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jujutsukatsuki · 8 months ago

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Memories || B.K

|| in honor of someone sending in a hate mail about my writing and specifically part one of this work, which you don’t have to read to understand this. Here’s part two! This is dedicated to that hater! Listen to Memories by Conan Gray to get the full effect! ||

It had been six months since she saw him, since he broke her heart. Since he walked out the door like she meant nothing. She saw him on tv often, Pro Hero Dynamite, every week it was a report about how he saved the city or was accepting a new award for his heroics.

It wasn’t fair.

She stilled lived in the same apartment, mainly cause they had signed a two year lease so she couldn’t leave. She had finally managed to get herself to stop crying when she would look at the old pictures of the two of them.

She watches the rain out the window, a black cardigan pulled around her as she sees the sidewalks puddled with water. She takes a sip of her red wine as a soft knock breaks the gentle silence of the apartment. The cat she had gotten a month after he left her, gently meows and jumped up on the entry table next to the dark oak front door.

The walk to the door is quick from her cozy chair that overlooks the sidewalk. She looks through the peephole and sees red eyes peering through it at her. She jumps before she opens the door.

“Bakugou?” The use of his last name makes his skin crawl, he groans.

“I just.. can we talk? Y/n?” He looks at her, he can watch the gears in her brain turn as she looks at him. She can see how wet his hoodie is and she can’t help but open the door for him.

He slides in and goes to walk into the living room but stumbles over the cat.

“Who put a fuckin’ cat there?!” He grumbled before letting the cat sniff his hand.

She watches him cautiously, like she’s a wild animal and he’s prey.

Somehow they end up on the kitchen floor, Bakugou is wrapped in a blanket, his clothes put in the dryer. Y/n has her back against the cabinets as she watches him, her knees are pulled tight to her chest as if they were a shield guarding her heart from him.

“I miss you.” His voice is rough, she can see the remainder of the black make up he wore under his hero mask.

“I wish you’d stay in my memories.” She bites back, her tone is sharp, callous, calculated.

“I deserve that.” He agrees and runs his hands through the damp blonde streaks, the black cat named Starfire had curled up next to him.

‘Traitor’ Y/n thinks in her head as she eyes her companion.

“I hate what I did to you.. I was trying to pr-“

“So help me god if you say protect me.” Y/n snaps, her eyes watering from the confrontation.

“Y/n.. baby.. you don’t get it..” he tried to reason, his eyes search hers for any hope that he can explain.

“I get it. I got it when I came home to a half empty apartment and you sat me down and then walked out. I understood when you blocked my number. I understood when you had security kick me out of your agency when I wanted to talk to you.”

Bakugou closes his eyes, the alcohol has gotten to his head and he feels ill, or maybe it’s the guilt for his actions.

“You protected me all through out high school and college and I supported you when you were in hero school and starting out and you faced greater threats then whatever it was this time. You didn’t leave me then. So what was it Bakugou? What the fuck was it?!”

His last name on her tongue feels wrong, he wants to hear katsuki from her pretty lips.

“I.. I got scared. I wanted to marry you but I got scared. I wasn’t ready.” He whispers and moves closer to Y/n, he moves to lay on the ground, his head in her lap.

“Please Y/n… I’m sorry… please understand.”

She can feel the tears fall on the bare skin of her thigh, she thinks about the last few months that they were together in her head. The way he had gotten a call about a nine thousand dollar transaction on his card, the way he always would stand in the closet and be staring at something but hide it away when Y/n would come around. His mom texting and asking when they could go get their nails done even when they had never done that before.

Y/n looks down at the sobbing drunk man and sighs, she rubs the bridge of her nose and squeezes her eyes shut. The sound of the dryer going off rips her from all thought.

“I’ll be right back.” She gently maneuvers out from under him and goes to get his laundry. When she returns with the clothes, he’s still on the floor petting Starfire and whispering to himself.

“Your mom is so beautiful, I wish I never fucked things up.. I miss her every day. I know I ruined her but I could fix it.. make it up.. god..”

Y/n clears her throat and Bakugou sits up quickly startling Starfire who scampers off.

“You can sleep in the guest room. You’re in no condition to drive or walk.“

Bakugou stands up, keeping the blanket tight around him.

“Okay,” he agrees and walks to where the guest room was, he loved this apartment, remembered the day the two moved in like it was yesterday. He opens the door and it looks different. Y/n’s things are in here.

“Wrong door.” Y/n says as she crosses her arms over her chest.

Bakugou turns and opens their old bedroom. The guest room furniture was now in here.

“Why?” He asks and looks at her.

“Couldn’t stand to be in there.” She looks away.

He doesn’t say anything else as he goes into the room.

“Oh. Here.” She grabs his clothes from the kitchen counter and hands them to him.

“Thanks Y/n.” He smiles, his head feels gross, he needs to lay down.

“Yeah. Well good night.”

She walks into her bedroom and closes the door, she puts her back against it and slides down it, hands running through her hair.

Y/n lets herself cry, she sniffles as she wipes her tears on the black cardigan. It’s not fair she tells herself that right as she’s fully put back together he comes in here and fucks it all up, it’s not fair that he can ruin her own self image of herself and run back to her like it meant nothing.

She takes her sweater off and puts on a big t shirt and crawls into bed. Within a few minutes there’s a knock at the door and Bakugou peeks his head in.

“Y/n?” He says “I love you.” He finishes.

Her eyes flick to him and she jumps out of bed, the door flying open to see his full body

“No. No. No. No.” she picks up a pillow and starts to hit him with it, all the rage she had built up exploding out.

“You don’t get to say that! You don’t get to come here and ruin my life over again like you did already! You don’t get to make me believe that we could be something again when you already proved that I was nothing! You made me feel like I was nothing! Don’t you understand that you’re holding yourself back from finding someone you actually love?! I was barely surviving after you left! It’s not fair!” She screams at him, tears rolling down her cheeks like the storm that rages outside.

Her face is red and warm and her body feels like she’s laying on hot coals. Bakugou gently grabs her and pulls her into a hug, she can faintly smell the cologne he always used, the one she still kept in her bathroom. She can smell the beer on him as well. She breaks down in his arms, she can barely hold herself up as he strokes her back and holds her.

“Shhh, I got you. It’s okay.” He whispers and pulls her to the bed, he lays down with her on his chest. He keeps a tight hold.

“I’m sorry… I’m so sorry.” He whispers over and over.

They fall asleep like that. When the sun comes up and shines in their eyes, they lay in the aftermath of the storm. Bakugou wakes up first like he always did. Y/n isn’t far behind when she feels gentle kisses on her forehead.

“Morning sleeping beauty.” He whispers

“Hi.” She muttered and closes her eyes once again.

Maybe they didn’t have to be what they were before, maybe they could be something better.

Bakugou gently sits up and holds her.

“I am sorry Y/n.. and I do miss you. Just please.. one shot..”

Y/n takes a deep inhale of the cologne that sticks to his body. She slowly nods.

“Okay.. one shot, that’s all you get.”

“That’s all I need. I won’t fuck up again. I promise.”

#bakugou x reader #bakugo x reader #katsuki bakugo x reader #katsuki bakugou x reader #katsuki x reader #mha x reader #bakugou katsuki x reader #bnha x reader #my hero academia x reader #bakugo katsuki x reader #bakugo katsuki #katuski bakugou #katsuki bakugo #katsuki bakugou

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pokequirks · 7 months ago

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bakugo katsuki x male!reader

note: just a thought.

"the fuck are you doing here?" katsuki growls, seeing the masculine figure with head inside the fridge.

"i live here," he responds, taking the cold dinner and a beer, "ya should buy more meat."

katsuki's eyes follow the trace of stains that the clothes of the man has. he sits on the couch and turns on the tv.

"that shit is blood, isn't it?"

"oh, fuck, fuck, sorry kats, i'll clean it later," the man says, taking his cargo pants off and leaving them on the floor.

katsuki sits on the other couch, remaning quiet and watching the tired man in front of him. messy and long black hair, eyes bags under his tired eyes, small smile forming as he watches the program, scratched neck, blood stained legs on a lotus position.

"could you stop looking at me like that?" he whispers, leaving the can on the coffee table and laying on the couch "i'm close."

the man closes his eyes and turns. suddenly, the man coughs.

"fuck…" the man stands and rinses the blood off his hand. katsuki exhales, standing and walking towards the room.

"if you wanna sleep with me then take a shower, ya nasty as fuck."

katsuki entered the bedroom. 2:50am displaying on the digital clock that remained on his side table. he layed on the left side, on his arm. he tried to go to sleep while hearing the other man silently entering the bathroom and water crashing with his body.

he pretends to be asleeps as the man barely dresses with clean underwear and takes refuge with him under the sheets. the man holds katsuki's waist tight and presses softs kisses against his back.

"i'm sorry, kats, i'm really, really close," he murmurs, "you don't deserve this."

katsuki stays still as he feels his shirt wet. the man coming undone as he falls asleep.

it's 6am and he's not there. katsuki goes on with his usual rutine. eat breakfast, clean the mess and get ready for hero duty. he walks to the agency, where the case that he and his sidekick have been working on waits for him.

"good morning, boss. we have new info about the case," katsuki sits and the sidekick continues, "we think the organization is falling into pieces. ghoul has been seen movilizating to another province. informants say other suspects have traveled too."

"he's probably forming an army of his own."

katsuki nodds and lets them retire. he looks at his phone, no calls, no messages. how much more time he'll need, he wonders. katsuki sighs and goes out on patrol.

couple of days pass on without a single word from the man. he's neither gone home since that day. katsuki cooks for him, three cold dinners already in the fridge, waiting for the man to eat them. he stays awake, waiting for him to arrive all hurt, but he doesn't.

as kasuki makes another dinner his phone rings. unknown number.

"hi, kats," soft voice coming from the other side of the line, "how ya been?"

"we decided to make an incursion tomorrow morning," he says.

"don't talk to me about work, baby, tell me something else."

"don't call me baby, mother fucker," katsuki growls and the man laughs softly. he knows he's tired "i bought wagyu meat, ya shall came and eat that."

"that sounds delicious," he whispers, "i love you, kats."

"don't say that shit that way, ya sound like saying goodbye to me," katsuki sighs, "finish that shit and come home, i don't care if you die, you have to come back or i'll kill you."

the man burst into laughter. it's sweet hearing him like that.

"tell me ya love me."

"i'll tell you when you home."

"i have to go, kats," the man warns after someone calls hims, "i love you."

"love ya too."

"you told me you love me, ha!"

"cut that shit off! stupi..." he hung up.

katsuki sighs and continues cooking. that would be the fourth meal.

"we're going to start the operation, in one," the heroes took position, katsuki and the sidekicks beside him, "two..."

katsuki takes a deep breath, he feels all his body now ready.

"three!"

the crowd moved towards the entrance of the abandoned building. quick paces as they started covering the area and weird looks started to appear between the teams.

bakugo reached the last floor. there was no one there. not even a stain of blood.

"sir, team leaders said they have found nothing. this site is clear."

katsuki returns home in the evening. the night is almost setting. he opens the door, there's no shoes in the front door, no blood stains on the floor, but the tv is on.

he runs, the window is covered in a trace of blood. the fridge is barely open and he's there, laying on the couch, a hole in his stomach.

"shit, who did this to you?" katsuki asked, sitting on the floor next to the man.

"hi, pretty boy, how are you?" a small smile painting his croaked lips and one eye still closed.

"why the fuck are you in that state? you are barely alive," katsuki remarks, now noticing the missing eye.

"if i would die, i prefer that you kill me," he says. katsuki looks at him, frowns and a feeling of impotence covers all his body. suddenly the man holds his hand, "i did it, kats, i'm out of that shit."

katsuki remains silent, just looking at the man. the jacket he liked so much now was covered all in dry blood, his shirt with a hole that almost covered it, new skin just starting to generate.

"i look bad, don't i?" katsuki nodded and the man barely laughed, "i'll be the sexy man you fell for in a while, i have been eating well."

the man pointed at the coffee table, the containers with all of his dinners were there, a spoon on the side with food stamps. the black mask is also covered in blood. katsuki stayed on his side for a while. soft breathing as the man rests.

without a word, katsuki helped him reach the bathroom. he helped him take a seat in the bathroom stool and started undressing him.

"i didn't know you had these kinks with a barely alive man, kats," the man laughed, a sudden pinch on the place where his stomach would go.

"shut the fuck up, asshole," katsuki opened the warm water key, the bathtub filling slowly.

in silence, katsuki cleaned the man's body with a towel. light red water falling as the man stayed quiet under katsuki's touch. he was gentle with him. taking care of not touching the hole. then covered up the injury.

"look, my eye is coming back," the man smiles, katsuki does too.

they ended up in bed. both wearing the matching pajama set that the man had bought some time ago.

"please, come with me," the man pleaded. katsuki couldn't say no, slowly he accommodated himself next to the man who embraced him.

"how did you end up like this?" katsuki asks.

"i... i turned into a monster, kats. had to eat them all," the man said, purely referring to those who fell in battle, sad tone and expression on his face "while i was full of energy the regeneration worked at its peak point, i used all battling him, i pierced his heart and separate his head from his body so he left me with this hole... i'm finally free, kats."

katsuki stayed quiet, barely being able to recreate the image in his head. he caressed the injured man's skin while the man played with his toes.

"what's the plan now? after you heal."

"i should look for a job, cannot let my beautiful wife work her ass off," the man grabbed katsuki's ass with a cocky smile on his face.

"i'm not your wife," katsuki whispers, controlling himself in order to avoid hitting him.

"ya not? i have bred ya a thousand times and ya already have the tits," the man puts katsuki above his pelvis, just below the injury, he squeezes katsuki's chest with both hands.

"don't, you hurt," the blonde says as the other rubs his skin below the clothes.

"like it hard, don't ya?" cocky smile on the lips. the missing eye is almost full again, "hug me and tell me ya love me."

katsuki accommodates himself next to the man, one arm over his chest, reaching the face. he stays there, comfortable, just in silence. wonders how much time this bliss could continue.

"i love ya, dumbass."

"i love you more, baby boy."

days pass by. the man soon got a job due to this excellent resume. katsuki still does hero duty, patrol in the morning, paperwork after lunch, and by dinner he's already home. a happy smile and welcoming hug there, waiting for him.

"ya have been making dinner lately," katsuki remarks.

the man nods, "the least i can do."

both man eat dinner together, seated at the dinner table while sharing a chat. the man speaks the most, talking about his engineering work and the co-workers. katsuki listens and sometimes asks something, he avoids talking about his hero duty, so the man being a chatty one is perfect for him.

"we should go see your mom and dad, don't think it is right to delay that when i'm already free, tomorrow's your day off, right?" katsuki nods, eyes fixed on his food, "could we go tomorrow? i'll pay for dinner."

katsuki nods again.

after sharing an intimate moment in the bathtub and then in the bed, katsuki's left with his own thoughts as the man sleeps beside him. he knows this has to come to an end.

"the old hag said my father isn't feeling good, we'll have to reschedule our dinner, i'm sorry."

"oh, it's okay, i hope your dad gets better," the man says and starts taking off his blazer.

"we could go to that park you like and eat something there," katsuki says, the man's eyes now filled with joy as he nods quickly.

he changes for the new jacket that katsuki gave him after the last one was completely unusable.

"thanks to the gift of ma wife, i look damn hot, don't i?"

"yeah, you do."

the man smiles and takes katsuki's hand, heading to the apartment door and chatting about nothing while leaving the building.

soon enough they arrived at that park that the former villain liked that much. they ate some street food before having ice cream and walked to a more private place.

"here, we meet here for the first time," the man said, a nostalgic feeling covering his chest, "you told me to die when i asked you for your number."

"yeah, i did. fucking weirdo that asked me out when i first meet him," katsuki growls, one hand inside his pocket.

"but ya fell so bad for your sexy, awesome husband, don't ya?" cocky smile on his lips as he tightens the grab on katsuki's.

time to finish this off.

"give me your hands," katsuki ordered, the man showed them to him, the blonde took the handcuffs out of his pocket and said, "you're under arrest."

"oh, kats, yer getting kinkier over time," the man said, laughing a bit and getting close to the red eyed man, "let's go home so ya could have me real nice."

the man got under alert when people in costumes started appearing. heroes. the man looked down, handcuffed hands, looked up, cold red eyes. a detective showing him his plaque and talking to him.

"kats, what's this? these yer friends?" the man stuttering.

"you're under arrest, ghoul."

"kats, take this thing off me, please," the man said, policeman taking him by the shoulders, "kats, please, please, don't go on with this joke, please."

the man was sweating cold, heavy breathing as the people surrounded him. he was getting anxious. pleading eyes looking at katsuki, who remained there, standing still.

"katsuki, please," the blonde negated his head, a heart breaking and suddenly all felt in silence. he looked down, a policeman holding the security wrap, "could you please not? i... i go with you."

police man looked at the man, then the number one hero.

"i'm sorry, it's protocol."

after that the black haired man was taken to the prison.

after months katsuki was able to visit the man in prison. the only purpose was to convince him to talk more and give the detective more information about the villain organization.

he was seated in the middle of the room, no more security around him than the guns on the roof ready to shoot if he activated his quirks. lost eyes, slow breathing. the hair was longer, he had gotten back the eye bags and he looked way too skinny.

"how are you?" katsuki asked, the man remained quiet, not even looking at him, "don't wanna talk to me?"

katsuki huffed, waiting for him to answer something. his patience grew smaller with each second that passed by. foot hitting the floor while looking at the man. he couldn't stand it.

"i'm out this shit," the blonde standed and walked towards the door and before he could get out the man speaked.

"why... why did you do that?" slow words, tired heart, "i understand you position being a hero, but i still think you could have gave me some sign..."

both remained in silence.

"did you felt the same way as i did? was all a farce? the nights we spent together, when you told me you loved me? was all that part of the mission?"

katsuki couldn't answer.

"for a long time i had nothing, just one thing to protect and then i met you and thought i may be able to have a life, someone to get back at home," the man looked up, tears running down his eyes, "you should go, katsuki."

"have you been eating?" the blonde asked, still without looking back at the man.

"sure... i'm sorry i can't be helpful to you. i'm not snitching on my friends," a large sigh came out to him, "this will end soon."

"what do you mean?"

"you saw me, i was at my best when you first met me and before being here," katsuki frowned when hearing the man's words, "cow meat is great for keeping me alive if i have it in big amounts, if i don't eat human flesh right now i'll die."

"so you'll just die? tell them what they need to know, they will lower your sentence and i could bring you all the wagyu you would need."

"it doesn't work like that, kats. this power was given to me and it will kill me. you shouldn't worry about my former co-workers, they're on the right track, i took care of that."

katsuki left. no words, no goodbye.

"kacchan, i'm sorry i-"

"shut the fuck up, deku."

the service was held at a small venue, surprisingly for the few policemen, the detective and a few heroes the venue was full. people would give their respects to katsuki.

"sir always said you were a pretty blonde, sure we didn't expect you to be a man nor a hero," one man said, chatting after the corpse was cremated.

izuku standed next to katsuki, trying to support him.

how did you know him? if i may ask," the detective intervened.

