#I love writing for him even if the characterization is hard

[leadxxr]

So I need to make a bit of an announcement. As much as I’m worried this might upset some of my ship partners, I genuinely think this is the best route for me to take with Dwight since he’s developed such an intense connection with a specific character that it’s really difficult for me to channel muse when we wind up projecting onto each other so strongly; he gets jealous even if it's not the same verse, and as a result that projects onto me and vice versa. Sounds kinda silly but it legitimately does feel that way because in the back of my head, he’s brooding, he’s upset, and I can’t really write other things when my muse is feeling that way. I don’t really have control over it and he just projects so hard his feelings since I'm a huge empath, even if he's a fictional character. I still channel his voice in my head. Because whereas I enjoy reading others’ threads, he absolutely cannot stand it when I come across the shippy ones.

That being said, I never thought I’d do this, but Dwight is going to become exclusive with Danny ( @ferociium ) from this point forward.

The only romantic/sexual ships I will have on this blog now will be for the following:

Danny Johnson: @ferociium

Literally the love of Dwight's life. Something that started out extremely toxic until he was somehow able to get through to Danny's core, exposing the very real human side that still existed, even if in such a small quantity. A mutual obsession and devotion to each other that admittedly does end up being a little codependent and somewhat unhealthy, but as far as they're concerned, they will never ever part from one another.

Adriana Imai: @condxmnxd

A toxic "ship" in which Skull Merchant actively takes advantage of Dwight in the same verse as his relationship with Danny - please note that this can be an extremely triggering relationship as it will use non-con tags. Please blacklist these things to protect yourself from potentially triggering material.

All of this being said, I am still open to writing shippy things with others on Discord in a private server !! I don't want any of my writing partners to feel slighted whatsoever, but I'm tired of losing muse any time I come across something that triggers him in my head.

Anything NSFW will also be moved to Discord. The only NSFW threads I will have on dash will be with the blogs mentioned above. I've had a lot of fun exploring different dynamics and the like, but it's time to let Dwight settle down with someone because admittedly, I am kind of losing track of dynamics/they seem to be blending together, making characterization a bit difficult to maintain.

[sweetlywriting]

Normal

Johan Liebert x reader

Synopsis-You’re a college student struggling to keep up with the work of your prestigious law school, luckily an intelligent man named Johan Liebert has volunteered to tutor you.

A/N-gn reader, sfw as always, surprisingly no violence for a Johan piece lol, I’ll write another part of people like this.

He seemed very normal, but deep inside he had always struck you as an enigma.

You went to the same college. It was a old and presitigous law school and you were barely passing, having hit the lows of college. That was when you first noticed him. He was first to arrive and last to leave the class. He knew all the answers and was practically invisible. But far more importantly, after school tutoring was required after failing so many classes. You held your head in shame walking to meet your new tutor, not happy to get lectured by one of your pretentious classmates who probably bought their way in.

“You’re Johan right?”

"Yes. I will be tutoring you until the next exams"

He had a smooth coyish voice and a measured smile. There was just something about him that felt affinitic and made you want these quick criminal law study sessions last so much longer. His help really was raising your grades, but that only meant that you’d see him less. So you painstakingly circled D when you knew it was A. And it worked. Your professor shook his head and assigned you another semester worth of tutoring. This time twice a week much to your excitement.

“It seems I’m not quite as effective teacher as I thought I was.” He said sighing.

“No-“ You started to rebuke him only to see that if he knew it was working and you just acting like a school kid over some silly crush, he’d likely stop tutoring you.

“Hm? Is there some other reason for your failure this semester?” He said with a small smile.

You swallowed. Was it that obvious? It was as if he could read your mind but instead of simply telling you, he wanted you to tell him yourself in the most complicated and equally uncomfortable way possible.

“I think it’s just the administrative law that I’m struggling on.” You said with a nervous laugh.

His face flickered through emotions you didn’t recognize but he eventually put his usual smile on and brought out a administrative law textbook. Phew. You had gotten away with it but wouldn’t likely be as lucky next time.

It felt a little silly, but you had started to wear the colors that matched what he had worn to the lectures, and showing up early so you could sit closer to him, and even looked for his name on the club sign up sheets, just to see if you could catch a glimpse of him and his ever mysterious personal life. He was addictive, the way he walked, the way he talked. You had never met someone quite like him.

There was a pop quiz on Friday and some nice senior had luckily tipped you off, so here you were studying with Johan.

While you had failed so you could spend more time with him, you worked hard to get here and certainly didn’t want to get kicked out.

“Administrative law, isn’t something that usually lawyers deal with because they directly challenge a law or order created. Cases like these take a while to get resolved and have a plethora of rules.”

“What type of lawyer do you want to be?” You blurted, interrupting his sentence and tearing his eyes from the textbooks and folders and notes littered on the table.

“Hm?”

“I was just curious I mean you’re proficient in almost all of the different types you could choose whatever you find the most interesting-“

“I don’t want to be a lawyer.”

You blinked dumbly back at him. But before you ask he already responded.

“Can I ask you something?”

“S-sure”

He leaned over the table, hands on both sides of your chair as he casually moved a strand of your hair back and whispered in your ear.

“Have you ever thought of becoming something bigger? Something more . . . unorthodox?”

He slid a folder from underneath the others closer to you and you peered at the hundreds of newspapers clippings, and the crime on each one.

"I hope one day, you can understand.”

His lips grazed your ear for only a second, leaving you in a confused daze.

Perhaps not normal.

