#she's way more independent and suspicious of being coddled compared to ranpo who wants to be mentored/parented

[ikemenomegas]

Omega!Fukuzawa x Alpha!Reader

Maybe Every After

For the record Fukuzawa is a zaddy and I don't think anyone is going to argue with me on that. But he wasn't always a zaddy! You have to grow up a lot to earn the title and Fukuzawa had a lot of growing up to do even in his thirties.

Meet cute?-

Fukuzawa met the person who would become his Alpha at some stuffy local function he attended because of his status as one of the five greatest swordsmen.

While they hit it off well, commiserating over the oppressive self-congratulatory nature of these kinds of events, it was not love at first sight. Fukuzawa was able to carry on pleasant, engaging conversation with them

Fukuzawa was by turns a little awkward, eccentric, curious, and the sense of duty, justice and good judgment that characterizes his throughout his life permeated the conversation, leaving a lasting impression on you

Fukuzawa's work and his superiors are all top secret, but despite that, he does not try to make himself come off as an enigma and his intentions and ideology are largely transparent, which in the time of the Great War, the first ability war, and with Fukuzawa's position being what it was, was surprising and refreshing

You meet with him a few times as new friends in between whatever it is he does when he's not with you

Some time after those meetings begin would be around the time that he is ordered to begin assassinating war-hawk ministers

You see him change as those assassinations pile up and see him apparently lose the feeling of rightness that was in him when you first met at that party

He disappears soon after resigning his position in this mission, cutting himself off from the world that had descended into the misery and chaos of war, from the deaths he had caused, and from you, the person who had become important when he was still young and full of naive idealism

Meet again-

It's by chance you meet again when he is spending his work hours as a bodyguard.

Or maybe it's not chance. It's a certain circle of people that can afford the services of someone as skilled as Fukuzawa, as much as he tries to keep apart from those kinds of people. His reputation took a hit after he left his government position, although you don't know the circumstances around his departure, but people say it's because he isn't a patriot. The word makes you disappointed. The are parts of every war that are not about patriotism, where blood is no longer spilled for the love of one's country but because there are those who have lost their way.

Reconnecting is hard but maybe because you understand the rumors this way, it is not as hard as it might have been. Fukuzawa Yukichi is loyal, that you have known almost since you met him. He is loyal to the people who walk down the street and do not know him, he is loyal to all the people of the nation who make their way slowly through life alongside him, he is loyal to some ideal of justice that you don't necessarily understand but that you believe in too. You see sometimes the pain that the rumors cause him, but you believe in him, whatever that might mean, and so he lets the pain wash over him and away in the truth of his intact honor

It comes up at some point that you are still not a mated Alpha. There is no one else waiting for you as your tea times meeting with Fukuzawa continue. It just hadn't felt right, somehow, to try and make that kind of connection in the years that have passed. The great war turned everything upside down, including something inside of your good and most principled friend.

One day, he'll tell you about it, about what turned his heart inside out, but that is many years in the future

For now, you're the one who asks him if he wants to meet and restart first

He seems tired and you're surprised that he accepts, but he does. Once. And then twice. And then a third time. And it's almost like it used to be, even though you're both older and a bit more jaded, maybe with a few more hard edges. The meetings extend longer, and become more frequent. It is no longer tea on his days off or when he has time between jobs. There are late night meals after his employer dismisses him and lunches on the occasions he is released early. On one memorable occasion, you find yourself taking an early morning walk through a dew studded garden watching the sun rise pink and cold after a night on which you could not sleep

One thing led to another-

Eventually, Fukuzawa asks you to be his heat partner. It's a bit of a surprise and something that makes you nervous since Fukuzawa effectively ignored you for years.

You had once slept together in what was essentially a platonic way, or perhaps some kind of experiment. It was fine, oddly peaceful, especially at the end when you just passed a bottle of water back and forth, but you'd sort of wordlessly agreed to not do it again

He tells you he's sure though. His heats aren't frequent because he's on suppressants, but they do happen, and this is one of the different things. Fukuzawa seems to want, to have a restlessness that is more apparent to you, lingering beneath the surface

You already suspect it's the loss of purpose, the loss of public reputation somehow which had carried with it its own sense of purpose. He's a famous swordsman, one of the best in the country. Even a tame wolf desires to hunt.

So you spend his breakthrough heats together.

And you remember why the two of you never had sex after the first time. It makes you wonder if you remember the "silent agreement" wrong, or if he remembers it differently, and reminds you why you didn't dwell on it.