"he helped me and my sons get a job, he was a great engineer."

"yeah, he was," katsuki whispered and retired.

"hi, kats. i'm sorry you have to see me like this, lately i have been a jerk with you, i'm sorry about that. i know i'm dying soon, i feel weaker each day and... don't know just i thought i should tell you that i love you and you shouldn't feel bad about this, you did what you had to do, only brave men do. you never deserved this, to get involved with me and my stuff, i hope you can forgive me and i will always love you."

katsuki closed the laptop screen and huffed.

"stupid son of a bitch."

in the front building were too black silhouettes, one holding some binoculars watching inside the apartment.

"sir, we should go now, you're still weak."

"yeah, just let me have this a little more, this is the last time i see my wi-... i see him."

#bakugou katsuki #katsuki bakugo x reader #bnha bakugo katsuki #boku no hero academia #bnha #boku no hero academia fanfic #my hero academia #male reader #katsuki bakugo x male reader #pokequirks

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sickficideas · 2 months ago

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if time is a healer || atsushi sickfic w/ dazai

ao3! 6.8k + trade for @thankshermin <3 - please refer to the tags in the link for content + warnings! sicktember 2024, day 12: "you're not fine, you're throwing up/coughing up a lung"

Dazai wasn't expecting to see Akutagawa drenched in sea water, too.

“Decided to go for a swim?”

Akutagawa has never thought that Dazai's jokes were very funny, and recently, he's started to ignore them entirely. He doesn't even roll his eyes, he just stares, waiting for him to acknowledge the unconscious form that he's protectively knelt in front of.

The breeze at the Port always feels nice. Dazai often forgets to take advantage of the nice parts of Yokohama. He always ends up down here when he actually needs to do something. Right now, he doesn't actually have any time to sit around and take any sights - Atsushi is unconscious and soaking wet in front of Akutagawa, who is visibly confused by Dazai's lack of urgency.

“He passed out after he coughed out the water. And he's been unresponsive since,” Akutagawa tells him. This must have happened after he first called Dazai about twenty minutes ago. All Dazai knows is that a confrontation with their enemy landed them in the water, and Akutagawa requested Dazai come get Atsushi, who was underwater for much longer than what was safe. The unconscious bit is new. “I'm sure there's water in his lungs.”

“Hm. And you jumped after him?” Dazai observes, arms crossed over his chest as he looks over Atsushi. He's not too terribly off. His color looks okay and his expression is relaxed, at least right now, but he'll certainly take him to Yosano to get looked at.

“I'm fine. Take your subordinate home,” Akutagawa huffs as he stands up, a little unsteady on his feet.

Akutagawa's clothes and hair are still visibly damp. He's not entirely sure he can take his word for it. He's never demonstrated great swimming skills either, and he would definitely do much worse in Atsushi's situation than Atsushi himself.

Dazai kneels down and lays the back of his hand on Atsushi's cheek. His eyes twitch and flutter open, glazed over and not even remotely with him. He's warm. Dazai isn't sure, but he almost thinks he may have been running a fever before this happened.

“Did he hit his head?” Dazai asks. This reaction doesn't quite match what he already knows about the situation. He shouldn't be this out.

“I don't know,” Akutagawa mumbles. He sounds nervous. “There was too much going on in the last few minutes.”

“I'm sure I taught you better than to get overwhelmed,” Dazai says, nonchalant, taking note of the tiny bit of subconscious guilt in Akutagawa's tone.

“Don't talk to me like that,” Akutagawa growls, turning his body away, towards the ocean before he coughs a few times into his hand. Dazai cringes at the way his chest rattles with each cough. He knows he generally doesn't do well breathing in the air down here at the port, between the sea air and the various port-related fumes, but rescuing another drowning person certainly didn't help. “I'm leaving. Don't let him die, I need his life to end by my hands.”

“Right, right,” Dazai says, scoping Atsushi up into his arms. Atsushi whines curling up against Dazai's chest like he's shaking some warmth. “Take care of yourself.”

Akutagawa scoffs, only briefly turning to get a look at Atsushi's unconscious form one last time before walking off, fairly quickly disappearing from Dazai's view.

“I don't need you to ruin your lungs too, so hang in there for me, Atsushi,” Dazai tells him gently, heading off to the edge of the park, where Kunikida is waiting for him to take Atsushi back to the Agency. It's not a long walk at all, but they had no idea of Atsushi's conditions and decided not to waste any time.

As Dazai approaches Kunikida's illegally parked car, half on the park's outer sidewalk, Kunikida rounds the car and opens the passenger door for Dazai to lay Atsushi on. He thinks he's going to make a comment on Atsushi's saltwater-soaked clothes getting into his cloth seats, but there's deep concern written all over his face.

“Shit,” Kunikida says, teeth grit as Dazai carefully lays him down. “He doesn't look good.”

Atsushi whines when Dazai lays the buckle across his lap. Hopefully he's not injured, but anything physical would be taken care of soon enough by his ability.

“He'll be alright. Let's just get him back,” Dazai says as he shuts the door and climbs in the backseat.

Kunikida gets them there within minutes with a shoddy parking job, telling Dazai just how worried about his coworker he is. They waste no time getting Atsushi out of the car and through the building's front doors, Kunikida going ahead to open the elevator doors.

“You with me, Atsushi?” Dazai asks him, concerned with how he's still half-unconscious, and Atsushi gives him no indication that he can hear him. He's just huffing out hot and uncomfortable breaths.

“Dammit,” Kunikida mumbles, opening the Agency's office door and then subsequently the infirmary door, where Yosano eagerly waits with her hands crossed over her chest, concerned eyes scanning over Atsushi as soon as he's in her line of sight.

“Let me get some things together for him,” Yosano says, heels clicking as she makes her way over to a cabinet. Kunikida signals Dazai over to a cot he's prepared for Atsushi, covered in a few towels.

“Go fix your parking job,” Dazai tells Kunikida after gently laying Atsushi on the cot, brushing some of his damp hair from his face.

“I can't believe the ex-Mafia is telling me to adjust my parking,” Kunikida huffs, taking his keys from his pocket. He bites his lip, looking over Atsushi, clearly hesitant to leave him.

“I'm a law-abiding citizen, mister detective,” Dazai teases, before meeting Kunikida's concerned gaze. “I'll take care of him.”

“I know you will,” Kunikida says, slowly making his way toward the infirmary door, “let me know if either of you need anything.”

“Thank you, mom,” Yosano says from where she's shifting some things around on a tray near her desk.

“Not you too,” Kunikida groans, “one Dazai is enough.”

Yosano giggles as Kunikida leaves, and she makes her way over to Atsushi's cot. She lays a tray over on the stand beside her chair, effortlessly preparing her stethoscope to examine Atsushi. Dazai doesn't need to be told, he unbuttons Atsushi's damp shirt and sits him up the best he can. Yosano gives a silent thank you before she presses the ice-cold stethoscope to Atsushi's chest, and sliding it under his shirt to listen through his back, too.

“Has he coughed up any water?” Yosano says, clicking her tongue, evidently not happy about what she's hearing.

“That's what I was told,” Dazai answers as she pulls her stethoscope away and swings it back over her neck. Dazai slowly lowers Atsushi back down. Atsushi groans quietly, a pained noise, his eyes screwing shut in tandem.

“I'll need to ultrasound his lungs. I can't remember where I put the damn thing,” Yosano says with a sigh, “it doesn't sound like he's cleared it. I'm worried about -”

“Pulmonary edema,” Dazai says just as she does, agreeing before she can even finish the thought.

“Right,” she says, “good guess.”

“Not my first rodeo, doctor,” Dazai teases. He's suffered from the same thing more than once, and she's well aware of that.

“Next time, I'll give you my license,” Yosamo teases back as she stands up, “I have some gowns we can dress him in, I really don't want him to be in those soaked clothes with the fever I suspect he's running.”

Dazai thought the same thing. He lays the back of his hand against Atsushi's cheek, still as warm as before. He remembers oral thermometers being in the drawer beside the bed. He takes one out and takes Atsushi's jaw to gently part his lips and slide the thermometer under his tongue. He whines quietly, weakly coughing before Dazai slides it back out for the reading.

“One hundred even,” Dazai says as Yosano makes it back.

“He must've already been running a temperature,” Yosano says. She lays the gowns at the edge of the bed, and Dazai starts to peel off his shirt, tie, dropping it off to the side of the cot, much more wet than he was expecting. Atsushi is vocally against all of this even half-concious, whining and whimpering, but quiets down a little as Yosano dabs at his damp skin with a fresh towel before covering him with a gown, and quickly, he's fully undressed and wearing her clinic's gowns.

Atsushi seems a little more awake now with the movement, eyes fluttering but now, evidently focused on worsening nausea. He grunts and wraps an arm around his stomach, barely managing to prop himself up before he gags and chokes up a watery mixture of salt water and bile. Dazai lays a hand between his shoulder blades and rubs circles as Atsushi coughs and sputters, only throwing up a mouthful or so more of what's in his stomach before his arms give out on him and he collapses back onto the bed.

“Looks like you swallowed quite a bit of water, huh,” Dazai says, brushing over the hair that's stuck to his face from the sweat. He's too delirious to answer, he just groans and lays a hand back over his stomach. Dazai decides to carefully lift him and move him to the neighboring cot, being that the other is now soaked with vomit and salt water-dampened towels.

Atsushi's eyes fall just again with no energy to do much else, his eyes twitching from discomfort. Dazai rubs his arm with a sigh.

“It's good that he's getting it up,” Yosano says, “but this confirms my concerns about his lungs.”

“Go find your ultrasound machine. I'll get the rest of his vitals,” Dazai tells her. She looks surprised that he's offering, but shrugs and heads off to her supply closet.

Dazai takes a sheet of note paper from the drawer and writes down Atsushi's temperature, taking note of the frequency of his respirations, rolling over the blood pressure monitor and wrapping it around Atsushi's too-warm upper arm to get a reading. All slightly concerning measurements, but nothing that would currently land him in a hospital. He takes a stethoscope off of the hook to read his heart rate too. Atsushi whines at the cold touch as Dazai slides it under his gown.

Steady. A little fast, but within normal range. He writes it down.

He jumps a little at the sound of what sounds like several books and miscellaneous other objects falling in Yosano’s office. He thinks Atsushi’s okay by himself for long enough for him to at least make sure Yosano hasn’t buried herself.

He peers into her office where she frustratingly gathers a stack of medical journal collections and sets them on the shelf with a huff. There’s several others strewn across the already-overcrowded floor. Yosano has never had incredible organization skills, but it seems to work out for her, at least.

He feels a shiver run down his spine, remembering a similar state of chaos from Mori’s medical office, before he became the Port Mafia’s boss.

“Use that height of yours to get that down for me, before the whole cabinet falls,” she groans, gesturing to the ultrasound machine tucked into a high shelf, evidently previously surrounded by books. He puts the pieces together and gathers she must have tried to get on her adjacent desk to reach it.

Unfortunately for her, Dazai very easily slides the equipment out of the shelf and sets it down on her desk. She shoots him a very annoyed, definitely jealous look before she opens it, slides open a drawer on her desk to look for a password, he’s guessing.

“Seems like you should invest in a ladder,” he teases, and she just huffs again.

“I don’t need two Kunikidas, thank you,” she groans, typing in the password to open the software. Dazai hears a pained whimper from the infirmary room, and he’s quick to head back to the cot, not wanting Atsushi alone for too long when he’s so out of it.

Atsushi whines and twists his body without much strength behind his movement, clearly uncomfortable but not conscious enough to do much about it - Dazai sees saliva drip from the corner of his mouth. He must still be nauseous, but he has a feeling Yosano won’t be able to provide him any medication for that, since they’ll want him to cough up any water in his system. The nausea will help him do that.

Dazai sits on the stool beside him and pushes his hair out of his face, which has plastered to his forehead and stuck up in all sorts of directions from the dampness.

“Dazai…?” Atsushi mumbles, his voice wobbly, eyes having so much trouble focusing on the figure in front of him. It’s becoming painfully clear that he has a head injury, his fever isn't nearly high enough right now to be causing this kind of confusion. He thinks his healing abilities will take care of that soon enough, but they’ve learned in the last that it takes him much, much longer for him to heal from anything illness-related.

“You alright there, Atsushi?” Dazai asks, observing how he’s become much more visibly nauseous, and before Dazai can move fast enough to get the trash bin under his chin, Atsushi has already propped himself up and gagged unproductively over the floor. Nothing more than the clear saliva pooling in his mouth comes up.

Dazai takes the opportunity to pick up the trash bin from behind him and hold it up to Atsushi, whose arm wobbles under the pressure of holding his head over the edge of the bed. He breathes heavy, the bag rustling with the movement.

“Throw up if you need to, alright? Coughing’s good too,” Dazai tells him, sneaking his free hand onto Atsushi’s shoulder to give him some comfort. Atsushi has a lot of anxiety around being sick, and vomiting especially - Dazai’s hoping that he’s a little too out of it to realize how sick he’s feeling, but he’s holding onto some of it, subconsciously. Dazai watches his eyes screw shut even tighter. “Don’t hold it in, Atsushi. You’ll make it worse.”

Dazai rubs his shoulder with a little sigh, thinking for a second it’s going to be a lot harder to get him to stop fighting the nausea than he realized, but just a few seconds after the thought crossed his mind, he hears the water hit the bag rather forcefully, followed by a round of several wet coughs that bring up quite a bit of saltwater as well.

Atsushi’s breaths start to pick up pace before he gags again, just spitting up a thin stream of water that time. He doesn’t have much control over the coughs and gags that follow, but it seems like he’s brought up all he can for right now.

“That’s good. You did good,” he tells him gently, gently guiding him to lay back against the pillows as Dazai lowers the trash bin. Atsushi groans quietly, wrapping his arms around his middle. He’s sure that Atsushi is still wildly uncomfortable.

“Did he throw up?” Yosano asks, sliding the ultrasound machine over on the opposite side of the cot on a wheeled cart.

Dazai nods. “He coughed up quite a bit of water too.”

Yosano begins the process of the ultrasound. She slides up Atsushi’s gown, which he resists to some degree, but Dazai lays a firm hand on his shoulder to keep him in place. He’s pretty out of the loop on what’s going on, sure, but they did to do this.

The lubricant gel she has to use for the probe makes Atsushi shiver rather violently. Dazai watches the hairs on his arms stand. He imagines he’s more sensitive to the cold gel than normal because of this fever he’s running.

She finds out exactly what she needs too - there’s already inflammation in his lungs, which makes it very possible that he’s developing pneumonia. But with Atsushi, it’s impossible to tell what his ability will assist him in healing, and what he’s on his own for - so unfortunately for him, all they can really do is wait and find out.

Dazai opts to stay with Atsushi, realizing this may be a several-hour long ordeal, and he’s not sure he wants to task Yosano with dealing with this by herself, with the mountain of other things she has to do - but, really, he just doesn’t want Atsushi unattended while he’s like this.

The hours pass, slowly, quietly and without much incident. Dazai sneaks out briefly to take a book from his locker that he’s been meaning to read, but never finds himself with time to actually crack it open. Atsushi’s fast asleep for a while, and Yosano stays tucked away in her office as Atsushi sleeps to get her work done.

It’s just about an hour before the Agency closes when Yosano comes by to check Atsushi over herself, this time. She sits on a stool on the other side of the cot, pressing her stethoscope up to his chest. She pauses for a second, still listening, but reaches over to hand Dazai the thermometer, silently asking him to check Atsushi’s temperature.

He miscalculates how far it is, and just gently grasps the space right in front of her hand before he realizes that she’s holding it a bit further back than he can tell, and he slides it from her hand.

Dazai’s been blind in his right eye for several years now, but the depth perception is something he’ll never really get over, no matter how long it’s been, and especially when he’s caught off guard like this. Yosano gives him a suspicious look as she lifts her head, and she’s making Dazai nervous enough that he’s just staring back at her with an awkward smile, still holding the thermometer.

“Sorry, sorry. Terrible depth perception,” Dazai says with a nervous laugh, but he realizes too late that he's already said too much. He started to reach over to put the thermometer under Atsushi’s tongue, but Yosano interjects.

“Is it because of your right eye?” Yosano asks suddenly, tilting her head. “I've noticed you have trouble seeing out of it.”

Dazai has never said anything about that eye to her before. He thought he was pretty okay at hiding his vision problems - he's never had to address it before, but Yosano makes him so nervous that he slipped up and said something he shouldn’t have.

It’s not a problem, really, if anyone finds out. He can get by perfectly fine, it’s nothing more than an inconvenience at this point in his life, and he can certainly lie his way around what happened, just like he does with everything else.

“Has it always been that way? Or is it an old injury?”

But for some reason, he can’t open his mouth to spit out the lie he was going to tell Yosano. The moment she asks that, he feels a shiver shoot up his spine, suddenly overcome with nausea. What happened to his right eye is something he still hasn’t quite attempted to work through, mentally, and he can’t do it in front of Yosano.

Even though he knows that she knows Mori just as well as he does.

Whatever face he makes is enough to get her to ease up.

“I'm sorry,” is all she says. She lowers her head, busying herself with checking the rest of his vitals as Dazai slides the thermometer under Atsushi’s tongue, and they’re in silence again.

Dazai silently shows her the thermometer reading once it beeps without even checking it himself, because there’s a throbbing pain behind his blind eye that he can’t ignore. He’s trying not to think about it, but the more he tries to trick himself into thinking of something else, the more he feels it.

Mori’s new favorite tool, digging around his eye socket when he was just fourteen, with no anesthesia or even any mild sedating medication, under the promise that it would lead to a very quick and painless suicide. That was one of many in a series of promises by Mori to assist him in ending his life, only to leave him suffering more than he was the day before.

Yosano disappears from view. He hears her ask a question that he doesn’t understand but nods to anyway, and suddenly, the lights come off.

He holds a palm up to his eye, pressing against it in some hope that this strange phantom pain he’s feeling will disappear. He hasn’t felt this in such a long time. He thinks Chuuya would scold him for not using the opportunity to talk about things like he always says he should, he just can’t bring himself to do it.

It’s worse, for some reason, because he knows Yosano suffered under him to. It’s not comforting to know that. He doesn’t want to put images of him in her mind, because he wouldn’t want that from her, either.

He feels awfully dizzy. He’s considering lying down on the empty cot, at least until the feeling subsides, but Atsushi shifts, and Dazai realizes he’s been too distracted to notice that Atsushi is trying to get up. He’s not sure where Yosano went - it’s still dark and the orange light coming in through the windows from the sunset is starting to dim.

“Stay down, Atsushi,” Dazai tells him gently. He almost reaches a hand out to lay on his chest and make sure he doesn't get up, but he doesn't need to. Atsushi hardly has the strength to hold his head up, and he collapses back onto the pillows with a shaky sigh from the exertion.

“Where's…Akutagawa?” Atsushi murmurs all feverishly, eyes darting around the room. He doesn't seem to recognize entirely where he is.

Dazai almost wants to laugh. A few months ago that question would've been asked out of fear, but Atsushi sounds concerned, despite how terribly he's feeling himself.