[aq2003]

what i like about ten is how genuinely unfit he is as the doctor. his tragedy is that he's too mortal to be immortal. he's immediately set to crash and burn the minute he spawned in. he's like an outlier and an outsider in basically every way and tbh it's wild that he became one of the most known incarnations of the character + some later incarnations have taken after him bc his whole thing to me feels very "i wish i wasn't who i am but i am terrified to be any other way". twelve on the other hand feels so much more definitive. like this is what i feel like the doctor would be like on a regular basis and more incarnations (in this era of nuwho at least) would realistically be more like him. this is the doctor at their core when they're not actively trying to disguise themself as something else. they are ancient and tired and angry and it shows clear as day

[qcomicsy]

Lately I've only been wishing to grab a comic about my favorite character and just have a genuinely good time reading it.

[altair214]

If Dream of the Endless had access to the Am I The Asshole subreddit "Am I the Asshole for condemning my lover to Hell?"

"I was informed quite recently by a friend that this is a good place to receive unbiased judgement on past actions of mine that were not well received by people. As there are few beings I trust to ask for unbiased, well-meaning judgement from, I turn to the internet.

After a recent excursion to Hell, my raven saw fit to inform me that condemning a past lover to Hell might be seen, in my raven's words "as a dick move." My sibling, who has seen fit to give a mortal the tools to imprison me for a century and has made an attempt on my life, has criticized me before for the decision I made to condemn my lover to Hell.

Our story took place 10,000 years ago. She was a mortal queen and very beautiful. She was desired by many, but she refused them. One day she laid eyes on me, not knowing who or what I am, and decided that I would be her lover. She pursued me, and eventually found me in my realm. We began to get to know each other. She truly loved me at first. And I loved her. No one had ever loved me enough to go to the lengths she had to find me. I offered to make her the queen of my realm. But when she truly began to understand what it is that I am, and that I would not abandon my realm to be her lover, she became fearful. I did not want her to leave me, so when she ran, I ran after her. She hurt herself in the hopes that it would make me disgusted with her and leave. When she saw that she did not scare me away, she allowed me to heal her. We made love all through the night.

In the morning, her city was destroyed, for the First Circle had decreed that one of the Endless cannot love a mortal. We had both known that. She had tried to put an end to our relationship before it was too late, but in the end our desire for each other had overcome all else.

In her despair, she killed herself. I was distraught, I would have made her my queen. But she chose death over me. She chose to abandon me, she chose to abandon hope, for death. Still, I would have forgiven her for that transgression. I would still have her as my queen. I would still love her.

But she rejected me. Even though she loved me, she would rather die than be with me. So I told her that I would offer my love a final time, but if she once again would choose death over me, that I would condemn her soul to Hell.

She did not answer at first. She said that we were never meant to be together and that darker things would come to be if we tried to be together. I asked her once again as she was making the journey to the Sunless Lands. She told me to leave her. I asked her for the last time. She refused me and I condemned her to Hell.

She sought me out, only to reject me. To reject dreams by killing herself. She loved me and yet would choose to die rather than be with me. She would choose Hell rather than be with me even though she sought me first. I felt that my actions were justified. She was not moved by the pain that her actions caused me. What could I have done except punish her for her callousness?

I felt I was completely justified in my actions until very recently when I saw her in Hell. I had not thought of her in a long time, though I still loved her. But my recent experience of being imprisoned for a century had changed me in ways that I have only recently admitted to myself. For the first time I wondered if perhaps my original judgement to condemn her to Hell was made in error. So I am turning to here at the recommendation of a friend. Am I the Asshole?"

[secretmellowblog]

After the National Guard successfully suppresses a rebellion, there is relief among the ruling class; they exhale and breathe freely again; and then, they turn from crushing those who attack to crushing those who flee. They turn from attacking barricades to attacking safehouses. The police are sent out in full force. The military occupies the city. Spies hunt for the dens of rebels, like hunting dogs for the dens of foxes. All the government’s forces fly out in pursuit of one object: that object is not the defeat of its enemies, as they have already been defeated; it pursues their annihilation. 

Chapter 2 of "Annoyances," a tragicomic fic about a badly wounded Jean Valjean and Javert struggling to force each other to walk back to Rue de l'Homme Arme No. 7 before they're both arrested, is now out! The new chapter is titled "Phantoms of a Barricade Which May or May Not Actually Be Dead."

Thanks to @fremedon for beta reading, and to @alicedrawslesmis and @pilferingapples for the original post/reblogs that inspired this.

[prettyboykatsuki]

lightning strike | h. iwaizumi

✮ tags ; afab + gn!reader, recently established relationship, mutual pining, pwp, dry humping + making out, nipple play, implied raw sex, super love-dovey, deliberate name change from iwaizumi to hajime 18+

✮ wc ; 4k (???????)

✮ a/n ; something deeply frightening happened to me in writing this but whatever. made it with ten minutes to spare happy bday mr iwaizumi

pls be nice if characterization is everywhere its been a while

He’s nervous.  

So nervous. 

You laugh at him over a can of beer, even harder when he visibly flinches at the sound. The room is too quiet since all of your company has left for the evening. Iwaizumi is tipsy but not drunk - though you think if he has another can he’ll get there just fine.  

“Your face is gonna get stuck if you keep frowning.”  

He shoots you a glare that makes your lips quirk up. “Shut up. You sound like my Ma.”  

“How is she by the way? Still good?”  

Iwaizumi snorts and takes a long sip of his beer. He tilts his head back against the couch, arm stretched along the seats. His muscles pull taut underneath the skintight material of his turtleneck. You find yourself sitting on your hands to calm down, but you’re too unfocused for it too work.  

“She’s good. She likes the countryside. Been growing squash and tomatoes and everything. Gonna try and stay with her a bit during off-season,” His voice is wistful and affectionate. An only son, filial and polite - you smile at him lovingly. “You should come visit with me.”  

You raise an eyebrow. “Oh? Guess it’s the same since we’ve already met but since we’re going steady I though you might be too nervous.”  

