#he doesn't even really know how to let HIMSELF know and so here he is alone on a couch that's an imitation of the one he had at cbi

[osarina]

ᡣ𐭩 WERE WE BETTER UNKNOWN?

FEATURING: dazai osamu

SUMMARY: your story with dazai comes to a close... but is it really the end?

AUTHOR'S NOTES: guys. oh my god i have so much to say, i will put it all at the end. but i am so annoyed because the heart in the title looks wonky as hell—for some reason it looks fine on desktop but on mobile it’s fucked ip :’) comments & reblogs appreciated!

GENERAL WARNINGS: fem!reader, port mafia executive!reader, civilian!dazai, dazai's struggles w suicide & sh, reader partakes in mafia business, dazai isn't dazai without a bit of obsessiveness and possessiveness (the possessiveness doesn't come til later but the obsessiveness starts from day 0).

CHAPTER SPECIFIC WARNINGS: hardly edited. mentions of past suicide attempts (dazai). non-sexual nudity/intimacy. reader has 1 scar that dazai points out.

SEE: WASTELAND, BABY! SERIES MASTERLIST

Dazai dreams of a vast frozen lake.

Is he dreaming? He’s not sure. It’s cold, he shouldn’t be cold in dreams, right? 

He lets out a shaky breath, and he can see the cool air fan around him. He shivers, hands running up and down his arms to try to warm himself up, but it’s futile—the snow that flutters from the sky is sharp against his skin and the air is bitterly cold, but the wind is oddly still. Eerily still. His shoes crunch against the snowy bank as he draws a bit closer to the edge of the lake, trying to figure out where he is.

“... are we going to…”

Dazai startles at the vaguely familiar whispery voice, eyes wide and searching as he looks around trying to pinpoint who had spoken, but there’s no one in sight. He can hardly see

Hell, he thinks dizzily, is he in hell?

Dazai’s fascination with literature began with his fascination with death. It started as a child—morbid and odd as it might’ve been, he was bored with life. He supposes that it’s part of the reason why his siblings didn’t like him, besides his ability, of course. He always had questions that people couldn’t answer—what happens after someone dies? They go to heaven, honey, his mother would reply. How do you know that? We just do. But how? What if we don’t? What if we just die? Stop asking so many creepy questions, Osamu, his sister would snap at him, curling into his mother’s side. But what-

He would keep asking until his sister got visibly upset and his mother had to take her out of the room. He never really understood why—they were legitimate questions—but his mother’s evasion of the topic and his siblings’ aversion did not deter his curiosity. In fact, when the first of his cousins died at the hands of one of his others, it spiked his curiosity. He almost found himself jealous that they would have the answers to the questions that have been plaguing him for years.

His questions of self-worth and his place here on earth didn’t come until he was a bit older, but he supposes at some point they probably merged together. His own doubts about himself and his lack of normalcy compared to other people led to his general fascination with death slowly turning into fascination about his own death. He found it quite ironic, and maybe a bit disheartening—he can’t even die correctly—that of all of the many members of his family, the one obsessed with death was the one that survived the longest, in spite of actively striving for eternal rest.

His fascination with death was put to an abrupt halt by Odasaku’s arrival in his life. Or well, that’s not exactly right. His fascination with his own death was put to a halt—Odasaku humored all of his questions, even if some of his answers were absurd and nonsensical, but when Dazai tried to spin the conversation back to himself, Odasaku would put his foot down. 

Dazai only tried to kill himself once while he was living with him—it was around when Odasaku first took him in, and Dazai didn’t think the man would care all too much if he was gone. Ango was the one who found him in the bathroom, funny enough it was his first time meeting the other man, but when he woke up in the hospital, Dazai decided he never wanted to see that haunted expression on Odasaku’s face ever again. 

It was around then when Odasaku started telling him about his book, and he helped redirect Dazai’s unhealthy fascination with death to a different outlet: literature. The Divine Comedy, the Aeneid, the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice—it was Odasaku who introduced him to them all. He enjoyed reading other peoples’ interpretation of the afterlife; he and Odasaku would have full blown debates over which interpretation was nearest to truth. 

Dazai isn’t particularly convinced there is an afterlife at all, but he always thought that if there was one, it might look most like Dante Alighieri’s vision. 

Like this. 

“... can’t just stop, he’ll never let it be…”

This voice isn’t unfamiliar. Dazai’s head snaps up, eyes wide and searching as he tries to seek you out. Your voice sounds like it’s coming from all around him—the wind carries it, he can’t tell where you are and the icy air makes it hard for him to keep his eyes open to try to track you down. The wind is strange though; it stops blowing all around him, and instead begins billowing inward toward the center of the lake.

A foreboding feeling suddenly settles over Dazai.

Lake Cocytus—if this is what Dazai thinks it is, then it’s meant to represent the Ninth Circle. Treachery. A little ironic, maybe, considering loyalty is what got Dazai killed—your loyalty to the Port Mafia. 

Is he dead? He realizes suddenly that he very well might be, not quite as pleased with the idea as he might’ve been in the months before he met you. He feels… unfulfilled almost. He never finished Odasaku’s book. He didn’t even manage to get his degree. He felt what it was like to be loved for a few months, but it wasn’t enough. He’d wanted more. He wanted a life with you. 

He still wants a life with you, he thinks miserably. Even after everything that happened, he still wants it.

He must not be dead, he thinks absently, kicking at the snow on the banks of the lake before slowly treading out toward the center of it. If he was dead and really in the Ninth Circle of Hell, then he’d be stuck in the lake with the rest of the betrayers. Although, Dazai thinks if he really was going to hell, it wouldn’t be this circle—he doesn’t think he’s ever really betrayed anyone to this degree.

Or maybe he did, his thoughts take another dejected turn. Would his ‘betrayal’ to you count? It’s not like he actively tried to deceive you, so he thinks he should be given some leeway. But maybe it wouldn’t be too bad, if he’s here because he deceived you, then you would certainly be here for betraying him—he wouldn’t mind being stuck in hell if you were there with him. You both could be buried in the ice together, eternally frozen and suffering for betraying each other. 

It’s kind of romantic, if you really think about it.

Something bubbles in his chest—maybe a laugh, or maybe a sob, he can’t tell, he thinks maybe he’s a bit hysterical. 

It must just be a dream, he thinks again for some minimal solace. Or maybe a warning, maybe he’s somewhere caught in-between and God is striking down his hammer, warning him this is where he’s going to end up if he doesn’t change his ways like the message of the Divine Comedy itself.

The thought makes him laugh.

He sobers up quickly though as he starts his trek across the lake, thinking that maybe if he got to the other side, or the center, he’d wake up. He thinks you would find this funny—one of your first conversations with him had been about The Divine Comedy, and he spent many nights at dinner roping you into conversation about it, and convincing you to read some of the other books and poems that Odasaku had introduced him to. You-

“... one life or hundreds, that’s what he said…”

Dazai nearly slips on the ice when he hears your voice again, looking around as if you would just magically appear around him. You don’t, but it does leave Dazai a little disheartened hearing you repeat the words that Mori had said to convince you to kill him. He sighs as he keeps his gaze trained ahead, careful to not look down at the ice lest he find himself looking at something he would rather not.

The outskirts of the water were the traitors to kin—Dazai remembers that well. The first time he read the poem, he realized that this is where the majority of his cousins and older brothers would be. They spent almost two years killing each other for their grandfather’s inheritance; Dazai went from having seven siblings and almost two dozen cousins to three siblings and a handful of cousins by the time of the coup.

Traitors to country in the next section—Dazai thinks a bit gleefully that Mori would end up there. The Port Mafia isn’t exactly a city or country, but it’s still an entity, and Mori certainly betrayed it when he killed Dazai’s grandfather in his own bed, no matter what the reason for it might be.

Traitors to guests in the next section—this gives Dazai a bit of pause, he doesn’t know if he knows anyone that would fit in that section. Ui, maybe? Inviting him to work with his journalism house only to give him up to the Guild. Maybe Mori again, Dazai thinks, highly amused, because Dazai was a guest to you, and therefore, the Port Mafia, when everything happened. 

And the last section—traitors to benefactors. He can’t avoid looking at them; they’re the only ones above the surface of the lake, grotesque sculptures of ice that decorate the surface of the center of the lake. His steps slow as he walks through them all, a heavy feeling settling over him as his gaze focuses on the oddly familiar sculpture in the very center of the lake.

Is that-

“There’s only one way this ends.”

Dazai’s breath catches sharply. He slips on the ice as he rushes forward, eyes widening and hands flying forward to catch himself, but his stomach lurches painfully and before his hands can hit the ground-

Dazai sits up with a ragged gasp, eyes wild and nails digging into the fabric of the soft couch he’s laying on. His head is aching and he feels sluggish; he’s still reeling from what he’d just woken up from, but his heart rate is starting to calm down.

Just a dream, he confirms, but now he’s more preoccupied with trying to figure out where the hell he is and why he isn’t dead, because the last thing he remembers is you lifting a gun to his head and pulling the trigger. The room he’s in is small—there’s no windows, there’s a tiny kitchen on the left side of the room, and on the other side-

“Everyone out.”

Dazai’s gaze settles on you. You’re standing near the far wall—you haven’t changed from what you were wearing at the conference room with the other Port Mafia executives, and Dazai can see Ace’s blood still crusted around your finger nails and splattered on your shirt. Your gaze is focused on him, an unreadable expression on your face, and Dazai is so tunnel visioned on you that he hardly notices that there are a handful of other people in the room: your three subordinates, Nakahara Chuuya, Albatross and one other who had been at the fight against the Guild.

They don’t argue with you, most of them file out of the room without a word, only Albatross and Chuuya linger. The ginger gives you a long look before saying, “We’ll buy some more time. Just… figure out if this is really what you want to do, okay?”

You finally look away from him at Chuuya’s words, cringing and averting your gaze to the ground. You say quietly, “It doesn’t matter what I want. It has to be done.”

Chuuya sighs but nods, motioning for Albatross to leave with him—and then the two of you are left alone. You don’t approach him. Ironically, you look like the one akin to a cornered animal as if you hadn’t been the one to shoot him. If anyone should feel like a cornered animal right now, it should be him.

Instinctively, he lifts his hand to his forehead, frowning at the bandages wrapped around the top of his head. He looks back up at you curiously, but you grimaced and looked away as soon as he touched his forehead, so he can’t catch your eye.

He has a million questions he wants to ask. What happened? Why didn’t the bullet kill me? Why didn’t you kill me? Did you believe me? Do you believe me? Are we okay?

Dazai doesn’t know if he wants to know the answer to the last question, so he settles with: “Where are we?” 

Though you’d stiffened as soon as his lips parted to speak, you relax when you hear the question he asked.

“A safe house in Sakae,” you say quietly. Dazai starts to sit up but his vision swims so he has to stop and rest back down against the arm of the couch, blinking furiously. “You should take it easy… You’re probably going to feel a bit off for a couple of hours.”

Dazai is about to ask you what exactly happened, but the words die on his lips when you finally draw closer to him. You sit down on the couch next to where he’s laying, your body brushes his and Dazai feels warm. The remnants of the frigid cold of his dream vanishes as soon as the warmth of your body grazes his—he knows that there are many things that need to be addressed, but he would be content to avoid those topics and bask in your comfort for as long as he can. 

His eyes slide shut as you reach up to cup his cheek. He doesn’t even bother reopening them when he feels you lift your other hand to remove the bandages from around the top of his head—he thinks maybe he could almost doze back off. It’s only when you let out a soft sigh and fasten them back on does he finally bother to open his eyes again. 

“I don’t have enough bandages on me already?” he asks, his voice is light and the smile on his lips is teasing as he tries to lighten the mood a little, but it doesn’t work.

You don’t respond to his comment. You look down, and the small smile on your lips doesn’t meet your eyes, so his falls off his face as he stares up at you carefully and finally asks the much dreaded question that would lead to even more dreaded questions:

“Will you tell me what happened?”

--

“We need to go,” Chuuya says, hand wrapped around your wrist tightly. You don’t budge from where you’re standing, staring at where Dazai had fallen back over the edge. It was a short drop with mud softening the fall, he would be okay—if everything went according to plan, that is. Otherwise, the bullet you just shot at him killed him anyway, so the fall is inconsequential. “Come on. We can’t stay here. We have to go.”

“How do-”

“Not here,” Chuuya hisses. “Come on.”

“Chuuya-” you breathe out, voice wavering over his name. You can’t bring yourself to move even as Chuuya tries to drag you away. “Chuuya, I need to kn-”

Need to know if this worked. Need to know if he was able to stop the bullet. Need to know if you actually just killed the boy you’re in love with.

“Not here,” Chuuya replies, voice harsh, cutting you off before you can say anything more incriminating. 

This time, he doesn’t wait for you to follow him—he yanks you along with him, not even bothering to steady you when you stumble. You know you should snap yourself out of this, you know Mori has people trailing you to ensure you follow through with Dazai’s execution, but you’re haunted by the expression on his face when you pulled the trigger.

He accepted it.

You had the gun to his head. You asked him to forgive you. He said he did, and he accepted that he was about to die at your hands. A part of you is eager to convince yourself that maybe he saw through your plan, that he realized you weren’t going to kill him, but that look in his eyes…

He didn’t know, and he accepted it anyway.

Your stomach churns. The ragged breath you take in cuts off abruptly as you gag over it—you saw the blood, you don’t know if Chuuya was able to stop it. You don’t know if Dazai’s nullification ability prevented Chuuya from using his own ability to slow the bullet before it killed him. You don’t know if he fell backward because he was shot or because the high dosage sedative that you swiped from Mori’s office set in as quickly as it was supposed to. You don’t even know if Chuuya had been able to inject it in him with his ability. You don’t know anything.

“Don’t you dare throw up on me,” Chuuya mutters as he opens the car door and ushers you inside. 

Instead of sitting in the front with Albatross, he sits in the back with you, sharing a sharp look with Albatross before the other man finally pulls away from the ports. He still doesn’t say anything else—he knows better. This is one of the Port Mafia’s cars, tapped and actively being transmitted to one of Kouyou’s subordinates who will report to her and Mori anything that seems off, and you need to buy as much time as you possibly can before Mori realizes Dazai isn’t dead.

Because Dazai isn’t dead. He can’t be dead.

It worked. It all worked.

It had to have. 

Just as you expect, your phone rings as soon as the car starts moving. Mori has eyes on you—he was waiting for you to finish with the execution before calling. You’re certain that he’s going to send someone to check the body now; he doesn’t trust you to finish the job, not when something as fickle and unpredictable as love is involved. 

Klaus will have to be quick—you don’t even know if he was able to find a lookalike to kill so he could swap out the body. You only were able to give him a twenty, maybe thirty, minute heads up. Dazai is plain looking, yes, and the mud he dropped in should do some work at concealing his identity, but if Mori’s shadow sends him a picture to confirm the kill, the slim amount of time you hope to have bought with your fake out will be halved.

You stare down at the phone and let it ring once, twice, and finally on the third ring, you lift the phone to your ear and accept the call, waiting for Mori to speak.

“Has it been done?”

“Yes,” you reply, voice steady even if your fingers are trembling around the phone. “Do you need me back at headquarters?”

“No, I’m sure that wasn’t easy for you. You should get some rest. I have a meeting with Tolstoy in a bit anyway. I’ll meet with you tomorrow after I have tea with Elise-chan so you can debrief me on the meetings with the Guild,” Mori says easily, his tone is light and airy, and it makes you angry, because how dare he sound so flippant after what he just expected you to do. “... I’m sorry things had to end this way, dear. I’m proud of you. You did well.”

“I know,” you say tightly in response before hanging up and putting the phone back down in your lap. 

Chuuya watches you carefully, but he doesn’t say anything, and you stare ahead at the back of the driver’s seat. It’s a twenty-five minute drive from the ports in Naka to Sakae—for better or for worse, it’s going to be a quiet one. For better because you think you might start crying if you have to speak, and for worse because now all you’re plagued with is your own thoughts and the image of Dazai’s face before you shot him.

You didn’t shoot him. Not really.

But you did, you don’t know if Chuuya was able to stop it. You don’t even know if Chuuya knows if he was able to stop it. There was a splatter of blood. You saw that, and there shouldn’t have been blood if this worked, so the worst case scenario looms over you heavily. But you won’t know until you get to the safe house—until you hear from Klaus. Your breath hitches over a sob you’re forced to swallow; your chest burns and tightens uncomfortable.

You had to do it, this was the only option. Anything else and there was no shot he wouldn’t have been killed. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but he would be killed. You wouldn’t be able to protect him from Mori otherwise—he would’ve put a hit out on him, and Dazai would have all of the most dangerous assassins in the underworld out for him trying to get the bounty. You can’t protect him from that. You needed to buy time. You needed to buy time so you could-

You don’t finish the thought. 

You don’t think you’ve come to terms with what has to be done if you want to protect Dazai. A part of you doesn’t even know if you’ll be able to follow through with it, but you’ve already set yourself down the path of no return and you’ve dragged Chuuya down it along with you. Either you follow through, or the three of you are going to be on the run for the rest of your lives.

Shit.

Your gaze tracks back down to your phone. Still nothing from Klaus—nothing from Akutagawa either. The silence is too loud, each second that passes has you aching with a pain that feels like knives dragging against your bones. You just need to know, you need to know that he’s okay, that you didn’t-

You rest your forehead against the window when nausea builds back up in your stomach. It’s cool, and a welcome reprieve from the heaviness weighing down on you, but the moment your eyes slide shut, you’re faced with Dazai again and no amount of deep breathing and grounding techniques can stop the way your heart rate sky-rockets, breath becoming quick and shallow.