“He's fine. Don't worry about him,” Dazai assures him with a half smile. Sure, he can’t confirm that, but he hopes that at this point in his life, Akutagawa would speak up and take care of himself.

The irony is lost on him, though.

“Dazai,” Atsushi breathes out, for some reason, not at all comforted by those words. He takes in a few deeper breaths, like it’s hard for him to get the air that he’s looking for. His eyes are locked on Dazai. “He…he jumped in after me. I'm just…his lungs, I'm…”

“I'll call and check on him. Worry about yourself right now,” Dazai tells him, trying to ignore how his stomach sinks with that information. He hadn't considered that. Akutagawa seemed perfectly fine when he saw him with Atsushi - soaking wet, sure, but he was conscious and communicative. Dazai doesn’t have to worry about Atsushi, most of the time, with his healing abilities and all - but Akutagawa has none of that.

Surely that’s why Atsushi is concerned, too.

He takes his phone out, and decides he’ll step over to the counter to make the call, not wanting to bother Atsushi with the static of a phone call or any voices raised above a whisper or quiet tone. His eyes follow him, but not long enough for Dazai to pull up his contacts list. Atsushi’s eyes fall shut, screwed shut tight like he’s in pain, but then relax.

“Akutagawa's that Port Mafia kid?” Yosano chimes in, scaring Dazai, not enough to make him flinch but enough to lift his head. She’s in the doorway of her office, backlit by the honey-colored light, evidently listening to his conversation with Atsushi.

“That's him,” Dazai says, leaning against the counter. “They were working together this morning.”

Yosano nods, remembering the briefing she was given before Atsushi arrived in the infirmary.

“You knew him, didn't you? Before you joined us,” she asks. Quietly.

“He was my subordinate,” Dazai answers, turning to face her just a bit more. Yosano's come into contact with him once before, he’s sure. Most of the Armed Detective Agency members were familiar enough with Akutagawa to know him by name, by the time Dazai joined.

Just as Dazai finds Akutagawa’s contact to call him, Yosano’s brow furrows and opens her mouth to say something, but Dazai turns away when the line clicks.

Akutagawa always answers a little too quickly.

“Bite the dust yet?” he says. Maybe a bit of an insensitive joke, considering Akutagawa’s condition. He’s distracted for a moment, peering out the window. The sky’s starting to look rather dark, even for the evening. The orange meets with black clouds overhead.

“What do you want?” he answers with an annoyed huff.

“Your boyfriend wanted me to make sure you're okay,” Dazai taunts, deciding that's probably a joke that Akutagawa can't ignore.

“Dazai -”

“I think he has every right to be concerned with how terrible your lungs are. And he's bordering on pneumonia over here,” Dazai tells him with an exasperated sigh. He’s sure Akutagawa doesn’t care about any of that, but Akutagawa doesn't say anything for long enough for Dazai to realize he's not sure how to react to that information.

“Is he - ” he pauses. “Surely he’ll be fine.”

Hm. Interesting.

“He'll be fine,” Dazai says. Despite Atsushi’s current condition, he certainly will be fine - those Tiger healing abilities will always pull him through. “Go see your doctor. The last thing your useless lungs need is another bout of pneumonia.”

“I don't answer to you,” Akutagawa grumbles, but a few coughs that he didn’t seem to expect betray his biting tone.

“Want me to tell Chuuya? ‘Cause you know exactly that he'll hound you to your grave about it.”

Akutagawa groans. “I’m hanging up. Your voice is giving me a headache.”

Dazai wants to make a joke in return, but Akutagawa truly does hang up the phone. Dazai’s a little more than surprised. But he’s certainly more surprised that little Akutagawa has the capacity to worry about someone other than his sister. And his enemy, no less.

He smiles to himself, but suddenly, the sharp pain in his eye returns.

“Dazai,” Yosano says with a huff, still standing in the doorway with her brow knotted together, “does that happen often?”

Dazai blinks. He’s not sure how she could possibly know that his eye is causing him any pain, so he wonders if maybe she’s asking about something else. Yosano is a detective, but she’s not a mind-reader by any means. “Calling my former subordinate? Well, unfortunately -”

“No, Dazai. Your eye,” she clarifies, her eyes fixed on that eye specifically. It does feel wet, now that he’s thinking about it. But he doesn’t think a tear has slipped out. The tips of his fingers graze over it, the motion causing a sharp pain there, but when he pulls his hand back, he sees blood.

“Oh,” Dazai says, “well…it used to. Happen often.”

“I don’t mean to stop on your toes. But I’d prefer if you let me have a look at it,” Yosano says, but she doesn’t move from her spot in the doorway. Dazai squints trying to look at her, the bright light proving to be far too much for his sensitive eye at the moment. He’s nauseous at the idea of another doctor proding around at his eye.

Dazai wants to tell her no. He wants to say it’s fine, he’s been dealing with chronic paina nd random bouts of bleeding there for years, it’s just slowed down a lot since joining the Agency. He’s not worried about it.

But he thinks that she’s concerned because she knew Mori just as well as he did.

“If you have to,” he says as casually as he can muster, smiling awkwardly to break the tension. “But no needles or anything.”

“I don’t need needles to examine your eye. Go sit down in my office chair and I’ll find my ophthalmoscope,” she says, heading for some drawers on the opposite side of him.

Dazai awkwardly shifts around beside trudging into her office, sitting down in a chair that probably needs replacing. At least that way he doesn’t feel like he’s in a sterile doctor’s office. He’s just in Yosano’s work office. Her desk is littered with piles of unfinished paperwork, little trinkets and broken tools she’s working on fixing.

She walks in, adjusting the head of the opthalmoscope before looking at Dazai. She turns back to take some gauze from the counter and reaches to carefully dab at Dazai’s eye, to wipe off some of the blood.

“Is it painful?” Yosano asks.

Dazai was hoping she wouldn’t ask, but at this point, there’s no reason to lie to her. “Very.”

She peers through the opthalmascope after reaching back to turn off the office light. He knows the drill, he just stares forward, tries not to move, and at this point, he’s trying to make sure he doesn’t throw up. Yosano is nothing like Mori, but at the same time, she’s exactly like him.

“Hey,” she says, lowering the scope and looking at him with a very concerned gaze. “Breathe, okay? I’m not going to hurt you. I’m just looking.”

Dazai didn’t realize he was being that see-through just now.

He doesn’t say anything, he just does what she’s asked - breathes, something he forgot to do moments ago. He takes in a long, deep breath, holds it, and lets it out. He has to force himself to breathe out each time, or else he just ends up holding his breath and feeling worse.

It’s over, soon enough.

“You really can’t see from that eye,” she says, like she’s surprised to be able to confirm her theory, lowering the scope. “I’m not sure why it’s bleeding though. It might be a good idea for you to have it checked by an eye doctor.”

He smiles back awkwardly, with absolutely zero intention of following through on that. Yosano turns back to switch the lights back on, but all of it at once it too much. He shrinks away, his eyes forcing themselves shut, just the one throbbing through an intense stabbing pain.

Yosano shuts the light off as soon as she seems to register that his reaction is out of pain, and she disappears for a moment before coming back with something in her hand. The light coming off helped the pain subside rather quickly.

“Are you completely blind there? Or can you still see shapes, register lights?” Yosano asks.

“The second part,” Dazai answers, and Yosano presents him with a medical eyepatch.

“Put this on for a while. That way the light isn’t too much, and it might be a good idea to keep it covered while it’s bleeding like that,” Yosano suggests, and Dazai takes it. He’s certainly no stranger to these. The idea of putting it on isn’t something he;s thrilled about, but she’s right. It might help for a while.

So he puts it on.

He thanks her, quietly, before he wanders back to Atsushi’s cot, where the latter is thankfully fast asleep, but not looking much better.

Kunikida pokes his head in to ask how Atsushi’s holding up, to pass on the message to his very concerned colleagues. Dazai assures him that Atsushi will he just fine, he just needs someone to stay with him while he’s not feeling well, because he can’t handle it alone. Kunikida says that Kyoka offered to sit with him in place of Dazai, but Dazai insists that Kyoka getting sleep is more important.

The sun eventually sets completely as their coworkers file out of the building, leaving it eerily quiet. Yosano turns on the radio to fill the silence, just calming instrumental in her office, and she stays there, not coming out aside from peeking at Atsushi. The silence is long gone as wind starts to pick up around the building, whistling through the screened windows. He’s sure there’s a storm coming.

Eventually, Atsushi’s eyes flutter open.

Dazai doesn’t bother him with conversation right out of his sleep. He’s sure he’s confused and frazzled with that fever he’s been running, one that has Yosano concerned that he isn’t healing himself like they had hoped. She said she would give him until midnight before she would decide if he needed to be hospitalized.

Dazai hopes that’s not the outcome. Atsushi would handle that just as well as Dazai would.

“Dazai,” Atsushi murmurs feverishly with a pained groan, an arms over his middle, his eyes heavy with exhaustion, “I don't feel good.”

“I know, Atsushi,” Dazai tells him, reaching forward and patting his hair. “Wish we could make it go by faster for you.”

He's met with vague memories of himself being fever-riddled in the shipping container he used to call home, through the aftermath of some hurricaine that had not treated Yokohama kindly. He's sure he had pneumonia then too, but he was so sick he can hardly remember being treated after. He just remembers then fifteen-year-old Akutagawa showing up with Chuuya in tow, finding him drenched in sweat and coughing so much that it was making him vomit. He’s not sure how either of them ever found out he was so sick.

He remembers asking them to leave him. He felt so awful that he would have rather his body completed the process of killing him, which he was so certain would have been the outcome had no one found him. He begged both of them, over and over, to make it stop. To end it faster.

“I wish I could make it be over faster,” Chuuya has mumbled at some point. Then, Dazai had assumed Chuuya was making a remark to assist him with suicide, but he realizes now that Chuuya just wanted his suffering to end. He wanted him to feel better.

He’s not sure why Chuuya would have ever wanted that for him, but he feels that way about Atsushi. Atsushi at least deserves to feel better.

Dazai hears the thunder start to roll overhead, confirming his suspicions of a storm. Thankfully it’s not nearly as loud in the Armed Detective Agency’s building as it would be in their dorms, but they can still hear the thunder very well.

“I wanna go home…” Atsushi murmurs quietly, laying on his side, defeated with a quiet huff. He shifts uncomfortably, shivers.

“You can't yet, Atsushi. You've gotta stay here for a little longer,” Dazai tells him kindly, brushing his hair out of his glassy, fevered eyes. “We can’t let you go anywhere in this storm, anyway.”

He shivers at the sound of the thunder, curling up like a scared dog. Dazai half smiles, taking the end of the sheet and bringing it up to cover his shoulders, so he’s a little more secure.

“I didn't ever realize that you were scared of thunder,” Dazai says with a fond smile.

“I'm not scared,” Atsushi murmurs with a harsh shiver, “I just…I just don't like it…”

Dazai almost laughs. He’s heard those exact words from Akutagawa, years ago. He understands their negative associations. Akutagawa’s past living on the streets never gave him a good memory with a storm, and he’s sure Atsushi’s in the same boat, where he was trapped in the orphanage for most of the time, all by himself.

“You’re safe in here,” Dazai assures him, his tone that of a teacher trying to comfort a kindergarten student, making a little more teasing than he intended, but he hopes Atsushi knows that he means it. Dazai’s still trying to learn that too, but they are safe here, in the Agency.

Atsushi barely makes it over the side of the cot to vomit.

Dazai rubs his shoulder gently, telling him it’s fine and not to worry. It’s still just water, of course, there’s nothing else in his system. Yosano peeks out at the sound of the commotion, and gets to work with setting up IV fluids for him.

Atsushi breathes heavy over the side of the cot for a few minutes, visibly nauseous but without much energy to do anything other than gag miserably. Dazai doesn’t take his hand off of him. He must feel terrible right now, being so visibly sick isn’t something he shows willingly a lot of the time. Dazai tucks the longer pieces of his hair out of his face when he gags and coughs, bringing up nothing more than spit and water.

“Any better?” Dazai asks when Atsushi trunks himself onto his back, to which the latter shakes his head, closing his eyes. He looks terrible. Dazai reaches forward to adjust his hair, it’s stuck to his forehead in all sorts of directions.

“I wanna go home,” he says again through a quiet burp, visibly distressed, “’m fine…”

“You’re not fine, Atsushi. You’re still throwing up,” Dazai tells him, rubbing his shoulder. “Just let us take care of you for a little while longer.”

Yosano takes Atsushi’s hand and starts to place an IV as gently and quickly as she can. Dazai busies himself with distracting Atsushi, who is already starting to drift back into a sleep, unbothered what Yosano is doing for the most part - Dazai is more bothered than Atsushi is, up until the needle part is over. Dazai holds Atsushi’s free hand.

Yosano is gentle in the way that she finishes up the job, with adjusting everything, placing the tape. Her hands are quick and efficient, but not oblivious to the feelings of the person that she works on. Very unlike Mori, who never cared much if he was hurting a patient more than he should have been. That’s comforting, at least.

“Mori used to talk about you,” Dazai says.

She looks up. Dazai always has a hard time telling what she's thinking. She must have learned that from Mori, because Dazai has heard it’s very difficult to tell what he’s thinking, too.

“Never by name, but…I put the pieces together,” he says, rubbing circles into Atsushi’s hand with his thumb, thinking maybe it’s more soothing for him than it is for sleeping Atsushi. “The way you wrap bandages, give injections…”

“I've thought the same of the way you do things,” she says quietly. “I'm sorry you had to suffer with him for so long.”

“I'm here now,” Dazai shrugs. He has to be nonchalant about it, any other way makes him feel like he’s losing his mind, but he’s grateful to be here now. “And so are you.”

Yosano smiles back at him.

…

The next morning, Dazai feels himself wake up with the morning light spilling in through the windows. He doesn’t remember falling asleep, but he has his book in his lap, and he’s on the cot beside Atsushi.

And Atsushi’s still there, looking like he’s starting to wake up, too.

Dazai stretches his limbs out, surprised by the feeling that he’s gotten a fairly good rest. And Atsushi is still here - that means he’s improving, at least, and Yosano decided he didn’t need to be hospitalized. He moves to the chair where he was before beside Atsushi. His eyes are blinking open, slowly, carefully.

Dazai reaches forward to lay the back of his hand on Atsushi’s cheek, and he’s still feeling a little warm, but not nearly as hot as before. That’s good. He probably just needs a few more hours of rest and he’ll be good as new.

Atsushi groans, eyes screwing shut for a moment, wrapping his arms around his middle.

“Everything okay?” Dazai asks him.

“Nauseous,” Atsushi murmurs quietly.

“Hmm. The antibiotics,” Dazai says with a nod. He says Yosano adding quite a bit to his IV, and he’s sure it’s helped his condition, but the side effects are never fun to deal with. “I’m sure Yosano can add something for your nausea if you’re still feeling sick.”

“Did you ever call Akutagawa?”

Dazai’s surprised to hear him ask for a follow-up, when he’s clearly still not feeling well. He’s still out of it, too, he’s just saying what’s on his mind.

“I did. What he does is his own choice, though,” Dazai says with a half-smile. “He’s never listened to me.”

Not that I ever gave him good examples to follow.

“I wish…wish he’d ask for help,” Atsushi murmurs, fighting his own exhaustion as he stares at the ceiling and tries desperately to keep himself awake. “He doesn’t have to…to do everything alone…”

“You’re right. He doesn’t,” Dazai tells him. Advice Dazai could surely use himself. “Go back to sleep, Atsushi. You’ve got some more resting to do before you’re back to yourself.”

Atsushi doesn’t need to be told twice. Even if he wants to stay awake, his eyes betray him, and he starts to fall asleep again.

Dazai supposes he has some lessons to learn after all.

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gerec · 17 days ago

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For the past couple of weeks I've been part of a small team responsible for the logistics of a prestigious competition/event; last night was the formal Awards Banquet where we were served an amazing dinner catered by one of the city's best restaurants. During the breaks where we weren't running the show/working, I had a very long and in-depth conversation with a young colleague who's worked on this project all the way from the beginning planning stages (i.e. as far back as Feb/Mar this year). She shared her disappointment with the lack of acknowledgement that she's gotten from the agency's management for all the long hours and hard work she's poured into this project, and also the incredible frustration over the poor treatment she's getting from the same. For instance, she flew in from out of town, but because she's contracted to work 4 out of 5 days a week they're not paying her for today's travel day back home (which if you don't know is standard practice for event management - travel time is part of the job). This is just one of a long list of examples she shared with me.

The good news is, she's already decided to quit at the end of her contract (which is soon), but she still had some misgivings about doing so; like asking herself what, if anything, she could have done differently, and feeling like she failed because this is her first job out of uni and she couldn't make a longer go of it. For the record, she's an absolute delight and a superb employee - and if I were in a position to hire staff I would hire her in a heart beat. (Also she's been full time for a year and part time for 2 before that so...she's absolutely not leaving without giving it a go.)

I guess I'm sharing this story because there might be young people like her out there who need to hear what I told her last night. So here goes:

Yes, work can be frustrating and can suck - badly - at times, but you should not hesitate to leave any job where you're crying on a regular basis because of how stressful it is and how badly you're treated.

Yes, you should leave a job where your manager berates you regularly, or sends you emails on weekends/outside of work hours to berate you. If they have an issue with your performance, they should explain what you're doing wrong and help you or give you the tools to do it properly not just yell at you. I know this happens a lot (sadly) but also know that this is NOT normal and NOT something you simply have to suffer in silence over. You have every right to expect to be treated fairly, courteously and professionally at work.

Yes, you should leave a job where people take advantage of you and don't pay you for the hours you work. I read a lot about Gen X and Boomers lamenting the Gen Z's for not being good workers because they're not willing to put in the blood sweat and tears to hang on to their jobs but I'm Gen X and I say that's BULLSHIT. A) Not every Boomer/Gen X feels that way, and B) Employers, no matter how nice they are as people, or how much you might like them will absolutely take advantage of you and SCREW YOU if they can. You can and should fight for your every goddamned hard-earned/well deserved dollar because no one else will do it for you. Same goes for your career - you are the only one you can rely on to make the best decisions for you.

So why am I working with these guys? Well, I'm a freelancer (I'm a Marketing Consultant) currently going project by project so I have the freedom to say no to any job I don't want to take and also to walk away the minute it no longer suits me to continue the relationship. I've also been at this for 28 years, so I imagine there's a bit of reverse ageism going on because they know they can't pull the same crap with me. (So there you go, this one time in this one instance, being older helps lol).

Anyways, the job market is rough, many employers are appallingly rude to job seekers (ask me about ghost job postings some time UGH) and people can be dicks (water is wet ha). Just...know your own worth and don't feel bad about leaving something if it's not working - you owe loyalty to no one but yourself.

#gerec rambles

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shockinglysubmissive · 1 year ago

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I'm Okay

Taishiro Toyomitsu (Fatgum) x AFAB!Reader (GN Pronouns)

Warning: angst (slight), office sex, fingering, squirting, pussy eating, unprotected sex, cream pie

A single text was the last contact you had with him, and it left you flooded with fear. 'Stay far away from down town. I'll meet you at your home when I can'. You knew he was facing an intense villain attack. It was all over the news. But even after the villain was subdued, you still hadn't heard from him.

