, he was daring him to break that trust, to prove him right and shatter him for anyone else.

And Chuuya wanted to. He wanted to make Dazai his, wholly and undeniably. But he wouldn’t do it by betraying him.

Chuuya really did like (love, he supposed with a tired, self-deprecating internal laugh at himself for the cosmic irony that was falling in love with Dazai Osamu) his bare skin. Dazai kept it hidden for reasons he knew didn’t end at the scars littering his body; whether it was self-hatred, dysmorphia, or any number of psychological inflictions set upon him by a too-dark life, the insistence that his blood ran mafia black (he’d only heard Dazai refer to himself like that once, when he was drugged up on too-many pills and medicines from a failed overdose that Chuuya stayed with him through).

It felt special in a way that Chuuya shouldn’t let his heart believe, that he was the only one who got to see Dazai willingly undress every layer that tightly bound him together.

It takes a diamond to polish a diamond after all, Chuuya thought with reluctant amusement. Dazai was shining brilliantly like this.

He dribbled lube over his cock and lined himself up, pressing teasingly against Dazai's hole. Despite having had three orgasms, he was whining for it, pushing back as his cock managed to twitch with hardness. Chuuya reached down to stroke him in his still-slick fist. Dazai jolted violently, his thighs trying to twitch closed as he let out a wail from the oversensitivity, but with Chuuya in between his legs, all he managed to do was get the head of Chuuya's cock to slip into him. He hissed at the tight sensation, gripping him with deliciously wet pressure while Dazai bucked into it. Chuuya stroked him while he pushed in, groaning at the way Dazai squeezed him- which would be fine, normally, but he clearly underestimated how much stretch there would be even after being fucked with the dildo, because Dazai was wincing a bit even as he moaned.

He reached up with his other hand and tapped at Dazai's fingers curled into the sheets. Dazai's eyes fluttered open and, with a quick, steadying breath, uncurled his fingers and intertwined them with Chuuya's.

Oh, Chuuya lost his breath. Dazai was an absolute vision. Those wine-brown eyes sparkling, his face flushed, his body littered with bites and hickeys…. Gods, he was beautiful. And the best part, he was-

“All mine,” Chuuya murmured softly, softly enough that he hardly would’ve known he said anything at all if not for the way Dazai’s breath hitched and his eyes glazed over with something distinctly pleasured and soft. He brushed away the embarrassment- because even if it was embarrassing, it was true- and drew their intertwined fingers to his lips. Making purposeful eye contact, Chuuya kissed his knuckles as he bottomed out.

Whether or not Dazai felt the same, they were married. No one else could have him on any level past superficial as long as they had the papers. Maybe Dazai would never fall in love with Chuuya (he winced internally, his heart aching unexpectedly at the thought), but Chuuya had a way to tie him to his side. No one would ever satisfy him, hold him, or take care of him like Chuuya.

Forget Dazai trying to leave- if Chuuya had his way, he’d never even want to.

(If he left, Chuuya didn’t know how he would handle it. They were in another country, unable to go back to their homeland for the foreseeable future, and the only thing keeping him tethered was having his mackerel there with him. If he left too…. well, Chuuya would have no qualms over killing him and destroying Paris, ending himself in the process.)

Dazai was fully hard and choking on air when he pulled out and fucked back into him quickly. It would probably end up being the last time he’d get fully hard for the night; with more orgasms, it would stop being about the ejaculation and more about the crest of sensation and pleasure. He was impressed Dazai managed to get fully hard after three orgasms, but he also knew that his mackerel didn’t masturbate often and they hadn’t had sex in a week, so it wasn’t exactly surprising.

He worked his hand over Dazai’s cock faster. It was definitely way too much pleasure, and it showed in the way he squirmed ceaselessly like he could barely control his body. He didn’t have to control it for tonight, Chuuya smirked a little bit, leaning down to press a kiss to his lips as he worked his hips in and felt the knot of pleasure tighten a bit more inside of him.

Dazai tried to kiss back, he really did, but when his lips parted in panting moans, Chuuya answered in kind, “fuck, mackerel.”

“Mnh,” he responded in some vague agreement to Chuuya’s pleasure.

Chuuya moved down his neck, nipping and sucking hickeys into his neck while he fucked into him. He trailed down, leaving marks across his chest before latching on to a nipple and sucking. Dazai’s body jolted and he let out another moan, and with them so pressed together, Chuuya felt his cock brush against his stomach, smearing precum across his abs while he jerked him off quickly. 

With every thrust, he burned just a little bit hotter, and when Dazai opened his mouth on a wail, he didn’t give him a chance to beg for more. Dazai’s legs wrapped around his hips weakly, his ankles digging into his back with his increased pace, and Chuuya just snapped his hips harder, quicker, not pulling out more than halfway as he worked into him.