It's not earth shattering, the sex that is. It's just heat sex, just making sure he gets off so that he can sleep through the intervals between his body temperature spiking. Except you're in his home, the gauzy curtains drawn, scent patches off, and it's disturbing how clear the memory of the last time overlaps with this one, even after so many years.

It's like being in the middle of a monsoon storm, pressure and torn leaves, and summer heat and all. And while you thrust into his wanting body, he watches you. The heat-haze is obvious and his eyes are half-lidded in the associated exhaustion, but he tracks you when you lean back to swipe the back of your hand over your forehead and there's something hungry in his gaze when he looks down to where you're connected

You remember the first time and how intrigued you'd been by this particular mannerism of his, how he keeps his eyes open. He had been watchful and curious even as you'd laughed with him over your shared fumblings. His gaze had been heavy and consuming when he'd shown his aikido skills, at your request, and tumbled you from over him to pin you to the floor.

This time there's a lot more kissing because if you're close to his face, you don't have to see his eyes, but the way Fukuzawa opens his mouth for you with trust like you've been doing this for years makes the strategy nearly futile.

You have to work right after that first heat tapers off so he's still in his nest when you're putting on your shoes, weekend duffel in your hands.

It's late afternoon going on evening so the apartment is dark. His hair is splayed out on a pillow. You're satisfied though that he has pre-made meals in the fridge and you've changed out most of his nest bedding so he can rest in a clean spot after you've gone. Fukuzawa's not saying anything, watching while you rub a sore spot on your neck, which makes him smirk. You're convinced this will be another scenario just like last time where you don't talk about it, when he speaks up, stopping your hand on the doorknob. "Same in three months?" he asked instead. Despite the stab of apprehension, you smiled. "Same in three months," and left to catch a flight.

You don't let it get quite that long before you contact him again. You don't see him, but you text him and he texts back, which is at least a relief that he's not going to vanish again into whatever new twilight he inhabits.

It's the same in three months, apart from the weather outside. His eyes, blue like steel and watching you while you bring him over the edge, the sense of being in the eye of a summer storm, that feeling of trusting familiarity when you lick into his mouth and catch the sound he makes when you crook your fingers inside him. It's the same how it's only his response that changes when you kiss him later and are more gentle about it, running your teeth against his jaw before going to cradling his head and kissing the corner of his mouth.

There's laundry in the machine and porridge on the stove. Fukuzawa's heat had settled sometime in the very early hours of the morning and the two of you were more or less clothed for the first time in days. Fukuzawa was however leaning in the door, watching you put shredded seaweed, pickled plums, and katsuo tronçons on small plates already laid out on a tray. You glanced at him from the corner of your eye, watching him almost lazily watch you. But, you paused in using a pair of chopsticks to pluck out a single ginko nut from a narrow jar. There was something almost tense in his posture. He was barely out of the thick of heat and you could see the faint tremble in his wrist before he folded his arms to hide it. You checked the pot with the still yet-to-boil rice and then ducked under his jaw to brush your nose against the scent gland there. The way he shivered, still sensitive, was almost enough to make you feel bad. "You should go lie down," you murmured, smiling in apology, "I'll bring the tray over." He hesitated, but then nodded. Something pulled at you behind your navel, similar to that familiar sensation when you had worked him through the heat. Only this time, out of the haze, you followed it and followed Fukuzawa to his nest. Its fresh linens were soft and sweet smelling as you guided him into it. He sighed when he was lying down again, a long exhale that gave nothing away. He was just watching. You tucked a blanket over his hips and let your hand linger a touch too long, feeling like you were falling into his eyes. He made no sound when you pulled away and did not return until the meal was ready. Although you did stand in the doorway he had just vacated, leaning so you could see Fukuzawa, loosely tied deep blue and light grey layers of his yukata falling half open as he rolled over to keep you within line of sight. He ate every bite of food, still maintaining that tense, anticipatory silence. You didn't remember this from the first time. His gaze only flickered from the tray and your hands to your eyes when you accidentally let out an encouraging rumble as he ate and immediately felt heat flash up your neck, mortified. The corner of his mouth twitched as he brought his chopsticks to his lips and nibbled at a bit of fish. You've read romance books, once or twice, seen the pervasive tropes pop up in just about every drama, imported or otherwise. People talk about finding someone that you feel you've known your whole life as something magical. No one talks about how unsettling it can be, how it could get all consuming all too quickly. It's disturbing in some way, the way you can sense the ease with which that could push into entitlement, envy, or just an endless fall. That is why after the first time you and Fukuzawa Yukichi had slept together, passing a bottle of water back and forth after and watching the rim indent into one another's lips when you took a mouthful, throats flexing to swallow, you had never spoken of the event again. You had never invited it happening again, and up until now neither had he. There's something at the bottom of that drop. There's always a hard landing. Somewhere. It felt too easy, being with him. You had fallen in as friends harder than this, feeling out the edges of one anothers' code and ethics, where you could push boundaries into asking about personal and professional interests. Although you never touch them, you knew where one anothers' cracks were.