You ignore his message, needing to see him now. Your relationship was still young, so this was the first time he had faced an intense fight while you had been dating. Fighting through the crowd of reporters outside his agency, you get to the lobby. A few recognize you, and try to stop you for questions. It was a miracle that you made it to the double doors of the building without throwing an elbow at a reporter trying to grab you.

A twinkling bell rings, letting the two interns standing guard know the door had been opened. "Hey! You can't be here!" Red Riot tries to stop you, not recognizing you right away. "It's Fatgum's order." He steps closer, reaching a hand out to stop you from passing by the desk. Pure adrenaline got you to this point through the crowd, you weren't about to sit and wait like a nobody.

"No offense, Eijiro, but I don't give a fuck. Now can you please step aside and let me see my boyfriend?" Struggling to keep your voice level, you look at the red head, locking eyes with him. You look between him and Suneater, almost challenging one of them to stop you now they know it is you.

Glancing at Suneater, he finally caves. "You keep watching, I'll take them back to Fatgum." He sighs before leading you up to his office. The halls seemed longer than usual as your anxiety and stress continue to build the longer you go without seeing him. Eijiro knocks firmly on the office door, wanting to get his attention.

"This better be important Red Riot." A tired voice calls out, the faint sound of shuffling can be heard before the door is unlocked and opened. "It better not be a reporter making Suneater freak out again. I don't think I can handle that today." The taller than average doorway is filled with a large man leaning against the frame for support.

You are greeted with the muscular form of your boyfriend. His clothing is torn and tattered, covered in a mix of blood, sweat, and dirt. The filth on his face was smeared, as if he was in the process of washing it off when he opened the door.

"Sorry... They um... didn't want to wait." Stepping aside, Taishiro is finally able to see you. His shoulders relax and he moves to let you enter the office.

"I'm sorry for the way I acted, and could you tell Tamaki I'm sorry too? I shouldn't have reacted so harshly when you were just doing what you were told." You keep your voice low, now feeling embarrassed by how aggressive you were when you entered the building.

"Thank you for bringing them here. Just a bit longer and I'll come down to talk to the press." He assures him, giving him a tired smile before shutting the door again. He stands with his hand on the door looking at you for a few seconds. "We will talk about you not listening to me later. I shouldn't have to worry about the press tearing you apart to ask questions after dealing with a villain."

His tired body passes by you, slumping down in his desk chair, looking at the mess of bandaids and antiseptic gels. Grabbing a wet rag from a bowl of warm water, he rings it out. He looks into a small mirror and starts cleaning his face again. Guilt twists like a knife in your gut, and you move closer to his desk. "Can I help you? I was just so worried." Your voice feels small as you speak.

"Actually, I would love that." Sensing how bad you feel, he flashes you a quick smile, rolling his chair back to make space for you. Moving in front of him, you clear the mess of papers and sit down on top of his desk. Spreading your legs, you make space for him to slide between them to get closer to you again. He hands you the rag, still wet with hot water. Leaning forward, you let your body hover just above him.

You gently dab the cuts and scrapes littering his pale skin. His eyes fall closed, letting you clean the dirt from his face. Your free hand rests on his shoulder to stabilize yourself as you meticulously clean the bleeding areas. Switching to the gel, you carefully apply it to the deeper gashes. Once you are sure that everything has been cleaned, you press your lips to his. Not expecting the soft feeling of your mouth, his eyes open quickly.

"I'm sorry. I couldn't resist. Seeing you all beaten up scared me. I needed to know that you were still my Taishiro under these injuries." You set your hand on his cheek, your thumb brushing small strokes. You're careful not to rub against a bruise on his jaw. A large hand rests on yours.

"Hey. It's just a few bumps and bruises. Nothing changed. This happens from time to time. I shouldn't have worried you by sending that text then not reaching out when I got back to my office. I'm still getting used to having someone else worry about me." His golden eyes lock with yours, trying to give you comfort. "I just knew I wanted you far away from any danger. I didn't stop to think that you would be freaking out until you heard from me again."

"It's not your fault. I knew what I was in for when I started dating a pro hero. Now, I think I've gotten your face patched like it should be. Do you mind if I look at the rest of your body? I can see a nasty looking cut on your shoulder. Could you please take this off?" Your hands trail down the solid muscles of his chest, grabbing the rag and dipping a clean corner into the cooling water. He shrugs the tattered and torn remains of his jacket off, letting it fall to the floor to give you access to his torso. Even the undershirt he wore was barely intact enough to stay in his body. "I wish I knew it was that easy to get you out of your clothes." You say under your breath, only half aware that he can hear you.

"All you ever need to do is ask nicely. Please and thank you go a long way, my love." He flashes you his beautiful smile, attempting to hide the wince as you clean the deep cut. Reaching down, you set one of his hands on the fat of your thigh. "Huh? What are you doing?"

"Squeeze my thigh like a stress ball if it hurts too much. You don't need to pretend to be fine around me." You try to ignore the way his huge hand easily covers most of your plush thigh. Applying more pressure to his cut, you feel his fingers tentatively tighten, testing if he would hurt you. "That's it. I just need to apply a bandage, then I can clean the minor scrapes and you're all done." Pressing firmly on the wound to properly apply the bandage, he grips down tighter on your thigh. "Are you still doing ok?"

His knuckles go white from the grip he has on the fat of your thigh. "It doesn't hurt. But dammit. I wasn't expecting it to feel so good when I squeezed your body. You didn't even react." He forces his hand to relax, looking up to your face.

"I told you that you could use me as a stress ball. I've got a high pain tolerance." You keep your voice gentle to reassure him. He lifts his hand to run it through his messy hair. "Is everything ok?"

"I know we agreed to wait. But seeing you on my desk, leaning so close to me, telling me to use you as a stress ball... Well it's getting hard to resist you. All I can think about is pushing those soft thighs to your chest while I work you open on my cock." His face flushes red with embarrassment as he confesses. "I would never do that without your approval, but I don't want to keep it a secret how I feel about it or how badly I want you right now."

With the fear of his well being finally gone, you are able to take in the tent that had formed in his loose fitting hero pants. You couldn't deny you wanted him too. The thoughts had been creeping into your mind the entire time you had been cleaning him up, but you didn't want to take advantage of his shaken state of mind by throwing yourself at him. "Is this the best time? I mean you have all those people outside waiting for you. And your interns. I don't want to keep them waiting." Your voice comes out as ramblings, trying to rationalize this.

"The press will get bored soon enough. I can send a message to the boys telling them they can take the back exit and leave whenever they want. I never make them stay to talk to the press unless they want to. I don't want to overwhelm Suneater with that just yet. They won't be suspicious of anything." He explains, his face suddenly falling. "I'm not trying to pressure you into this. I just wanted to make sure you know those things won't be an issue."

Your throat feels dry as you try to speak. "Y-you want me? Right now, I mean. Even after getting injured? You must've used so much energy expelling all that fat. I would understand if you're not really in the mood." You continue rambling until two large hands grab your thighs and pull your ass to the edge of the desk.

"You're so cute when you ramble, but I'd much rather have your lips against mine." Your hands meet his broad chest as your body falls towards him. Leaning closer to you, his lips catch yours, tasting like sugar. You don't fight him, though you remain aware of where your hands are sitting so you don't irritate any of his injuries further. His hands fumble their way up your thighs, thick fingers hooking under the elastic of your lounge pants. "Lift up." He instructs against your lips, unable to bear to break the kiss any longer than the brief moment.

Tentatively, you lift your ass just enough for him to get the waistband of your pants around the curve of your ass. It takes effort to pull yourself away from the kiss, shallow pants leaving your kiss-swollen lips. Your skin starts to stick to the wooden surface of the desk as soon as it touches. It was in this moment, where you no longer had the material of your pants, when you remember you had been in such a rush to get here, you never put panties on. The slick from your cunt starts to puddle beneath you.

"You seem excited, and I haven't even taken my pants off. Though it's a good thing you're this wet. It'll make it easier for you to take me." His calloused thumbs rest on either side of your lips, spreading you open to give him a better view of your clit. The cool air sends a chill down your spine and you find it increasingly difficult to keep from fidgeting. One of his index fingers gathers your slick before easing its way to massage your deepest nerves. "That's it. Good job. Just relax for me and I'll make you feel so amazing." His voice is soft as he showers you with praises, his middle finger nudging against your entrance.

Your hands fall back to brace yourself on the desk, soft moans leaving your lips as your breathing becomes labored. His thumb circles around your clit, occasionally brushing over it directly to make your body jolt. When his ring finger breaches your slick wall, electric waves course through your body. He doesn't stop his movements, letting your pussy clench around his thick fingers. The hand that had been teasing your clit moves higher, pressing down lightly just above your pelvic bone through the fat of your stomach.

You don't have time to feel insecure as his fingers buried deep inside you curl up as if they were trying to touch his palm. The hand pushing down lightly adds even more stimulation to your g-spot, pressure building on your core. It doesn't take long before the pressure hits its peak and you feel as if you're going to bust.

"Tai~ you gotta stop. It's too much." You gasp out, trying to find the strength to push him away. A chuckle leaves his lips as his fingers quicken. His golden eyes focus on you, taking in the way you thrash around, begging for him to stop so you don't make a mess. Something unlocks within him and he can't help but imagine how pretty you would look crying from pleasure.

"Just let go. Stop holding back. I know you can do it for me, my pretty little one. You trust me, right?" He coos, only picking up the pace when you grab his wrist. Around his fingers, clear liquid gushes out, soaking his hand and the desk beneath you. He is reluctant to remove his hand, but he is too greedy and impatient. His head dives between your thighs, all previous injuries and exhaustion long gone as he laps up the taste of you. The sounds that leave your mouth are heaven to him, only encouraging him to ignore the hand tugging his hair in an attempt to separate him from your sensitive core.

It's not until your hand travels through his hair, brushing against a bandage that he pulls away. The pains from before slowly ebbing back to the front of his mind. Catching your breath, you sit up enough to look at him. Through his torn and tattered pants, you can see the obvious erection fighting to get freed. He sees where your attention has landed, and his face turns a deep shade of red.

"May I remove your pants?" You bat your lashes at him, seeing his slight hesitation. His large frame shifts nervously in his desk chair before letting his desires get the best of him. He finally nods and guides your smaller hands over his bulge. Just knowing it is you touching him is nearly enough to have his seed spilling into his clothing. You are delicate with everything you do, unzipping his pants and tugging them enough to free his leaking cock.

You were prepared for him to be large. Even in his thin form, he was over 220cm. But you were shocked by how pretty it was. His tip was a deep shade of red, matching the color on his face. Drops of precum leak out of his tip, allowing you to use it as lube as you pump the length slowly. The skin along his shaft felt so warm and soft in your hand. The tuft of blonde hair at the base was trimmed to keep it manageable, leading its way up to disappear under the remaining pieces of his shirt. Your head starts spinning and you release the breath you didn't realize you had been holding.

"Don't make me wait. I'm dying to feel myself buried inside you. I don't think I'll be able to last." He groans through gritted teeth, heels digging into the ground to keep from fucking into your small hand. "Your hands feel so good. I bet your pussy will feel addicting." The moans leaving his lips made it hard for you to stop. You just want to focus on the sounds he is making, and to feel him spill his seed in your hand. He can see it in your eyes that you don't plan on stopping, so he grips your wrist. He easily overpowers you, prying your hand off his twitching cock.

"No!" You look at him with your bottom lip jutting out. You were right there. Just a few more pumps and you would have felt the sticky cum you were desperate for. His hands grab your thighs and drags you off the desk so you fall in his lap.

"What are you whining for? I was the one with the denied orgasm." He lovingly teases you in an attempt to distract you from his large tip easing between your lips. Your eyes lock with his, and the golden eyes are hazy with need. Hooking your legs over the arms of the chair, he eases you down in him. "I'm going to push in now, ok sugar?"

It takes insane patience on his part, fighting the urge to slam into you, and fill you with his cum. You aren't sure how long it took, but eventually, your cunt is stretched wide around him. His tip kisses your cervix and you dare to look down. The sight between your legs was nearly enough to make you cum. Only half his shaft is able to squeeze inside you. Your slick drips down the rest of his length, making his lap wet.

"I... Oh fuck... I was so right about how good you feel. I don't think I'm going to last." His head falls back, bruised chest rising and falling rapidly. With his feet planted flat on the floor, he thrusts into you. You roll your hips slowly, already falling over the edge and clenching hard around him as you cum. Your orgasm triggers his, and you feel painfully full of his seed, pushing your stomach out. His shaking hands lift you off of him and place you back on the desk. Being moved away causes your stomach to drop and you reach out to him.

"Aw. Don't be like that, sugar. I'm not leaving you. But I do need to eat to regain my strength. And it just so happens that you can help with that. After all, cream pie is my favorite dessert." He winks up at you.

#mha #mha smut #bnha #bnha smut #my hero academia smut #my heroe academia #boco no hero academia smut #boco no hero academia #taishiro toyomitsu #taishiro Toyomitsu smut #fatgum #fatgum smut

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damagedintellect · 1 year ago

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Dazai Osamu x reader

💌 Reading into the palms of isekai bullshit:

Chapter 1 💌

Summary: You were no stranger to isekai bullshit. It’s not like you had a problem with it. The genre took over the anime scene for years now but you try to stay away from thinking about how you would handle the situation. The last time you thought about inserting yourself into your favorite show you wrote a 100k word xReader fic for your favorite characters and you didn’t want to spend all your time consumed by the brainrot again. Never again, you promised yourself that was the last time you’d let the devil on your shoulder win. You clicked on chapter 1 to start the adventure over again but when you opened your eyes and saw Dazai O-FUCKING-samu getting choked by Kunikida you honestly hoped it was a dream.

Notes: Another isekai so I can play around with BSD like dolls.

💌 Word count: 3,312 💌 You Are Here | Next Chapter =>

"Nooooooo!” you screamed, throwing your phone down. Today was the day the new Bungo Stray Dogs chapter was supposed to be posted. It was but you weren’t happy about it. You finished reading it in record speed since they left both of your favorite characters in a pretty heavy cliffhanger only to shift the perspective to someone else. It wasn’t a bad chapter, you just didn’t like the idea that you’d now have to wait another month. You sighed falling back on to your bed. The waiting was nothing new but your brain wanted more. More adventures, more side stories, heck at this point you might as well reread the damn thing. You’ve been scrolling through tumblr reading as many plot analysis and character breakdowns to the point where you feel like you know everyone like the back of your hand. Everyone feels so real to you like you’ve known them all your life, almost like in another life you were all friends or maybe you were a part of the agency. You laughed to yourself as you picked your phone back up. The rain outside would be nice ambient noise to start the manga over once again.

You were no stranger to isekai bullshit. It’s not like you had a problem with it. The genre took over the anime scene for years now but you try to stay away from thinking about how you would handle the situation. The last time you thought about inserting yourself into your favorite show you wrote a 100k word xReader fic for your favorite characters and you didn’t want to spend all your time consumed by the brainrot again. Never again, you promised yourself that was the last time you’d let the devil on your shoulder win. The soft pitter patter of the rain brought you back from your thoughts as you clicked on chapter 1 to start the adventure over again.

—

“Dazai I swear if this was one of your planed double suicides I’m going to kill you!” a voice rang out. You could still feel the cold sensations of floating in water. What were you doing a moment ago and why did those voices sound familiar to you? The last thing you remember was starting over your beloved manga from chapter 1. You didn’t leave the house and none of your friends had keys to get in. Why were there people in your bedroom and why do you feel cold and wet?

“I assure you if it was, me and this lovely lady would already be dead but unfortunately Atsushi here ruined that miracle for me.”

You choked, it finally hit you. You did, in fact, recognize those voices “D-Dazai?” When your vision came too you were in Atsushi’s lap as Kunikida was shaking his partner. This couldn’t be real. No this had to be a dream. Dammit you could see it now, once you woke up you were going to write another Stray Dogs isekai. You internally groaned. What have you done?

“Ah so sleeping beauty’s awake!” Dazai tapped the blonde’s wrist to get his attention. “Kunikida as a gentleman you should ask her if she’s alright and stop strangling me.”

Reluctantly the blonde did as he was told and let go, gracefully kneeling in front of you “Are you alright my colleague said you were floating in the river?” his eyes were full of concern. It made a warm feeling bloom throughout your body. Honestly you could get used to this. Wait, did he just say you were floating in the river?

You looked dazed, glancing around to see the familiar riverbank that Atsushi starts at during the very beginning of Bungo Stray Dogs. You looked at your hands. You were still wearing the same clothes you had before you remember falling asleep, admittedly they were much soggier than you remember but you had no memory of how you ended up in the river. Just from the small scene in front of you this was how episode 1 started. If you played along maybe you’d eventually wake up. You’ve had lucid dreams before, it wasn’t too far fetched but the ache in your heart didn’t want you to wake up. Finally you looked up at Kunikida who was patiently waiting for your answer but before you could respond your stomach growled. How embarrassing, now it really was like how the episode played out.

Dazai keeled over laughing “I guess introductions can wait till we get something to eat, how about that?” He offered you a hand over his partner's shoulder to help you up. You snapped out of your haze staring at it a moment before you grabbed his hand and said “I think that’s for the best.”

What have you gotten yourself into?

At dinner Atsushi spent no time at all stuffing his face as Kunikida and Dazai bantered back and forth. Dialogue you remembered from when you watched the show originally. You forgot how furious Kunikida was over the whole ordeal and you felt bad knowing what Atsushi was going to say next. He really needed a hug and you know what you can finally do that with your circumstances but maybe not right now.

“I came to Yokohama straight from the orphanage. I’ve had nothing to eat and nowhere to sleep since. I thought I’d starve to death.”

“You came from an orphanage?” Dazai questioned. He was sitting across from you casually and despite being hungry you noticed that he didn’t order anything to eat. You had ordered one out of solidarity. You’ve always wanted to try tea on rice but never bothered trying to find a place that makes it in your area. Atsushi was already on his twelfth bowl or so as he continued the conversation.

“I was yes but they kicked me out.”

“Sounds like a real philanthropic organization.” Dazai turned his attention from Atsushi to you “How about you? Remember anything now?” He rested his head on the back of his hands. You wanted to hold them.

You nodded looking down at your hands. That’s when you got an idea. “I think my name is (Y/N), (Y/N) (L/N). Still trying to work out how I got in the river but,” you paused raising your hands to your face slightly. Your mom had read tons of books about palm reading. Maybe this could be your chance to use what little knowledge you remember to your advantage. “I don’t know this might sound silly but do you mind if I see your hands?”

Dazai tilted his head to the side before he offered you his palms “What brought this on?” You pretended to inspect the lines ghosting over them with your fingers tracing some of them lightly. “When I looked at my hands I had this voice in my head that told me that I could read palms. Mine were kind of fuzzy so I wanted to see if I could read someone else’s” You pretend to see flashbacks, blinking and tensing up for added effect. He played along, chuckling to himself “Well what do you see?”