You see him. You see him, and he’s looking up at you, dark eyes wide and adoring as he looks at you like you’re the only thing in the world that matters to him, and his lips part to say something but before he can, you see something thick and red trickling down his face over his lips, and suddenly something is weighing cold and heavy in your hand but you can’t bring yourself to look down at it, but you can’t drag your eyes from his face. Can’t hide yourself from the way his warm eyes are suddenly wide and glassy, void of all of the emotions that you’d just-

Your arm hurts—sharp and painful and so sudden that you’re dragged from the images haunting you. Your gaze cuts over to Chuuya, who’s giving you a concerned look. You realize he must’ve shifted over a bit, brushed his arm against yours to use his ability to jolt you out of your spiraling thoughts. When he realizes that you’re back in the present, he gives you a pointed look and then directs his gaze outside.

You’re almost there. How much time had passed?

Why hasn’t Klaus or Akutagawa reached out to you?

What is going on?

Albatross doesn’t stop in front of the safe house—there are too many cameras in the street and all of the Port Mafia’s cars are tracked. Instead, he takes a left on the next street because it’s one of the few without a red light camera and a blind spot on the corner. His gaze flickers up to the rearview mirror and he pointedly raises the volume of his shitty music a few decibels louder to cover the noise of the car doors opening and closing as you and Chuuya slip out when he stops at the red light.

You leave your phone in the car and you’re careful to avoid the camera near the bakery on the corner as you follow Chuuya around to the alley that leads to the back entrance of the safe house. It’s not a Port Mafia safe house—it was Itou’s. This was where he stayed in the few months during the Dragon’s Head Conflict where he was on his own, after he left Strain but before you recruited him to the Port Mafia. It was well hidden and well protected, you hadn’t been able to track him down here until he brought you here—he made sure that it was a blind spot in the Port Mafia’s ever-watchful eye over Yokohama, and you made sure to keep it that way once he was gone. 

It’s only once the steel door is shut behind you that you can finally speak, gaze focusing on Chuuya desperately as you wait for him to tell you if he was able to do it or if Dazai’s ability…

“Did you hear from Klaus or Akutagawa?” he asks quietly, and that’s enough of an answer.

He doesn’t know. 

You feel sick—your stomach lurches and you don’t know if you start to stumble toward the bathroom or the couch or straight to the floor, but it doesn’t matter because Chuuya is darting forward to grab you and guide you over to the couch.

“Chuuya, if I-” you start to say, your words are raspy and you can’t even bring yourself to finish them. “If I-”

“Don’t,” he says, wrapping an arm around you. “Don’t bother going there yet. Wait for Klaus and Akutagawa.”

“But-”

“Stop,” he insists. “All you’re going to do is torture yourself.”

Isn’t that what you deserve? You want to say to him, nails digging into the palm of your hand so deep that it draws blood. Chuuya catches what you’re doing and immediately moves to unfurl your hands. Everything you’ve done. You killed Dazai’s family. His siblings. His cousins. You ruined his life, and then after everything, it wasn’t enough. You ruined his life and then you took-

“Hey, stop,” Chuuya interrupts your thoughts, clearly realizing what path they’re going down. You don’t realize your breath is ragged again until he grabs your chin and twists your head to force you to look at him. “I know what you’re thinking, but we can’t do this right now, we need to plan. We don’t have time, and when Klaus and Akutagawa get here with him, we need to know what we’re doing. You need to snap out of it.”

You don’t respond to him—your lashes flutter and you see Dazai again, you see blood, you see empty eyes, you see the gun in your hand, and you feel something warm and wet trickling over your cheeks. Chuuya spits out curses to himself and wipes away the tears streaming down your face. He’s gentle now, the rough grip on your chin disappears and is replaced with his hand cradling the back of your head as he pulls you closer to him. He presses your ear to his chest, hoping that the steady thrum of his heart is enough to ground you.

“Where the fuck are they?” he spits out more to himself than to you. His breath hitches and you can hear the stammering of his heart, and you know that he’s nervous, but he’s trying to hide it for your sake. “I need you here. What we just did-fuck-”

You try to snap out of it—you do, but every time you blink you see him. You see what you did. You knew this would happen from the very beginning, you knew it, and everyone warned you, but you’re selfish. You’ve always been so selfish.

You don’t know how much time passes. Ten minutes. Twenty. Thirty. It all blurs, it all feels like eternity, but eventually, the door to the safe house slams open, and only a handful of people know about it.

Your gaze snaps up, and you don’t realize you’re holding your breath until Klaus steps into the room with a familiar figure slung over his shoulder like a sack of flour. Both of them are covered in various substances that you think you would rather not know what they are, but you can see the steady rise and fall of Dazai’s back. You rise to your feet abruptly and Chuuya lets out a relieved breath, shoulders slumping.

Klaus immediately points an accusing finger at you. “I had to hunt down a civilian, kill him, crawl through shit and trash with a dead body to swap it out for your boy, I had to carry him across half of the city, and I couldn’t even channel Mephisto because he nullifies him. You better not complain about any messes I make for the next six months,” Klaus demands, and then points wildly back toward a very clean Akutagawa, who casts an unimpressed look his way. “And he didn’t even help me. He stood there and watched.”

“I was ensuring that no one saw what we were doing,” Akutagawa replies primly. “Even more important than your job, considering if someone saw it would all be for naught. You should be thanking me.”

Klaus’s face goes red with anger as he whips around to face him and roars, “More important? Thank you?!”

You laugh. It’s so startling that all of the anger washes away from Klaus’s face and the goading expression on Akutagawa’s disappears. Or you think you laugh—you think you might be crying again too. Both boys look aghast by the sight of it, looking at each other as if waiting for the other to do something to make you stop.

Eventually, Klaus steps forward and unsurely tries to pass Dazai’s unconscious body over to you as if to try to make you feel better by shoving him in your arms. Chuuya slaps him hard over the back of the head causing him to yelp.

“Put him on the couch, what the fuck is wrong with you? Why are you passing him over to her like he’s a fucking stuffed animal?” Chuuya snaps, giving him a plainly judgemental look before resting his hand on your shoulder. 

Klaus looks disgruntled, but he does as Chuuya asks, laying Dazai down on the couch where you and Chuuya had just been sitting. You drop to your knees next to him, and the room is oddly silent as you look down at him. You don’t feel their gazes on you, so you assume they’re giving you privacy as best they can.

He looks… peaceful. You could almost imagine that you were coming home to him napping on your couch after he spent the whole night playing some stupid video game in your living room. You try to imagine that’s what this is, but the bloody indent in his forehead prevents you.

It almost broke through his skull.

He almost died.

You almost killed him.

You feel a bit sick as your fingers trace up to the wound on his forehead. It’s still bleeding, but his forehead is clean compared to the grime that covers the rest of his body. Klaus and Akutagawa must’ve had the brain to stop and clean the wound before it could get infected—that’s probably what took them so long.

You feel someone come to your side, glancing up to see Akutagawa hovering next to you with bandages in hand. He passes them over to you silently before quickly walking away. You let out a soft breath as you unwind the bandages, gently lifting his head so you can wrap them around his forehead. Immediately, they’re staining red—you grimace and look away.

The silence hanging over the room only lasts so long.

“What’s next?” Klaus asks quietly. “This won’t work for long. What’s the plan?”

Your gaze lowers as you rest your hand against Dazai’s cheek, memorizing his face as best as you can. The heaviness in your chest returns, and along with it, the damning reminder of your reality.

“I have to kill Mori.”

--

Dazai suddenly understands his dream.

“It’s the only option,” you say quietly when Dazai’s expression immediately twists at your words. Your eyes look so heavy and your expression is so crestfallen that it makes Dazai ache. His fingers twitch to reach out for you but you shift away, shaking your head. “It’s the only option, Osamu. It has to be done.”

“But-”

“He tried to have me kill you,” you snap, and he almost rolls his eyes because he doesn’t need reminding of that. He’s abundantly aware of the fact that he almost died at your hands because of Mori. He refrains if only barely. “Why do you care about what happens to him?”

“He’s your father,” Dazai says, watching as you go stiff. He knows he might’ve just made a mistake saying that, but he doesn’t even know if you fully understand the gravity of all of this or if you’re just running off heightened emotions right now. “I don’t care about him, he can go fuck off and die for all I care. I care about you-“

“He’s not my father,” you spit out, voice tight, “and maybe you shouldn’t care about me.”

Oh, here it comes, Dazai thinks dreadfully. That was the opening you needed to bring up the subject Dazai desperately wanted to avoid. He has made a fatal mistake. He should’ve just nodded along and agreed to your plan.

“You’re right he’s not your father,” Dazai immediately agrees to appease you and try to avoid the imminent conversation. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Hey, do you have food here? I’m so hungry all of a sudden, wow, do you hear my stomach-” 

You sigh, looking away. Your eyes are suddenly very tired and Dazai’s words falter on his tongue as his gaze settles on you. His fingers twitch to reach out for your hand but you draw them back into your lap. Dazai’s gaze drops at the blatant rejection, but as soon as you notice, you reach back out to intertwine your fingers with his. He feels placated, but only a little, because he still has a tight feeling in his chest that he can’t push away. A looming fear that something is going to go terribly wrong.

“Can we please talk about this?” you finally ask quietly, and even though Dazai does want to say no, he simply cannot bring himself to. 

So, instead, he nods, and braces himself for what he knows is bound to be a terrible conversation. He waits for you to say something—you look like you want to, but he thinks that maybe you’re struggling just as much as him at opening the conversation. 

This isn’t going to go well, he realizes again, swallowing thickly. 

“Come on,” you finally say, rising to your feet. You hold out your hand to him and Dazai stares at it for a moment, confused. “Let’s get you cleaned up, you smell disgusting.”

“I wonder why,” Dazai mutters, and he means for it to come out as a joke, but when the small smile on your lips falters, he realizes it probably came out much too bitter so he quickly grabs your hand instead, letting you help him to his feet. He tries to get you to smile again by giving you a soft one of his own, but now the expression on your face is heavy and conflicted. “Are you gonna take a bath with me?”

“You should probably rinse off before we get into the bath,” you say dryly, thumb running along the back of his hand before you let go of it. “Otherwise we’ll just be sitting in shit water.”

Dazai almost gags. “Don’t remind me what I’m covered in right now,” he pleads. “Where is the shower?”

The light returns to your eyes, a smile flickers to your lips, and Dazai considers it a win even if he is covered in shit and god knows what else. He glances back down to where he’d been laying and winces when he sees the stains. His eyes flicker back up to you and he cringes when he sees the displeased expression on your face.

“I’ll make Atsushi and Akutagawa clean it,” you say more to yourself than to him, shaking your head and motioning for him to follow. “Bonding exercise.”

Dazai raises his eyebrows, unsure if the couch is even salvageable, and almost lets a comment slip about it considering you were so quick to throw out his couch to replace it, but he refrains when a sad expression crosses your face when you think he’s not looking. He frowns, looking around a bit more scrutinizing now.

This place looks nothing like your apartment.

Your apartment is… plain. Minimalistic. The most you have decorating it is a handful of paintings on the wall and a couple of antiques displayed on dressers. Other than that, you have your furniture, your television, and that’s just about it. Dazai had joked once about it feeling like a hotel room, and promptly stole your credit card to buy things to decorate with—gaudy Christmas lights even though it’s not Christmas, a couple of fake pumpkins to line against your wall and a plastic skeleton to pin up near the window. He even bought an inflatable snowman to put in the middle of the room, but it hasn’t come yet. You rolled your eyes every time you came back from work to see some new, seasonally inappropriate decoration in your apartment, but he could tell the more things he added to your apartment, the happier you seemed to be. 

This place was actually decorated. Pictures and trinkets set up on the dressers, all of the furniture matched and the walls were a warm burgundy instead of the off-putting, psych ward white of your apartment. You said this was a safe house, but it seems more like a home than your actual one. 

“What is this place?” he asks again, because it’s something more than a safe-house, he just doesn’t know what.

“I told you,” you frown. “A safe house.”

Dazai’s lips curl down in response but he doesn’t press, gaze flickering over to one of the side tables against the wall, trying to figure out who exactly is in the pictures on it, but as he strains his eyes to focus on it, pain ricochets through his head and he has to abandon the mission. Disappointed, he follows you into the back bedroom and realizes he’ll just have to figure it out later.

He almost stops in his tracks in the doorway when he sees that the bedroom is just as homely as the rest of the safe house. It’s weird—the same burgundy walls, dark mahogany furniture, there’s what looks to be a handmade quilt draped over the foot of the bed. It’s just so unlike you that it almost has Dazai reeling.

You give him an odd look when you see the twisted expression on his face, but motion toward another door. “The bathroom is in there—go rinse off and run the bath, I’ll be in there in a minute, I’m going to grab a change of clothes for you.”

“Mkay,” Dazai agrees, a jump in his step as he rushes over to the bathroom. 

He only pauses for a second to take in his surroundings when he gets in there—he’s not as surprised now by the style. Less modern, more rustic, just like the rest of the house; it’s more like something he’d expect to see in one of those American holiday movies. He leans over the tub to run the hot water before pulling off his clothes. He squints as he starts to unwind his bandages, looking into the shower and realizing that the only soap in there is an unopened bar soap, and a men’s shampoo and conditioner set. 

A bit suspicious now, he glances at the door leading to the bedroom before kneeling down in front of the cabinets beneath the sink. With one hand, he unwinds the bandages around his legs, and with the other, he reaches out to open the cabinet so he can snoop. Just as he expected: men’s deodorant, a spare baking soda and peroxide toothpaste that he knows you hate, and a handful of different colognes. There’s one bag off to the side and Dazai reaches for it, peeking in and finding your typical bath soaps and hair care.

Whose place is this? He wonders, pausing for half a second before taking out your soaps and bringing them into the shower with him. It’s not Chuuya’s—Dazai knows that because he hasn’t seen a single tacky hat yet, but then whose?

He’s quick to clean himself off, eager to be with you and still a bit anxious that you might disappear when he’s not looking. The water runs brown as it rinses over him, but it feels nice—Dazai realizes that this is his first shower since he got kidnapped by the Guild, and a part of him wants to bask in it. He wants to wash off all of the unfamiliar touches and the dirt and the blood, but more than that, he wants to surround himself with you instead. Which means he has to hurry out of here and drag you into the tub with him. 

He thinks maybe he should be biding his time. He has a lot to think about before he actually talks to you—he’s hardly even had a chance to process everything that happened—but still, he finds himself rushing to scrub himself. It couldn’t have been more than ten, fifteen minutes before he’s stumbling out of the shower and grabbing a towel to wrap around his waist. He almost expects you to be waiting in the bathroom for him, but you’re not, so he frowns and creaks the door back open to look for you.

Your name is on his lips as he steps back into the bedroom, but he falters when he sees you standing in the same place he left you: right outside a closet, except now the door is open and there’s a sweatshirt in your hands. The expression on your face is destroyed, and Dazai isn’t exactly sure what to say, luckily, he doesn’t need to because you hear the door open and turn toward him.

Whatever you’re about to say dies on your lips as your eyes trail over his body.

Another fatal mistake.

Dazai instantly realizes that he has never taken off his bandages in front of you before—that night at the beach house, he thought you were going to ask him to take them off, but you didn’t. He was glad for it, because he wasn’t sure if he was ready, and after that… Well, everything went downhill after that.

Dazai suddenly wants to flee. He becomes acutely aware of all of the scars on his body plainly in view. The warm, dim lighting becomes spotlights shining down on him, highlighting all of the flaws that he’s feared your reaction to. He waits for your face to twist—or, he knows you, you probably wouldn’t have such a visible reaction, so he focuses on your eyes instead.

But they only curve up along with your lips, a fondness in them that he doesn’t expect. You place the clothes down on the bed and approach him, his breath catches when your hands rest on his hips right above the towel. The skin-on-skin makes his chest ache—he’s missed you so much, he hadn’t even realized how hard it had been to breathe without you until he was back with you again.

“I’ve missed you so much,” he breathes out loud, lashes fluttering when your thumbs circle over his hip bones, right over a jagged scar that cuts across his lower abdomen—the product of an unfortunate encounter in Suribachi. 

“I missed you too,” you say softly. Your eyes trace over his face like you’re trying to memorize each little detail—usually he feels uncomfortable when under a scrutinizing gaze, he never wants someone to look too closely at him in fear of what they might find, but he feels warm beneath yours. “I’m sorry.”

He’s not sure exactly what you’re apologizing for; it could be anything from almost killing him to letting him into your life at all. He’s not yet ready for this conversation to start, he hasn’t even gathered his thoughts yet, so instead he glances pointedly back toward the bathroom. You let out a soft breath—he can’t tell if it’s irritation or you’re just tired, it might be both, but you do motion for him to go in and he can hear you following him.

The water is still steaming as he lets the towel drop to the ground and sinks into it. His muscles instantly relax, eyes sliding shut as he rests against the back of the tub, letting out a soft sigh. For a moment, he can almost forget everything that’s happened, his head falls to the side to focus on you as you undress, folding your clothes and placing them on the side table. He blinks when you pull off your dress shirt, gaze zeroing in on a scar marring your upper back. It’s small, circular—a bullet wound, maybe? It doesn’t go through to your chest though, he would’ve noticed that. 