The realization settles in too late. Just when you thought he’d swallow the nerves down, they make an appearance once again. He sits up straight, clearing his throat, diverting his gaze to the coffee table separating you both. A blush spreads up, all through his body. His ears turn especially turn some shade of cherry red. Dusts all along his nose. He tsks at you, tongue clicking with a familiar petulance. You bite back a laugh.  

“Going steady? Seriously?”  

“Well,” Your face twists in mischief as you look up at him, your eyes locking briefly. “You’d get all hissy if I called us lovers.”  

His eyes go wide - in equal parts shock and mild disgust. You can’t hold the laugh back that time time no matter how hard you try. It bubbles up out of you, euphoric and hysterical. Your laughter is too loud to savor his displeasure, so caught up in it that it takes you a few minutes to calm down again,  

“I hate you,” Iwaizumi mumbles. A grin splits your face. 

“No, you don’t.”  

He frowns and his blush darkens just a touch  

The room goes quiet save for the sound of your heartbeat. You try and collect yourself. The house feels too quiet, all prior company absen. Not that Mattsun and Maki dragged out Oikawa to be considerate of your newfound love or anything. You’re sure you’ve already gotten a long text detailing your extortion related to the favor. Still, you’re glad to be alone with him.  

It’s easy to split your time between all of them separately when you’re all in the same place - but complicated to be all together. And alone time with Iwaizumi has always been hard to come by.  

You’ve been pining for him since highschool - the frequency you wish to see him tuned tuned by the passing years of your relationship and feelings. You’ve gone through the whole spectrum of desires. From wanting to see him everyday constantly, to hoping you’d never have to see him again. It took you well over a decade to make any progress, and the entire process (while surely heartfelt) has been unmistakably clumsy and so, so long.  

Spending alone time with Iwaizumi has thus always been complicated except for this one time. You got together, officially, just last week. The day he came home, where you incidentally found yourselves alone together. Something that’d been rare years prior due to said pining and trying to get over him. You don’t even really know how it happened. It felt like the most significant moment in your life thus far and incomparably anticlimatic at once. He was just sending you home since you’d got completely shitfaced, and before you left you grabbed him by the collar and announced it. Just like that.  

(You threw up half-way through the car ride back. Your Uber was nice enough to pull over so you didn’t do it in his car.) 

You went home after and didn’t speak for days. It took a few more days for either of you to work up the courage to sort things out forreal, but you made it work with the help of even more alcohol.  

Things get busy though, when Oikawa returns home and Hajime is off-season. It’s rare things line up, and when they do - it’s only natural you spend all your time together. You did today too, celebrating Iwaizumi’s birthday among the four of you with take-out and Godzilla movies on your nice flatscreen.  

But you haven’t been alone with each other since your chat establishing your relationship as not a pipe-dream, which was notably through text.  

He’s nervous, so incredibly nervous but so are you. Just a little.  

You look up after being lost in thought - to see Iwaizumi stare at you. The air shifts slow and steady, thick tension stirring in your gut. You bite the inside of your cheek, rubbing your feet together as you fold over yourself, chin resting on your knee. 

You wonder if you should be the one to break the distance. Iwaizumi beats you to the punch this time. You suppose you’re even.  

“Come ‘ere.”  

He pushes the coffee table farther away from him with ease, careful not to knock anything over. Your tipsy self swoons over his competence, but you’re sure you’d do the same sober.  

The look he gives you as you crawl over to him makes you feel bashful. You go over until you’re sitting side by side - stretching your legs out. Your thighs barely touches. Iwaizumi jolts, swiping a hand over his face in exasperation.  

“Sorry,”  

You shake your head. “It’s okay.” Because it is, then just to make sure. “Are we okay?”  

“More than okay,” He admits, a breath of relief following the words. “It was a good birthday, by the way. Thank you.”  

“They’ll get upset that you only thanked me,”  

He bristles immediately making you giggle. “I’ll thank those knuckleheads later.” 

You smile at him, wide and bright. He looks at you before quickly looking away, laughing a little humorlessly to himself. You wonder what he’s thinking about but decide against asking, comfortable letting him go at whatever speed.  

“Can I uh—“ He clears his throat. “Wanna kiss you. Just uhh… shit.”  

You’d love to tease him, but you feel like your heart might explode out of your body so there’s not really much room. Nodding, you sit up on your knees and turn a little to face him. His features soften with remarkable fondness. You flush at the sudden attention. He sits up straighter, turning his head to face you. His forehead knocks against yours softly, noses brushes. His eyes are so sharp. You have to close your own when you feel him leaning in to kiss you.  

Iwaizumi is warm. His lips are softer than you thought they’d be. His hands feel big as one snakes up to cup your neck. He gives you one deep kiss, followed by two pecks before pulling away to make you chase him. He rewards you by kissing you agai. The sudden pressure makes your head spin.  

You pull away dazed. “You’re… super good at kissing.”  

“Yeah?”  

You press your thighs together at his reply. So sexy it’s unfair. “Uh-huh.”  

He gives you a weighted hum. 

His reaction spurs you on then. You pull away from him momentarily. Iwaizumi stares at you in reply, worry making his brow furrow. Before he can get the words out, you seat yourself on his lap. He’s taken aback as he realizes your intent, your arms around his neck. It’s not even really the alcohol, as much as it’s everything else. Cramped in your living room together, pressed up against your couch. You bury your face in the crook of his neck, and shiver in his arms smelling his cologne. Spicy with a hint of pine. He hesitates, hands settling so carefully on your hips.  

He lets you stay like that undisturbed until you’re ready to pull away. Like he senses you needed that. He’s always been so good at knowing what exactly you need. Suddenly restless you decide you need to look at him again - make sure he’s real. That this is real.  