You forced a careful expression on your face slowly sparing him a glance “A lot you’d rather I not say out loud.” You move to hold his hands in yours giving him a loving squeeze and smile “Odasaku would be proud of you though.” The look he gave you was sharp, his lips in a tight line hearing the name. Before either of you could really finish the exchange Kunikida piped up.

“Dazai we’re not a couple of do good-ers going around helping hard luck cases. We’ve got a job to do.” Kunikida nudged the other with his book. He clearly didn't believe in your charade. You could fix that “Actually I have a feeling I might be able to help with your case if you let me see your hands too.” He gave you a wary look as you made grabby hands at him “Please I swear I’ll explain once I see everyone’s hands.” Dazai gave him a cautious expression but Kunikida gave in. Probably to get it over with so he could go back to work. This time you didn’t try to trace patterns on his palm like you did to Dazai. “Wow, I’ve never seen someone so traumatized by the color blue before.” as he made a choked noise, you turned to Atsushi. “Okay your turn.”

“Do I have too?”

“Yes, otherwise I’ll be missing a piece of the puzzle and Kunikida and Dazai might think I'm a threat." Atsushi slowly presented them to you. "You see, they're with the Armed Detective Agency and currently they're looking for a white tiger. You know the one that's been "chasing" you." You said "chasing" in air quotes letting go of his hands to do the gesture making sure to give a nod to Dazai about the tiger thing.

In Atsushi’s panic he knocked over his chair and a couple of bowls as he tried to crawl away. You watched the scene play out as Kunikida pinned him to the floor and the interrogation started. You sat patiently as Atsushi was then asked if he was free to be bait. Dazai hadn't taken his eyes off of you letting Kunikida handle Atsushi. Maybe you did go too heavy handed into this.

“Forget it no way!”

You tried to ignore Dazai's gaze and laughed at Atsushi’s outburst trying to lighten the mood. “I don’t know Atsushi. If it’s after you I feel like this is the perfect opportunity to get it off your back for good. What if I tagged along? Strength in numbers right?” He stood up and defended himself “That doesn’t make it better! I’m not doing this okay. I know what you’re thinking, you’re planning to use me as bait-”

“There’s a reward you know.”

From there Atsushi’s fate was sealed and you all made your way over to the warehouse. You waited around for hours, everyone keeping to themselves. You spent the time trying to plan out how you'd explain yourself to Dazai. You could still feel his cautious gaze on you despite him reading his book. You’ve always wanted his attention but not like this. You especially didn't want to be on his shit list. As soon as Atsushi opened his mouth you sighed in relief.

Finally, it's showtime.

It’s not like you’d actually be of any help, you just needed to make sure you didn’t die or get in the way. “Guess that’s my cue to leave, I’ll go find Kunikida and the others.” Dazai only smirked and continued to monologue to Atsushi who would not remember the speech later. You casually strode out of the warehouse seeing the others already surrounding the building, hearing the ruckus inside. You didn’t speak, only waved them in as you made your way back to Dazai seeing that the dust had already settled and Atsushi was already on the ground. After everyone else got to take a jab at him the brunette finally spoke.

“I’ve already made my decision. We’re going to make them one of us.” Dazai’s stare made you freeze up. It makes sense to you, keep your friends close but your enemies closer. Not that you were his enemy but you've already proven you don't have an ability. Your little trick worked on him so you weren't gifted and that probably was the worse part. He doesn't know what your intentions are nor what the extent of your talents were and he couldn’t nullify you even if he tried. He was probably evaluating your level of threat to him, the agency or both.

His eyes were staring into your soul. It was so alluring but you couldn't help the fear that was settling in knowing what he was capable of. Well part of it was fear and part of it was intrigue. Why did he have to also be so damn attractive. Your face felt hot but you couldn't look away. You dug your grave now you'd have to lay in it. The whole way back to the dormitory he was guiding you from the small of your back. In any other circumstance the presence of his hand on such a place would have you swooning because that is peak protective boyfriend behavior but instead it was almost threatening like he was trying to make sure you couldn’t run away. However another part of your brain, the demented part, was screaming louder than any of the other voices in your head because it finally hit you that holy shit they were here. This all felt so real and you were playing with fire.

You made sure to keep up with what was happening, keeping your emotions in check enough to make sure your face or your body language didn’t give anything away. You and Atsushi were given some spare clothes and a cell phone. They only had one room available right now since the other one was being used as storage. They would have it cleared in a day or two. Atsushi tried to give the available one to you but Dazai stepped in and assured him that he'd personally see to it that you were taken care of. Kunikida was actually surprised that Dazai was willing to put in some level of work settling the accommodations. Little does he know what the brunette had in mind. It sent shivers down your spine for all the wrong reasons. When everything was settled Dazai opened the door to his apartment gesturing for you to go inside.

Once you stepped in you took off the shoes the agency just gave you. You had almost forgotten that when you woke up at the river, just like Atsushi, you didn't have any shoes on. No one questioned your strange attire either but you guess after everything they’ve seen it wasn’t the weirdest thing they’ve experienced in their lifetimes. Standing at the doorway to the small room you were waiting for Dazai to direct you where to set your new things down. His futon was still spread out on the floor and the table near its side still had the slight mess of empty bottles and cans. Once you heard the sound of the door’s lock you swallowed hard unintentionally snapping you back to the gravity of the situation. You were alone in a room with ex demon prodigy, Osamu Dazai.

"You can put that over in the corner." His voice rang in your ear. He was looming over you. He didn't even make a sound crossing the room; he just appeared behind you in a second. You did as you were told, trying to calm down your increasing heart rate. You knelt down to set it on the floor but as you stood back up you staggered back against the wall with Dazai towering over you again.

"You want to tell me who you really are?" He smiled carefree as if he wasn't using his height to corner you. You took a breath relaxing against the wall. His hands were behind his back yet you felt trapped. "I don't work for anyone if that's what you're getting at. I didn't lie about who I was earlier but I didn't need you to show me your hands. Technically I already saw it when you offered to help me up, that is, your past with the port mafia. I genuinely didn't know that was something I could do. That's why I asked to see your palms a second time, it didn’t sit right with me. That's why I asked for you to willingly give me your hands. I'm sorry I brought up oda but it was either him or the hot redhead you call hat rack." You gave him a knowing look that you made the right choice of who to name drop.

He grimaced when you called Chuuya hot. It seemed mentioning him caused him to lose all hostility in his demeanor. Interesting. He must believe you then. "So what do you know?" Dazai seemed to relax enough to sit on the futon. You followed after him since the tension dispersed. "Well since this bit," you moved to grab his hand to point out the part of his palm "is covered in bandages. I only know generally how you met Mori to the present day. I don’t know everything, just little blips here and there that were significant. I didn't look at Kunikida for that long but the Azure king popped up and I knew Atsushi was the tiger all along. Although it wasn't my place to get involved the way I did. Again I apologize." You caressed his hand with your thumb. He was watching you like a hawk. You were looking down thinking if there was anything else you should mention. Hopefully this was enough.

He hummed taking it in for a second before he pulled your arm while pushing your shoulder back, pinning you underneath him. "Are you scared of me? Knowing what I've done." He smirked playfully but his eyes were serious. If he wanted to play games you knew how to combat him. Or at least you think this would be an adequate counter to whatever he was doing now. You smiled "Quite the opposite. I trust you with every fiber of my being." Your words caused his eyes to dilate and his body to tense before he situated himself to further hover over your shorter frame. "Really now, even like this?" His expression dripped with lust as he dipped to whisper in your ear "I could have my way with you if I wanted." An empty threat clearly.

"You definitely could but you won't." You said it so matter of factly he shifted to look at you again. You used your freehand to caress his cheek giving him a soft smile "You have my unconditional trust. The position we're in changes nothing, ya womanizer." The source material never went into detail about Dazai’s past relationships. Only that he’s made women cry and that Chuuya knew of every single last one of them but he’s done his fair share of over the top flirting throughout the series. You just had to steel your nerves and out bluff the conman.

"Does it now?" He hummed giving you a mischievous grin as his hand delicately released its grip on yours sliding down to your wrist. His fingers pressing into your skin trying to find your pulse. Your eyes widened as you realized what he was doing. Your demeanor broke as you squirm underneath him. It was too late, you could see the pleased expression grace his features "Someone should be a little more honest with themselves." He leaned in making your noses touch. You could feel his hot breath on your lips before he pulled away. "Buuuuut you're right, I won't." He abruptly broke the trance you were in sitting up releasing his hold on you making you feel breathless. Your heart was still racing. Curse this attractive waste of bandages.

"You can take the room! I'll be off to-" He started off cheerily but you reached out to grab his arm. "Nope. As gentlemanly as you are, you can't fool me. Don't flatter yourself. Yes, I find you attractive but I'm not that desperate. Just stay, we’re both adults." You pretended to gasp covering your mouth "Or are you running away because you're all hot and bothered?" You gave him a smirk waiting to see how he’d react. Two could play at this game. He frowned slightly at your challenge. You knew his signature move was running away from every uncomfortable moment he’s caused but if he backed down from your challenge now you'd win and Dazai doesn’t like to lose. So you shared the futon and you slept with Osamu Dazai.

#the BSD isekai au no one asked for #dazai osamu x reader #dazai x reader #bsd x reader #bsd imagines #my bsd brainrot is showing

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the-broken-pen · 1 year ago

Text

“Don’t die.”

The sidekick’s hands pressed into the hero’s wound, and the hero blinked dizzily.

“What?”

“I said, don’t die.”

“I’m sorry, wait, who are you?”

The sidekick’s gaze had an intensity the hero didn’t know existed. Then, they grinned, and it was like sunshine.

“Your new sidekick. And I can’t be your sidekick if you have the audacity to die on my very first day, so don’t die.”

The hero blinked once more.

“Nice to meet you?”

“I’ll say nice to meet you when you stop bleeding out.”

—————————

“Don’t die,” the sidekick reminded the hero, half laughing, half serious.

The hero rolled their eyes with affection.

“Have I ever?”

—————————

“Don’t die.”

The hero glanced up.

“Relax, it’s just a graze. No bullet holes, see?”

They held their arms away from their body, twisting to show the lack of harm.

The sidekick sighed with something close to relief.

—————————

“Don’t-“

“Die, yes, I know,” the hero finished. The sidekick’s eyes narrowed.

The hero’s heart twisted.

“I won’t, I promise.”

The sidekick nodded, once.

—————————

“Don’t die.”

The hero sneezed, eyes bleary.

“It’s just a cold.”

“Yeah, and people die from those.”

The hero laughed, voice nasally.

“The agency would be thrilled to have cause of death ‘common cold’ written in my file, I’m sure of it.”

The sidekick threw a pillow at them, and brought them soup.

—————————

“Be careful, okay?”

The hero snapped their head up.

The sidekick blinked at the sudden movement, mouth still half open.

“What?”

The sidekick cleared their throat.

“I said be careful,” they gestured awkwardly with one hand. “It’s Supervillain. They don’t pull punches.”

The hero’s mouth was dry.

“Right. Yes.”

They strapped their last piece of gear on, and turned to leave.

“Oh, and hero,” the sidekick tried for nonchalance, smiling slightly. “Don’t die.”

The hero smiled back.

—————————

“You idiot,” the hero hissed, hands frantic. They didn’t know where to press, which wound to try and stop first. The sidekick coughed weakly.

“I had it handled,” the hero’s voice broke.

The sidekick managed a pained wheeze that might have been a laugh.

“Mhm. Yeah.”

“It’s Supervillain, why—“ the hero tipped their head upwards, tears slipping from their eyes.

The sidekick whimpered, slightly. “You could have gotten hurt.”

The hero pressed their hands onto the chest wound.

“And you getting hurt is okay?”

The sidekick didn’t answer. When the hero looked up, their eyes were closed.

“Hey, no no nonono don’t do this to me, sidekick, hey,” the hero scrambled, fingers slick with blood, heart pounding. “Don’t die.”

A curse, an oath, a command, a prayer.

Don’t die.

The sidekick, just barely, smiled, tugging the hero down to whisper into their ear. Just two words. The two words.

The hero sobbed, shaking their head, pushing back to find a pulse—

And found the silence of a waiting grave.

—————————

“Don’t die,” the hero said to themselves quietly, pressing a piece of gauze to their side.

The medic watched them intently, eyes soft, but didn’t say anything.

They knew. The whole goddamn base knew.

And that was the only thing that would come out of the hero’s mouth.

“Don’t. Die.”

The medic’s mouth pressed into a thin line, eyes watering, and they vanished out the door.

The hero realized, then, that their cheeks were wet.

Two words.

An oath. A prayer. A command.

“Don’t die,” They whispered, and for a moment, just a moment, they could pretend it was sidekick saying it.

The very first words they had said to the hero.

And their very last ones, too, pained hushed whispers in the hero’s ear, a final breath.

“Don’t die.”

The hero started sobbing, then.

And they didn’t stop.

Don’t.

Die

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deluxewhump · 4 days ago

Note

Do you have any advice for first time cat parent? (Human parent of cat, not cat parent)

Congrats on getting a kitty!!!!!

If you are getting an adult cat I would say just be really, really patient with letting them acclimate! I know it can take weeks and weeks for them to feel comfortable. If you are getting a kitten (we got all 3 of ours as kittens) they usually take way less time to acclimate and feel comfortable in the new space, maybe just a couple days depending on how big your house is and if you have other animals that need to be introduced safely to a new kitten.

Just some things that come to mind:

-let them come out of the cat carrier on their own time

-make sure their litter is accessible, not too high for a kitten to get in, if you are getting a kitten, and that they know where and what it is by setting them in it a few times. Kittens amaze me with how smart they are and how quickly they are house trained compared to puppies. I’m going to brag about my three and say they’ve never had an accident more than a few days after coming home with us.

-notice where they like to nap and put a soft blanket there or a cat bed nearby and they might be more prone to use it

-don’t let them eat strings, they try to eat entire lengths of string

- glass or stainless steel water bowls are better than plastic because they don’t trap as much bacteria between washes which can affect their health. cats love fresh water instinctively so change it often even if it’s not empty. They usually prefer their water to be a ways away from their food.

-wash their food bowls often for this same reason.

- you will probably buy toys your cat won’t play with. Mine love these little plastic springs that bounce really easily. And hair ties.

- if your cat chews/ claws things it shouldn’t like my youngest does you can get an all natural citrus oil spray called cat repellant and spray the piece of furniture/Christmas tree/ Venetian blinds and they won’t chew it for a while because it smells of citrus.

- they love to get up high. I have a floor to ceiling post with little hammocks that stick out at intervals and they love it. A normal cat tree achieves this too if you are able to get one!

-my eldest cat was determined to destroy our television so I put a really big piece of packing tape sticky-side up on the entertainment center so that every time he got up there the tape stuck to his paws and he finally.stopped.jumping.up.there. This one felt a little mean but it was really becoming an issue and I was afraid the tv was going to topple onto him one day so it was for his own good.

- make sure you keep track of your cats immunizations, and remember kittens need 3 rounds of shots fairly early on. If you adopt a kitten from someone and not an organization, make sure you ask if they’ve been dewormed and had their first distemper shots so you can tell your vet. Many rental agencies require proof of rabies vaccination for you to bring your pets. Spaying and neutering has benefits even if you only have one cat and they stay inside. That will become available around 6 months of age. If it’s too expensive, shop around for clinics and places that will do it less expensively because they usually exist.

-flea and heartworm medicine. Keep track of when you treated them last because it’s super easy to forget. Some are monthly, some are every other month.

- I was advised to keep my cats on kitten food until they were one year old. It is higher calorie and often has more nutrients as they’re still growing. I was also advised to keep my boy cat on wet food as well as dry, because males can dehydrate easier due to their urethras being more prone to it or something and it can make them sick. The wet food helps hydration. I have one cat that will not eat wet food 🤷‍♀️

- for 6-9 dollars you can get a water additive that helps prevent gingivitis and other mouth issues. Their vet put me on to this so I don’t worry that it’s unsafe.

-if your cat has the zoomies all night and you can’t let them sleep in your room with you because you get no sleep don’t feel bad. You’ve got to sleep. I’d love mine to sleep with us but the minute ten pm hits they become evil.

-two of my cats are SO mouthy. I love it, they talk at me all day, sometimes for a reason, sometimes just to chat. This isn’t advice just a comment lol.

- I have two cats (out of three) that love belly rubs/scratches, and this might be a coincidence or it might be that we successfully conditioned them to like it when they were kittens. Most of them famously hate it or only tolerate it for three seconds. So if you get a kitten pet their belly often and see how it goes lol. It’s worth a shot.

-while still immensely easier than puppies, kittens are wild!

-personality wise they are all different, for the most part they’re just going to be who they are, and you will love them for it.

-no matter what you name them you’re probably going to end up calling them by three weird nicknames that have little to do with the original name

Enjoy your new kitty!!!! They are perfect little creatures that domesticated themselves for their own convenience which sounds about right. 💕 shameless plug of my cats

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pixelatedraindrops · 10 months ago

Note

can we get another sick yuma fanfic?

I usually don't take fic requests because I feel I'm not creative enough to write too often. But if its sick Yuma you want I may have a lil’ oneshot for ya c:

Here's a fic where he catches a terrible cold after losing his hat in the rain. This one's less whumpy and more fluffy. And Yuma will be speaking in a nasally tone pretty much the whole time.

Enjoy!

Under the Weather

(Oneshot)

Word Count: 4,000+

Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Sickfic, Found Family

Fandom: Master Detective Archives RAINCODE

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was just more terrible, awful luck for Yuma. When has it ever been good? He was minding his business investigating the situation in Kanai Ward like he usually did to track their ultimate secret down, but suddenly when he was doing something that upset the wandering Peacekeepers, they had begun chasing him. Thankfully Yuma was able to evade them, however it came at a price. A sudden gust of wind had blown across the trainee as he ran in the neon city of rain…and his rainhat had flown off. Yuma wanted to try to go back to get it, but the peacekeepers were still after him. He had to keep running, he had no choice. If he was captured, it would be all over.

He eventually lost them by running into a corner of the city. He decided that he needed to go back to the agency, thinking maybe this was enough for today. Yakou always said that if things like this happen, it was best to lay low until things calmed down. So, Yuma waited a little bit for the peacekeepers to get further from him so he could rush back to the sub safely. But as he ran, the rain kept pouring. He had no hat to cover him anymore. By the time he got back to the nocturnal detective agency’s submarine base, his hair and face were soaking wet.

“Master, you look like a sopping wet cat! Kyahaha~!” his spirit partner Shinigami cackled as she viewed how wet her master was. “Practically…dripping…wet…” The death god’s dirty mind decided to jab at the short detective.

Rain water was dripping down every strand of his lilac hair. To say he was sopping would be an understatement, He was practically drenched with the rain from the city by the time he came back from the chase. He began realizing how much that hat was protecting him as he tried to shake his head in a poor attempt to try to dry off.

“Stop it. There was nothing I could do. The Peacekeepers would’ve caught me if I went back to get my hat…” Yuma responded, starting to sound a little bit slurred in his speech.

He sighed as he opened the cover of the sub.

“Hey Chief, I’m back…” he announced climbing down the steps to the entrance chamber.

“Hey Yuma, how’d things go out there?” Yakou’s voice could be heard from the office of the sub. “You find anything new out?”