“How did you get that?” he asks curiously, belatedly realizing he probably has no right to ask about scars considering his body is riddled with them and he’d probably evade most attempts at your prying if you asked. 

“Hm?” you ask quietly, looking over your shoulder at him as you finish undressing.

The words falter on Dazai’s lips as his gaze roves over your body. You’re beautiful, he thinks again, a bit more dreamily this time. You’re beautiful, and he’s missed you so much, and he just wants all of this to be over so he can go back to lounging in your apartment and spending your money all day. It’s only when you raise your eyebrows that he clears his throat and nods his chin to your back.

“The scar on your back,” he explains. “How did you get it?”

“Oh,” you realize, making your way over to the tub and tapping his shoulder, motioning for him to shift forward. You slip into the water behind him, circling your arms around his waist and Dazai’s chest feels warm and full as he rests back against you, eyes sliding shut. “An assassination attempt when I was eighteen. I was… reckless, saw it coming and… Well, luckily, the Flags had been in the area. Iceman figured out what was happening and they got there quick enough to stabilize me and get me to Mori.”

Dazai’s throat swells at the implication of what you’d said, trying to distract himself with the feeling of your fingers tracing across his abdomen. He notes softly, “You’re never reckless.”

Your fingers pause in the absent patterns you’re tracing on him, and Dazai wonders if it’s a sore topic, about to retract his words. Before he can, you let out a soft breath and drop your forehead down on his shoulder, arms tightening around him.

“This was Itou’s house. All of the stuff in here, it’s his family’s—stuff he was able to salvage after they were killed. He tried to keep the house like how his mother used to keep it as a way to memorialize her,” you say quietly. Dazai’s eyes widen as he recognizes the name of your old partner. “We were enemies when we first met, y’know? It was during the big conflict six years ago. He was part of one of the foreign organizations. I ended up recruiting him, but he spent a few months on his own here. He was careful to keep it a blind spot to the Port Mafia even after he joined up, I always thought he was paranoid about it, but he was quite insistent that there was no need for people to know about it.”

“Makes sense,” Dazai says dryly. “I wouldn’t want Mori knowing where I’m living either.”

It’s an off-handed quip, but you still stiffen and again, Dazai fumbles to say something else because he clearly upset you. He starts to add, “I-”

“I killed him,” you finally say, voice weak and airy. Your arms loosen around him, but his hands drop to cover yours, holding them in place. “I killed him, Osamu.”

“I thought you said he died on a mission,” Dazai murmurs, hand tightening around yours when he feels the way your fingers are trembling. 

“I… Itou was born into this life. Was born into a Yakuza-family based in Tokyo, trained since he was old enough to walk how to use his ability… how to kill. The Yakuza syndicate his family was the head of was wiped out by the Sun and Steel when he was eight… nine, maybe. His mother was able to get him and bring him back to Australia—that’s where she was from. It’s how he ended up with Strain,” you explain, and the water suddenly feels a bit cold—what happened to Itou’s family sounds a lot like what happened to Dazai’s. From the way you pause, you wonder if you realize the same thing. You quickly change the subject, “He tried getting me out of the Mafia.”

“What?” Dazai asks, surprised. He shifts to physically look at you, catching the wistful expression on your face. “You wanted to leave the Mafia.”

The wistful expression shifts into something much more conflicted. 

“I didn’t-” you start to say before cutting yourself off. “I don’t know. I think maybe a part of me might’ve wanted to. I was… curious. He was sneaky—he was always such a sneaky bastard. He tried to ease me into it, show me what a different life was like. Called them training exercises, wanted me to blend in with kids my age.”

He remembers you telling him this at the beach house, but he listens anyway because now you do sound wistful. His eyes slide shut as you hold him tightly, pressing your lips to his shoulder blade before resting your chin on top of it. 

“His gift to me for my eighteenth birthday was an acceptance letter to university. He pulled some strings. It was for YNU, actually, funny enough,” you say softly. Dazai’s eyes widen as he turns to look at you again; there’s a small, sad smile on your lips and when he turns, you take the chance to steal a kiss from him. “Imagine, we could’ve been first years together.”

Dazai doesn’t dare to respond. His hand tightens around yours—if it’s painful, you don’t let it show. Odasaku dragged him to orientation, and he imagines meeting you there. You’re good at socializing—charming—Dazai can be too when he wants, but he definitely did not want to during orientation. He mostly sulked away and waited for it to be over so he could go back home. He imagines that you’d be in the same group with him, and although he’d probably ignore you the first few times you tried to talk to him, he’d eventually give in. Dazai is weak to pretty women, especially when that pretty woman is you.

Or maybe, you’d meet during a shared class. You would probably be a poli-sci major, but he’s taken classes in the field for requirements. He hated them, thought they were boring, but he probably would’ve enjoyed it much more if he had you to admire all two hours of the class. And maybe-

“I was curious,” you repeat, voice tighter. There’s more of an edge to it now, and Dazai realizes that this story is about to take a turn. “I… I wanted to try it. I told Mori.”

Dazai’s eyes widen and he sits up straight. The water sloshes around him as he physically turns around to face you. He asks, but can’t finish, “Did he…”

“He said it was a great idea,” you say tightly. “He encouraged it. I accepted the spot, and a week before orientation, Itou died on a mission that we got bad intel for. My whole team, they died to make sure I got out alive. Mori denied having any involvement, said he wouldn’t risk an ability user as powerful as Itou, but I know. I know he had a hand in it. I’ve always known it. The government had been after Itou for years—they said he was a national security threat. A couple of weeks later, we suddenly have the skilled business permit that Mori’s been trying to get for months. It was a trade-off. I know it. Two birds, one stone. The skilled business permit and my full focus back on the Mafia for Itou’s life.”

Dazai’s lips part to say something—anything—but he can’t. Your eyes are misty, and the foreboding feeling that’s been haunting him since he woke up intensifies. You shake your head, blinking back tears. 

“I never should’ve brought you into this world, Osamu.”

Dazai needs to think now. He needs to figure out how exactly he’s going to go about this, whether he should be soft and demure, appealing to your heart, or if he should be more forceful, triggering your guilt. 

He goes with the latter.

“Well it’s too late for that,” Dazai says, keeping his voice steady until he knows how you’re going to react to it. When you instantly shake your head again, his voice hardens. “It’s too late, I’m already in it. You can’t just get rid of me. Take accountability.”

“You don’t think I have?” you question dryly, looking away from him. But he needs you to look at him for this to be effective, so he reaches out to grab your hand, dragging your attention back toward him. “I killed your family, Osamu.”

“She was a girl my age—the previous boss’s granddaughter—she was asleep, had a bear tucked in her arms and a nightlight on the right side of her bed. I slit her throat, then both of her older brothers. They were kids.”

Her name was Akane. Bunji and Touma were her brothers. 

They were Dazai’s brothers. Dazai’s sister. The stuffed bear was called Coco, and Akane would clutch it and cry whenever Dazai started talking about things like death. She was scared of dying; more than that, scared of the people she loved dying. She cried for weeks when their grandmother passed, and got angry at Dazai when he didn’t even cry at the funeral. Dazai used to share a bedroom with her and Touma, but he hated her nightlight—it was purple and it was always right in Dazai’s eyes when he laid down. He convinced his mother to force Bunji to swap rooms with him, so Dazai had his own room on the second floor of his grandfather’s estate.

“You were a kid too,” Dazai rasps out the same thing he said at the beach house, but it comes out a bit weaker this time knowing exactly who the people you killed were. “You were fourteen. You-”

“I played a role in tracking your mother down,” you continue. Dazai’s breath catches as his fingers loosen around yours. “It was my punishment for not making sure all of the grandchildren were… eliminated. I was the one that was tracking her down, and I was the one that was going to interrogate her for your whereabouts when I found her.”

“Stop,” Dazai says quietly, voice wavering.

“No,” you reply firmly. “No. You need to understand this-”

“I do,” Dazai insists, voice cracking. “I do understand-”

“You don’t, Dazai,” you raise your voice and Dazai cringes back. You sigh and soften your voice, but the damage has been done, Dazai’s fight or flight instincts have been triggered. This conversation is not going to end in his favor, so he needs to run before he gets hurt, but he can’t because you have him stuck in the bath with you. You reach out again to take his hands in yours, fingers absently running along the scars on his wrists. “You don’t, otherwise you wouldn’t have been so quick to join me in here. You haven’t even had time to process it.”

“Yes, I have,” Dazai whispers weakly. “I have.”

“I ruined your life, Osamu,” you say quietly. “Everything bad that’s ever happened to you started with me.”

“That’s not true,” Dazai argues, nails biting into your skin as he clings to you. “My life sucked before everything really went to shit. The first time I tried to kill myself, I was eleven. You saved my life. I was going to kill myself that night we met at the bar. You saved me.”

“Osamu-”

“You’re not listening to me,” Dazai interrupts, voice taking a more manic edge as he shakes his head. He can talk himself out of any situation—why is he failing now when it matters most? “You’re not listening. You saved me. I love you.”

“I love you too,” you breathe out, but the words don’t settle his nerves because they’re heavy and full of sorrow, and the tears that had been pooling in your eyes finally start to spill over.

“Then why does this still feel like a goodbye?” he begs, breath shallow as he searches your face for an answer.

You don’t respond, but you don’t need to. He finds his answer in your eyes. He always does. You look at him again with that desperate, longing expression, like you’re trying to memorize the details of his face even though you know it’s futile. 

This is a goodbye.

--

Dazai hasn’t spoken to you once since your conversation in the bath.

Chuuya, your subordinates, and the Flags are back now, and Dazai is sulking in the bedroom watching one of his dumb reality shows. You can hardly focus on the conversation at hand because of it, and you know the others are starting to get irritated by your distraction considering the stakes at play right now. If one thing goes wrong, all of your lives would be forfeit. They’re risking everything by helping you right now, and you can't even bother to give them your full attention.

“Out,” Piano Man suddenly says. Your gaze snaps toward him, as does all of the others’ in the room. When nobody immediately moves, he raises his eyebrows and continues dryly, “Are you all hard of hearing? I said get out.”

“Where are we supposed to go?” Albatross demands. “Her boy’s in the bedroom. This place is small-”

“Go crowd in the closet for all I care. Get out,” Piano Man says dismissively. Still, no one moves until his gaze sharpens and they realize he’s being entirely serious. You shift to leave with them until his eyes land on you. “Not you.”

You feel like a child about to be scolded, which is ridiculous because you’re a mafioso, and though Piano Man is technically the same rank as you, he’s not really. He can’t scold you, but you shift awkwardly on your feet and share a concerned look with Chuuya anyway as they all wander out of the safe house and into the small hallway outside.

Once the two of you are alone, you finally glance back at Piano Man, who’s watching you carefully. After a few moments he says, “I take it you told him the plan?”

“I did,” you reply quietly.

“He didn’t take it well?” Piano Man questions.

“You know the answer to that,” you say a bit more dryly before shaking your head. “Would you have taken it well?”

“Of course not, I’d be livid,” Piano Man says immediately, making you cringe. “Does this mean we’re changing the plan?” 

“No,” you tell him. “We can’t. This is the only option.”

“I know,” Piano Man says with a thin smile. “So stop sulking and get your head in the game so we don’t all die trying to perform a coup.”

You’re startled by the sudden sharpness in his voice, but you suppose you shouldn’t be. Piano Man has always been capricious, going from his whimsical moods to more cold and ruthless ones within a matter of seconds. You can hardly meet his eyes now, looking down at the ground to avoid them.

“Why are you helping me?” you ask after a few moments.

You don’t have to look at Piano Man to see the way he raises his eyebrows judgmentally. “Excuse me?” 

“I was going to kill you earlier. I held a gun to your head. Why are you helping me?” you press, the words weighing heavily on you as you remember the way he met your eyes when you lifted the muzzle of your gun to his temple.

Piano Man has the audacity to look amused. “When I first recruited Lippmann, I tried to drown him in the harbor because I got paranoid he sold me out to the feds after a mission went wrong. It happens—the next time it does, I’m going to be pulling my own gun out though. So, don’t let it happen again, yeah?”

“Yeah,” you agree quietly. “I’m sorry.”

You don’t apologize often, even when you know you’re entirely in the wrong. Mori has taught you only to apologize when it serves you, otherwise you should never make an admission of guilt or liability. So it’s not surprising when Piano Man’s eyebrows shoot upward, but his expression softens after a moment. He reaches out to pat your head.

“I know this isn’t easy,” he murmurs, “but we need you at the top of your game if this is going to work.”

“I know,” you reply. “... I know.”

“Good,” he says, patting the top of your head yet again before sighing. “Let me go get them and we’ll get back to planning, okay?”

“Mkay.”

You lean back against the wall as you look down at the table Lippmann set up for planning. The Flags, your subordinates, Kajii Motojiro—they’re non-factors in the planned coup. The Flags will support it, your subordinates will support you, and all Kajii cares about is his experiments. Paul Verlaine is not quite as secure, but Chuuya is confident that he’ll support whatever Chuuya goes along with.

The issue lies in Kouyou and the Black Lizards.

You already feel a headache come on just at the thought, lifting your hands to your head and rubbing your eyes as you knock the back of your head against the wall and let out a heavy sigh. Kouyou and Hirotsu won’t support the coup, you know it. They’re both loyal to Mori—both victims of the previous boss who found refuge in Mori when he took over. They’ll fight for him, and you know better than anyone that during a forceful transition of power, all dissidents must be removed, especially ones that hold significant power and influence.

But it’s Kouyou and Hirotsu. Kouyou, who was the one to teach you how to do your makeup properly, who bought you your first kimono to match her own. Hirotsu, who was always quick to execute anyone that openly disrespected you, who took you to a movie on your fifteenth birthday when Mori was busy dealing with the power transition so you didn’t spend it alone. The thought makes you sick—they were family, and maybe Hirotsu could be convinced. He’s loyal to Mori, yes, but more than that, he’s loyal to the Port Mafia. If you can manufacture a legitimate reason for the coup…

You sigh as you glance down the hall where Dazai is hiding in the bedroom, startled when your gaze catches his familiar brown. He’s seemingly just as surprised that you caught him spying, immediately slamming the bedroom door shut to retreat back into the safety of the room. Your lips curl up into a small smile, which is quickly washed away when your subordinates, the Flags and Chuuya all file back into the room.

“I’ll talk to Ane-san,” Chuuya finally says, reigniting the conversation. “I’ll make her see reason.”

“There’s no time for talking, Chuuya,” Piano Man tells him. “This all has to be done within hours. If we let word get out about what we’re doing… The coup is risky, and a civil war would be the end of this city.”

Frustration flashes across Chuuya’s face. “I’m not budging on this,” he says, voice tight with thinly restrained anger. “Either you give me the chance to talk to her, or I’ll withdraw my support.”

“Chuuya,” you sigh tiredly, wanting nothing more than to just sit down.

“No,” Chuuya interrupts you. “I won’t actively stand against you, but I won’t stand with you if you don’t give me the chance to talk to her.”

“Fine,” you finally say even though you know it’s a mistake. It’s asking for trouble. Piano Man gives you a sharp, disapproving look, but you shake your head. “It’s fine. She won’t be keeping her executive position.”

Chuuya’s face twists. “But-”

“No.” This time you interrupt him, holding up your hand. “I’m not budging on this. If you want the chance to talk to her and convince her this is the best route, I’ll give you it, but you need to meet me halfway. She’s not retaining her executive position.”

Chuuya looks unhappy, but after a few moments, he nods. “Fine.”

“I can’t risk it, Chuuya,” you tell him quietly. “I need people who I trust in the inner circle. I can’t trust her after what just happened.”

“I get it,” Chuuya says. “I just don’t like it.”

“That leaves three executive seats we need to fill.” Piano Man lets out a heavy sigh as he sits on the edge of the table, tilting his head back in exhaustion. “Your’s, Ace’s, and Kouyou-san’s. Do you even have three more people who you trust?”

Klaus and Akutagawa, you think to yourself, but neither of them are executive material. Your gaze drifts over to Albatross, Iceman, and Doc, each of them pointedly looks away, none of them want the open seats. Lippmann can’t take it, not with what you have planned for him. So, who else-

“Verlaine?” Chuuya offers. “He’s got a ton of experience with the European organizations—we’ll probably need it considering Dostoevsky’s involvement with the Guild, and this Book that’s apparently somewhere in the city. If it gets out to the public, we’ll have organizations swarming just like during the Dragon’s Head.”

You don’t like the idea of Verlaine being an executive, and you don’t think Piano Man does either considering his unfortunate first meeting with the man, but Chuuya raises good points. You have your own experience with the European underworld, but it’s nothing like what Verlaine has.

“Okay,” you agree, “and the other two?”

The Black Lizards are its own command unit that answers directly to the Boss. They don’t have a seat at the table because it’s not their field. Their field is war, not politics… but what other options are there? The people you trust are far and few in-between, you can probably count them on one hand.

“What about Tolstoy?” a familiar voice asks quietly from down the hallway. You look up immediately, gaze focusing on where Dazai is standing in the door of the bedroom, hands shoved in the pockets of his sweatshirt, shoulders hunched. He doesn’t like the attention of everyone on him, so he keeps his eyes trained fully on you. “Mishima?”

“They’re not part of the Port Mafia,” Chuuya dismisses, “they don’t get seats.”