“Hey,” He mutters. His pitch is low, sends your heart hammering.  

You giggle, fluttering nervously. “Hi,” And then, “You like me,”  

“Pfft,” His voice is so tender, so soft, so comforting. “More than that.”  

Suddenly overwhelmed by your own giddiness, you squeak. You want to bury yourself in his shoulder again, but he’s quick to hold your wrist and stop you. He pins you under his gaze. It’s so intense you can’t help but feel like a deer caught in headlights. Your head is empty and all he’s doing is looking at you.  

But maybe that’s the whole problem. He’s looking at you, and you’ve wanted that for more than a decade. Now having it is too much, too suddenly - and you’re almost afraid of having it. It’s just a gaze, but it’s yours. He’s telling he’s yours in a way that’s just like him.  

“You…” He starts on something before letting you go. “For a long time,”  

He doesn’t need to explain. You already know.  

“Me too,” 

He calms down when you get it..  

“Really?” He follows up. He doesn’t look at you as he goes on. “How long?”  

You think on it.  

“Since we were fifteen?”  

“Same as me, then.” He’s clumsy with the follow-up. “That’s…”  

“Dumb? Ridiculous? Too long?” You say, filling in the words for him. “I know.”  

The extent of your own longing comes to you in waves. Love, like the sea trapped behind ice - so easily shattered. You’re drowning, your lungs aching trying to get adjusted to what is finally yours. The shock of it comes and goes, but you’re surrounded by it all the same. Iwaizumi stares at you and you stare back and nothing in the world exists except this desire you’ve kept to yourself for years.  

His name comes out like a whimper on your lips. “Iwaizumi,”  

“Hajime,” He corrects, so tender. So sweet to you. “Please,”  

“Hajime,” You test the name out on your tongue. It’s sweet.  

He doesn’t say anything after that.  

Your breath hitches as Hajime crowds into your space again. His hands are firm on your hips as he kisses you again. It’s different from before, lingers longer - his tongue pressing along the seam of your lips until you open them and allow him in deeper.The taste of alcohol is clearer on your tongue, bitter remnants of malt making you drool at the corners of your mouth. You kiss hungrily, your hands carding through the short, black hair with a longing sigh. Hajime groans a little when you tug at the root and the only thing you can think to do is try to sink into him further. .  

The hear raises without warning. Your skin under your clothes feels like it’s on fire. It feels different too suddenly for you to adjust and keep completely calm. Lust that borders cosmic engraves into your bones. Crumbling under the weight of it, you kiss Hajime like your life would end without it. In the moment, it feels like it would. Exchanged breaths are the only source of air for that space and time. You feel frantic, hazy - and Hajime who you know to be so steady, proves to be in the same place as you. 

His hands are so big. You can feel how tight he grabs you, his thumb pressing into your hipbones - itching to go lower. You don’t want to pull away but you want more. In the second you take a breath you tell him as much. Your own delirium might bring you shame if you were in any place to really feel it. “You can touch me. However you want.”  

“Fuck. Don’t say that.”  

“Hajime, please.”  

You mutter something but you don’t catch what it really. Your head is swimming with unrepentant ardor and your tongue feels too heavy for your mouth. Hajime kisses you again and takes the lead. The pleasure echoes in how you sigh, your hips rutting against his lap as his hands squeeze your ass. His hands are so fucking big - strong and kind and hold you with no uncertainty. The groping goes straight to your cunt, stomach starting to twist with familiar arousal. You push your hips against him again.  

You’re hardly thinking about it. Hardly thinking at all - no coherency or sense thrumming through your brain except his name. Hajime, Hajime, Hajime. An incantation of destiny. A love song.  

You feel his fingers inch up to go underneath your shirt - all of a sudden feeling burdened by all the layers between you. You can’t calm down. 

He pulls away from you first in that instance. Before you can ask, he nudges himself close to your neck, kissing along your jaw. You feel the fabric of your shirt tug. “Can I take this off?”  

You nod rapidly, then mimic him wanting him to do the same. His laugh is raspy in the follow through - your shirt and bra discarded somewhere on the floor. He stops suddenly, flicking his gaze up to you like he’s asking permission again. You just nod, not knowing how else to convey your desires.  

Your nipples pebble in response to the arousal and cool air. Hajime’s tongue flicks from his lips.  

His gaze makes you feel ticklish. He runs his palms over your tits with an appreciative noise. His eyes linger long enough to make your skin go hot all over, your spine prickling with heat.  

“Staring,”  

He looks up at your face, amused by your pout then kisses you as he feels you up, calloused palms brushing against your nipples, tits fitting perfectly in his hands. He smiles a little against your mouth. “Guess I am.”  

“Take yours off,” You plea. 

He obliges you, peeling the tight shirt away from his body and leaving his bare torso in full view. The proximity makes your lungs tighten like they can’t get enough air - heat radiating from his skin. His physique is toned, layers of muscle soft and comfortable He’s structured and gorgeous like a statue. You’re greeted by his broad chest and the corded muscles of his biceps. All sinew and strength, down his core. Strong and stable and big everywhere you could possibly look. You feel awestruck, mouth-watering at the sight - clit throbbing. Objectively attractive, you’re sure anyone in your place would feel the same. But this is your Hajime and the body he’s worked so hard on, full grown and yours. The trail of hairs down his stomach, getting coarse. The v-line of his waist makes you clench. 

 Too much.  

 The words tumble out of you before you can stop them, like water spilling from a broken dam. “I want you to fuck me so bad,”  

His brows raise. You can feel something twitch hard against your clothed pussy. At full mast underneath the confines of his pants. \Your eyes go wet when you realize what it is. Mind sticky, you draw your lips into a pout and silent protest. Despite your desperation, you almost want to say it again, pleasure thrumming through your body at his reaction. It feels like electricity sparking up from the base of your spine all the way to the top of your head. 