Yuma slowly walks into the office room sniffing a bit and wiping his nose with his sleeve. “No…” he quietly responded.

Yakou was not paying attention to the boy, as he was reading the paper at his desk with a cigarette in his mouth like usual. “Well, don’t sweat it, can’t do everything all at once.”

Yuma shivered as he took his rain attire off. “I-I was cha- aehh..” He stopped as he felt something tickle his nose.

“You were what?” Yakou asked still not paying attention to him.

Yuma couldn’t finish his sentence as he felt a sneeze building up something fierce.

“Eeeahh… Ahhh…” his eyes were squinted as he tilted his head backwards.

“AAAH-CHSHUU!!!”

The loud wet sneeze finally came out of the small detective in training like a volcano erupting. His head shot downward as the sneeze came out, he tried to cover his mouth with his sleeve.

Let’s just say…he failed.

This finally got the chief’s attention. Yakou heard that sound and then moved his gaze to meet the shivery trainee detective at the corner of the right side of the room. His nose was bright red and now leaking profusely after that sudden onslaught.

He was dripping wet in a different way now.

“Whoa, gesundheit! Are you alright?!” Yakou exclaimed putting the paper down.

“Y-Yeah…” Yuma replied weakly as his nose continued dripping.

The NDA leader immediately stood up from his desk and grabbed a box of tissues that were in the desk drawer and walked over to the trainee.

He took one of the tissues out, handing it his way. “Here you go.”

Yuma still had his eyes shut from the intensity of that sneeze, his eyes stinging a tiny bit as tears formed, but he reached for the tissue grabbing it.

“Tank you…” he responded sheepishly. The congestion in his speech is now making its way to him.

“Sheesh. You’re a mess… Did you catch a cold out there in all that rain?” the chief asked as he leans down to be more at the trainee’s level.

Yuma sniffled hard. “Ugh…I guess so…”

Yakou sighed as he placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Well, that much can be said from the way you look and the way you sound…”

“AH-ACHSHUU!”

Yuma let out another wet sneeze interrupting him mid-sentence, making sure to do it into the tissue he held. Yakou flinched, turning his head away. “Yikes…that sounds bad.”

Yuma sniffled again finally opening his watery eyes to look Yakou’s way “I’b…reawy sowwy…” he muttered in his nasaled tone looking embarrassed and ashamed.

Yakou sighed, smiling at him a bit as he stood back up. “You poor kid. I’ll go get a towel to dry you off. Then I’ll get you something warm to drink, how’s that sound?”

Yuma held the the tissue to his nose wiping it a bit.

“Uh-huh…dat souds good…” he responded before he blew into the tissue.

Yakou felt sorry for the boy but couldn’t help but be a little amused by his nasaled speech. He walked over to the shower room to grab a towel he could use to dry his wet hair. He walked back over to see Yuma sitting on the purple sofa still holding the tissue to his face.

Yakou placed the towel on Yuma’s head and began drying it moving his hands in a circular motion. Yuma tried remaining as still as possible while the older man dried his wet hair off.

He put the towel around the boy’s neck after he finished drying him off best as he could.

“There we go.” He said with a grin. “Thats about as dry as I can make you. You can hop in the shower later.”

“Tank you…” Yuma responded before his nose tickled him again. “Ahh-choo!” he sneezed into the tissue he held.

“Gesundheit!” Yakou responded surprised as he placed the tissue box he was holding right next to the boy and walked over to grab the trash can by his desk and put it below the purple sofa where the stuffy detective was sitting.

“Here, the trash can is officially reserved just for you today.” he responded kindly.

Yuma sighed as he threw the tissue away. His nose leaking again not long after, but he didn’t notice as he felt a little dazed.

The older detective sighed. “Yuma, your nose is still running…” Yakou grabbed one of the tissues and placed it to his face wiping it away himself as Yuma scrunches his face up, then he threw it away. Yuma blushed in minor embarrassment.

“Hey, are you feeling alright?” Yakou asked looking at him with some concern. “Aside from…well this.”

Yuma sniffled in response before answering.

“S-Sowwy…my head’s just fuzzy…” he responded putting a hand to his head.

Yakou slid his hand under Yuma’s bangs and onto his forehead after the sniffly boy uttered those words.

“Mmm yeah, you’re feeling a teensy bit warm. Rain sure did a number on you, huh? What the heck happened to your hat?”

Yuma looked down. “I…was chased…by some peacekeepers…”

“What!?” Yakou exclaimed in shock looking nervous. “Th-They didn’t follow you did they!?”

“Don’ wowwy…I lost dem…” Yuma said sniffling again. “But…I lost my hat while I was running…and couldn’t go baaaa…aaah…” he felt another sneeze coming. He quickly grabbed another tissue sneezing into it. “…back to go get it...” he finished throwing it away afterwards sighing.

Yakou sighed and calmed down hearing that they weren’t in any trouble looking at the boy with pity in his expression.

“Okay I gotcha. Sorry about that kiddo.” he said putting a hand to his shoulder to try to comfort him. “Looks like you got a pretty nasty cold though. So no more going out today, got it?”

Yuma nodded without hesitation or further argument. Without his hat, going out in the rain again would only prove more harmful. And he was starting to feel a little bit dizzy, so he didn’t really want to get up again anyway.

“I’ll write to the WDO to send you a replacement hat later, but for now I’m gonna go make you some tea. Drinking something warm should help you feel a little better. You want ginger or chamomile?”

Yuma wanted to respond but then his voice got a little hoarse in his attempted response causing him to cover his mouth in embarrassment.

Yakou raised an eyebrow as he closed his eyes smiling. “I’ll do chamomile then, sounds like your throat’s getting a little scratchy.”

Yuma nodded quietly as he laid back. His head was starting to hurt a little as well as his throat. He cleared it as he grabbed another tissue in his hand feeling his nose start leaking again. It just wouldn’t stop.

“Sheesh! You humans sure are pathetic! Can’t believe you got this roughed up from JUST the rain, gosh you’re so lame master!!” Shinigami said floating by her master’s side laughing to herself a bit. “And you look awful!! May as well be dead Kyahahaha~!”

Yuma rolled his eyes as he blew his nose into the tissue again throwing it away.

“Just leave me alone…I’m not in the mood for your antics right now.” Yuma responded in perfect speech to the cackling spirit in his head.

“Ooh, you’re so snappy!! Are your face holes being full’a gunk making you a bit cranky!?” she retaliated teasing him again.

As Shinigami kept yapping away, Yuma just turned away from her as he curled up trying to ignore her and how bad his sinuses felt right now. He could hardly breathe through his nose, so he had to do so through his mouth. His head was starting to hurt again, and he felt another tickle in his throat.

He definitely caught a cold. It was going to be a long day.

After a short while Yakou returned with the tea as he saw Yuma curled up facing away from him. Yakou sat down. “Hey, Yuma? You awake?”

Yuma slowly got himself up before he let out another harsh sneeze.

“Aahaa…” Yuma whined trembling a little from the shock as he didn’t have a tissue on him, so his nose was leaking again, and his teary eyes were clenched shut.

Yakou put the tea down grabbing another tissue placing it to Yuma’s face. “Alright, let it out Yuma.” He responded. Yuma did so as he blew into the tissue harshly.

“I think we may need to get some nasal spray for you kid.” Yakou said throwing the tissue away. “Didn’t think you had this much mucus in your tiny body.”

Yuma sniffled while groaning miserably.

“Ughh…Adythig…to make dis stop…” he muttered quietly in an annoyed tone.

“Alright kid, sit up. Let’s get a warm beverage in you for now.” Yakou said as he grabbed the warm tea again.

Yuma sat up as Yakou handed him the tea. Yuma tried smelling it, but there wasn’t much luck in that. He was still way too stuffy to smell anything.

“Made it extra warm. Hopefully it’ll settle that tickle in your throat down.” Yakou said.

Yuma sighed as he drank a bit of the tea. It was sweet and warm, and felt nice going down. It uplifted him a little bit.

“Tanks Chief…” Yuma said weakly smiling.

“No problem.” Yakou replied smiling petting his head. “I’ll go get you a blanket. You’re officially taking today off to rest. I’ll see if I can tell the other master detectives to get you some things to help. Like, maybe some nice warm soup, nose spray, cold medicine, and some more tissues and herbal tea bags.”

Yuma nodded. “Dat souds dice…tank you…” he took another sip of the tea then handed it back to Yakou.

Yakou smiled taking it then putting the tea on the table. Then he stood up to walk the other room to get a dark blue spare blanket that he had stored away. He brings it back and places it over Yuma’s head and shoulders wrapping him up into a cocoon.

Yuma smiled as he sunk his chin into the blanket taking on its softness.

“So warm…” he said sighing in content.

“Good. Now you lay down and rest. I’m gonna head out to tell everyone else what happened then later we’ll all come back with more things to help you feel better alright?”

Yuma nodded. “Tank you. Ad…I’b sowwy for da twouble…”

“It’s no trouble Yuma, you’re sick.” Yakou chucked. “And hey, it beats being caught by peacekeepers. At least here you’re safe and warm instead of being stranded in the rain or in some run-down cell at Amataerasu.”

Yuma nodded before he laid back down sniffling curling up sinking his face into the warm blanket. He groaned a little bit. “…by head huwts…” he complained.

“Hang in there kid, medicine is on the way. Just try to relax.”

Yuma fell asleep soon after Yakou responded to him.

Yakou nodded as he grabbed his raincoat and put it on. He turned one of the lights off in the office to see if dimming the lighting a bit would help the trainee sleep better. Then he left closing the door behind him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After about 2 hours, Yakou along with the rest of the Master Detectives all came back with multiple shopping bags. Containing many different necessities for the cold-stricken trainee waiting back at the office. Everyone also wore facial masks. It was probably already too late for Yakou on being a carrier, as he spent quite a while with Yuma along with touching him, but him getting ill wouldn’t be a big deal. But he could not risk any of the other detectives getting sick, or they wouldn’t be able to do any work.

They all entered the room to find Yuma awake sitting up on the side of the purple checkered sofa wrapped in the blanket trying to get comfortable looking very out of it. Shinigami decided to be quiet as Yuma continued to ignore her, so she eventually gave in and just stayed quiet floating beside him.

Yuma’s hair was a mess, as was his face, his nose was running, and his eyes were as watery as before. The tea left on the table was empty and there were tissues everywhere. Even on the sofa and table, and the trash can was full of them as was the floor. Only one person littered the sub in trash today. One sick little trainee detective.

“Hey Yuma, we’re back!” Yakou said smiling brightly at him.

Yuma looked his way, not changing his expression nor speaking. Just lightly nodding.

“How are you feeling, my man? Heard the rain gave ya a pretty bad case of the sniffles!” Desuhiko chimed in also grinning behind his mask.

“We got some basic necessities for you.” Halara said muffled as well as they lifted the bag they were holding. “Hoping to help to cure whatever ails you.”

“Yuma, you look like a caterpillar in a little cocoon right now!” Fubuki stated observing the state of the trainee as he tried to get warm. “How very cute!”

“Honestly Princess, have some compassion! Can’t you see he’s suffering right now?!” Desuhiko exclaimed a bit annoyed.

“Looks comfy…wish I could…do that too…” Vivia lastly responds.

Yuma sighs as he lets out another sneeze before groaning and sniffling the nasal discharge up again. Then he wraps himself in the blanket once more hugging himself shivering a little bit.

This pitiful sight and clearly very miserable gesture from him made everyone else get a worried look in their eyes.

Yakou signals the other detectives to keep their distance as he removes his raincoat putting it to the hanger, and walks over to the wrapped up trainee sitting down next to him moving his face closer to observe him carefully.

Upon looking at him more closely, his skin looked a little paler and shinier and there was a slight pink flush in his cheeks, but not nearly as red as his nose.

Yakou placed his hand to the boy’s cheek gently. The older detective frowned a little.

He felt warmer. No wonder he wasn’t speaking.

“Hang tight kid, medicine’s here.” Yakou said as he rummaged through his bag to grab some liquid cold medicine as well as some aspirin for his headache.

“Mhm…” was all Yuma could utter.

Yakou then clapped his hands twice as he began instructing everyone else.

“Halara, go start making the soup, Desuhiko go grab some spare clothes from your disguise bag that he can change into later after he showers, Fubuki go get me a spoon from the kitchen and a glass of water, and Vivia go get me the thermometer in the shower room along with an ice pack.”

All the master detectives did as they were told. Halara grabbed the can that was in their bag and went into the kitchen to get to work as Fubuki followed them to finish her own task. Desuhiko unzipped his bag going into it to search for any spare clothing in Yuma’s size. And Vivia walks slowly to the shower room. Leaving the two to have a small moment alone.

When the coast is clear, Yuma weakly leans into Yakou’s shoulder still trying to get himself comfortable.

Yakou sighs as he places a hand over Yuma’s body scooting a little closer to him until the small blanket cocooned boy was in his arms. He smiles down at him sympathetically as a parent would for their sick child.

“Not feeling very good, are you kiddo?” he asked, looking down at him, placing a hand on his head stroking it softly.

“Mm-mm…” Yuma pitifully responded in a whiny tone shaking his head as he sinks his warm cheek into the older one’s chest.

“You’ll be fine, don’t worry. We’ll take care of you.” Yakou said petting his head more to soothe him.

Yuma nodded smiling before he felt another sneeze building up.

Like clockwork, Yakou quickly grabs the last tissue from the box he had and places it to his face catching the sneeze just in time.

“Gesundheit.” He says with a gentle smile.

“…Tank you…” Yuma whispered quietly with his eyes closed.

Yakou wipes the trainee’s nose then he tosses the last tissue on top of the ones already overfilling the trash can.

“Hey, look what I bought.” Yakou said rummaging through another one of the bags. He pulled out a small bottle of nasal spray handing it to him. “There ya go, instant relief for all that pesky nose stuff you have built up.” he gave him a reassuring grin.

Yuma smiled sighing in relief as he held the bottle and nodded in silence.

Soon Fubuki and Vivia had returned. They both hand Yakou the spoon and thermometer almost in synced unison.

“Here you go Chief! And here’s the water too!” Fubuki says a bit muffled by her face mask as she puts the water down on the table.

“Thank you Fubuki.” Yakou said smiling. Fubuki then turns her eyes to Yuma.

Yuma just turns and shyly hides his face away. He’s a little embarrassed to be seen like this in front of his coworkers.

Fubuki just smiles behind her mask at this reaction. Yuma was so cute!

Vivia places the ice pack down on the table next to the water.

“Thank you, Vivia, you’re excused to go back to your corner now.” Yakou said.

As if Vivia was waiting for those words he walks back to the fireplace and lays down and begins to read his book again.

Yakou uses his hands to shoo Fubuki away telling her to give the two of them some space. Telling her to go assist Halara in the kitchen. Fubuki nods and heads over to the kitchen where Halara was.

Desuhiko had found a suitable pair of pajamas for Yuma in his bag, but decides to stay in it to give Yuma and Yakou some space. He quietly watches them from a small open space from the open zipper.

“Coast is clear Yuma. Nobody’s here anymore. Except Vivia but he’s just in the fireplace like usual. He won’t bother us.” Yakou said telling Yuma he can stop hiding now.

Yuma turns his head to look around and then looks up at Yakou who was holding a device in his hands. Yuma raises an eyebrow in confusion.

“Just gonna take your temp real quick alright? Can you open your mouth for me?”

Yuma opens his mouth as Yakou places the thermometer inside. The feverish trainee instinctively moving it under his tongue and closing his mouth.

After a few seconds the device beeps and Yakou takes it out. It read about 37.7 c (100. f)

“Yep. Definitely a fever, but it’s nothing serious.” Yakou replied looking at the device then putting it down on the table. “Good thing we caught it early. We got some medicine for it, so it should break in a few hours after some rest.”

Yuma nodded as he leaned back into Yakou. He was feeling very tired.

“Whoa, before you go back to your nap, let’s get this medicine in you first so you can wake up later hopefully feeling better.” Yakou said noticing how sleepy he looked. “C’mon, sit up for me.”

Yuma slowly gets himself back up again facing Yakou. His complexion and appearance status were the same, runny eyes and cherry red nose, pale yet flushed cheeks, but his tired and dazed face made him look like a nervous yet curious little kid. Yakou couldn’t help himself when he spoke again.

“Attaboy. Alright let’s see what we got here...” Yakou said as he picked up the cold medicine. He reads the instructions over and takes the spoon Fubuki gave him uncapping the bottle and pours the orange liquid into it. “Open wide.”

Yuma opens his mouth as Yakou places the spoon of medicine into it.

It didn’t taste very good as Yuma’s face was a little scrunched up and his tongue slightly sticking out. But he still swallowed it down with no vocal complaints.

“Okay good, now let’s try this one, it should help your headache.” Yakou grabbed the aspirin tablet and placed one in his hand and gave it to Yuma. “Pop that in and we’ll swallow it with some of this water.”

Yuma placed the tablet in his mouth and Yakou gave him the water glass to drink and swallow it down with. The boy takes the glass and took a small drink from it swallowing the pill and sighing once he was finished.

“There we go. Medicine is all done. You’ll be just fine now.” Yakou said smiling at him.

Yuma smiled in return before he sneezed twice into his arm quickly turning away from Yakou as he did so. His nose was running once again. He instinctively reached for the tissue box on the table, but it was empty.

Yakou laughed. “Don’t worry, we got more tissues.” he said looking at the empty box on the table as he took out some new ones, he bought at the store placing the box in Yuma’s lap.

Yuma nodded as he grabbed a couple of tissues wiping his nose and blowing into it.

“Sowwy…” Yuma said quietly feeling a little guilty for using up the entire tissue box.

“You’re fine. You have a cold; it can’t be helped.” Yakou responded taking the tissues and throwing them away for him.

“You wanna use the spray?” Yakou asked.

Yuma nodded quietly.

Yakou took the nasal spray from Yuma’s lap and opened and uncapped it. Then he plugged it up the boy’s nose.

“Brace yourself.” Yakou said a bit playfully. As he quickly spritzed the formula into both the boy’s nostrils then quickly taking it out. He puts the cap back on it placing it onto the table.

Yuma flinched slightly as he received the spray, but then as it was removed he exhaled trying to breathe through his nose again. It was a little better, but not quite.

Yakou then lays the blanket wrapped trainee back down. “Alrighty. Now you can sleep. When you wake up later you should feel better and then you can have some nice warm soup, take a nice hot shower and change into fresh and warm clothes.”

Yakou grabbed the wrapped ice pack Vivia brought and placed it under the boy’s neck where the pillow was. “And that should cool you off while you rest.”

Yuma smiled as he laid his head to the pillow and cool ice turning his head curling up to get in a more comfortable position for his nap.

“…Tanks fo all dis chief…” he said quietly as he began nodding off.

“You’re welcome, Yuma.” Yakou said smiling, putting his hand to the trainee’s head petting it softly.

“Get well soon, okay?”

Yuma smiled as he drifted off into a deep sleep with the medicine now in his system. His chief and coworkers watching over him and caring for him throughout the rest of the day.

He was already starting to feel better.