“But what if they were?” Dazai presses, shuffling forward. He hardly spares Chuuya a glance before looking at you again. “The transition of power is going to be shaky, you need to strengthen your position in other ways, otherwise…”

“You think we should merge with the Three Deaths and the Sun and Steel,” Piano Man realizes, sitting up straighter as he considers Dazai’s proposition. “Doesn’t that risk destabilizing us even more though?”

He looks at you for an answer, but your gaze is focused on Dazai. He’s not even gone yet, but you already miss him desperately; all you want is to be with him, but it’s just not possible. You can’t have him and run the Port Mafia at the same time; he will die because of his affiliation with you, just like he almost did when the Guild captured him. It wouldn’t matter how safe you tried to keep him, one mistake and he would die. And that will lead to every decision you make being centered around him, not what’s best for the Port Mafia and that will lead to its inevitable ruin. 

“No, Osamu’s right,” you say, and Dazai preens at the praise, but then quickly deflates again. You want to reach out for him, but you refrain. “Not a merger. An acquisition. The Three Deaths and the Sun and Steel are already pretty much extensions of the Port Mafia, we would only be formalizing it. I trust Tolstoy and Mishima—I pretty much built the Three Deaths into what it is today myself. We’d give the Port Mafia an official foothold in Russia, more sway over everything that happens in Tokyo. It’s a good plan. Great one, even.”

“Will they even agree to it?” Chuuya asks doubtfully. “Go from being fully autonomous to answering to us.”

“They pretty much already do just answer to us,” Albatross mutters.

“They’ll agree to it,” you tell him quietly. “I’ll make sure of it.”

Tolstoy won’t be hard to convince. He, Chekhov and Gorky are all good friends of yours, you helped them build the Three Deaths, you helped them win territory battles against the Pale Flame and the Red Chamber. All it would take a few words of convincing for them to agree to it. Mishima might be more difficult, but all you have to do is convince his daughters, and they hang off your every word.

There might be some dissent from the Sun and Steel executives, but even then, you think it would be minimal at worst. It’s a good plan. Having Tolstoy and Mishima sitting at the executive table would lend you some much needed support during the transition, and with the Port Mafia subsuming the Three Deaths and the Sun and Steel, it would provide a major deterrence against any foreign movements from Cao Xueqin or Yi Sang.

“What about Hirotsu and the Black Lizards?” Akutagawa asks, shifting awkwardly when all eyes turn to him. He doesn’t meet anyone’s eyes, and you know it’s because he actually cares about what your answer might be. Akutagawa likes to pretend that he doesn’t care about anyone, but you know he has a soft spot for the unit that took Gin in so easily.

“We can’t afford to lose the Black Lizards,” Iceman notes as he lights another cigarette. “Especially if we’re bringing in other organizations. We don't want our own people to feel like they’re being lost in the mix, y’know?”

“I’ll handle Hirotsu,” you finally say. “It’ll be fine. I just need to figure out how to frame this. Needs to be framed in a way that makes him feel like this was the best, and only, course of action for the Mafia. He’s loyal to Mori only to the extent that he’s good for the Port Mafia. I’ll figure it out. Leave that to me.”

“Ace’s subordinates?” Albatross prompts. “They been handled? We can’t have them knowing about him. Can’t have anyone knowing about him.”

“Dead,” Akutagawa says. “I killed them.”

“Security cameras? CCTV? Any record of this kid being affiliated with us?” 

“Wiped,” Klaus answers flippantly. “We’ve gone through it every day since they met. Weren’t allowed to sleep ‘til made sure everything from the day was wiped. There’s no physical record of him ever being around us.”

“Okay, so we get this settled, and then we wait on Repin for the rest of us, right?” Albatross asks. Dazai cringes at the mention of Repin, and you look away from him, unable to watch the pain that crosses his face.

“Yeah,” you say quietly. “It all needs to happen within no more than a couple days otherwise we risk the wrong people finding out so…”

“So we should get started,” Chuuya sighs, pushing himself off the wall. He squeezes your wrist as he passes by you, walking in the direction of the door. “We’ll give you guys some time. I’ll let you know how things go with Ane-san.”

You nod, eyes following him as he leaves. The others follow, filing out of the room until it’s only you and Dazai left again. You turn to look at him, so many words on your lips but incapable of pushing a single one out. Instead, you reach out to cup his face between your hands, running your thumbs across his cheekbones. His lashes flutter shut as he leans into your touch.

“It doesn’t have to be like this,” he whispers, brown eyes heavy and glassy as he looks down at you. “We can figure something else out. I know we can. Just give me some time, I just need a little time, I’ll figure something out.”

“We don’t have time,” you say, voice cracking over the words. “I love you, Osamu.”

Dazai pulls away, shaking his head. He wipes quickly at his eyes before looking at you again. You expect what he says, but it doesn’t make it hurt any less.

“I won’t forgive you. Not for this. Not ever. I can’t.”

“I know.”

--

SIX WEEKS LATER

“I must say, I wasn’t expecting this invitation,” a familiar voice hums as the door to your box opens. You don’t turn to look at him, keeping your gaze trained down on the performance taking place below. “Not from you, and not after everything that’s happened.”

“No?” you ask absently. “It’s unlike you to not expect something, Dostoevsky. Less like you to admit it.”

“Fyodor,” he corrects as he comes to stand next to you. He’s close enough to you that you can feel his body brushing yours. You finally turn your head to look at him—his lips are curved up into a deceptively soft smile, violet eyes glittering with a type of mischief that you know is dangerous. “We are well enough acquainted to be on a first name basis, no?” 

“Dostoevsky,” you repeat pointedly, looking back down at the show as the first act reaches its climax. Of all of the shows you’ve seen, Tosca is still your favorite. This rendition here at the New National Theatre isn’t quite as good as the one at La Scala, but you’re enjoying it well enough.

Dostoevsky lets out a huff of laughter, you don’t turn to look at him when you feel him reach out to touch you. His fingers trace along the maroon scarf hanging loosely over your shoulders. You barely withhold a shiver when you feel his knuckles skim your neck—rumor has it, skin-on-skin contact alone with Dostoevsky is enough to kill. You don’t die, but it’s enough to beckon your attention back to him.

“Red is your color,” he murmurs, looking down at you through his lashes. “You look beautiful.”

“It isn’t yours,” you reply quickly, glancing down at the red tie tied neatly around his neck. “Neither is flattery.”

Dostoevsky does laugh this time—it’s soft and short, pretty like a bell. Unbefitting of him, just like the color red and false flattery. 

“It isn’t?” he asks, keeping his voice deceptively playful. “I wore it for you. Since you invited me, I thought it appropriate that we match. I heard of your success in Yokohama. I should congratulate you on your new promotion. Or perhaps extend my condolences for the death of your father? Are condolences still proper when you were the one to drive the knife into his back?”

It’s a dig, an attempt to get under your skin and throw you off before getting into the meat of the conversation. You can feel his eyes on you, the soft playfulness gone and replaced by a sharpness that has you on edge.

“You said it yourself. One life or thousands.”

“It was a bullet to the head,” you correct idly—the words taste like poison on your tongue, but you’re careful to not let it show on your face. “Condolences are unnecessary. He was not my father.”

“It’s okay, dear, this was how it was always meant to be.”

“Hm,” Dostoevsky hums, amused. “I was quite pleased when I found out about the coup. I wasn’t expecting it.”

He wants to add something else but he decides against it. He’s very calculating with his words, he always has been, but he is especially now. You know that each word he speaks is chosen for a specific purpose, and it’s hard, even for you, to break down each one as he speaks it to understand why he says it so you can choose your own words carefully in return. Fyodor Dostoevsky is the only man capable of consistently beating you in exchanges of words, and that is concerning. 

It’s why you invited him here—you need an idea of what he’s planning while you solidify your newfound position.

“It seems you struggle to expect many things I do,” you note. “I should add it to my resume. I doubt many people are capable of repeatedly surprising Fyodor Dostoevsky.”

“It is true,” he agrees with an airy laugh. “You are a… difficult opponent. I will admit it.”

 “Is that so?”

Dostoevsky makes a soft noise of agreement, lashes fluttering as he glances over at you once before he looks back down at the show taking place down on the stage. 

“You are not guided strictly by logic,” he muses. “It's there, of course, you are very intelligent but it’s laced with so many emotions. It is difficult for me to determine your course of action because I can never predict when you will lead with emotion, and when with logic. And even then, there are grades to it. I could account for dozens of plans of action and miss the one you take because you are just a bit less emotional than I anticipated… I did not predict that you would go for Zelda Fitzgerald, it was quite bold—there was a high risk for failure. You make things… much more interesting. I enjoy it.”

“You would find something like that enjoyable,” you say sarcastically, taking a sip of your champagne. “There is something seriously wrong with you, Dostoevsky.”

“Fyodor,” he corrects again with a light smile. 

“Dostoevsky.”

“Heh,” he laughs quietly. “I will… wait for things to settle before making another move here in Yokohama. I’m curious to see how all of the chips fall on their own. You’re in for quite the storm with that bill that just passed through the Diet, aren’t you?”

You don’t respond. You got the answer you needed, so there’s no reason for you to keep entertaining his snide comments; you’ll just watch the show in peace. You’ll have the bit of time you need to get things settled before Dostoevsky makes his next play. Though the man is a compulsive liar and you have no reason to trust him, Dostoevsky has never lied so blatantly to your face, so you’ll take him at his word until you have reason to believe otherwise. 

Dostoevsky takes your silence as an opportunity to continue talking, naturally.

“I did have a question for though,” he says, a bit too thrilled by the prospect of your answer. You don’t like the way his eyes are lit up, and you especially don’t like the smile on his lips. “Entertain me?”

You raise your eyebrows pointedly, waiting for him to ask it. 

“I heard rumors that the reason behind your sudden decision to overthrow your father was more… intimate than most believe,” Dostoevsky murmurs, leaning like he’s sharing in some schoolgirl gossip with an old friend. Your brows furrow as you process his words. “You must tell me what boy has managed to steal your heart. He must be something special. Not even I was capable of that, I’m almost jealous.”

You look at him now, gaze sharp but confused as your eyes trail over him before focusing back on his face. He seems surprised by your reaction, tilting his head to the side and studying you carefully.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

--

to be continued in ... the land is inhospitable (but are we?) [est. release: early feb]

--

WOWWWWWW GUYS WE FUCKING FINISHED CIVZAI .... or well, ;) civzai1. some notes:

i promised a happy ending, i know ... but i promised it for civzai in general, and they DO have a happy ending ... just not yet. pls dont bully me ill cry i'm so proud of this. i didn't lie.

i always intended on there being two parts to this series because i feel like time apart is essential in the pmreader universe. when dazai defected in canon universe, and now with her taking over as boss and wiping her memories of him. the first part was always gonna be the guild arc, the second arc is gonna be my rendition of the hunting dogs and the decay of the angel

this is the ONLY universe where pmreader becomes port mafia boss ;) i actually had it noted that there was only one universe on the background page in wykyk once i started writing wasteland, baby but no one caught it ;) i was wondering if anyone would put two and two together

i actually went back and retconned chapter 1 to have them talking about the divine comedy instead of petrarch because of the first scene in this chapter. i thought it would be neat coming full circle with the themes of betrayal and death, + the hozier song this chapter is based on is about the 9th circle in the divine comedy. so everything just tied together too neatly for me to not add it.

;) just remember now with repin involved, reader's narration is now entirely unreliable. we don't know what's truth and manufactured by repin.

i was actually really tempted to base civzai2 off of a mother mother album just because hayloft II fits what's going to be the first half of it SO fucking well, but i had to go with mitski because the whole album literally captures the vibes of the second series perfectly

[tiger333k]

there are a lot of people complaining about Arcane season 2, and yes, I get it, it is a bit rushed at times and it would do well if they did a little extra explaining on some parts but honestly it feels like people are just nitpicking sometimes

example: just saw a video about someone complaining about ep7 about Powder and Ekko getting together, and just, wtf??? yes, I know it's because of Ekko's tip that vi died and I know the characters should've it weird when Ekko woke up and just started pointing about things in the past that they really don't want to be reminded of... but if you found this a problem you really didn't watch the show. the main theme about this alternate universe is forgiveness, powder forgave Ekko (though tbh, it was really Vi's plan to go rob someone the whole time), vander and silco forgave each other etc etc. alt Ekko was slaving away at this project when Ekko (firelight) got thrust into his body. powder said it herself, genius and insanity go hand in hand, Ekko saying random things like this probably wasn't even a surprise. also saw a thumbnail where Ekko and powder were kissing and they put 'cheating' beside the image. hopefully I won't have to explain how stupid this is.

Ekko didnt just kiss powder and go 'I can fix jinx'. he doesn't want to change jinx into powder, he even admits that jinx has something good that powder doesn't, jinx's ideas can change the world. what Ekko learned from the alt universe and powder is forgiveness, to look at the past and move forward, leaving a few things behind, leaving behind hate, anger, for the present, for the future. he learned to forgive jinx, so they could build something new.

also adding the fact that it wasn't vi's death that changed everything, it was the act of a child, the fact that someone had been killed that points out how dangerous hextech is, and that's why it was never developed.

personal opinion here, I don't think it was just the death and the letter that changed everything, I think it was little details leading up to the moment silco forgave vander, the moment everything went right. it wasn't one spontaneous event that changed it. we don't know what happened in the alt universe, we don't know if the fight went differently, or if slico had done anything different... maybe he never developed shimmer, maybe he wasn't so set on revenge. we don't know, so maybe don't jump to conclusions so quickly?

another point: jinx didn't just magically lose her trauma because of Isha, dunno what you guys were thinking.

jinx in season one had obvious mental issues, and we always see her drowning out the noise with blaring music. the reason why she was like that was because of her internal conflict, of powder and jinx clashing. jinx was trying to forget the past, and powder was the one that kept remembering it. powder was the one that kept trying to insist it wasn't her fault. powder was the one that held on to everything, and jinx hated powder. and in S1E9 we see her let powder die.

she accepts that she is a jinx to people she loves. the voices stop calling her a jinx, because she already knows this. she accepts this. jinx ruin everything. jinx is a curse. it isn't a case where some kid comes in and changes everything, jinx isn't healed in season 2, she just accepts that she is a catastrophe.

the only thing Isha changes is that jinx learns to love powder through Isha, and maybe even lets a bit of powder come back through. and that's why, when Isha is thrown into Stillwater, the voices come back before jinx takes control again.

three: Caitlyn was done dirty, her entire character was ooc

no it was not. you just saw it through a different lens and decided you didn't like it.

like it or not, Cait has always been privileged. she goes where she wants, does what she likes because she has the kirramman family name to protect her. Marcus says it himself in S1, we just chose to ignore it because that's when cait was doing what we thought was right, investigating and helping Vi, although she was not an enforcer, had no right to be there, we liked it because, well, because we hate Marcus, and she was actually doing something right back then

till season 2, where she gasses Zaun, goes all hitler, and... acts exactly how she acted in S1. she does what she wants, goes where she likes, to achieve one thing: get revenge on jinx.

cait has never lost a parent, she has never learned to cope with such a loss, so she reacts in a wrong way, reacts so drastically that we feel is out of character, its not. we merely see her previous traits painted in a different light and y'all decided you hate it.

I could go on forever honestly, but these three points got on my nerves the most, so I decided to say something about it. there.

this is way too long, my god.

[lost-in-fandoms]

Winter Warmers day 19: Holiday magic. Maxiel, hurt/comfort. About 1k. (yes I know I am a couple days late. yes I also know they saw each other for padel, just...ignore it.)

When Daniel goes to bed, he's in Perth. He is in his bed, with his blankets, his white noise machine, his podcast, and his loneliness. He is a little too sad and a little too warm, thinking about all the ways his life has changed, is still changing. Thinking about the messages he has been ignoring, the calls he hasn't picked up.

When Daniel wakes up, none of those things are true.

When Daniel wakes up, he is in a different bed, just a light blanket covering him, with the distant sound of traffic filtering in through the windows, city lights slicing the shadows through the half closed curtains. He is a little confused, but comfortably warm.

And there are arms wrapped around his waist.

It's that really that makes him freeze, breath stuttering in his chest. Sometimes, with all the traveling, he does end up forgetting where he fell asleep. And even if he never got quite this confused, it wouldn't be too weird to be in an unfamiliar room, but there hasn't been anyone in his bed for weeks, so Daniel is pretty sure he would remember that.

Especially because whoever is spooning him is almost certainly male, broad chest pressed against his back, the slightest scratch of a scruffy beard against his neck.

He doesn't know what's happening. He doesn't know where he is, who he's with, and his heart rate is steadily picking up when whoever is holding him sighs, tugging him closer.

"Are you awake?"

And oh. Daniel knows this voice. Daniel knows the rasp of it, deeper with sleep.

But how in the hell did he end up in Max's bed?

"Stop panicking, Daniel, everything is of course fine," Max murmurs, moving his head to nuzzle his shoulder, one of his hands rubbing gentle circles on his hip.

Like this is normal. Like this is something they do, wake up together, in Max's bed. When Daniel was just in Perth, had not answered Max's calls in weeks, and the last time they had seen each other Daniel had gotten tears and snot all over Max's team kit, sweaty in the Singapore heat.

He tries to breathe, tries to will his heart to slow down, but all he manages is a small, breathless whine, as a shudder travels down his spine.

He feels untethered, shaken and lost, emotions mixing and bubbling over, threatening to spill, making a mess, like everything else in his life.