 Hajime presses his face to your neck all over again - hot, open mouth kisses trailing from jaw to chest. You gasp when his mouth closes around your tits, tongue laving over the tender skin and making your back arch.  

“Wanna fuck you so bad,” He mirrors. His voice is scratchy and his grip is tight. “Been wanting to fuck you so bad for so long, you have no idea.”  

There’s something true and well pathetic about the yearning that wells up inside of your gut and settles itself in your sternum. It spreads and grows and tangles in your ribs, curls around the vessels of your heartbeat. The kind of yearning that makes your whole being tremble, makes you want to preen and sing like a canary. It’d be good if time stood still so he could fuck you infintely - never being able to go where you can’t reach.  

You rock against him and Hajime holds you steady like always. His voice drops down to murmur - speaking with alarming clarity. You’re teary from the sound of his voice.  

“Let’s cum together,” He offers as reprieve, so sweet despite the harsh grip on your hips as he draws your weight down closer to him. You’re suddenly conscious of your choice in clothes - how thin the fabric of your shorts really as as the rough outline of his cock presses against the seam. You’re glad you didn’t wear underwear “And then I’ll make you cum again. I’ll take care of you,”  

“You always take care of me,” You say with no awareness of your surroundings. He laughs breathlessly. ‘ 

“Yeah..since it’s you, it’s easy.”  

You go wide-eyed but don’t get a minute to dissect. Not bothering to unbutton his jeans, you gape at the hard outline of his cock confined in black boxers. his  He picks you up with ease, your legs wrapping around his waist as your spine touches the carpet of your living room floor. You make a surprised noise as you’re let down gently. He doesn’t unfurl you from him. You spark back to life as his lips meet yours again chastely. The complaint you had dies on your lips when he trails down your jaw again. His voice is next to your ear, sinfully rough - warm breath tickling your skin. His teeth tug on your ear lobe and you shiver.  

“Tell me if it’s too much,”  

You don’t get a chance to ask about it.  

The sudden motion of his hard cock rutting and humping against your sticky, wet cunt punches the air of out of your lungs.  

There’s only a single layer of wet fabric keeping him from fucking you.  The very idea makes your pussy throb unhelpfully. You understand all of a sudden that this was what he meant about wanting to make you cum. But it’s Hajime, your Hajime - so making you do any work wouldn’t cut it. Humping you in missionary of all things like he’s already inside you.  

The thought overwhelms and you gasp.  

You don’t recognize the sound of your own voice, so high and pitchy with need. Pure pornography. But there’s no camera for you perform for, nothing but Hajime above with with a heavy gaze. Your spine arches at the sensation once it hits its stride, the angle of friction just right. The indirect touches makes your core throb. Your clit has been achingly sensitive for so long, and the release of tension in a single thrust is enough to make you shudder each time. It feels like you’ve been holding the feeling in your entire life. You wheeze his name out brokenly as he does it again - a sharp thrust, precise enough to be perfect like he already knows you that well.  

Your lower body feels week as the arousal starts to climb to a steady chorus. You pant for him like a bitch in heat.  

He’s not inside you but the smack of his hips against yours makes you feel like you’re getting fucked anyways. You imagine how it’ll feel when he really fucks you and can’t see straight after the fact. Each little movement spreads precum along your shorts, already wet with your own arousal. The friction of the damp fabric makes you cry out from pleasure,  animalistic with need. Your nails dig into his biceps as he kisses you all over, wherever he can possible reach. Along your neck, shoulders, collarbones chest. Any place he has accsess.  

You want him so fucking deep it’s frustrating, want him up to your throat - but the lack of direct touch makes you want him more desperately. And it makes it feel so, so good. The kind of pleasure that’s dull and throbbing but makes something in your spine go alight, like shoving your thumb into a bruise. You want Hajime to press himself into you hard enough to make the healed dull yellows vibrant purple and red all over again.  

You gasp helplessly each time he rocks his hips into you. He’s whispering such filth against your ear, into your mouth each time you kiss and you can’t reply with anything but his name. He praises you each time anyway, goads you into saying it again. Again and again and again until you can’t find your own voice.  

“Say it again,” Hoarse, punctuated by another thrust that nearly drives you over the edge and makes your eyes go wide. “Say my name again, baby”  

“Hajime.” So you say it- can’t think of any substitute since you’re not sure god would suffice. Locked between you in the warm sticky air is just Hajime, all yours.  

Every muscle in your body starts to lock up as you hit the final stride to your orgasm. You want to cum so badly for him and only him. All over his cock in any way he’ll light you. The thought pushes you over the edge. Over and over and over until you hang over the precipice of your own orgasm. When it hits, it hits like a crash of thunder on open plain. Like suddenly everything in you that’s every been grounded in Earth is scattered with sparks, skating and careening across your body. You feel him in the fiber of your being. Your toes curl at the sudden release, not able to voice a warning that isn’t just a soft gargle in the back of your throat. He doesn’t stop or stutter in his motion, instead gripping your hips tight as he can while lets you run through your high - nothing but praise and affection.  

You can feel him more than you can see him cum along with you. Sticky, hot seed flowing in spurts as his dick twitches for you - his ragged breathing covering your skin in goosebumps. You moan at the warm sensation drenching your poor, covered pussy and find the load to be wasted though you feel contented anyway. 

 You’re barely sane enough to catch your breath, but he eventually lets you down - though you can’t keep from hugging him. You pull back to look at each other.  

You brush the sweat matted hair away from his forehead with a lovesick sigh and giggle. He looks down at you with a grin, pressing his forehead to yours with.  

“Can’t believe I came in my pants like a teenager,” He says through a laugh.  