#pixel answers #whumpcode #master detective archives: rain code #rain code #yuma kokohead #yakou furio #yakou fathero #desuhiko thunderbolt #halara nightmare #vivia twilight #fubuki clockford #pixelfics #fanfic #fanfiction #sickfic #cold sneezes #sick comfort #caretaking #sneezing #my first attempt writing just cold symptoms #it was honestly fun and a little silly!#yuma is so cute all stuffy with a cold too :3 #went a bit easy on him this time & only gave him a small fever #figured the sneezy cold symptoms are more the focus here #but he still shows signs of minor delirium and acts clingy #i love making him act like a clingy child if he gets sick <3 #honestly its mostly yakou caring for him but the other detectives are there for support too #yeah I can’t help it yakou fathero is my roman empire #that aside hope you enjoy ;w;#also fubuki is me xD my same reaction

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waterisstillwet · 2 years ago

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Toothpaste Confirmed to Make Teeth Feel Clean

In a study that has left 9/10 dental professionals and casual brushers alike astounded. The International Association of Toothbrushing Researchers (IATR) has released a report confirming what many had long suspected: toothpaste does, in fact, make teeth feel clean. The groundbreaking discovery has upended conventional wisdom and generated a frenzy of interest in the dental hygiene community.

Dr. Minty Fresh, the lead investigator at IATR, unveiled the shocking findings at a press conference yesterday. "Our extensive research, which included thousands of brushing sessions, oral examinations, and controlled experiments, has led us to the undeniable conclusion that toothpaste does indeed make teeth feel clean," Dr. Fresh announced.

The study's results have sent shockwaves through the dental hygiene industry, prompting many to reevaluate their daily brushing routines. "All these years, I thought it was just my imagination," confessed one dental patient. "But now I know that my teeth actually do feel cleaner after I brush with toothpaste."

In addition to confirming the toothpaste's cleansing properties, the study also explored the factors contributing to the sensation of cleanliness. Researchers found that the minty flavor, gentle abrasiveness, and foamy texture of toothpaste all played a role in creating the perception of clean teeth.

The IATR's findings have sparked a renewed interest in toothpaste and its potential benefits. Dr. Fresh and his team plan to continue their research, delving deeper into the mysteries of dental hygiene and exploring other pressing questions, such as the optimal angle for toothbrush bristle placement and the controversial true impact of flossing.

#press release #news #Water is still wet news agency #Water is still wet newsagency #toothbrush #cleanteeth #toothpaste #flossing #9/10 dentists

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fullofvexation · 2 months ago

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A lil something for everyone! :D Haven- A13, K6 Nona Paloma- A2, L2 Roka- F2, C8 Kittiwake Tern- F11, B9 Edmond Du Bogue- A24, D4

Ahh thank you for asking about my characters!!! Yippee!

I'm putting a readmore here cus there's a lot of them! Anyone who reads all of these you're my new bff now I am weeping and crying

Haven

a13. Does your OC have any phobias? If so, where did they come from?

Haven is terrified of getting wet and water! He's an undead guy who was mummified when we has first killed, and he's very afraid that he'll start to rot if he gets wet. He doesn't know how to swim and avoids boats and any sort of water at all costs.

k6. Does their paranormal aspect cause issues in daily life? If so, how do they feel about it?

Even within the fantasy world where he lives, Haven is "paranormal" in that he's undead, and looks like a desiccated corpse. This causes him issues in his daily life because the undead are generally feared and hated, so he's always hiding that, mostly by wearing clothes that hide the huge hole in his chest and a mask that hides his lack of eyes. He's got complicated feelings about his situation, but generally dislikes it. He's very aware that he's ugly and monstrous, and still trying to decide whether he is a monster or not, and generally struggles to accept his situation.

Nimona-Paloma Charrata aka Nona

a2. What alignment are they? Chaotic neutral, lawful evil, et cetera…

Nona is chaotic neutral! She generally acts this way due to being deeply and consistently out of touch with what is normal and acceptable, and what's going on in general. She is offputting and nosy and generally just does whatever she wants, in a way that's very childish and clueless.

l2. What do you consider the biggest themes in your character, if any?

Nona's whole concept is based around the idea of an NPC suddenly granted PC-style capabilities and agency. She spent her whole existence standing outside her house asking passersby to help her with tasks before suddenly acquiring magical powers and getting thrown into the life of an adventurer. Nona's main themes are being a fish out of water and needing to learn how exist as a person! It's tough to know how to be someone when you've never had to make any choices for yourself or interacted with anyone in a meaningful way.

Roka

f2. What’s their ideal home look like? Where is it?

Roka's ideal home is the one she currently lives in with her wife and daughter! After losing everyone she knew when her community was destroyed and a series of pretty traumatic events in the fallout of that, all she wants is her new start, and in this case, that looks like a little house with a few apple trees located in a small village.

c8. Is your OC more practical or ideal morally?

Roka is a deeply practical person. As a young woman, she was raised to be a priestess in a death cult and did things out of a deep sense of moral righteousness. When she realized her goddess wasn't real and her religion was a manipulation tactic to convince people to sacrifice each other, she fully threw all that out of the window. She became someone who twists her morals to achieve her goals, and is convinced that her goals justify her actions, even if those include being cruel or manipulative or violent.

Prof. Kittiwake Tern

f11. What are some of their favorite things to do for recreation?

Kittiwake Tern is a stuffy and proper man who's sense of fun has been generally shredded by years of being in academia (and being the pawn of a malevolent arctic being). In his free time, he likes to read books that would be impressive to people if anyone asked him what he was reading, and drink tea (if he's having a good day) or brandy (if he's having a bad one).

b9. What kind of humor does your OC like the most?

Kittiwake Tern does not approve of humor in general, though he does enjoy a well thought out play on words, or any sort of comedy that's appropriately literary.

Edmond Du Bogue

a24. What are some of your OC’s biggest personal obstacles?

Edmond wants to be a folk hero knight, but he's a sheltered 20 year old rich boy who's leaving the house for the first time. His biggest obstacles are that he has zero experience with "real life" (or anything else) and that it isn't much like all those novels he read growing up. He's working to get that experience, though sometime, he isn't sure he really wants it...

d4. Would they like to be immortal? Why, why not?

Edmond wouldn't particularly like being immortal. He's very concerned with his life and practical problems, and the idea of being immortal would absolutely stress him out to an impossible degree. Edmond is a very small fish who is just now realizing that he's in an ocean, not a pond, and the last thing he needs right now is for the scope of things to get bigger and more complicated.

#ask game #if anyone else wants to sen me these they make me so happy!!!!#haven #nona paloma #roka #kittiwake tern #edmond du bogue

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gabriellerudessa · 2 months ago

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Compass (Norm Maclean x OC) - Part XXXI

“Fuck.” She touched his forehead with hers, hand squeezing his shoulder. “This will delay us on going after Lucy.”

“Not by much. That’s what I was verifying. I’m not limping anymore, the Agency is actually a lot more west than we thought and we can do a more direct path. And we don’t need to worry about that trapped road. A day, maybe a day and a half of delay.” He wetted his lips and cupped her face. “I think it’s worth at least checking out. Please, Marigold.”

PLAYLIST ON YOUTUBE

Word Count: 6.241

Warnings: Wasteland Typical Violence, Cannibals

XXXI

Morning was hectic.

Their only brief moment of respite was while they verified their wounds, Marigold saying that his leg was healing fine, the same for the surface of her stab wound.

Then it was madness: Andrea carrying that weird gun and James’ empty backpack, pulling Thaddeus outside so they could get his things in wherever he had been holing up as soon as the sun was up; Willow sitting at an armchair, cleaning and mending Marigold’s clothes, adding an extra strap to his bag, so he could use it as a backpack, shortening hems and sleeves for him with a speed he found maddening; Marigold, using clothes’ Catarina had left, taking care of Berta and bringing buckets of water; he and Ed cooking breakfast and setting the water up to be purified.

They had done so in silence most of the time, asking things and verifying how it was to be done… Then Ed took the “coyote tobacco chew” from his own bags and showed Norm how it was used to make coffee and he started asking about how the Mojave plant life was different from the one in the Boneyard and what he should pay attention to.

Andrea and Thaddeus reappeared almost one hour later, when he and Ed were finishing the food – coffee, salads, fried molerat.

People spread around the living room, a shambling wooden box in the middle as table holding a jar with coffee and cups, plates and bowls of food being passed around, Marigold, Ed and Willow easily making enough noise for everyone. Marigold’s news that she would keep travelling with him prompted a loud but brief prodding about their relationship that Marigold answered by throwing what Ed had called “pinyon nuts” at Ed and Willow, the three of them laughing the whole time. It made them change the subject to more mundane news and anecdotes that included apparently everything from the last four months

Norm made sure to mark that the Verda-guy had angered the biggest traders in the Mojave and had had to run away to avoid death. Good, no chance of meeting him there.

Thaddeus seemed to hear it all with certain interest, occasionally asking something to Willow in low-voice. Despite however long since the last time they had seen each other, it was clear he was still comfortable with her. Andrea had an amused smiled, sometimes interjecting and complementing whatever was being said.

Norm was happy to hear and watch as he ate and drank the bitter coffee, side pressing against Marigold and letting her do most of the talking. During it all, he messed with his Pip-Boy’s map between mouthfuls of food, confirming Meat-Cooker’s location, indeed appearing to be close to the bear-traps, throwing ideas around his head – he didn’t want Marigold to have to worry anymore about that Bounty.

“It just dawned on me that I’ll finally be able to do something I’ve been wanting to do since I married into the Bears.”

Willow said at certain point, and Norm raised his head to see her fixing herself against Andrea’s side while Ed took their empty silverware.

“I’ll bite. What?” Marigold said beside him, handing her own silverware to her brother and hugging Norm one-armed.

“Tell Hugh he’s being creepy and pathetic and use the Flaccid-Dick Root-Curse if he doesn’t stop.”

Norm blinked then snickered silently as Marigold and Ed laughed loudly – he wasn’t opposing whatever a Root-Curse was if it really did that to Hugh. Half of him wanted to tell Willow to do it even if Hugh did stop.

Damn it. He was terrible. He really needed to learn to deal with that damned jealousy. Norm focused on eating his breakfast, finishing his first cup of coffee; maybe if he kept his mouth busy he wouldn’t say anything that made his thoughts obvious.

“What was keeping you from any of this before?” Andrea took the question from his mind, grinning as she shook her head.

“Unrooted Tree Law. This Root-Curse can only be used if someone is making a move on someone in commitment with another. Believe me, I really wanted to open an exception.” Willow whined as Ed returned and sat on her other side. Norm felt his cheeks and ears burn at the implication of “commitment”, moving to fill his cup with more coffee from the jar.

“Remember to call me to help if you do it.” Ed grinned at his wife.

“And I want to watch.” Thaddeus chimed in from his armchair. “Your tribe never let me watch when you launched Root-Curses against attackers on our farm.”

“Done and done.” Willow grinned and nodded.

Ed looked at Marigold.

“You should’ve let me punch him ages ago.”

“First, I can punch creepy people myself if I need to, thanks. Second, it wouldn’t work with Hugh, he’s dumb.” Marigold snickered.

“A kick to the balls would be more effective with him.” The sarcastic words were faster than he could shove more food in his mouth, and immediately he felt more warmth rising along his neck.

Damn it, Norm.

The trio on the other sofa started laughing, Thaddeus hiding his face into his cup of coffee – right idea, that one, he immediately imitated him. Marigold, on the other hand, just kissed his temple with a chuckle.

“You have the right ideas, Norm.” Ed said, the biggest grin on his face.

“Of course you think it, sweetheart, you’re her brother.” Andrea shook her head. “I bet Mari-Mari has the same idea as me, one that doesn’t result in maybe Hugh’s parents stopping trading.”

“Warn that if he doesn’t stop, he, and only he, will be forbid from going inside the ranch for trading?” Marigold said, and they both grinned, said “spot on” in synchronicity, and made finger-guns at each other.

“He still can look through the fence.” Norm muttered against his cup, hopping no one beyond Marigold would hear.

She did, and chuckled. Ed too, and clapped his hands.

“Absolutely, and that can’t be-”

“You’ll suggest tearing off Hugh’s eyes.” Andrea raised a convinced eyebrow at her husband, and Norm unconsciously tried to make himself smaller. Bad move, she looked immediately at him. “And you would agree. Atom Above, I can’t believe the two of you have the same brand of jealousy.”

“I’m not jealous.” He and Ed managed to say at the same time.

“The two of you are…”

“Even Thad can see!” Willow laughed and stroked Ed’s back as he hid his face in his hands.

Norm sighed. There was no comeback from that, so he just focused on finishing his breakfast, Marigold stroking his shoulder and leaning down.

“Just remember that I only have eyes for you, my dearest.” Her breath hit his ear as she whispered and then she slowly kissed his cheek, the touch persistent, warmth sinking in him.

Exactly like the day they met Hugh. Damn it. More like a muscle memory, he felt his cheeks burn, at the act and at the pet name, and Norm swallowed, hoping that, even if the others noticed, they wouldn’t comment.

---------

“I noticed you messing with your Pip-Boy’s map… Verifying the route we’ll take to the Long 15?” She asked while they were packing up after breakfast, sharing the dried and canned food between them both and filling their canteens.

Norm shook his head, carefully organizing his bag-turned-backpack and sidebag, the boxes of poisoned Sugar Bombs and the three stealth-boys he had found on James going inside while he kept some sheets of paper full of scribbles outside.

“Another thing… I’ll tell you later.”

Marigold shrugged, turning back to her things.

Ed and Andrea were doing the same, a bunch of James’ thing pawned towards them as they packed their bags and got it all outside, undoubtedly to load Berta. Norm had tried to trade for some of the coyote tobacco chew, Ed had said “preposterous” and gave it away, apparently happy at finally having someone that liked it as inky as him – she would keep adding honey mesquite pod and whatever else that she could to sweeten it, thank you. She tried to hand Ma’s knife for Ed to take it back, but he had just pushed it back, saying it would be good to have a piece of Ma with her. Willow… Had apparently enlisted Thaddeus help with something Unrooted Tree related, disappearing outside the house.

Marigold wished she had more time to ask details about their relationship; it was clear it had been a close one, not alleviated by the time with lack of contact. It was the only thing that made their dynamic make sense, with how Thaddeus followed Willow almost like a lost puppy, the lack of fear from any of them, and the respect – no hesitation in calling him Thaddeus instead of Samuel, adding “Tree” to her name, a really respectful way to refer to an Unrooted Tree that her family had never used.

“Got the books?” Norm heaved the bag-turned-backpack onto his shoulder, the sheets of paper on one hand.

“Yep.” Marigold closed her backpack and made sure her blanket was tied tight. “All the ammo for your revolver is easy to reach? Got the necklace?”

“Yes and yes. You?”

“Everything here.” She tapped her bag belt and got up, backpack on her back.

They moved towards the kitchen – all cleaned up – and Marigold got her hunting rifle, making a mental note to do its maintenance next time they stopped for the night. She had slacked on it the previous weeks.

Norm caught her hand and kissed her knuckles just as they crossed the open door. Marigold just squeezed his back and smiled at him.

Thaddeus was immobile to one side of the path, holding what Marigold recognized as Willow’s ceramic bowl for rituals, his smile pretty much excited, while Willow herself carefully tied a bunch of roots together – a Root-Blessing, perhaps? Willow usually did one before her, Ed and Andrea got on the road…

Ed and Andrea were just finishing with Berta, the Brahmin placidly waiting them.

“Going soon?” Ed finished with a buckle and approached them.

“Don’t want to lose much sunlight.”

“Here, these are for Goose. She shared some recipes with me and these are others I found.” Norm shrugged and extended the papers towards Ed.

Ed caught then, blinked, and raised an eyebrow at her that Marigold easily read as “you really didn’t tell me that Goose shared things with him? What other gossip are you holding on me?”

Marigold just raised her eyebrows and grinned as he folded and stored the papers inside his jacket.

“Take care and always find places with doors, walls and roofs to sleep in the Long 15 and in the Mojave. If there really were radstorms, chances are there will be more around there for the next two months, no matter how brief.” Andrea stopped beside Ed, eyes serious.

“You too. You heard me last night, the first of the season around here was pretty early. Don’t take risks with Willow.” Andrea nodded at Marigold, the seriousness not dropping from her face.

---------

“Can I tell Ma you’re bringing my sister back in one piece, Norm?” Ed turned to him, arms crossed.

“Ed!” Marigold tried kicking him in the shin but he just jumped back, grinning at her.

Norm shook his head and chuckled.

“Your sister, my sister, everybody. The ranch will be so full you’ll need to build more rooms.” He raised his own eyebrow, Ed grimaced and Andrea grinned, crossing her arms.

“Fuck. I think that’s already needed. Fuck.”

“There, you have been put in your place. Now come here.” Marigold let go of his hand and pulled her brother in a hug, grinning at his expense.

Andrea shook Norm’s hand with a nod.

“I hope you find your sister. Pay attention to the path.”

“Will do. Thank you, Andrea.”

Marigold let go of Ed and Willow and Thaddeus approached.

“I’m sad this meeting is brief, but hopefully you’ll return soon and the Bears will be all together again.” Willow’s eyes were watery, even while she smiled, a bunch of tied roots in one hand. “I would like to give you two a Root-Blessing, if you accept.”

“I always accept your Root-Blessings, Willow. Norm-boy?”

He blinked at Willow, looked at Thaddeus’ excited smile, and shrugged with a small smile.

“All right, Willow.”

Her smile became bigger.

“Hold hands, please.”

He had absolutely no trouble with that, squeezing Marigold’s hand tight.

Willow dipped her thumb in the ceramic bowl Thaddeus was holding, coming back stained with some type of ash, and touched his forehead with it.

“May the Rooted Trees help you find your sister Lucy, Norm. May the Rooted Trees keep you and Marigold together in your path, in the travel away and in the travel back. May the Rooted Trees keep your ears and eyes sharp to notice danger.” She moved her thumb to Marigold’s forehead. “May the Rooted Trees bring you back to the Bear ranch, Marigold. May the Rooted Trees keep you and Norm together in your path, in the travel away and in the travel back. May the Rooted Trees keep your aim true and lend you their strength to defeat danger.”

Willow held the bunch of roots with both hands, touched their chests and intertwined hands, then let it drop and stepped on it, hands extended with palms to them.

“I, Willow of the Unrooted Trees, with humility ask these of the Rooted Trees. May your Roots always connect Marigold and Norm to us.”

As Willow let her hand drop and hugged them both to the best she could, Norm felt both thankful for her words, about he and Marigold remaining together and finding Lucy, and a little weirded out at how religion had clearly shifted in the surface.

First Atom, that both Andrea and Willow appeared to believe and follow in some way, and then, well… Trees and roots.

---------

They walked holding hands for as long as possible, letting go only when the path went back through those narrow streambeds. The silence between them was calm and comfortable in a way that it hadn’t been for some time, not weighted by what they were holding inside and by what the future was bringing.

She loved him, he loved her, they both knew it, and they didn’t need to go separate paths.

It was a shadow that had been lifted. He was glad Ed had talked with Marigold about it.