"Daniel, hey, no."

Concern drips from Max's words, and Daniel lets himself be turned around and tucked into his chest, hiding his face into Max's shirt. Lets Max breathe deep and exaggerated, trying to get Daniel to copy him. Lets Max murmur in his ear, careful and tender, almost the same tone of voice he uses for when his cats are spooked.

"I'm sorry," Max says, contrite, when Daniel's breathing is back to almost normal, even if he's still hiding into Max's chest. "I should have probably given you more space."

Maybe the reasonable answer to that would be a nod, since it was pretty confusing and scary to wake up in Max's arms, but at the mention of space all Daniel can do is tangle his fingers harder into Max's shirt, pressing closer.

He doesn't know how he's here, doesn't know what kind of miracle teleported him from his sad and lonely bed to Max's hug, doesn't know if he even deserves to be here, after avoiding him for so long, but now that he is here, he doesn't want any fucking space. Now that he's being held, talked to so softly, he realises how stupid he'd been, to shut everyone one like this, especially Max.

Max, who had been by his side on the worst weekend of his life. Max who had called, over and over, trying to stay inside of Daniel's walls, instead of being shut out. Max, who apparently held no grudges for all of it, taking care of him without questions.

He doesn't realise his breathing has picked up again until Max shushes him softly, rubbing his back with big, gentle hands.

"It's okay, you are okay, I am here now. You are here now."

"What happened?" Daniel finds himself ask, half choked, muffled by his unwillingness to move away.

Max's hands stutter on his back for a second as he shrugs, almost dislodging Daniel from his position.

"I am not sure. You appeared in my bed, and you did not even wake up. And you looked very tired, so of course I didn't wake you. I think..." Max pauses, uncertain, but then carries on. Never one to not go for the gap. "I think maybe I was thinking very hard about you, and you maybe needed to be here. Or not there."

As if the universe would be that simple. Daniel needed Max, so Daniel was with Max.

Daniel knows nothing worked that way. You don't get everything you need just because you want it, and you don't get everything you want because you need it.

And yet, here he is. Where he needs and wants to be, despite denying it for so long.

"Christmas magic," he says, forcing a rough chuckle out, feeling Max laugh a little with him.

"Yes," he agrees, as if Daniel hadn't been joking, trying to build up at least some of the fragile walls that Max had knocked down so easily, just with a hug.

"I think we should go back to sleep," Max adds after a while, still rubbing Daniel's back, "and then tomorrow I can lend you my plane, or we can talk about why you are sad."

Daniel flinches, still surprised, even after all these years, by Max's ability to cut straight to the core of things, no nice words to beat around the bush.

"I'm not..." he starts, but Max cuts him off, making his mouth snap shut.

"Don't lie to me, Daniel."

His voice is still warm but there's steel behind it, an order Daniel doesn't want to defy. So Daniel doesn't.

He doesn't know what time it is, how much he's already slept, but he's still tired, and he's comfortable and warm in a way he hasn't been in forever.

And Max knows him, and Max has got him, and Max won't leave.

So Daniel closes his eyes and goes back to sleep.

[babybearnation]

cause i've got a soft spot (i've got it for you)

⎇paul aron x m!team boss!reader - you don't play favourites, but with paul... (smau) ⎇author's note: my first ever non-texts post and AHHH this is so nerve-wracking omd!! pls be nice to me PLS ⎇content warnings: team boss/racer relationship, hate comments, suggestive content, implied homophobia, arguing,

Paul sighs, wiping his hands on his pants for the umpteenth time. His leg bounces restlessly and he's rather glad he got here after Arthur had already gone into the room to meet Y/n otherwise he's sure he would've annoyed his future teammate before the season could even start.

Paul's about to stand up and start pacing when the door clicks and swings open, Arthur walking out first. Paul watches as Arthur and Y/n exchange farewells before standing up and smiling when Y/n beckons him into the room.

"Paul, hi. Come on in." Y/n says. Paul crosses to the room, smiling as he enters the vast area. He's vaguely aware of the many thoughts he's having about Y/n and how young he is and how insanely attractive he is, but he's pushing them all down.

Professionalism, Paul, come on!

"So, welcome to the team." Y/n says as he sits down, folding his hands atop the desk as he smiles warmly at Paul. Paul finds himself flushing lightly, warmth lighting up his body.

"It's great to be here. Thank you for giving me this opportunity." Paul says, his words feeling thick and heavy on his tongue. Thank you doesn't feel good enough, but his English is clunky and he doesn't want to make a fool out of himself.

"Your post-season test with Alpine showed fantastic potential and we have the finances to invest in more... how shall I put this?" Y/n trails off, tapping his chin before shrugging. "More risky decisions, shall we say."

"Right." Paul says, an embarrassment flushing throughout his system. Do they really think he's gonna be that bad?

"Not that that's a reflection on you or Arthur, of course. I have my confidence firmly placed in both of your hands. But, well, you know how fans and higher ups can be." Y/n says, laughing softly. Paul latches onto the sound instantly, something flickering to life in his gut.

"I totally understand what you mean. Thank you for your confidence. I hope my performance can please you, Mr. Y/l/n." Paul says, all the drilled-in media training entwining with the words that drip from his tongue.

"Please, Paul, call me Y/n. I don't want this to feel like a job to you, but rather a family." Y/n smiles again and Paul finds himself naturally smiling back, all his previous nerves and professionalism replaced with a twisted sense of desire. "Now, about this family thing. Let's go get some lunch with the rest of the staff, shall we? I'm quite famished."

Paul thinks he might like it here.

liked by arthur_leclerc, cbaceracing, and 62,880 others

paularon_ Thank you to @/cbaceracing for signing me on as one of their 2025 drivers. I hope everyone is excited to see me on the grid next year. (And thank you @/aronralf for the silly cake).

comments

user1 let's go, paul on the f1 gridddddd

cbaceracing It's gotta be a good year when you've got Paul Aron on your team, huh @/hitechgp 😉 ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎ liked by paularon_ hitechgp Can't disagree with that, can we? 😉 liked by paularon_

user2 This is fucking insane, I'm so happy right now.

arthur_leclerc I look forward to racing with you next year, mate. liked by paularon_

user3 Arthur's gonna fucking run your shit into the dirt. You're awful. user1 ew, who asked you? user2 Jealousy gets you nowhere, mate 🙄

aronralf That cake was delicious, I think we can both agree. liked by paularon_ paularon_ Remind me who ate most of it again?

Y/n sighs, pacing back and forth as he drags his fingers through his hair. He probably shouldn't dishevel his appearance too much lest he come off as unprofessional or unattractive, but it's been his bad habit for years, so bad habit it shall remain.

His fingers drift down to his tie and he's just about to tug it loose and retie it when there's a knock at the door. He crosses over instantly, tugging it open with far too much excitement, smiling breathlessly when he spots Paul on the other side.

"Hello, come on in." Y/n says, stepping to one side to let Paul through. Paul greets him softly and enters the room, sitting in the chair closest to Y/n's one. Y/n's heart most resolutely does not flutter.

"What's happening? Is everything alright? You look like a mess, to be honest." Paul says. Y/n huffs out a laugh as he leans against the desk, gazing down at Paul.

"Something is plaguing me." Y/n says, wincing when a headache decides to form behind his eyelids. Why right now? When he looks at Paul again, the younger man has a troubled expression on his face.

"Is everything okay with the team?" Paul asks. Y/n wants to laugh. Paul's devotion to the team is already showing and Y/n hasn't even had to do anything to make it happen! It's adorable, it really is.

"Yes, yes, all good. It's more myself." Y/n says. The headache throbs and he reaches over the desk, snatching up his water bottle and drinking a greedy mouthful. A stray droplet trickles down his cheek and he wipes it away with a calculated finger.

"So what's wrong? Is there any way I can help? I mean... you must've called me here for a reason, right?" Paul says, as observant as ever. Y/n smiles softly at him.

"I was wondering if you'd like to go on a date with me." Y/n says, puffing his chest out in triumph. He did it, he said it, now hopefully he's not going to get rejected.

"I- is that not inappropriate? Won't people claim you favour me?" Paul sputters, his cheeks a delicate pink.

"I've held feelings for you for a while. No favouring claims have come out, have they?" Y/n says. He's practically baring the very depths of his soul to Paul right now, an embarrassing hue of red surely filling his face and trickling down his neck.

"That's true..." Paul says, looking away from Y/n's gaze. Y/n smiles and leans down, capturing one of Paul's hands in his own.

"You can say no. I won't react negatively, I promise." Y/n says. Paul nods stiltedly before smiling up at him.

"I'd love to go on a date with you, Y/n."

Every single member of staff who currently fill both Paul and Arthur's garages come pouring out as Paul crosses the line to start his final lap, Arthur hot on his tail. They cram along the fences and the walls around CB Ace Racing's pitbox as Y/n smiles at the screens in front of him.

A 1-2 finish. Every team boss's dream. Every team's dream. Whilst Arthur would surely wish he had finished first, Y/n knew he wouldn't hold that grudge and would celebrate just as hard, if not harder, than Paul would tonight.

One last corner. One last straight. One last bit.

"Paul Aron, you are the winner of the Silverstone Grand Prix!" Cheers and thunderous applause rise up throughout the pitlane as CB Ace staff pound the fences and hoot and holler in excitement over their hard work finally paying off. Paul's white and purple car continues on around the circuit as his radio crackles to life.

"We did it! I did it for you, CB Ace Racing! I did it for you, Callum! I did it for you, Y/n!" You smile as Paul thanks everyone, the tears that are probably soaking into the material of his balaclava audible through his voice.

"You did it, Paul. You did it." Y/n says, proud and triumphant. He listens to Arthur's radio and congratulates him as well before pulling his headphones off and slowly following the rest of his team over to parc fermé.

As he goes, Y/n thinks to himself about how big this was for them. A rookie team. Two rookie drivers. Hundreds of points and a handful of podiums under their belt. And now a win. It was a dream come true as well as a big fuck you to everyone who had doubted them.

Y/n lines up front and centre as he watches Paul pull into parc fermé, the white and purple of his car sparkling and practically iridescent under the British sun. Arthur's car comes next but Y/n isn't able to stare for long, Paul clambering out of his car seconds later.

Paul stands atop his car and cheers, all the mechanics and staff around Y/n cheering along too. Y/n claps, slowly and patiently, as he waits for Paul to get weighed. Before long, his helmet has been discarded and he starts running over.

Straight to Y/n.

"I did it!" Paul says as he all but collapses in Y/n's arms. Y/n holds him close, offering his hand to Arthur when the other man appears moments later. He rolls his eyes fondly at Paul and Y/n before moving over to congratulate the rest of the staff.

The interviews and the cool down room waiting period passed so quickly Y/n was almost sure he imagined them. Before long, however, he stands in a crowd of thousands, eyes fixed on his two drivers. On his boyfriend. On his staff. On the legacy they've created in only their first year. And there's still more to come.

As the Estonian and British national anthems fill the Silverstone circuit in rapid succession, Y/n feels ecstatic.

Paul knocks against the doorframe. Arthur's driver's room door is open, but Paul doesn't want to just barge in without getting some sort of consent.

"Paul! Come on in." Arthur says, looking up from his phone with a soft smile. Paul smiles in return and slowly enters the room, kicking the door shut behind him.

"Can we talk?"

"Of course." Arthur says, locking his phone and placing it to one side, all his attention fixed solely on Paul. It's a bit daunting. "What is up?"

"You know me and Y/n are dating right?" Paul says, watching as Arthur's eyes widen almost comically in shock. "That's a no then."

"No clue." Arthur clarifies, laughing softly. A small amount of tension bleeds from the atmosphere at that and Paul finds himself relaxing somewhat.

"Well we are and um, do you think it seems like he favours me?" Paul asks, wringing his hands together. The question was out there now, simmering in the air between them. Arthur hmm's, causing Paul to look up and meet his eyes.

"No, not at all. You two seem closer, but I've never felt like you were prioritised over me." Arthur says, shrugging with a wonky expression on his face.

"Oh thank god. I was so worried someone would think that was the case. People are already getting suspicious about us on Twitter." Paul says, all the tension seeping from his shoulders, allowing him to practically melt against the wall behind him.

"Ah, Twitter rumours. The place of all good F1 commentary." Arthur snarks, both of them laughing at the idiocy of his words.

"That's an understatement."

liked by paularon_, arthur_leclerc and 20,072 others

y/n.cbace Sorry everyone, but this one's mine. (Bonus Arthur with Paul at the end I guess? 🙄)

tagged paularon_, arthur_leclerc

comments

paularon_ Love you, kallikene 🤍 liked by y/n.cbace y/n.cbace Love you more 😘

arthur_leclerc What's that supposed to mean 😐 liked by y/n.cbace y/n.cbace Nothingggg! I love you equally, just in different ways! arthur_leclerc Uh-huh, sure 😒 liked by y/n.cbace

neonpinkleds I TOLD Y'ALL MOTHERFUCKERS !!!!

user3 Eugh, the only reason you got the seat is because you're fucking the team principal. user1 Just say you're jealous you're not getting your dick wet🙄 liked by y/n.cbace

© all rights to babybearnation 2024.

[boringsickness]

One thing I can't get out of my mind is Bernard knowing how to play a piano.

His parents always tried to be accepted by a lot of upper classes so they insisted that playing one of those instruments was an absolute requirement. Bernard was forced to learn from age 4 to age 16 where he actually started to ribelle more with his parents.

Even if he doesn't play anymore, he does have the skills still; he even liked it, if only his parents were less oppressive about the topic and perfection and whatever else they wanted from him.

So, one of the first times Bernard was invited to the manor he felt overwhelmed. He was being introduced as Tim's official boyfriend and was about to meet the whole family, he needed to excuse himself for a moment before actually being ready to sit properly down for dinner.

He stumbled into the piano by coincidence and felt the pull towards it. He looked around, making sure not to attract too much attention, before crossing the room and pressing on the keys absently.

He almost forgot what it was like playing it; it always made him feel calm, making all the other things quiet down as if they were listening to the song, too.

Closing his eyes, he played one of his favourite songs by heart. Fingers moving flawlessly, almost as if they were a simple tool to the music itself. He let out a soft breath, head swinging softly.

He didn't even notice the feet stepping inside the room or his own boyfriend leaning on the side of the instrument, a deeply enamoured expression on.

He opened his eyes once the song was finished and took a step back, startled.

"Tim?" But he heard a clap too and turned toward the sound, red colouring his cheeks.

"Mr. Wayne," he cleared his throat, uncomfortable "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to stumble here or play. I felt its call? Which is weird, I understand, but I was really nervous and when I'm nervous I say a lot of stuff and my mouth doesn't stop moving."

He closed it, aware of the sudden yap session. He put his head down, stealing a glance to the side where his boyfriend was still looking all mushy at him.

"no need, Bernard. You're very talented."

And Bernard didn't particularly care to member the rest of the night expect, maybe, to the kiss he and Tim shared in that room. Tim leaning on the piano, Bernard fingers stopping at the end of the song and face tilted up from his spot on the chair.

The notes still vibrating and dispensing in the room, the clear and pure love wrapping around them like a bubble .

[xxgoldie]

Hyewwo, if you don't mind.. 👉👈

I, U, and X for Lighter? 🥺 Thank you so much for what you do!

main event page - event masterlist

I: Injury - how do they act when you get hurt? No matter the severity of the injury, Lighter worries about you. Something bad happenning to you is like his worst nightmare, so his eyes instinctively fly to you in a panic every time you make any sound of pain, even if it's just a papercut or stubbed toe. If you get seriously injured, though, he's an absolute wreck. He wants so badly to protect you and make sure you're okay, but seeing you in so much pain and covered in your own blood has him losing it, the closest he's getting to helping is half-begging half-threatening anyone with medical training to Do Something. He hates hospitals, but he won't leave your side until you're okay, even if you end up in one. Won't even let himself sleep until your condition is stable. And as your recovering and sent home, you'll have a 24/7 assistant and guard until you're back to tiptop shape, that brief taste of losing you has him extra protective, even permanently.

U: Upset - how would they comfort you if you're upset? Lighter is a practical man - he's great if you're frustrated about something and need to vent since he'll analyse all the details with you, picking apart the situation and helping you to decide the next course of action. But that's not the most helpful response when the feelings are more fresh, and he understands that. He doesn't really know what to do with himself if you cry in front of him - he hates to see you so upset and he rarely knows what to say to make you feel better. Instead, he'll opt to just hold you, pressing soft kisses into your hair and mutter soft reassurances, little "I'm here"s and "you're okay"s. As you start recovering, his mission becomes to make you laugh, whether it takes a corny joke or a tickle attack with kisses pressed all over your face, distracting you until you're ready to talk through whatever upset you.