“It’s like making up for lost time,” You say warmly, all floaty. “Plus, the way you were fucking me but not fucking me…definitely a man. It was really hot, you know?”  

He groans. “I’ll get riled up again.”  

You smile at him. “Let’s fuck lots for your birthday, Hajime.”  

“Is that the present you mentioned earlier?”  

You pretend to think on it. “Mm..no. Not just the sex, anyway.” 

He looks at you confused as you lean in closer to him. “It’s safe so there’s no condoms anywhere in this apartment, unless you wanna go stop to get some.”  

He gives you a blown out look of lust with a soft breath, voice bordering a growl. “As if I’d make it through the door now.”  

You laugh helplessly happy and kiss him. “Happy birthday.” And then a little quieter. “I love you.”  

He softens visibly but doesn’t say anything else. You don’t need to hear him to know.  

You think the spare copy of your keys might make him cry. So you decide you’ll give it to him later. 

 The clock hasn’t hit midnight yet, anyhow. You have plenty of time.  

Now and always.  

[fyorina]

ᡣ𐭩 ALL THINGS END

FEATURING: beast dazai osamu

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

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

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

SEE: UNREAL UNEARTH SERIES MASTERLIST READ: BADLANDS SIDE A

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“... okov sends all of his reg…”

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

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

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

“... the previous b…”

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

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

“… disorder in the motherl…”

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

“... will not be contained to…”

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

It will put you at risk. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“... oevsky and Tolstoy…”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

His gaze doesn’t leave you once. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“We can get a drink.” 

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

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

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

“Yeah,” he agrees.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dazai is in trouble. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He wants to be used to it. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I’ll wait for you.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That catches Dazai’s attention.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Bastard, if you hang up on me-”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It might kill you if he does have you. 

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

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

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

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

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

And this is… 

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

Courtesy of you and your influence, naturally.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s his fate to be drawn to you. 

It’s his fate to be your destruction.

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

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

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

“No.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[pandoraslxna]

hi! first and foremost all of ur writing is GODSENT I’m hooked‼️ secondly, i saw ur requests were open and was wanting to see if you could write a neteyam smut where the reader is in heat and is completely insatiable so it leads to some thigh riding and it just isn’t making the cut so he just sits you on his face? and I love ur characterization so with lots of dialogue and him talking you through it pretty please🙏🏽 thank you for gifting us constantly !!

The heat that spreads

adult Neteyam x female avatar reader

Warnings: explicit smut, minors dni, thigh riding, oral, face sitting, praise kink, heat cycle

Words: 1.9k

Notes: thank you so much for your kind words they mean the world to me!! 😭🫶🏻 I had so much fun writing this skfjdks

Being a Na’vi had it’s perks.

The newly unlocked strength, heightened senses of smell, inhuman hearing and the agility of your avatar body— it was incredible! But there were still some things you had to get used to. One of these things being the monthly heat cycle every female Na’vi goes through, once their bodies are fully developed. It’s a blessing and a curse. You still haven’t figured out when exactly it happens, you just know that it’s not regular and therefore usually comes as a surprise. But you and your mate are trying to make the best out of it.

Right now, you’re sitting on Neteyam thigh, helping him braid his hair, when it suddenly hits you. It starts with a strange yet familiar feeling in your stomach, a warmth that spreads from your lower abdomen right into your lap. It tingles. Makes your head feel dizzy and clouded. You can feel your pupils dilate, senses on high alert as you inhale your mates scent. Neteyam smells like rain, fresh cut grass and tree bark. "What’s wrong?", he tilts his head, some of his braids lazily fall over his shoulder and you swallow thickly. He caresses your cheek with his big hand, thumb gently brushing over your bottom lip. "'Teyam", it comes out as a whine and you blush, "I- I think I‘m starting my…" Neteyams eyes widen. Has it been a month already? He thinks back to the last time with a smug grin on his face, when the two of you couldn’t leave the nest for nearly three days.

You try to clench your thighs together for some friction but it’s impossible with Neteyams leg inbetween them. You curse the position your in, but then he shifts under you, the muscle of his thigh brushes against your clit and you gasp.

You don’t even mean to, but your body has a mind of its own and you slowly start grinding yourself against his thigh. "Please", you beg for his touch, "C-Can we, uhm…" Your eyes point to the weaved sleeping matt, that you two share, across the marui pod. A contented purr of your name rumbles in his chest, your toes curling into the soles of your feet as your name drips from his tongue like warm honey. "Keep doing that", he chuckles and guides your hips to keep moving, "We‘ll get to mating soon, my sweet girl. Now I just want to help you get to your release. The first of many." His words aren’t just promises, they’re vows. He enjoys the days of your heat more than anything, willing to bend you in every possible position until you’re finally satisfied. His stamina seemingly increased during these times, thanks to a certain hormone only the female’s mate could smell.

You whimper softly, the tips of your ears burning with an intense heat as you stare up at your mate through lidded eyes. Neteyams words sent your heart a flutter, stomach bunching into a tight knot as your nerves tingle like a live wire.

You felt small sitting on his thigh, dwarfed by his much larger stature as you struggle to stay seated. You can feel the heat pooling rapidly in the pit of your stomach, heart beating hard against your ribs and pounding loudly in your ears as your breaths come out in short, rough pants. Your pussy clenches around nothing and it almost drives you insane. It hurts.

You experiment with different paces and pressures, trying to figure out the best way to get yourself off. It doesn’t take very long to find out what works best for you.

"You're dripping all over my thigh,” Neteyam notes amused. He’s mesmerized by the sight of you using him for your own pleasure.

You take a deep, shuddering breath, tongue darting over your dry lips as you swallow around the lump in your throat.

"'Teyam," you wail, voice turning into a whine laced with tiny hiccups. "It’s, fuck, it’s not enough… It hurts, I want to– need to cum so bad."