“Sooo…” Marigold started as she caught his hand again, after what Norm was pretty sure was the last stretch of narrow path they needed to cross.

“Yes, Marigold?” He smiled at her, squeezing her hand.

“What were you looking over your Pip-Boy’s map during breakfast?”

Oh, that.

Norm had half-forgotten it with Willow’s Root-Blessing, half not wanting to remind about it and let it go. But he had promised to say. And it would be best if they dealt with it.

“There was a Bounty paper in James’s things. It had a name and a location.”

Marigold blinked and grimaced.

“Where and to whom he was supposed to take me, I suppose.”

“That’s my guess too.” They stopped and he pulled the map in his Pip-Boy. “The name is Meat-Cooker and by the coordinates… He’s around that place we heard the minigun shots.”

Marigold leaned over his shoulder to look, frowning, hand on his back. Norm had marked the location, and in the map it was very clearly east of the Agency.

“Fuck. I remember that name. I’m pretty sure I cut his throat. It must’ve been too shallow for him to survive.”

“Nip-Nip mentioned there was a Bounty on Francesco, but it was being taken out because the one behind it had died.”

“Are you really suggesting we try and kill him?”

Norm turned his head towards her and touched her chin. Marigold turned one moment later, eyes shocked and worried.

“That Bounty will remain God knows how long. If a Bounty Hunter threatens someone that traded with the Bears… They’ll know where to find you. And everyone else.”

“Fuck.” She touched his forehead with hers, hand squeezing his shoulder. “This will delay us on going after Lucy.”

She kissed him, hard and brief.

“All righty. Fuck. More than five raiders and we hightail away, got it?” Marigold’s eyebrows were frowned, lips downturned.

Norm pecked her lips with a smile and she relaxed a bit.

“Got it, Beautiful.”

---------

As she guided the path, Marigold barely believed that Norm had managed to talk her into that madness with just a few words.

At least the path was indeed more direct, and thus faster. They didn’t need to walk east before going down the mountains, and once on the desert again, they just walked south-east in a steady, straight line. Eventually they walked amidst some ruins that were a little more whole than the one they had slept some days earlier, most with the appearance of small shops.

The sun was just starting to disappear in the horizon when they approached the line of dried trees, an old cracked street keeping it separated from the ruins. She remembered how long it had taken to cross the trees, so they choose one of the old ruined shops to pass the night. The lucky one had all windows boarded out, the door standing but lock broken – a metal shelf and there, the wind wouldn’t play with it the whole night.

“Nothing like watch shifts.” Norm teased as they hid behind the counter, lamp oil lit, and ate dinner.

“A necessity of the Wasteland.” She shrugged and finished eating, dismantling her hunting rifle to clean the pieces. “I’ll get first watch.”

Norm turned her head and kissed her lips, painfully sweet, before settling against her side and falling asleep.

Marigold smiled at nothing and everything, resisting the will to hum as she took care of her gun and pieced it together, ears attentive to the sounds outside as the hours passed.

When she woke Norm for his shift, she noticed, as she hugged his shoulders tight against her and kissed his temple before falling asleep herself, how he kept the revolver in hands. Pride swelled inside her: he had learned.

---------

They crossed the trees during the next morning and started amidst another set of ruined houses and streets as the afternoon started, and Marigold noticed a church bell tower not too distant from their place, maybe two streets. By the map, they weren’t too far from the coordinates, and the church seemed to be the opposite way. A good place from where to take a look with her binoculars and make a first recognition.

No way she was approaching Meat-Cooker’s supposed location in broad daylight.

“Think we’ll see the exact place from the bell tower?”

“Even if we don’t, it’s a good vantage point for everything around here.” Norm nodded, squeezing her hand and keeping up with her pace.

They made silence after that, ears attentive to their surroundings. It didn’t took them long to find the street with the church’s front, the wind the only thing making any type of sound around them as it blew between the buildings. The double door leading inside the church lied broken in the ground, and Marigold let go of Norm’s hand to keep her gun ready just in case. He followed her example, revolver in his hand and pointing down.

The pews were askew but the central path was still clear. Ancient skeletons were spread around, but no feral ghoul or anything else made itself known as they walked down it and climbed up the short stairs up the platform in the back of the room. Crumbled around the pulpit, a skeleton in a moth-eaten cassock.

Someone had tried to bar the door to the bell tower, but the wood was old and the nails rusted. A few aimed kicks and elbows and the path was clear.

The stairs were still firm and stable, and soon they were crawling under the small roof and around the bell, leaning against the low wall, heads low.

“All righty, what’s their direction?” Marigold was already pulling her binoculars, while Norm frowned at his Pip-Boy.

“It’s… East in general, but still a bit south. Also not too far, less than five hundred feet.”

“Ouch, that’s close. We’ll need to be careful.”

Marigold looked at the sky, verifying the sun dipping towards west. She resolutely gave her back to it and looked through the binoculars towards east, careful so only the binoculars and the top of her head were above the wall.

She moved slowly, eyebrows frowned as she saw the half ruined houses and stores, destroyed more by time and lack of care than by bombs, roofs half collapsed, dead gardens, sand-clogged streets. Radroaches ambled in distant walls and she spied a nest through a destroyed window; she chose a liquor store in front of the street as landmark, so she knew that was a street to avoid. She saw another open window, a feral Ghoul ambling inside. A half broken plaque as landmark: another street to avoid.

It took some more minutes of careful search for her to see the signs of raiders: a tall pole with a rotten head stabbed into it.

Raiders. Always the same.

“I think I found them.”

“What are you seeing?”

Marigold described in low voice as she carefully looked down the pole, some type off plaza becoming evident behind it, a big bonfire in the middle. She tsked at noticing the buildings flanking it with one and two floors, some lone windows visible but nothing beyond it, and how filthy the ground was, with empty bottles and glasses, broken glass, blood. The entrance street was littered with feral ghoul bodies – now she knew at what they were shooting. No raider was walking the area, but the evidence was there. If there were guards, they were out of her sight.

“Wants to find a better place to look?” Norm asked when she finished describing.

“Nope. Too close and we still have some hours of sunlight.” She stopped and tapped a finger against the binoculars. “By the bonfire and the filthy around, I guess they must be passed out and will appear again as night falls.”

“Maybe shooting that minigun towards God knows where.” Norm groaned beside her and she couldn’t blame him.

“Probably. But we’ll get a notion of their numbers and activities.”

---------

They settled down for waiting, talking in low tones, hands intertwined again. Norm couldn’t stop himself from constantly kissing her hand when the ideas lulled, every time the pretty soft smile and a kiss against his forehead in answer. Marigold would take a look towards the place each fifteen minures; by his Pip-Boy, there was still one hour for the night to fall when Norm felt the wait getting to him.

“This is what hunting is usually for you, right? Lying in wait and watching.” He squeezed her hand, watching her looking through the binoculars.

A grin appeared on her lips.

“Yeah, pretty much. Won’t lie, I was kinda missing this part of hunting.”

“Last time was when you kept me from radroach death, right?”

“Spot on, Norm-boy.” She chuckled, and he missed the finger guns that usually went along.

“Anyway, you were watching from where, that day?”

“From the second floor of a fire station… Wait. A raider just appeared… Throwing more wood into the fire. Raiders are insane, that’s too open.”

Marigold let go of his hand, settling herself better to watch, and Norm risked looking above the wall. Even without the binoculars to get the details he could notice the fire, bright against the slowly darkening sky, and lowered again.

“There’s more raiders… I recognize this one, must be Meat-Cooker. He’s carrying a big bottle… Oh, I think they’re making their own moonshine. Ew, they just took the glasses from the ground and are serving the drink around. Gross. Aand there’s the minigun, they’re setting it up against the entrance. Are they expecting to attract more ferals to shoot? That’s… That’s so fucking dumb.”

“How many raiders?”

“I counted seven with Meat-Cooker. From the looks of it, hardly more hidden away.” Two more than the limit she had said. Damn it. “The one that set up the minigun is leaving… And now talking with Meat-Cooker and pointing the minigun.” A pause. “I think they’re low on ammo for it.”

She lowered the binoculars and looked at him with that feral smile.

“What?”

“He’s sending three to scavenge around.”

“They’re getting separated.” Four remaining in the fire, three spreading around.

“You got it, Norm-boy.” A look at the sky. “You still have the poisoned Sugar Bombs?”

“Two boxes. And three fake Med-X.” Marigold chuckled.

“Fuck, I had forgotten those. I think we have a chance, if we play our cards righty.”

---------

The light was fading from the sky and he felt absurdly naked with only the Vault-Suit and his sidebag, carrying only one Med-X and an almost empty water canteen, but the intention was for him to look like a haggard and lost Vault-Dweller, so that’s that – God he missed the coat, the knife, the gun, everything. Knowing that Marigold wasn’t close by didn’t help, but it was part of his idea, so he better do his part.

He heard angry muttering just a second before one of the raiders appeared, a woman with tattered clothes and pieces of metal protecting key parts of her body.

Norm immediately raised his hands, and while he didn’t managed Thaddeus high-pitched scream, he tried to emulated everything else.

“DON’T SHOOT PLEASE!” Hopefully that scream wasn’t high enough to attract feral ghouls.

The woman gave a big, rotten smile, the handgun in her hands loosely in his direction as she approached and started circling him; Norm nervously followed her with only a movement of his head, doing his best to appear as pathetic and afraid as Thaddeus had looked – don’t let her think you’re up on them, don’t, Norm, don’t.

Marigold would kill him again if he ended up dead because his side of the plan failed.

“Lost, Vaultie?” He felt her leering at him as she stopped at his back.

“I-I-” Thaddeus stutter was harder to get and he heard a malicious chuckled.

“I-I-I! Fuck, Vaulties see a gun and don’t know what to do!” The chuckle became a laugh. A push against his back. “Walk, hands up. Fuck, Meat-Cooker will be happy with the fresh meat.”

There, bait and distraction in place. Hopefully Marigold was ok.

---------

The body shook, blood starting to pour out from the mouth, and Marigold held tight, grimacing as the blood dripped between her fingers. Fuck, she was never getting that glove clean again.

“Die already, dipshit.” She mumbled, worried at the fact that she had heard Norm’s “DON’T SHOOT PLEASE”. At least no shooting sound had followed it.

The body stopped moving and she let it fall, storing the second empty Med-X syringe. There. Two raiders dead. Just five to go. Making sure none of the stealth-boys were on and wasting battery, she started walking.

---------

A raider was fumbling with a minigun as they entered the plaza and the one pushing him threw the man something, too fast for Norm to see.

“Look at you, Ebon, bringing fresh meat too!” A big man called, a nasty fresh scar around his neck; Meat-Cooker, the one Marigold thought was dead. He had a glass with clear liquid in hands, kneeling by a human body that Marigold hadn’t mentioned, so new. It didn’t look like a raider. “But he’s a little thin, hu?”

The raider pulled his sidebag and pushed him sitting close to the bonfire, an iron pot above it with something already bubbling inside, the smell weird and gag inducing. A look at the body gave a likely explanation: someone had pulled their clothes and carved their back.

Norm was nauseous but also not surprised, considering the “Meat-Cooker” name. He had finally met cannibals. Great.

“I was thinking more the bombed collar we still have! Vaulties get a good price with Dom Pedro!” Oh, she better not find it and put on him.

Meat-Cooker drained his glass with a thoughtful look and the woman filled it again, the large bottle clearly becoming empty. Movement to one side and Norm noticed other two raiders approaching from one of the low stores, fumbling to carry a bottle just like the recently drained one. There, all raiders.

“You fuckers better not drop the moonshine! And yeah, get it Ebon. Where the fuck Nugget and Rusty are?!”

The bottle of alcohol carefully touched the ground, and Ebon turned towards another low store, taking a look inside his sidebag – the firelight made the gleam in her eyes obvious, and he knew she had found the fake Med-X. A look over her shoulder towards Meat-Cooker and she speeded up.

Norm bit the inside of his cheek to keep a grin away from his face.

The other two raiders sat down and drank some of the moonshine as Meat-Cooker drained another glass and cut more meat from the dead body, throwing it in the pot – don’t throw up, Norm, don’t throw up.

There was a slight shimmer of light in the edges of the plaza. Exactly like the test.

You’re on, Norm. Just distract them enough so they wouldn’t go for more moonshine soon.

“Hey… Hum… Sir?” Meat-Cooker looked at him, an eyebrow raised with clear amusement. Norm resisted the sigh of relief and decided on laying thick on the honorifics – amusement was better than anger and easier to read.

“’Sir’, these Vaulties always so proper!” the other raiders laughed with Meat-Cooker, the one that had been working on the minigun approaching and getting a glass. “Go ahead, Vaultie, talk.”

“Oh. Vaultie. So… That lady was really talking about me when talking about selling…” Appear sad and shocked, Norm, sad and shocked…

The raider laughed, knife tapping his lips.

“Fuck, I heard everything now! Ebon a lady, can the three of you believe?!”

“She wasn’t a lady even as a baby!” one cackled, falling back, the thick smell of alcohol all around as some sloshed from his glass.

“Fucking right, Rat-Tail! Garrotte, more moonshine!” Meat-Cooker pushed his glass to the other raider. “And that’s right, Vaultie. Dom Pedro is a motherfucker but he pays well for Vaulties.” Glass full, he tipped it towards him and drained it in one go.

Marigold better be fast in dissolving the Sugar Bombs in one bottle, because he doubted that one would last long, no matter how big it was.

Norm forced a dry-swallow and to shrink his shoulders and tried to talk as he was sure Lucy would, as a perfect Vault-Dweller.

“Selling… Selling people is wrong.” Meat-Cooker’s grin got bigger, eyebrows raised as he went to serve himself, draining a glass.

“Don’t you say, Vaultie.”

Norm swallowed for real as the raider served yet another glass, not looking even tipsy. Damn it. How much was his resistance to alcohol? Damn it.

“What… What does he do?”

“If you don’t anger him, you just have to clean and cook for him.” Garrotte tipped his glass back and then looked at him with an evil grin. “But please anger him, it’s always a high to see Vaulties going through his gauntlet!”

Another slight shimmer of light, fast moving away. Thank God.

“What Garrotte just said.” Meat-Cooker shrugged, getting more alcohol. The bottle was almost drained. “Fuck. Go get another bottle.” He kicked a still cackling Rat-Tail in the ribs.

“’m going, boss, ‘m going.” The raider got up and wobbled towards the building. Meat-Cooker sighed and looked at the third one.

“Razor, go together and make sure he won’t drop it.” Razor nodded and jumped up, following Rat-Tail.

Meat-Cooker looked at the sky, almost totally dark.

“Fuck. Garrotte, how drunk Rusty and Nugget were?”

Garrotte raised their head, grimacing.

“Rusty and Nugget, boss. They’re always drunk and high. Must’ve passed out on the ruins again.”

“Fuckers. If they bring a bunch of ferals here again ‘m killing them.”

Oh so not a purposeful bait the bonfire. Just stupidity. The ferals just a consequence of raiders being even more stupid. So if raiders weren’t stupid that bunch of rats wouldn’t have messed them up… So, the rats were from the Agency? A little far, but… Eh. He was accepting that theory.

Rat-Tail carefully walked the path, Razor walking alongside and taking the bottle from him when he almost tipped face first with it.

“Had seen raiders, Vaultie?!” Meat-Cooker asked, opening the new bottle with Razor’s help as Garrotte and Rat-Tail drained the other.

“Once.” He swallowed, seeing the raider drain a glass of what he hoped was already the poisoned moonshine. Norm would know soon enough.

“Oh, tell me more.”

“They… They invaded my Vault.” He gave the half-truth and the four blinked before cackling.

“Amazing!”

Garrotte, Razor and Rat-Tail got their own glasses of the new bottle, still cackling.

“Fuck, Vaultie, you escaped them and ended with us! Fuck! Better for us, Dom Pedro will pay handsomely!” Meat-Cooker blinked and looked towards the direction Ebon had gone. “What the fuck is taking Ebon so long to bring the collar?! Garrotte, go drag her out!”

“On it, boss!” Garrotte went, not before draining their glass and filling it again.

Rat-Tail drained their second glass and filled Meat-Cooker’s, Razor’s and his own, plopping down on the ground again.

Garrotte started walking, wobbling… And then they fell on the ground in the middle of the path, cackling, the alcohol spreading over the sandy earth. Meat-Cooker, Razor and Rat-Tail started cackling one second later.

“Wohow! This one hit hard!”

Norm watched the closest raiders.

A drip of blood started from Meat-Cooker’s ear, another from Rat-Tail’s eyes, from Razor’s nose, and there were coughing and rattling lungs from all of them.

“What… What-” Meat-Cooker tried to talk, but then he was coughing too, and a spat of blood hit the alcohol in his glass. He blinked, eyes enraging, and looked at Norm, free hand fumbling in his belt. “YOU!”

“I-I was here the whole-”

A hand pulled him and his back hit the ground, one-two-three shots. A fourth and sixth shot, and a shimmer flying above him and something hitting the ground and a weird sound.

The slight shimmer approached him and he felt himself being heaved, his stomach pressing against what he knew was Marigold’s shoulders, her arm firm around waist.

“We had agreed you would go back to the church!” He managed as she started moving, his eyes landing on the bodies of the raiders, perfect headshots on three of them – no doubt they were dead –, the fourth one with slit throat, head almost separated from the neck, blood pouring out too fast, a consequence of the poison. Three had loose guns in their hands, the fourth had it firmer, finger on the trigger.

Oops, that he hadn’t noticed nor considered, that they would have time to reach their weapons as the poison made effect. That could’ve ended badly.

“Yeah, not taking any chances, Norm-boy! At least the poison made them slow enough that I managed to kill without worries!”

She swerved amidst the streets, the sounds of growls starting to reach them, and they made silence. The ferals had clearly heard the shots and where on the move, but Marigold had a path in mind, steps silent as always, avoiding them.

The stealth-boy had stopped working and he could see Marigold when they reached the church, and Marigold only put him back on the ground when they reached the stairs to the bell tower. They climbed fast, his Pip-Boy’s flashlight illuminating the steps, and then they were at the top, all their things exactly as they had left.

They sighed and sat down, backs against the low wall.

“Those last shots weren’t yours… Did he hit you?”

“Nah, went too high, I’m fine, Norm-boy. Here, your sidebag.” Marigold handed it and started loading her hunting rifle.

“Thank you.” The canteen was still inside, thankfully, and Norm started putting back the things he had been carrying in it. “She used the Med-X?”

“Like a charm, was barely through the door before jabbing it. Not a pretty sigh.” And them Marigold was hugging him by the shoulders and kissing his temple. “Thanks, my dearest. And fuck, I’m relieved they did nothing with you.”

He turned and pecked her lips, cupping her face.

“That other raider had the idea of selling me to some Dom Pedro, that’s why. And I’m happy you’re okay too, Beautiful.” Norm kissed her again, firm, and she smiled into it.

There. No one else that was a certified threat to Marigold – the relief at that knowledge made his limbs jelly. Only things that where threats to both of them, no more worrying about new Bounty Hunters trying to find her.

Now they could keep going after Lucy and, apparently, The Ghoul.

#norm maclean #norm maclean x oc #fallout prime #fallout series #fallout

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