Just as you never asked him directly about the things he had done in the war, about his suddenly cold reception among the circle you'd met in, he never asked you how you really felt about those people. He never asked if your heart too had broken somewhere during the Great Ability War. The stifling feeling of knowing both too much and too little about someone who trusted you far too much for what you knew suddenly stole all the moisture from your throat. A sip of tea helped, but Fukuzawa's posture had gone back to that waiting. Master swordsman: master at reading any opponent. You told yourself heavily that you were perfectly willing to continue being his heat partner, at least until the way you two distinctly did not push boundaries bored him. He had a competitive spirit to a point. There were goalposts that only he could see, standards to which others were not often held. Stagnancy had never quite suited him. Stillness did. Was that what was at the bottom? Was it the stagnant life of saying nothing and doing nothing and keeping a status quo? Or was it blissful stillness, knowing nothing would catch you and nothing needed to?

It takes almost a year for either of you to bring it up and it's only at the cusp of realizing this is becoming an unhealthy new normal that it happens. It is still incredibly difficult to broach the fact that the physical intimacy makes you feel like strangers but every conversation in between makes you feel like you could get to know him forever.

It's around this time you finally start to really talk. You know how you can know someone for ages, and even be really close to them, but there are long stretches of time where you don't talk about anything important because you're afraid of making the other person do emotional labor for you, and you don't know if they'll mind? That's the first year Fukuzawa and his Alpha have after he comes back.

He acknowledges that you've done things rather in reverse order, as far as the typical trajectory of reconnecting with friends goes. You start to date, more or less, making time to see one another every week or every other week as your schedules allow.

It's a bit strange, to suddenly realize the ways in which you both have changed. Fukuzawa is as principled as ever, but he's unmoored now, without the ties he severed to the military police and the mission it brought. You are somewhat more stable, older and more settled into your own career, but heavier in your soul, sadder. Yokohama is reviving, black towers and tidy apartment buildings rising on the horizon, but it took too much to get here, too much blood before the nation sickened of it.

Fukuzawa won't let you court him.

You're in one of the old cafes that survived all the conscriptions. The owner's son moves around with a tray and a flour dusted apron and the atmosphere is oddly cheerful, despite the recently terrible weather. The last of the summer storms are making a good showing this year and it's limited the places you and Fukuzawa can go. Museums, restaurants, the occasional wander around a particularly well constructed public part of an office building - usually places near your work or his.

You'd tried other things, shopping for food or clothes and paying maybe too much attention to his preferences. You'd tried things like flower viewing or afternoons trying wagashi in specialty shops. While Fukuzawa had seemed to enjoy them and settled easily into the traditional etiquette sometimes called for in these places, he never acknowledged that these might be early attempts at courting.

When you spent time in his apartment he let you scent items in his nest while lounging around or before his heats. If he was at the little rooftop house you were living in, he would sometimes choose one pillow or blanket to curl around and carefully leave it on your spot on the couch when he left.

You looked at him over the rim of your mug and one of his brows went up. When you said nothing, he looked away, tracking the movements of people on the street.

You still partner him when his heat hits, but the sex is worse, as far as that unsettlingly settled intimacy goes. It's wonderful, he's wonderful. Sex itself is not that interesting as a rule, and you're both too aware of the delicacy of the situation to attempt anything like adding toys during his heat or a simple scene to the build up or cool down. But every time after, you want to stay longer.

Fukuzawa shifts his nest, ever so slightly because he is picky about it, but enough so that he can always see you as you move about his home when you need to get food or nesting materials for him, so that you don't have to anxiously flit between the stove and the door in order to sate the need to know that he is safe and comfortable in the aftermath.

You think it's going to end, that the pained distance Fukuzawa now puts between himself and the world is going to pull taught against the growing need to be around one another, to care beyond the dedication of a close intimate friendship.

Everyone can see it-

And then he accidentally adopts a super genius.

This is one of the funnier things that's ever happened to your friend since you've known him and you make sure he knows you think so once or twice.

Once Ranpo is secure in his place as Fukuzawa's ward a few years later, you come up with a way to let Ranpo know he's the best thing to ever happen to your mate and also that you will never ever get tired of imagining the look of shock you know took over Fukuzawa's face when all four and a half feet of teenage whoop-ass came banging through the door of that office.

But that's years from now.