X: X-Ray - how easily can they read their partner? how easy are they to read? Lighter is really perceptive - he's really good at reading people in general, so he sees through you so easily with how much time you spend together. He can always tell if there's something bothering you, or if you're particularly attracted to something he does. The first he uses for good, coaxing you to talk about it or getting you a treat to cheer you up before you even tell him something's wrong. He'll find solutions you didn't know existed to problems you barely have, and all you have to do is make one slightly frustrated sigh. The latter he uses for pure evil, he's an absolute menace, showing off the things he knows you like. No matter how cool you try to play it, he can Tell he's affecting you, its lowkey infuriating how proud of himself he looks. When it comes to reading him, its a bit tougher. He's pretty good at hiding and repressing his thoughts when he wants to, not letting them show on his face. Besides, his sunglasses make it a bit harder to read his expressions. But with you, he doesn't hide his thoughts that often, especially in private, and you can pretty easily tell exactly what he's feeling just from his face. Between that and how easily he reads you, you can probably have whole conversations with him just using facial expressions

[boofeine]

Heyyyy I really love your writing and I think it fits the members very well

I am not sure if you do these types of request but are you okay with writing headcanons on Jeonghan's personality? Like just his personality in general? Are you okay with adding some spicy (I didn't know which other word I was supposed to use) ones at the end? How would he be like? I am a very weird person and I love analysing people's personality and jeonghan happens to be my main interest these days lol. You can do it through tarot if you want!! You of course know better than me lol and I am completely alright if you don't wanna do my request. I will still love you lol

helloo!! u r def not weird at all!! as a psychology major bb i also love analyzing ppl :)))) — i won't work with tarot for now bc next year im planning on open requests just for it. one more thing I've done tarot in their persona in bed over here !

Jh's personality – headcanons

WARNINGS: mdni under the cut, descriptive and mention of sexual subjects

jeonghan gives me best friends vibes... he looks calm, almost indifferent, but he just looks like he loves to peep with you, to talk for hours and go grab meals together. he reminds me of family.

you know his lives just eating, joking around and talking... that's exactly how he is with his friends. obviously, he's more reserved because it's with us, but i feel he is all out with his friends. that one friend that literally doesn't know when to stop the teasing and goes overboard, but it's funny nonetheless... especially when he's drunk.

prefers to do meetings at his home with homemade barbecue and beverages. or going to a restaurant with his close friends. not the club type 100%. he likes the introspective meetings.

cocky and flirty for fun :/

so so so so caring!!!!!! the type of person you'd choose to say your deepest secrets and ask advice. hears you closely, gives you comfort, and tries to help you how he can. he will even make sure to check up on you for the next days, make a joke or two to light up your mood.

he's love language is probably acts of service.

don't ever pick up a fight with jeonghan... he's that type of scary that nothing bothers him until it does. his words get assertive, and he's not afraid of saying what he has to.

something makes me believe jeonghan is protective with his friends. he will speak up if he's in a situation that makes any of his friends or anyone really uncomfortable. when there's something you tell him, he not necessarily picks a fight but encourages you to do what you should, would that be cut someone toxic from your life or doing what you want.

Spicy Thoughts

kinky!!!! KINKYYY!!! he will be honest with his wantings and desires with you, you will know what he wants to try, and he's hoping you're wanting too. communicative as hell, we love it.

jeonghan isn't quiet. man trying to contain himself?? not him!! he moans, groans, dirty talk, grunts, the whole package bb. you're making him feel good, and he wants you to know.

a switch and open for anything.

sex drive high and horny. when i say he's open for anything, i mean it... he's up for anything!! will not always be penetrative sex, you want to get on your knees and suck him, fine, let's do it. want to make out, grind and cum on your panties, he's up to. just finger you and make you cum on his tongue, okay... let's do that.

not the type to enjoy lazy or slow sexy, he likes raw, sweaty, and nasty sex.

im sorry, but i do believe he'd go to strip clubs. i feel like sex is a need for him, like a healthy need, you know what i mean? so if he's not with someone, he'd would satisfy that paying for it.

a tease, baby!!! prepare yourself for overstimulation, sensory play, and orgasm denial. he's up to make you cum many times 🙂‍↕️ you're getting sore and sensitive next morning.

jeonghan is not aggressive. he's ok with accessories, handcuffs, blindfolds, anything, he's just not causing you any physical pain.

[red-doll-face]

You're much younger than Arthur. Maybe he doesn't mind as much as he thinks he does...

Low-High Honor Arthur Morgan x fem. reader who is younger than him.

Some head canons that ended up way too long 😭😔 hope you don't mind too much! I am 23 currently so these are really in the mind of reader being over 18 at least. At 23, Arthur is still way older than me so I guess it's just what does it for me! Includes both high and low honor versions. Thanks for reading!! and please let me know if you like them 😭

Warnings: NSFW 18+ only pls, Daddy Kink, Innocence Kink, Corruption Kink, nasty boy low honor arthur being toxic and manipulative (not too badly tho) its ok sweetie arthur is here to balance it out 😳💖💓🥹😳😭

:High Honor:

He had convinced himself that he was way too old for you and quite honestly shut that shit down the second he found his mind wandering to how pretty you were, your own natural beauty catching his eye. He can think you’re sweet and nice, that you understand him and go out of your way to talk to him. Doesn’t matter, he mentally smacks himself for thinking of you past anything like “mentor” or something. He might steal a glance once in a while but he feels bad about it every time. It’s just that, stolen, because in his mind, you don’t belong to him and you never will. He’s more than 10 years your senior, it makes him feel like a dirty old man. Arthur has a strange conflicted energy around you, like he wants to spend time with you but also doesn’t want to come off as creepy or too attached to something that can never be. If you make efforts to be around him, he does appreciate it and will stick around but he always cuts it sort of short. 

Will subtly try to remind himself how young you are, referring to you as girl or kid to others or even to you. He has no idea you think that’s kinda hot. Will jokingly say you’re too young for certain things and thinks it’s cute if you pout and try to fight back against him. Holds alcohol out of your reach and clicks his tongue at you. When you point out the other young women in camp, he’s giving in but only a little, he still watches out for you. He’s protective in the sense that he does see you as someone who needs protecting. He can lie and say it's because of your age but really he just likes you and doesn’t want to admit it.

Anytime you try to get him to understand that you think of him as more than a vague father or brother figure, he’s missing the signs, straight over his head. Light jabs at his age, like calling him Mr. Morgan; make him roll his eyes a little bit but you can catch an endeared smile on his face. Truly a bit hard headed when it comes to noticing that you tease him with more than poking fun in mind. You have to find reasons to touch or kiss him on the cheek. He still might miss physical signs, real dumb dumb behavior. It’s impossible in his head that you would think of him like that. 

If you can get him to open up, having emotionally charged conversations with him is a good way to get him to understand that you care about him at least. Arthur just likes to feel like you’re listening and that you like him enough to care about his thoughts and feelings. If you offer comfort to him in hard times, he’s lowkey simping for you…He can be very closed off, not all too willing to share his truths, especially with someone who may not even understand but if he can be himself around you and you don’t judge, he can forget his feelings about your youth for a moment. 

It’s hard for him to initiate because he’s convinced that if anything were to happen between the both of you, it would be wrong or perverse in some way. If you tell him you like him, he might try to tell you otherwise, trying to get you to think differently of him. Suggests you find someone closer to your age or someone who hasn’t led a life like he has. It’s all really sad because he’s also insinuating that he’ll ruin your life in some way. 

The first time he kisses you will be way too gentle, you’ll hardly call it a kiss. He thinks of himself as too rough for you so he holds back like 99% in an attempt to seem more like a gentleman. It takes you grabbing onto him and deepening your kiss for him to give you more. He’s gentle, hands on your cheeks, holding you like you’ll break if he squeezes too hard. 

Expect a whole lot of “this ain’t right,” or “I’m too damn old for this,” at first. But once you get him to give in, there’s no going back. He gives you his all, no matter what. He does get a bit bashful making things official, especially when there's something to be said about it. John calling him something terrible for being with you like cradle robber or something puts a sour look on his face but he tries his best to power through it. “She ain’t a goddamn baby,” “She might as well be, how old are you again? Or did you lose count?” “Shut the hell up, John.” Hugs and kisses from you definitely make it worth it. He gets a bit used to it, letting things like that stop affecting him so much. 

He thinks he doesn’t deserve you and some small part of him will always believe that you could still be better off with someone else but he gets greedier and greedier with you, the more you love on him, he doesn't want to even think of you with anyone else. He's still so confused that you think he is attractive at his age. He’ll show you pictures of him when he was young and he sort of expects you to say that he was more appealing back then. But you don’t; you just pet his face, his scratchy beard and his sun kissed skin. Arthur lets you see his soft smile when you say you love him right now, more than anything. 

Taking your firsts might put a weird (not bad though) taste in his mouth. First kisses or virginity, he’s nervous he’ll come up short and not be what you're expecting. But his best is more than enough to make you happy. He wants to make your first experiences feel special and memorable, the last thing he wants is to put pressure on you, he just puts way too much pressure on himself. He ends up being just a little too gentle. He needs a lot of praise, a lot of egging on to get more confident. If you beg and plead for more, he can’t say no, he always gives you what you want. Getting him to be more “out there” is a little more difficult. He’s embarrassed to admit he might like when you playfully call him daddy or your old man. The guilt kind of turns him on but he has a hard time coming to terms with that. At his own pace, he’ll indulge more if you’re into it. You’re crossing some weird wires in his head, he swears. If you say it to him in the right context, he’s giving you a shocked look and a halfhearted scolding as he tries not to get turned on in the middle of what he’s doing. “You’re gonna be the death of me, girl,” makes you giggle at him. 

:Low Honor:

He might also be somewhat against it but for different reasons. He thinks girls like you have high expectations and it annoys him. But if he thinks you’re pretty that’s what he thinks. He doesn't let anybody get too close so if he’s thinking about you as more, your age is not something that stops him from doing so. It does just take him some time to think about letting you close enough for anything more than his usual rude demeanor and standoffish personality. 

The only way he'll know he likes you as a bit more than another thankless and ungrateful face in the crowd of people he begrudgingly provides for is if you thank him for bringing money or things back to camp. He gets a little quiet, trying to suss out ulterior motives but he thinks you’re quite adorable. Looks away and says it’s nothing. He’ll indulge you, doing things that are just for you, just to hear you say thank you again. 

He teases you more, emphasizing how young you are, in a way that rubs him the right way. Calling you little girl, intimidating you with his size, or keeping you away from certain things like cigarettes. “These are for grown ups, sweetheart,” If you’re a brat around him, he likes a bit of brat taming. “Dunno, might need to take you over my knee if you’re gonna act like that,” has you gasping and stuttering out a clumsy response.

It’s easy to sway him into taking things further with you. He isn’t one for hanging around the camp, so close to everyone else anyway, he likes his alone time. Catching him when he’s by himself, smoking a cigarette, is a good time to get on his nerves enough to force his hand a little bit. Stand too close to him and run your fingers over the handle of his gun and ask if you can hold it, he’s so close to snapping. The look in his eye under the shadow of his hat makes you feel 5 degrees warmer. “You better quit playin’ games with me, girl. Not sure you know what you’re askin’ for,”  Maybe not the best idea to defiantly ask him to show you.

Then you’re sat on his knee, he’s pressing his mouth into yours, sloppy kisses with no regard for whether you think it’s too much for you or not. He’s shoving his tongue into your mouth, one hand to steady you and the other groping your tits. He’s mostly trying to get you to be as noisy as possible. 

He’s really not guilty at all. Maybe a little but he doesn’t let guilt affect his actions. It may be true that maybe you could be with someone better than him but if you’re with him, you know what you’re in for. You’re his girl and there isn’t anyone else for you if he’s your man. Arthur may not admit it but in the back of his head, there is a voice that whispers to him that one day you’ll leave him behind. He overcompensates for it, doing what he can to see you smile, rather reluctantly asking if you’re happy with him once in a while. If you ask why, he’s unclear, “Jus’… makin’ sure,” your enthusiastic yes, followed by a kiss on his cheek actually flatters him a little, rubbing his neck, a quiet ‘good’ is all he has to say. 

If he gets shit for being with you, he brushes it off. He might get flack from some well meaning people, Hosea or Abigail might tell him to leave you alone, that he should know better. But he thinks they should know better too, Arthur has very little restraint. So if a young pretty thing wants to be his girl, he’s not saying no. Any notions of how guilty he should be don’t come from him. He may think he’s a sinner and a bad man but those things don’t stop him from wanting you. And Arthur always gets what he wants when he can help it. 

Arthur has never given too much thought about what women think of how he looks. He certainly doesn’t think too much of himself and knows he isn’t exactly in his prime, looks wise at the very least. He’s not too confident about his looks or his body really, he’s more confident when it comes to his abilities and skills. So if you tell him you like the way he looks, he isn’t gonna argue, just pleasantly surprised if he happens to believe you. There’s a chance he thinks you're lying. He knows there’s something perhaps a bit off with you, most girls your age don’t give him a second glance but does it stroke his ego when you stare at him, bite your lip when he grabs his belt, pulling all of your attention to the size of his hands and his crotch. 

If you’re softer about your affections for him, he’s happy to accept them too, you’re his little angel, but he has every intention to pull you down from heaven to make you his. You can start with soft touches over his face, rubbing up over his shoulders and chest but he’s quick to pull you deeper with him. His teeth nip softly at your lips, his hands roam all over you.

He's eager to take your firsts, in his twisted little head, he knows he can regulate what you think is normal. He doesn’t have to play gentle and sweet, he bites and sucks marks on you, slaps your ass pretty hard. Arthur’s happy to have himself be the man that ruins you for other men, he’s your first and your last. 

Sorry but he’s kind of toxic, he likes the way you do things like kiss him, or touch him, take him in your mouth; but sometimes he puts on a little bit of an unimpressed face, not exactly bored or anything, just enough to see you try harder to please him. He always gives in; especially when he can tell you’re trying. His proud little smirk and affection are something you might have to work for. Your inexperience is the perfect opportunity to have you eager to make him happy. 

Huge innocence kink, he loves to corrupt you, teach you about what a man does with a woman he likes. Even better if you have no clue, or you think babies come from kissing or something, god is he eager to fuck all of that up. He’s all for you calling him daddy too, the guilt or the imagery or whatever doesn’t do it for other people just makes it so much more appealing to him. Most of the time, he likes to keep your affairs private but once in a while, he’ll show out, just to show who you belong to. If people happen to overhear the racy things you two talk about and they give you a weird look, he just has a knowing smirk for the eavesdropper.

Can you tell that I think age gaps are hot? RDR let me fuck that middle aged man right neow!!! When will they let RDO be about dating Arthur Morgan??? 😔😔😔😔wish he was at least a fuckin stranger mission or something SIGHHHH anyway Thanks for reading and pls let me know if you liked it! Otherwise I'll feel like a freak LMAO

[atoriv-art]

what are your thoughts on the hyuga siblings and their relationship

OOF now thats one of my favorite naruto dynamics lmao. i think neji and hinata have a very interesting relationship and i say that as someone who really didn't (and tbh still doesn't) love how that relationship developed in canon

i really like the hyuga fight in the chunin exams because the way it's perceived is sooo interesting to me.. neji comes off as an outright bully and i don't even blame the kids for calling him an asshole after all of that, but from reader's perspective it's really obvious that his animosity only exists because of a larger issue...

neji shouldn't treat hinata the way he does, but he does so because of her unique position as a scorned heir. she still benefits from everything that makes his life awful - her life is still valued more than his - but hiashi hates her enough that he won't care if neji dishes out verbal abuse on her. it's an awful dynamic and definitely contributes to hinata's terrible self-worth, but it's a symptom of the life they have been forced into by the man who the manga is intent on letting escape all of the blame for this situation lmao

(hiashi himself can be a really fascinating case honestly. i think he fully means everything he says, which is what makes him so grating but fun to me LOL. his apology to neji is entirely sincere AND it completely misses the point of all of the issues, but neji is young and deprived of acknowledgement enough that he accepts it wholeheartedly. hiashi thinks he's the best uncle of all time.)

hinata herself has so little belief in her own worth that she just sits there and takes whatever abuse people throw at her... i don't actually think neji's anger towards her was a constant - i think some people interpret it that way - rather i feel like it was something that came up whenever he was pushed too far. in more normal circumstances where he's not being made to fight her directly, he was likely more detached than anything. he wanted nothing to do with her.

in one of the filler mini arcs ive mentioned before (i think. the one that focuses on hanabi and hinata) there's a scene that rang very true to me (and im gonna recount this without rewatching it atm so sorry if i get details wrong,): neji was being made to train with hinata, asked to be allowed to leave because he felt his time was being wasted and correctly noted that it doesn't have to be him here, was told no by hiashi and then he started getting vicious and violent. towards hinata, of course, not hiashi. he then got horribly punished for it LOL i think that's the general dynamic they were living in, neji reaches a limit of disrespect that he can take and explodes on the nearest most acceptable target (we loove a boy with no emotional regulation <3), goes too far and suffers the consequence of it while nothing else changes. to him interacting with hinata at all is just asking for pain, either emotional or straight up physical

But, for hinata, she saw herself and neji as similar (the black sheep of the family i suppose), and would have liked to bond over that fact; theyve known each other since they were very little and she outright refers to him as a brother. it's clear to me she's always cared a lot about neji and imo feels responsible for what happened to his father (something that hiashi doesn't help with. Dad of the year), so she saw their match in the exams as a chance to close the distance between them and get neji to see her as a person, an equal instead of a symbol to lash out on.

but, you know, she was 12 LMAO so she ended up pressing all of his buttons instead and it led to his famous outburst, which led to the famous moment of Every Single Jonin (other than asuma.) coming to stop him and further cementing his belief that her life is seen as special. i think (and this is a mix of Shit I Made up, and Me trying to make sense of the manga's insane mishandling of their plotline) that despite her trying her hardest to reach neji she didn't really grasp the horror of his situation. that's the tragedy of neji's life really LMAO, no one really tries to grapple with the severity of what having that curse mark does to a person. she thought of his fatalism as more of a psychological, metaphorical way of dealing with hurt and not like... "my life literally does not belong to me no matter how much i try to fight it"

this is loooooong take this readmore.