Finally, like he was possessed by the moment, Dazai’s other arm came around to loop around Chuuya’s back, the blunt of his nails managing to skitter down his spine and leaving a trail of slightly-aching marks. He noticed a small moment where Dazai seemed to realize he’d just tried to scratch the shit out of Chuuya, but he didn’t let the thought persist, leaning down for another hot, nipping kiss.

Fuck, he’d had the thought before that he wanted Dazai to lose control like that, legs twitching and aching for and from pleasure that he finally put some real marks on Chuuya’s body, but the real thing was so much better than he thought. It was a claim, a reminder, a substantial mark left behind and the sting of it drove him closer to orgasm.

“Gods, Osamu-” he groaned out, hardly hearing what he was saying and definitely not lucid enough in his pleasure to realize it in that moment.

(But he would, eventually, and the events that followed because he’d used Dazai’s given name would give him a bit too much to think about for his own good.)

The knot was tightening to an unbearable degree, but that was fine, because in the next two thrusts Dazai’s spine was arching out of nowhere like his orgasm had caught him by surprise, a loud wail that drowned out his own inner dialogue. He clenched down hard enough to make Chuuya hiss as he filled suit right after, shallowing working them both through it and lightening his grip on Dazai’s cock.

It was only when he pulled out a bit too quickly in the aftermath of his orgasm, not giving himself time to bask in the afterglow in his efforts to make Dazai slip into subspace that he noticed Dazai staring upwards, pupils blown out and glazed over and-

Oh.

Oh fuck, that was-

Chuuya carefully pulled his fingers out of Dazai’s loosened grip and examined him. Psychological subspace could be nervewracking for people first going into it, but- he rubbed his hand up and down Dazai’s torso, eliciting the softest, most content and melting sigh he’d ever heard from his mackerel- Dazai’s seemed pretty euphoric all things considered.

His breath had been pretty quick and deep, but it was approaching something more regulated as a minute went by. Dazai’s eyes blinked so slow and the little smile that edged his lips once he turned to look at Chuuya was so giddy and soft that he would’ve mistaken him for being drunk if he didn’t know better.

But Dazai was drunk, Chuuya snickered once he calmed down, at least, on endorphins.

“Hey beautiful,” Chuuya gently called to him, watching in real time as Dazai’s expression brightened in a daze, so open and free with his reactions that it took his breath away. “Few more minutes and we’ll be done, okay?” His feet shuffled against the sheets and nothing else, but that was about as much as Chuuya expected from him.

He wouldn’t hit Dazai right now, or even fuck him again- honestly, he thought they would be going at this for a while longer before Dazai even approached subspace- but he didn’t think eating him out would make Dazai upset. It’d make the cleanup easier once he let Dazai come down.

Subspace was supposed to take someone out of their head, and from the looks of it, it’d done the job more than well enough. Chuuya figured that this was one of the first times ever that Dazai had been so completely detached, so he’d let him enjoy it. Apparently continuing play was normal during subspace, but it was all about getting Dazai out of his head, not a bdsm scene.

“Can you spread your legs for me?” He asked, rubbing his left thigh. Dazai obediently shuffled them apart without another thought, his eyes locking onto Chuuya with something akin to wonder and… and something that felt like worship but definitely couldn’t be.

Chuuya put Dazai’s legs over his shoulders and pressed a kiss to the inside of his thigh, getting a soft little laugh and moan. Dazai’s dick wasn’t likely to get hard, but again, that wasn’t really the point. It was about feeling good and letting him float.

He ate him out methodically, tonguing the rim gently and working it inside. Dazai was letting out soft sounds, but the slightly louder reactions came from Chuuya just touching him, sexually or not, on his stomach, his chest, and his hips… he just seemed happy to have physical contact.

Chuuya sucked on his rim once, twice, three times just to feel him squirm and finished cleaning him, feeling his hole relax with every thrust of his tongue. He was relaxing into it beautifully, letting Chuuya do whatever he liked.

“Mmh, so good for me, huh, mackerel,” Chuuya murmured, pulling away from his hole and laying down beside him to pull him in. Dazai went easily, a little hum of acknowledgment leaving his throat as he curled in, letting his head of fluffy curls rest on Chuuya’s shoulder. He ran his hand up and down his back, tracing over scars and just taking a moment to enjoy the moment. Dazai was so pliant like this, so easy and happy to be owned, like a dog. Maybe he should get him a collar to match if they were going to keep doing this-

.

Huh.

He’d been thinking about it jokingly, but…. well, that was a thought to explore later. Dazai, with a pretty leather collar with mackerel stitched into it, along with Chuuya’s name on the tags right next to Dazai’s.

As he worked his hand over Dazai’s back, he noticed him slowly coming back to some semblance of awareness. It showed in his movements, a little faster, a little more coordinated. It didn’t last for long, as the longer he stayed pressed into Chuuya’s shoulder, the slower his breathing became, until he slumped that tiniest bit into him and….

And he fell asleep.