"I know, little one. You're doing so well for me", he praises, with his fingers digging into your hips he helps you move faster and cause more and more friction. Neteyam then tenses the muscles of his thigh, which completely changes the feeling. It’s so much harder now, the friction a lot more satisfying. "Better?"

You nod frantically, incapable of forming a coherent response.

Every rock of your hips is bringing you a jolt of pleasure. It feels so euphoric that you find yourself never wanting it to end. Everything‘s being stimulated with each buck of your hips and small shivers shot up your spine every time you brush your clit against his muscles.

You were growing wetter by the second, so much so that a wet patch was beginning to form on his skin. Which was making it easier and even more pleasurable for you to glide yourself up and down his thigh. When you brush your clit once more, you really couldn’t help the loud moan that left your lips.

"You’re close already, aren’t you? My sweet girl is going to cum just from grinding herself on my thigh", Neteyam chuckles teasingly and his intense eye contact is too much for you. You shy away from him but his free hand reaches for your face, thumb and forefinger digging into your jaw as he tilts your chin up. "No, you keep looking at me with those pretty eyes or I’ll stop." You can feel his hot breath against your skin, every hair on the nape of your neck standing up at his close proximity. "D-Don’t stop, please! Please I’m so– so close Neteyam!" Your breathing wavered, hot, burning coil in your stomach threatening to snap as you tremble. He‘s in complete control of your movements, strong hands digging at your hip so hard, you know it’s going to bruise tomorrow. He moves your body along to the rhythm that you desire. Your face twists with pleasure as you moan with complete abandon, his name like a prayer on your lips as your wet pussy slides across his thigh. Neteyam hums, voice deep and thick as he speaks to you in a hushed whisper. "It’s okay, little one. You can cum, let go for me."

You don’t hesitate to obey his command, the coil in your stomach shattering into a million pieces as your orgasm violently courses through you. Your body trembles and you scream your mates name with pure bliss, clinging to him like your life depends on it. Your movements falter, fingers numb as you hold tight onto his shoulders and what little sanity you had left. Neteyam forces you to ride out the waves of your pleasure high, pressing his leg hard against your clit until you beg for him to stop, crying that’s it’s too much but not enough at the same time. If he keeps that rhythm up, you’re sure you would immediately cum again.

Your legs are shaking and you pitch forward, burying your head against his board chest and seeking the warmth of his skin. His sturdy grip on you slowly eases, fingers gently threading through your braided hair and his other hand caressing your back to soothe the erratic beating of your heart. You hum with content as you press your ear against his chest, listening to his thundering heartbeat as you try to regain control of your breathing.

"How do you feel, my love?", he kisses the top of your head.

It doesn’t take long for the familiar heat to return to your core, spreading like a wild fire and you hide your blushing face in his chest. "Wasn’t enough", you mumble and it’s barely above a whisper. "Hm, I thought so", Neteyam grins, "my desperate little mate." You don’t even know what’s happening at first, as he maneuvers you into a new position. When your eyes fly open, you find your mate almost flat on the ground, laying right below you and with his head resting between your thighs. Your eyes widen when he playfully bites down onto the soft flesh of your thigh, careful not to actually hurt you with his canine. His hot breathe fans over the wet skin of your cunt and you shiver. "Neteyam, what are you–" He leans forward to place a sudden kiss right on your clit and you choke on your words. "Sit down", he demands and his words alone make you weak in the knees. One of his hands cups your ass and the other one your hip, with his three long fingers digging into your skin he supports you, pulls you down closer to where he licks his lips, ready to consume his favorite meal. You do as you’re told, carefully lowering yourself to sit on his face and immediately, his tongue darts out to lick a stripe from your dripping entrance to your clit.

He moans at your taste, at the way you fist your hands in his hair to anchor him so you can rut against his face. Against his nose and those puffy lips, so roughly that you can feel his head moving with the force of your hips. And yet he’s moaning uncontrollably, gasping and groaning your name and between slurps and sucks.

He’s a voracious pussy eater. Tireless, hungry, eager to please, but most of all responsive even though he’s nearly smothered under your weight as you ride his face.

"Holy shit— oh, fuck, 'Teyam you’re gonna make me cum again!"

His mouth and his tongue work overtime, swirling around your clit. Suckling on your lips. Sticking his tongue as far into you as he possibly can, ignoring his aching jaw to lick up every little drop of your delicious juices. Smothering himself and shortening his breath from stuffing his nose into your mound to reach as far into you as he can. And then– then, Neteyam does the one thing that he knows you absolutely love.

Taking a hand off your hip, he slips two of his fingers into your soaking wet cunt and curls them just right. Pairing powerful strokes of his hand with long sucks of his mouth, he coaxes you over the edge with such familiarity and such confidence that it takes your breath away. Literally.

"Neteyam!” You gasp, hands fisting in his hair and pulling as your thighs snap tight around his head. Your orgasm almost takes you out, it makes you shake like the leaves of a tree in a storm, your muscles jumping and spasming and making you twitch uncontrollably until it plateaus into complete, white-out inducing bliss. His fingers keep pumping in and out of you through the clamping of your walls, stretching out your orgasm until you’re slumping down ever so slowly, your body slowly going limp from the incredible pleasure.

With a gentle tap to your thigh, you untangle yourself from your mate, lifting your hips from his face. He’s glistening with your slickness and it makes you flustered. When he sits up, your eyes immediately fall on the outline of his hard and painfully neglected cock under his loincloth. It makes you swallow almost hungrily.

He grins at you, palming himself over the thin cloth as he repositions himself once again. With a hand flat on your chest he gently lays you down and then sits on his heels, right between your thighs. "Satisfied yet?", he tilts his head and licks his lips clean. You shake your head no and he chuckles. "What do you want? Talk to me, my sweet girl and I’ll do whatever you want."