i think hiashi-hizashi were hoping that the cousins could have had a better relationship than they did... letting them hang out often and stuff, introducing them early, hizashi not discouraging neji from being friendly with her, to me it all reads as very "ok well this didn't work for Us, but what if it works out for them... even though literally nothing has changed". they were proper family once and hizashi wanted to die for his brother, not his leader, so that just makes sense to me.

i do nautttt like the naruto vs neji fight so to keep the post positive i will gloss over it <3 but hinata and neji's relationship post-chunin exams to me is peak like. God i wish this was done better because it could have been soooo good

neji realizes that his anger is consuming him and adjusts his behavior accordingly, getting a lot of his kindness back, and he becomes intent on fixing his relationship with hinata... i don't hate that premise at all, it's just the way it's executed that bothers me!

the impression i got (and i could be mistaken im in the process of rewatching the anime + rereading the manga) is that their relationship getting better is done exclusively through like. neji repenting for being mean to her. which, don't get me wrong, he SHOULD apologize (AND THAT WOULDVE BEEN A COOL THING TO SEE ONSCREEN, BTW) but you CANNOT divorce his behavior from the hyuga system in general. from the way they act after the exams you would think their issues were born solely from neji being a bully for no reason, and not, like... him lashing out on her because his uncle is literally the devil.

i don't think hinata has the power to change a lot in her clan on short notice (she did get disowned. did that un-happen offscreen? we will never know. Hiashi gets to be a grandfather to her children btw.) but i certainly would have liked to see her standing up for branch members and in the stuff i draw that's the story i have in mind LMAO. like, her gaining a deeper understanding of neji's situation and trying to work against her father trying to make her cousin's life better? i think that would have been really sweet and even show her gaining more confidence in herself and her beliefs. you can still have neji fussing over her and being protective because he feels bad for how they used to be, i actually really like that because neji IS a very sweet person, i just reject the idea that it's his sole Moral Obligation to put everything aside and make things better by the power of I Will Die For You Now, But This Time, For The Right Reasons

as for hanabi i wish she had more screentime soooo bad because i'm obsessed with how she gives off Haunted Child vibes lmfao. talking abt her requires me to expose myself a little bit and have to admit hiashi is kind of a blorbo to me because of how much he sucks ass, but like. Essentially his insane resentment of hinata was born when hizashi died, it doesnt matter it wasn't really her fault, he needed someone to blame and he would never blame himself, at least not outwardly lol. hiashi did genuinely love his brother, it just didn't stop him from being a monster to him, and he is certainly not gonna grapple with that now that he's dead!

(and, you know, the whole "sorry we sent a guy to kidnap an heir. you do need to die for killing him though" thing is really dumb but if we stop at every single stupid thing in naruto we will be here all day.)

with all that being said i think hiashi tries his best to make hanabi everything hinata isn't, and he has very little interest in having her and hinata have any bond at all. he just left neji and hinata to fester in that god-awful dynamic with no supervising, and took hanabi as the best direction for the clan to head towards. but, you know, father of the year is very demanding and doesn't seem to be very fatherly to her at all from the little we see of them. she's just like. a good soldier, and that's what he needs.

i think hanabi growing to resent her sister for the situation she's been put into (if hinata weren't 'weak' she wouldn't have so much responsibility) is very interesting! by the time we meet her i think she's learned that the best thing to do wrt her sister is to just ignore that she exists. as for neji he barely registers as a presence to her; neji has no reason to interact with her and hiashi has no reason to incentivize it. it's very fun to me!

in general i really like all of their dynamics can be used to explore how hurt and trauma drive people apart, i could talk about them for hourssss LMAO i love the suna family for the same reason!

[brucewaynehater101]

ok so this Tim's stuck in B's body

He made sure he was alone in a batcave, he knew he was alone. he didn't want to lose it, and yet, here he was. it's been too much. burying his own body. dealing with never seeing, or, at least, interacting with his friends ever again. becoming a father to his siblings, to Damian, which probably was already way too much. so he sat there. alone. going through it, because in the evening there was supposed to be a gala, and he would have to play Brucie, the role he genuinely hated.

He was alone, he didn't account for someone being there.

"Tim," Dick said softly, and it took everything from Tim to not whip around.

"He is dead, you need to accept it," he said, now grateful for Bruce's gruff voice. Hating that it sounds so deep inside of him.

"I've been around Bruce for twenty years," Dick leant on the Batcomputer table. He was in his civilian attire, "Do you really think I wouldn't notice?" there was a soft smile on his lips, and Tim felt, like he wanted to cry. He didn't.

Maybe he should keep a charade. Keep acting like he's Bruce.

"And even if I'm mistaken," he said, looking away towards the entrance to the mansion. "I"m always willing to give you a hand in case everything is too overwhelming after his death."

Tim didn't feel better, he only could go through his actions in panic, thinking what exactly set Dick off, he needed to fix it, to keep pretending he's Bruce, that's the only way.

"So if you can't deal with the whole plate, I'll help you. I'm just from Damian's teacher-parent meeting, by the way," Tim forgot, Bruce forgot, oh gosh, he forgot. "They still have my phone as their first contact," Dick huffed, like it was funny, like it wasn't a failure on Bruce's - Tim's? - part. "And I can go out as a Bat if you don't feel like it."

"You hate it though," Tim said, it wasn't something Bruce would say.

"You hate it more, baby bird," Dick said and pushed himself off the table. "If anything, I'll get ready for today's gala, I'll tell everyone you don't feel well."

Tim wanted to say something, he needed to say something, but when he turned around Dick wasn't there.

That was probably the worst time to get his hallucinations back, wasn't it.

(let's not make it that angsty and just have it as Dick actually came, but Tim dissociated for awhile, and thought Dick disappeared into the thin air)

Here's one(?) of the posts referencing this AU!

This ask focuses on the premise that Bruce and Tim switch bodies, don't tell anyone, and then Bruce dies in Tim's body forever trapping Tim in Bruce's body (while no one else knows).

This is magnificent, my friend. A beautiful addition.

I like making Tim suffer through his problems alone, but you are absolutely correct.

Out of all of the batkids, Dick *would* know Bruce best (unless it's Bruce *about* Dick). It makes perfect sense for him to notice that Bruce isn't acting like Bruce would.

There are reasons he wouldn't notice (he's busy, out of town, distracted, Tim planned for that, or Dick is grieving/spiraling), but it's more likely that Dick would notice than not.

Also, can you imagine the conversations they'd have? The debates? Is it better to let their family members know that *Tim* is inhibiting Bruce's body or to let them grieve Tim instead? Just Dick and Tim constantly fighting about what's best

[Including a very painful remark from Dick about how Tim is turning into Bruce because the younger one refuses to let anyone else know]

Anyways, this could result in Dick supporting Tim and being there for him.

On the other hand, here's some angst ideas instead:

Tim starts hallucinating more to deal with his loss of identity meaning that Dick was just a hallucination (and soon Tim starts seeing both himself and Bruce haunting him)

Dick knows that whoever is wearing his dad's face *isn't* Bruce, but he doesn't realize it's Tim (especially because Tim is "dead" and Bruce is "missing").

When Bruce dies in Tim's body, Bruce's soul returns to his body but Tim stays stuck in there as well :D

When Tim's body dies, Bruce's body starts to slowly deteriorate without Bruce's soul

I think that's enough angst for now :)

[cherrirui-official]

Friendlocke Violet Gijinkas (Part 7/7)

HOLY SHIT CHAT THE FINAL THREE WE'RE HERE WE'RE IN THE ENDGAME RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!! /POS

All gijinkas linked below (in order of canon catch order) vvv

(Part One) (Part Two) (Part Three) (Part Four) (Part Five) (Part Six)

!! These will contain personal headcanons I have for the cast, little fun facts, and also spoilers for Friendlocke Violet (for both the edited vids and the streams) !!

@saltydkart-reblogs

Designs under the cut!

COOKIE:

If you aren't born with immortality, then there are ways to take it from those who were. However, you must make sure that you don't mess up when doing so. If you do, then you better PRAY that the other party is merciful to you… whoever Cookie messed with wasn't so merciful.

Cookie has been around for at least a century. Years ago, he was cursed to age rapidly, with the only thing that can temporarily reverse his aging being the blood of other pokemon. When Peppy found him he was only a week old, take that information with what you will.

Cookie's name came from the fact that he loved to bake before he was cursed. Now he's far to busy to pick it up as a hobby again.

Luke was the one that gave Cookie his IPad as a gift, much to the dismay of Sara. He likes to watch anything he can find on there along with Puppie (though they stuff they watch is moderated of course). Cookie has never once let go of that IPad.

Cookie is very quick to learn things, but his attention span can be a little short at times. No shame in that!

Cookie has only ever had two fears: death and fires.

DA CHEFF:

Da Cheff has his very own restaurant! However it is impossible to to go there without flying... huh.

Da Cheff can speak in multiple languages, this is good for customers who don't primarily speak english.

The horns on his head can switch between horns and wings, it depends on the day.

Most of his cooking materials was made by Da Cheff himself! Of course, only the best chef needs the best cooking utensils, and only Da Cheff knows how the best utensils should be made. He won't take anything less.

Has horrible eyesight, he needs to keep his glasses on at all times, otherwise he won't be able to see at all.

Very VERY harsh when it comes to critiquing others' cooking. So harsh to the point that everyone agrees that it's best to just let Da Cheff cook for everyone rather than vice versa. Thankfully Da Cheff is more than happy to cook for his friends!

PUPPIE:

Puppie isn't computer-savy, to say the least, however she is really good when it comes to modern phones. She even has one herself!

Wears her raincoat at all times because she doesn't like getting rainwater all over her.

It is unknown why Puppie was alone when the others found her, especially when she comes from a HUGE family of bellibolts, but she doesn't seem to be too upset over that. Or rather she just doesn't dwell too much on it. Who knows?

Her ears and tail are little lights that can float around. She likes placing her ears over her raincoat hood because "she looks like a frog!"

A fan of TONS of different celebrities, from Ariana Grande to Hatsune Miku. Ask her about any of them and you WILL be forced to listen to her ramble on about said celebrity.

Her favorite move, Zap Cannon, is exactly what it says on the tin. Yup, Puppie owns a cannon (well, its more of a rocket launcher than a cannon... but whatever) and knows how to use it. Thanks Pastey.

AND WITH THAT I'M DONE!! YEAAAAH!! If ur here then thank you so much!! I put a lot of work into these so it makes me very happy to see people enjoy my funny little gijinkas for the funny pokemon rp series lol! It genuinely means a lot to me :]

This isnt the last time im posting abt friendlocke tho haha. Be on ur toes. Be ready. /silly

[astracora]

A Mandated Holiday Break - Chapter 3

Characters: Sylus x gn!mc (poly lads)

Warnings: None

Word Count: 1094

Written: 21st December 2024

Notes: Post-relationship Sylus/MC-centric but poly LADs, with my personal pov of the game and lil headcanons littered in.

Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

His arms feel lighter, colder... sluggishly opening worn eyes. The bed is empty, his hand reaches out but there's no ghost of warmth.

This has happened before. You hate to wake him up when you get up, alarm not needed because your hours as a hunter have permanently ruined your sleep patterns.

The first time, he'd felt fear grip his heart in an icy hand. Tightening, twisting and tearing. Now he just sighs into the air, turning over in his bed to look for phone. Checking there's nothing imperative that requires him, shooting off a message to the prince that you need some clothes brought over.

Your hunter uniform was beginning to resemble scrap, and he'd laid one of his shirts out for you to use until the prince could deliver more options.

Or he could buy you more... still you frowned at him when he suggested such a thing, telling him with a little laugh that you had plenty of clothes.

He hadn't yet worked out how to explain that dressing you was a satisfaction for him. Seeing you wearing things he chose, he paid for? He was still a dragon through and through. Decorating his lair and his greatest treasure.

He understood, however, that certain things you owned were picked because you liked them, found comfort in them. Safe things. So if it meant dragging the prince out here with a bag in tow, he didn't think either of them were too put out by it.

Reluctant to leave his bed, but yearning to have you close by again, Sylus pulls himself out of his nest. Flick of the hand righting his covers, and padding out in slippers and sweats.

As soon as he leaves the room, music drifts towards him, accompanied by very familiar voices, and he follows its call like you're a siren.

Even if you were, he knows he'd drown blissfully for and with you.

His kitchen is filled with the scent of sugar and bread, hitting his nose as soon as he swings open the door. The twins are sat on the kitchen counters, bobbing their heads to a song he doesn't know, and he's pretty sure they don't know either, judging by the 'do do do's' they're singing along with it.

He almost wants to complain, because they're loud enough to cover some of the notes you're singing, but you're laughing and smiling amidst the words. Cheeks dimpled...

Your shoulder is bared because his sweater is too big, slipping down, and covering the tops of your thighs. Shorts underneath, long fluffy socks up to your knees. Foot tapping the floor as you mix dough in a bowl.

You're like an angels song.

Head bobbing, tilting as you sing out to words he doesn't recognise. Not that he needs to.

I'm on my knees waiting for the sound.

It's a strange feeling, he's tried to replicate how your voice makes him feel with his own. He's learned how to sing to music that he doesn't really understand. Tunes that he can't quite replicate. Sylus listens to everything he can find because he wants to understand. It's a strange dim sensation on his own, with his records playing. Though they remind him enough of you that he is comforted anyway.

Stuck in a world gone wrong.

It is like he's chasing your shadow, and he never can seem to catch up.

So lift me up, I'll never let you down.

A feeling that blooms like fresh flowers, brings him to ease, reminding him of days where he learned what love was.

Calmed and riled and fragile but so warm and safe. The feeling is chaotic and terrifying but if he could spend his life feeling it, his very very long life. That only you can end, and when you choose to, he hopes it's alongside yours.

So he can never feel it without you, though he feels it's shade when he remembers you.

Searching for the words that I can say.

Instead it licks flames up his skin when you sing in front of him, when your voice fills the air and wraps around him and he understands. He always understands with you.

How it feels when you're with me.

The twins look up at him, pointing at him as they sing non-existent words and his kitten doesn't notice until he pulls up behind you, arms wrapping around your waist, chin on your shoulder, hunching over to look down at what you're doing.

Mostly just so he can feel the rumble of your song through his chest.

The music falters for a second, as your hand reaches up to touch his cheek. He thinks he might purr in response but wouldn't admit it outloud if asked.

"Sugar cookies." You answer his unspoken question. "They're easy, but I'm testing the recipe with less sugar."

"The doctor will be happy." He murmurs against the skin of your neck. Biting absently, in protest as you stop singing for him. Not too harshly though, after all your voice is beautiful when you speak too. Always a song for him. Always lighting that unusual sensation in his chest.

"We've been taste testing!" Luke calls out, and he tilts his head just enough to watch the twins sticking raw dough in their mouths.

"Hey! Don't eat too much you'll make yourself sick!"

"S'fine." Kieran speaks with a full mouth, spraying some dough over his brother, who wipes it off and glares. "You missed a spot." And he flicks him in the forehead.

The two begin to scuffle, leaping off the counters and chasing each other out of the room, the sound of their yelling is head down the hall.

You begin to laugh in his arms, eyes twinkling with affection, and lean back against him with a contented smile.

He wishes the fish were here to paint you. He debates going to grab his phone that he's left on the side, just to take a photo for him later. It would mean releasing you though... he supposes there's more chances to see you like this.

His whole life, he hopes.

"Thank you." You speak, tilting your head to press a kiss to his head, and he turns you quickly, one hand moving to your neck to keep you there while he kisses as much of your skin as he can reach.

Cheeks, lips, forehead, neck. Quick pecks with no heat.

His chest, his heart. He's molten, melting, burning. It would hurt, he thinks, if it didn't feel so delightful. His heart, his soul, his home.

[safination]

If You Know, You Know.

Big Four Edition (❤️💙💚💛/ ❤️🦅🏹🐯) + One Extra

|Masterlist| Characters: Adam, Vox, Alastor, Lucifer, Charlie, Vaggie. x Reader (Separate) TLDR: Dates around the area with them A/N: Welcome to my dumpster of a mind, where I try to place our beloved Hazbin characters into four to five categories. Will I be explaining any of them? Probably not. Listen, if you know, then you already know. Also, I can't believe I'm falling into this stage as a creator in a fandom. You can take me out of my roots, but you cannot take my roots out of me. Fuck me, honestly. This is the most self-indulgent shit, ever. If anyone irl found out who I am, I would die. Like literally die. Please don't come for me. Yes, this is 100% playing into stereotypes, but it's all in good fun. Nothing I write here says anything about you as a person or a large body of people. Plss lang. Sige an po This is all in good fun, I promise T_T

Adam — 🏹

Come on, this is an easy one. This thing is practically writing himself. Adam would 100% be here. Hatid-Sundo si baby boy by kuya Drivers niya. I can imagine Adam doing such an obnoxious laugh and then going, "Ay, gagi!" ( plus points for the elitism and the momol in hidden spots. I've seen yourFreedomWall)

Adam would walk you around the buildings, especially if you can't go inside. Why is it so hard to sneak inside? He would constantly take you to that one really good burrito and taco place (If you know it, then you know.), and would go to the Power Mac to buy stuff for you because why not.