It took Chuuya a second to notice, but when he did he felt grateful for his past self making them shower beforehand, along with a healthy amount of exasperation towards his mackerel’s post-sex laziness. He reached over to their nightstand for one of their soft handtowels and worked it over his sleeping form.

There was definitely some things to unpack about tonight, but Chuuya didn’t feel the need to think about any of it until later. It was only nine in the evening, but he felt exhausted. He had one last damning thought before he drifted off to sleep after turning off the lamp, getting them under the blankets, tossing the spare one to the floor, and pulling Dazai even closer.

‘Did I really call him by his given name?’

Dazai sleeps like the dead when the room is completely dark.

Chuuya didn’t realize that (well, he sort of did when they first slept together, but Dazai was still on-guard on mafia territory so it wasn’t anything close to this), so when he woke up to Dazai lying nearly completely still, face entirely slack and his limbs heavy and grounded, he might have panicked just a little bit.

“Dazai?” Chuuya murmured, a little bit of concern churning in his gut. Dazai didn’t answer- didn’t even twitch. “Mackerel?” He sat up a little more and shook him, but still Dazai didn’t stir. He reached over and put his finger under Dazai’s nose and- he sighed. 

Okay, still breathing, just… sleeping very deeply.

Dazai had obviously managed to sleep with Chuuya a few times even without the blackout curtains, but nothing like this. He looked so… relaxed. To the point of looking like a corpse if it weren’t for the slight up and down of his back with his breathing, which Chuuya noticed now that his eyes were adjusted to the darkness.

It was barely five in the morning, so he closed his eyes to try to go back to sleep, but found that the momentary panic had woken him up more than intended. He sighed, looking over at Dazai’s peacefully sleeping face, so warm and relaxed with trust, and briefly considered pulling him back over to sleep on top of Chuuya like a weighted blanket. That never failed to put him to sleep, but… no, he wouldn’t. Dazai needed the rest, and if he accidentally woke him up he wouldn’t manage to fall asleep again.

He might as well get on with his day if he wasn’t going back to sleep. It was a Sunday morning, he had no work, and there was a perfectly good couch to scroll through twitter on. In an hour or two he’d go for a run, shower in the guest room, and make breakfast to wake Dazai up with. His campaign to prevent Dazai from starving was going relatively well.

Chuuya pulled himself out of bed slowly, being as quiet as he could manage. He sighed when he stepped onto a dried stickiness in the blanket he tossed off the bed the night before.

Fuck.

He grabbed a tissue from the bedside table and wiped his foot with it, then grabbed the blanket and headed out of their room, shutting the door softly. Chuuya dumped it into the washer, then with another look down at himself, still naked and… not exactly as wiped down as he’d done for Dazai, decided that he needed a shower now.

They had some clothes in the dryer, so Chuuya just grabbed a pair of boxers, a Scooby-Doo t-shirt that was definitely Dazai’s judging by the length, and a pair of his own shorts and went to take a shower in the guest bathroom. It didn’t have all of the products he preferred in there, but it had body wash and a scrunchie he left on the counter so he wouldn’t complain. They kept generally the same scent of orange in both bathrooms for hair, but whereas Chuuya preferred lemon body wash Dazai was partial to vanilla. The body wash they kept in the guest bathroom just so happened to also be vanilla.

Whatever, Chuuya shrugged as he cleaned himself, only rinsing his hair and tying it up in a wet, messy bun once he stepped out and moisturized his face. He was walking out of the bedroom when he caught, in the reflection of the mirror next to the door, the TV mount.

He swallowed.

Whether or not Dazai felt the same, they were married. No one else could have him on any level past superficial as long as they had the papers. Maybe Dazai would never fall in love with Chuuya (he winced internally, his heart aching unexpectedly at the thought), but Chuuya had a way to tie him to his side. No one would ever satisfy him, hold him, take care of him like Chuuya.

Forget Dazai trying to leave- if Chuuya had his way, he’d never even want to.

Right. He did think that.

He couldn’t help himself, pulling the box down and opening it after a cursory glance at the door and a moment where he waited to hear for footsteps. Looking at the rings, he felt his heart beat faster and faster, and, like a wind change, or a small turn of a page, he reconsidered only having Dazai in just a legal sense.

When a smile graced his lips at the thought of Dazai’s ring finger adorned with a ruby band, he realized, a little light-headed, that maybe he’d never wanted ‘just’ anything. 

From the first time using corruption, to their first time, to his unknowing defection, to buying the rings in the first place, Chuuya had been subconsciously deferring to the catastrophic disaster that was Dazai Osamu. The Demon Prodigy. His partner. His mackerel.

….

Osamu.

(He really wanted a wedding.)

Chuuya went for a run, made breakfast, and woke Dazai up. They went about their day as normal, watching a show, going for a walk, making lunch and….

And the entire time, all Chuuya could think about was what it would be like if he got down on one knee.