Ranpo peers up at you when you meet Fukuzawa for lunch and a film a week after he's started tagging along with your friend

The boy isn't very tall, but he's got a maturity to his features that you chalk up to either the orphan thing or the child genius thing. He had taken one look at you, seated at the back of the restaurant away from the windows, and it felt like someone crowding into your space even while he touched neither you nor Fukuzawa. You are perhaps overly sensitive of other people's attention. It's another thing that makes being with Fukuzawa comfortable somehow. He's observant, but not oppressive with what he does with that information. Only the second time you'd met he'd helped extricate you from an incredibly uncomfortable conversation with a junior minister in the local commerce department. Now the kid looks at you and at Fukuzawa and pouts impressively. "You're single." He says it like an accusation and an assignment and you could almost laugh at Fukuzawa's wide eyed expression if it weren't for everyone three tables deep around you staring. You raise an eyebrow at him. "He's allowed to be single," you chide, reminding yourself that you are talking to a child still. It's a bit funny, you admit, smiling when the boy glares at you. The waitress comes over when you beckon, bringing tea for Fukuzawa and a sweet layered sort of beverage for the kid. Fukuzawa had told you about the boy's obvious sweet tooth and even though he huffs at you, he takes the tall glass eagerly, poking a straw through the layers. "Does it bother you?" You can't help it. Fukuzawa had said the child was a genius, observant to the point of misunderstanding, his incredible intelligence looping in on itself and making the rest of the world occasionally incomprehensible. It seems unlikely for a child to hold the kind of incredibly conservative prejudice that says omegas should be mated, but he seems put out. Ranpo sulks behind a menu before saying, "I'm never wrong." The meal is quiet, and gradually people stop looking at your table. Fukuzawa excuses himself on the walk to the theater to purchase something from a convenience store. It's there you lean up against the mouth of an alley and look down at the kid. He's really short, you worry someone isn't feeding him enough and the realize that Fukuzawa is going to be that someone. "We're not together," you said. Ranpo looks up at you, clearly still sulking. "You don't have to lie to me," he says, but he sounds a little uncertain. "We're not together in the way you would understand it," you say, "or the way most people understand." Ranpo sees your emotions in your eyes, and suddenly wishes he didn't understand. Your gaze is filled with longing, but he doesn't know how you can't see it's for something you already have. Almost. "He's ashamed of something," Ranpo says quietly. You hunched over a little. "I know. Adults are often ashamed of a lot of things though." He looks at you and wonders what you're ashamed of. "You should probably ask him about this one. He's not very good at saying what he means, but most adults aren't." You're laughing when Fukuzawa reappears.

To everyone's surprise, he actually sits through the movie, happily demolishing the little fortune you'd bought him in caramel popcorn and boxed candies, even if he complains about figuring out the plot five minutes in when you leave

Ranpo doesn't parent trap you two exactly, he doesn't have quite that level of interest in involving himself, but Fukuzawa is good to him, and he sees you often and you are good to him too. Neither of you always understand what he understands, but you show him kindness without ulterior motive, you try and show him how to safely exist around other people.

Fukuzawa is asked to be a bodyguard for Mori Ougai and something about engaging with that man, even though he can't tell you about the job itself, makes him tell you, in a desperate whisper under the moonlight, that it was him who assassinated the war hawk ministers during the peace debates. It's him who is bloodying his blade for something he hopes will be better, even if it turns his stomach, even if it means he doesn't know who he is anymore.