Vox — ❤️

Hear me out a little. This is Vox we're talking about. So, despite being the type who belongs in the 🦅, at the end of the day, this is still Vox. This holds true considering that . . . uh . . . debate (?) surrounding those who should be accepted into ❤️. While Vox could go with the 🦅, he would snatch up a spot in ❤️. (But like, this is isn't his fault. It really is the fault of the system in place, and we're all proud of Vox because it is a big honor to be here.) Like Adam, Vox would be Hatid-Sundo, and would hang out in UP Town most of the time.

Dates would Vox would include going to Gino's or Nono's or cracking open the books at Tyler's. It would take forever to get anywhere with him because he refuses to walk anywhere, and would either always be driven there or would book a Grab. Plus point for traffic, but you get to bond and talk with him during the traffic.

Alastor — 🏹

He doesn't like being an 🏹 despite majority of the people being really chill and cool. But it's most likely because he bumps into Adam. He's practically crawling up the wall. He sees the life of those in 🏹 and gets really confused at how they act. He rants to Rosie (who would be in the all girl's club) about it all the time. Unlike Adam, Alastor will hop off at Vito Cruz.

Dates around the bay area and MOA, honestly. He would make you listen to his radio broadcast that I do know they have. All four have their own organization. Alastor would take you to Star City, and would insist on walking there because it's walking distance daw, and tricycles are low key a scam there.

(Again, please, don't come for me. 🏹's are mostly chill but come on. You can't deny it. I've seen what the streets look like. I've seen the Power Mac. The aircons.True 🏹 would find it funny.)

Lucifer — ❤️

I don't need to explain why Lucifer would be here. Let's be fr. I will fight anyone who says otherwise.

But unlike Vox, Lucifer would take long walks with you around the oval and the Sunken Garden. Fuck it, I'm even bold enough to say that he would join the run club there if you were into that type of thing. You would eat fishballs and kikiam. There would be no kwek-kwek or balut tho. When you get tired, you and Lucifer would sit by the fountain with the Statue™. Lucifer would take jeepnys with you to get around. If you don't go there, majority of date time would be spent trying to find you a restroom to use.

Charlie — 🐯

I debated placing Charlier either with the maroons or the tigers, but ultimately decided that it would be nice for Charlie to be with the tigers. I don't know how to explain it. It just makes sense to me. Charlie would always have an umbrella with her because rain or shine or terrible rain, she would go.

Charlie will take you to paskuhan at the soccer field to see all the lights and the concert. The food dates around that area would go hard. Like seriously, damn. Charlie would constantly take you to Lover's Lane, and explain all the history of the buildings.

Vaggie — 💙💛/ All Girls

This post is supposed to feature, "the big four" but I don't care. I can do what I want. It's fitting that Vaggie would be somewhere where it's all girl. (That recently started accepting boys too. So that's nice.)

Dates with Vaggie would involve CBTL, but in Regis Center instead of UP Town. Sometimes, you would cross over to ❤️to find something to eat. Tricycle rides to get around, and Siomai would be such a constant in your dates.

[harumasa-wifey]

Hey! Glad that more people who love Zenless are here on tumblr. And I’ve been loving some characters but I’m trying to see if i really like Harumasa. So mind helping me out with some headcanons?

Harumasa with a dragon thiren reader who works a bookshop (and secretly is a proxy) who can summon wings, a tail, and a horn✨

Just general headcanons on how this relationship would be!

Harumasa x Dragon Thiren!Reader

Warning: none, not proofread!

Note: my ass had to skip and skimp through some parts so i was genuinely confused what a Thiren is then i found a post on reddit explaining what it is. Thank you for requesting and having patience!

At first he doesn't look like a guy who would visit a Bookshop so often but he does read books sometimes rather than the papers in office.

After hearing from yanagi that you keep some of the best books around the sixth Street oh well he had to visit

Though you keep your tail and wings hidden most of the time you wear a cloak around you a short one to keep it over your head to cover the horns it's energy consuming to hide them all the time.

You keep your bookstore in the vintage style! It's a good change of place without electronics around. ( A big ass lie)

Of course you were surprised by the first visit of yanagi even and now him got you thinking you might get behind the bars soon.

You really haven't done anything bad being a proxy quite the opposite you have helped people get out of the hollows and often retrieve lost items as commissions.

Your H.D.D is hidden in the storage room which is also filled with different type of books.

And The siblings are also in your contacts it's never bad to have back ups!

Although he was confused why you had your head covered he didn't question it.

He doesn't know why he found himself often around your bookshop it was almost alluring in a peaceful way.

He doesn't read much he often comes here to seek a nap on one of your reading places yet he has the membership to your shop.

Even your bangboo has become all familiar to him, it always knows it's him when there is only one knock on the door. ( He is too lazy to knock twice anyways lol)

Though your cover as a proxy didn't stay for long under his sharp eyes.

Well it's a whatever case now as you and the siblings were excused as a proxy by miyabi herself.

He never outright told you to show him what you actually are but he definitely hints at it sometimes.

And not to mention those pick up lines he drops every now and then from the books and movies he had watched.

Well of course there is nothing to hide from him now anyways. He was amused he has seen many thirens, an oni a cat, wolf and shark. However seeing a dragon was really amusing to him.

Get ready for the absolute amount of ridiculous questions to be asked. He is not holding back.

He definitely read about dragons in the books you have after that of course and his nap time at the shop is more peaceful than ever now.

He might have asked to see your tail sometimes out of curiosity. Feel free to refuse if you don't wanna go that far. But if you let him see he is amazed how well you hide yourself.

He says the horns on your head add to your charm.

He never saw you fight but he has you running around in your bangboo beside him in the hollow.

He definitely takes his power naps with your tail warped around him.

He has read about dragons banishing evil and bringing good luck so now you are named as "Lucky Charm" in his contacts. Only his lucky charm.

[minart-was-taken]

Mr Reca is a Welt Theory🎭

I'm bout to cook. It may not be food but it'll be COOKED.

It's canon in the Hoyoverse that sometimes people have counterparts in different dimensions. These counterparts usually have many similarities to the original such as in name and design, but are also different enough to be considered a different character. In this post I'm going to argue for the case that Mr. Reca and Welt are an example of this.

(Disclaimer: This is for goofs and fun. I do NOT think this is anywhere near canon or even totally sensical.)

Let's go from the least convincing evidence to the most convincing evidence:

Look the same 🫵

Although most of their similarities can be tossed aside as it being an anime game and people in this genre of just tending to look very similar-- I'm still including it. They both have brown hair with a parting a bit to the side, hair that covers one of their eyes partially, and some handsome greying.

We also know when Welt is using his powers his eyes can start glowing red

But uh yea I get it. This is a strech. Moving on.

2. Similar career choices

Welt claims* to have been an animator before boarding the Astral Express. Mr. Reca is a VERY passionate filmmaker. Yes I will point out that these are very different careers, but I will ALSO point out the similarities. Visual storytelling in the form of video!! Both include character development, shot planning, colour theory... The list goes on.

Also for some goddamn reason Welt has the power to summon animations from his homeworld...? That's weird. But it works with my theory so. Uh. Yeah.

Now again, these ARE different things for many reasons. You may even say this bit of evidence is a bit of a stretch-- But, hold on!

Acheron in Honkai Star Rail is an emanator of Nihility. Raiden Shogun, her counterpart in Genshin Impact, is the Archon of Eternity. Extremely similar at face value, but come with very different duties.

*Whether he was or wasn't doesn't really matter for the theory as the fact he chose that still says a lot about the man.

3. Mr. Reca is a Memokeeper Memokeepers canonically give up their mortal bodies to exist as memories so that they may travel the world as efficient as possible with the goal of collecting memories. I can't find confirmation on whether they also give up their memories of their once mortal existence, but whether that's canon or not it's very easy to imagine a Memokeeper could do that to themself.

This leads me to the major point of this theory: If we were to take away Welt's bonds, what would be left? A goddamn nerd. Have you seen how this guy talks about his favourite shows?

So here's the tea. We know our Welt Yang is from an entirely different dimension, meaning there's very much space for a Welt of this dimension to exist as well. I propose that the man may be who Mr. Reca used to be before becoming a Memokeeper.

Here's what I'm imagining: Welt is a very old man, so perhaps long before the events of the game there existed a man who worked passionately in filmmaking. One day for one reason or another he chose to let go off his mortal life and any possible bonds he had, and became an immortal Memokeeper-- Now without bonds, he was stripped to have only one passion: films.

Its certainly an interesting fanfic 👍👍 There's a lot of holes in the theory and in the end it doesn't really matter-- Welt and Mr. Reca would probably never figure out this connections between them and even if the did I doubt they'd care too much.

But it came to my brain and I'm making it everyone else's problem.

TLDR; What if Welt had a counterpart in this universe and that counterpart was Mr. Reca before he basically de-welted himself.

[lsunstreakerl]

Famiglia-Familie

Chapter One Analysis:

First off- most of chapter one is kind of over a few concurrent days, so this is a bit shorter than my analysis for the other chapters is going to be.

- I imply in later chapters that Max sees more of the accident than what I actually write in chapter one, and that's true! There's a couple of reasons for that, one being that I just didn't want to write that, and the other being a super convenient excuse for reason one! the human brain, especially a young one (like, maybe, 14?) is going to block out a traumatic event, especially the finer details. Max's brain is literally rewriting what he's seeing in front of him and during the actual crash, in order to try and minimize the psychological damage.

- This ties into the way that Max struggles to even refer to the accident later on- he cuts himself off before he says "Jos", he won't call it "the accident" or even really think of it at all. Max divides his life solidly into a "before" chunk and an "after" chunk.

- "But issi/sunny, why was Force India even there?" Honestly, the way GP and Max meet in this fic is complete chance. There are so many spots where it could have gone otherwise, but it doesn't. I mention at the beginning of the fic that it's leading up to the race weekend, but it's still a wednesday, so there's a lot of the support staff driving around. A group of the Force India guys, including GP, were carpooling back to the hotel when they see the accident site, and they're genuinely just being good samaritans when they stop their car and start trying to help people.

- Max's arm is bothering him a bit while he's still stuck in the seatbelt, but the way that it has him restrained, (which he can't see) is actually doing him a bit of a favor at that point in the fic. It's cutting off blood flow, so Max isn't feeling how majorly fucked up his own bones are. (For curious minds: in this fic, Max has a spiral fracture down the body of his right distal ulna, comminuted fractures across his fingers in a few spots, and an impact fracture on the distal end of his right radius. There's some impact damage on the proximal ends as well, where the elbow joint forms, but it's not as severe as the fingers and wrist.)

- Because of the way Max landed, Hayden isn't able to see the way his arm is caught in the seatbelt until he asks Max to start moving, at which point he asks for the knife. Hayden does have a moment here where he's looking at the injury and wondering if it might be better to let EMS cut Max out, but he's worried they won't get there fast enough, and this is a kid, trapped in a metal van, when there's lightning out, and he makes the decision to cut Max out, and whatever those consequences are he's willing to live with them. (Triage is traumatic and stressful and for those of you who care about original side characters, yes, Hayden goes to therapy.) ((also because he saw a dead man))

- When Hayden cuts Max out of the seatbelt to pull him out, Max gets that blood flow back, which allows his arm to tell his brain "we have a problem!" Which is why he starts screaming. Rough night for him.

- Max is having such a genuinely awful night the entire time that that as soon as he's out of the car and someone (GP) is being kind to him, he decides he's going to cling, and he's not going to let go, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. GP is such a genuinely nice guy, and Max is tugging at all of his heartstrings, that he's like "sure I'll go to the hospital" because GP and the Force India crew could see Jos, and they know that Max is alone now.

- Max gets morphine in the ambulance. yippiee!

- Max is terrified in the hospital, because of everything that's been happening, and his arm, and all he has now is this unfamiliar stranger he'd decided to cling to, so he's like "fuck it, all in, I'm attached to this guy now" and then he doesn't want to even let GP consider leaving, which is why he makes life harder for the hospital staff by refusing to let go of GP.

- The Force India guys called Colin as soon as they pulled over, letting him know about the accident and that they were going to help. Colin keeps in touch with all of them throughout the night, finds out from one of the other guys that GP is with a random kid in the hospital, and acts accordingly. (Has people collect emergency supplies for a teenager and put it in GP's room)

- GP has a reputation in the garage for being soft hearted, so no one is at all surprised about how the situation actually ends up, because of course the guy who always breaks for squirrels and gets out of his car to carry a turtle across the road takes in a child in an emergency, that's just how Gianpiero is.

- When GP first calls Colin is the hospital, he's mostly just getting reassured that it's all okay, and to do whatever he needs to do for the kid. Colin tells him that if Max needs to come to the garage with him for the next few days, Force India can accommodate that.

- Max isn't really thinking about the "not talking" thing until he's confronted when the social worker, where he makes the conscious decision not to speak, both because "that makes everything real" and also because he's in an unfamiliar country, and he doesn't have a legal adult taking care of him, and he doesn't want to say the wrong thing and accidentally back himself into a corner.

- "He didn't get letters for very long" is one of the subtler more heartbreaking lines, because Victoria continues sending him letters for months, Jos just doesn't let Max know about them, so Max thinks Victoria stopped sending them, and Victoria thinks her older brother doesn't like her.

- GP goes through the legal hoops in the background of this fic. Colin has to vouch for his employment status a million times, he has to call the British Embassy in Germany to get the ball rolling on emergency foster certification and then standard foster certification, he has to get the emergency foster certification from Germany, and he has to juggle so many emails. Your average person would be completely overwhelmed, but GP is a race engineer, and being overwhelmed is kind of his job, so he handles it pretty well.

- Max goes into emergency surgery to handle some of the worst parts of his arms and fingers, but the hospital is still super clear with GP that Max needs to have some follow ups. (Max ends up with some serious hardware in his hand. He still has struggles with fine motor skills, and he's got killer osteoarthritis in his fingers, wrist, and forearm, but the brace helps with it.

- "issi/sunny, any hospital that lets a pediatric patient leave that soon after a surgery of that magnitude without a thorough welfare check should be ashamed of themselves!" IM NOT HERE TO BE REALISTIC IF I WANTED THAT I WOULD GO TO WORK.

- Max not looking in the mirror goes hand in hand with him not speaking, or acknowledging the accident. He knows he's injured, he knows as soon as he sees himself in the mirror with his injuries that he can't fool himself anymore, so he's not looking at all.

- GP has no idea what to do with a teenager, which is why he's kind of awkward at first. It's important to note that GP, again, has zero clue who Max is. GP thinks he's taking care of a kid who had a normal home life before a traumatic accident. GP does not think he's taking care of a kid who was already traumatized even before the accident, and he's not able to pick up on some of those warning signs until he and Max are living together.

- "Why doesn't Max go straight to Michael?" Max is 14, and has been told his entire life that nothing is more important than racing, and so of course this would be true for a world champion as well, and Max is so petrified of being a burden that he doesn't want Michael to know at all, because he knows Michael will drop everything to take care of him. (He's been raised to think that kind of behavior is soft and he doesn't need it.) He especially doesn't want to tell Michael right before a race as well. Max is also still trying to pretend it's not real, so the less familiar faces he's around the better.

- Max gets really into the data partially as a coping mechanism, because if he's looking at the data and trying to learn then he's not thinking about the accident. This is also why listening to GP read it out loud is soothing to him. GP has a nice voice, and Max can listen to him rattling off numbers and variables for hours. This is also the beginning of a little routine for the two of them when one of them is having a hard time, where they sit and they go over data together. (nerds)

- The Force India engineers are so excited to have someone genuinely interested in what they're doing that they fall in love with Max immediately.

- The Force India garage also knows why GP has Max- they know that Max is from the accident, and they know he's very grim and quiet, so they actually do kind of make a game out of trying to make him laugh, or at least smile.

- Yes, that is the actual qualifying and race results for Force India in the 2011 German GP.

- I don't actually know if Paul di Resta is a good guy or not, and I didn't want to look it up. ignorance is bliss and all that.

- Max taught himself to be ambidextrous because he thought it would be a cool party trick, and instead it's totally saved his ass now that he literally can't move his right hand.

- "issi/sunny, did you actually look at places for rent in Buckingham for this fic?" guys, I ended up on one of the Buckingham city council's 117 page documents detailing next years public transportation plans from like 2013. do not underestimate the depths I will go.

- Max trying to figure out what he would even want in his room is a bit heartbreaking, and GP doesn't understand why Max struggles with it so bad. (Again, GP is assuming Max lived in a house somewhere, when Max's house was the van, and the van is gone.)

- GP gets attached to Max almost immediately. Here is this quiet kid, from a horrific accident, and he's so scared, and for some reason he's putting his trust in GP, so GP isn't going to betray that. And then GP finds out that his quiet kid is so smart, and that he likes looking at the data, so of course GP is like "give him all the data he wants" and the garage loves him because he's quiet and well mannered and genuinely interested.

- Word gets around the paddock pretty quick about the accident in general, because it made local news, and then it also spreads that one of the race engineers from Force India is actually taking care of a kid from the accident site, so Max has always got people looking out for him when he's around the paddock. (Max doesn't realize this in the fic) he's quite literally a grid kid, in the realest sense.

- GP spends the entire time he's driving from his old flat to the new house freaking out about the whole thing. He's very careful and responsible to not ever show that in front of Max, but trust that there are multiple points in this fic where he is internally flipping his shit.

Feel free to ask questions/request clarification on things! If you actually read to the end of this 🫶