"I know who you are." Fukuzawa tenses in your arms, and you think frantically that you have certainly made a mistake. But you don't take it back. You don't want to. You do know who he is, your friend. You know how lonely what he's done has made him. Only you didn't know what he had done. Now that you know, it doesn't seem to matter. It's distant, the way all bloody things are distant when you don't see them. You've never had all that fond a feeling towards the wealthy people that profit from the abject misery of others. All the hunger and desperation in the world are distant, abstract concepts to them. Why should their deaths not mean the same to you? Of course, you can't say this to your friend, your sometimes lover, lying in your arms. The moonlight drops over his cheeks, turning them pale. His eyes are closed for once, his face turned into your neck, as though he is afraid of what he will see in your eyes. You understand it was not simply one or two storybook villains. There is no human in the world who has done only bad their entire life. Fukuzawa was not prone to exaggeration, even if drama appealed to him. It seems likely he meant it literally when he speaks of wading through blood to put an end to those who whipped up the populace into a frenzy, who wanted for the death never to end. "I know." You stroke your thumb near the corner of his eye, brushing your cheek to his brow, pressing a chaste kiss to the curve of his cheek. "Honor doesn't always mean doing the honorable thing," you say softly. "It means making difficult choices. You regret having to make it, but do you regret the outcome?" He is quiet for a long time. You know he hasn't fallen back asleep, despite the languid warmth between your bodies. He's quiet for long enough that your heart rate returns to normal and you rub your knuckles up and down his back. An occasional burst of deep, faint purring lets you know this is at least appreciated, if not necessarily something he thinks he deserves. You've taken to sleeping together at this point. The mounting danger as different organizations wage new war across the city drives you both to it. Besides, it is simply easier to manage an antsy teenager if you're in the same place, wherever that might be, rather than passing him back and forth like the result of some amicable divorce as you both work to keep him safe and out of the hands of those who would use his intelligence. "No," he says, as you knew he would. "There is nothing to be attained in the way of peace by letting war simply continue until each side is beaten into exhaustion. Withdrawing with our strength intact is the only thing that would save the nation and its people." He says it like he's said it to himself many times. He goes nearly limp in your embrace, pliant as he nudges against you until your forehead is pressed to his. You wonder though- "Is this the first time you've said it out loud?" "What I did is a secret few are aware of." "But the investigations..." "They won't find me," he said, but you felt a shiver go through him, felt gooseflesh rise on his arms. If they did, it could open the possibility for those people to be made martyrs. It was natural for him to be afraid. "They won't," you said lightly. You didn't know what you could do to make that true, but some things needed to be said aloud. "If they catch me, I'll face whatever is decided," he said quietly. "But I won't get caught." "You saved a lot of lives." He sighed. "I know." You rubbed slow circles over the middle of his back. "The sword isn't meant to be used like that. They had lives, families, I-" he swallowed "-I ended that. I enjoyed it. And I have to live with that." His eyelashes too were silvered in the moonlight. "You have to live with it," you agreed, even as he flinched, "but you don't have to punish yourself for it every time you live." You pretend not to feel the wetness on your clothing as Fukuzawa shudders into your collar.

Forever love-

You're truly together and officially courting by the time the Agency is three years old, which is the first more calm year since the Agency opened. Turns out opening a business is a huge pain in the behind and that an ability user Agency with less than half a dozen workers, two of whom are genius teenagers who have totally reasonable problems with authority, is an even bigger pain.

By the time the Agency is four years old, you're mated to Fukuzawa, your mark on his shoulder and his on yours. Ranpo grouches something terrible that the two of you could only get your shit together before he turned eighteen, but he's not a legal adult yet, so you get to officially be one of his guardians for at least a few years. Yosano thinks Ranpo is being ridiculous, but she gives you the biggest bouquet of flowers for your and Fukuzawa's home and insists on choosing the restaurant where you all celebrate.

It's been a very long road. You've known Fukuzawa Yukichi for almost thirteen years, an unexpected friend you made in your adult years now your mate. Now someone who you feel, finally, you've started to earn the feeling you've know them all your life, even though you're still learning about him.

He takes you to his home near Osaka, to his family home on Kyushu. He meets your parents, who consider him a bit quiet, but very dutiful. You meet Natsume-sensei, once, and receive his very feline brand of approval and a quiet gift after your official mating. Fukuzawa takes you back to places he particularly enjoyed during those failed months of courting him. You spend season after season getting to know him, pushing boundaries, debating over philosophies, arguing over interior decorating, agreeing over meals.

Your mate, your partner, a soulmate if you have ever believed such a thing, let alone that it would come to you. You're watching white strands of hair like starlight shoot through his natural grey. The wrinkles around his eyes are deepening. It takes him longer to get up from bed than it used to. His silences are longer, but so are the times when he just looks at you, looks and looks like he can never get his fill. His voice is still strong, but you can feel that layer of age crackling under it. And you love him.

You love the man he has grown into, the one who can bear the weight of hard choices placed upon his shoulders, the one who can bear happily having people who work alongside him. You love his patience with Ranpo and his encouragement of Akiko. You love how he holds his hand out for you if you fall behind on your walks, or how he comes to you and stands close enough for his scent to wrap around you while you point out some small natural beauty.

Love can be horribly consuming, it can stagnate where it was once immediately comfortable or grow jealous at its own ease, unsure if it is charm or affection that ties you together. It can grow desperate and possessive. There are still things that can be so hard to say, old things that left old wounds that are still hard to talk about, but there's something to be said for age and wisdom.

Things aren't perfect, love should not be perfect, and something in you delights in knowing that with Fukuzawa it will always be incomplete. Things will not grow still, there will never be a moment there is nothing to know about him. You have grown into yourselves, the both of you, and this is the love you will grow old with.