"More. Please, I want… more."

[sunfortune]

hiiii i recently watched kanthony (the so called bridgerton show or whatever) and was wondering if u have any fic recs... 👉👈🤭

okay i litchrally have never compiled a list even tho ive been asked before bc i have read too many to keep them organized. but ill do it. Finally. for YOU.

first. my fav period setting fics <33:

tete a tete by caciopepebowl (14k~) this is REQUIRED reading to ME. its a quick read that explores kate and anthonys roles in their family. with an emphasis on KATE specifically bc of the additional hurdles of being a woman with limited funds. and anthony losing his mind on her behalf while shes breaking his heart by being like "the way i was treated was normal?? you dont know anything" and hes like "what? kate you deserved everything. you deserve ALL the love in the world!!" and shes all ">:( well if i do. you do too." . and hes like "oh. well...no. you see.. bc i suck" and shes like -_-. its really sweeeeeet and lovely <3) and really finally gave me the exploring of kates family issues that THE SHOW DID NOT!!!

the longest betrothal by caciopepebowl. (90k~) my FAVVVVV regency setting fic. its sooo good. its basically a continuation that fills in the gap AFTER they get engaged but BEFORE theyre married. and them trying SO hard to be normal about how in love they are lol. SO funny and sweet. and with IMMACULATE characterization

in vino veritas by wagamiller. (~10k) a one shot about kate going to a ladies society event and coming home drunk to anthony and him being soooo smitten with her. sauuuur cute. ive read this like 4 times <3

for reasons wretched and divine by penny_loaf. (~18k. locked fic. need an account.) basically kate and anthony get stuck in a time loop on that first day edwina is receiving suiters. they both think theyre alone in the loop and its depressing until they realize the other is stuck with them too. they try to break the loop and fail repeatedly. after a while they just give up and start fucking bc theres no consequences so who cares LOL. surprisingly tender and sweet

the harsh light of day by burnerraccount. (~22k. locked) explicit one shot. kate has the idea that they should fuck before they get married so theres less pressure on the wedding night. she decides all this without mentioning it to anthony (LOL). so she shows up at his house the night before their wedding. and his footman is like "theres a woman outside to see you" and he in all his goofy almost-married bliss is like "i dont want to see Any woman but my gorgeous, beautiful, amazing WIFE" and his footman is like "well. you see.. it is your wife. uh fiance" and anthonys like "[voice crack] huh ?". very FUNNY

green in its many hues by burnerraccount. kate and anthony decide they are going to be chaste and proper leading up to their wedding. they suck at it SO bad lol

next. modern AUS my best friends <33:

la semi dolce vita by caciopepebowl (~170k) my FAVVVV modern au of ALL time. kate is a private chef. anthonys family hires her when they go on vacation. hes being so normal about it. i promise. this is one of the best characterizations of kate AND anthony in a modern setting. with an extra emphasis on focusing on kate issues. and not JUST anthonys. which is what makes the dynamic sooo good. 10/10. hot. and i love LOVE <3

close encounters of the acutest kind by caciopepebowl (WIP ~74k. only incomplete fic ill put on this list i PROMMY. bc its by the prev author. and i Looove their writing and its sooo good so far <3) kate and anthony meet for the first time the DAY her dad died which is also the SAME DAY hyacinth is born. theyre both having a panic attack and end up running into the same empty hospital room to have it. are then intrinsically linked forever. as one is. run into each other multiple times over the years. with different feelings each time. and they are so normal (lying) <3. i love them

chosen & cherished by trash4ficsaboutlurv. (~42k) this is so underrated. kate runs a charity organization. anthony is CEO of whatever the fuck. she goes to his company when theyre holding some audition for what charity theyre going to invest in and kate is the last speaker and when its finally her turn he doesnt even pay attention. and shes exhausted and overworked and just oveeeer it All. so she just ends the meeting and tells him to go fuck himself. LOL. genuinely really good. and hot <3

sidelines by ramarro. (~60k) this was THE quintessential kanthony modern AU in 2022. took a far fetched premise and somehow made it soooo good. and hot. and cute. kates an artist who sees a picture of anthony on tinder and thinks he looks obnoxious (lol) but screenshots the photo so she can use it for sketching practice. and then she see him and his grown ass on a date with her BABY sister. and shes like well i was right about him. and lets him know to his face how she feels (LOL). its wild. it slays. read it. theres an explicit follow up to it which also slays

three cities and we never lived here by ramarro. (~25k, ~40k) very different modern au where kate and anthony meet on vacation and are very casual with them both not looking for anything (genuinely for once lol) and then seeing each other multiple times over 2-3 years in different cities and still keeping it casual. but slowly slowly slowlyyyy it doesnt feel as casual as it used to. theres 2 fics in this. the first is kates pov. the second is anthony. both very good.

just go with it by suitsusboth. (~18k) kate when booking a flight sees the potential titles like ms, mrs, dr, and "viscountess" listed as a legit option and has a laugh like whos picking this goofy shit and accidentally clicks it. and then on her flight gets upgraded to first class next to anthony bc they assumed she was his wife. and he tries to be mad about it. but well. hes stupid for her in every universe so lol. funny and sweet

the air i breathe and the bane of my existance by the_loosest_moose. (image fic) these are textfics told through instagram, twitter, article and text message screenshots. with some regular text. would just check them out to gauge how you feel about the storytelling method. very fun reads once you get the hang of it

heirlooms by waterlilyrose. (~12k) modern au where kate gets anthonys ring stuck on her finger for days and has to wait to get it off. he is of course very normal about it

a devils love by irony_rocks. (~57k) this may not be for everyone but kanthony season came out around the same time as the batman (2022) and as someone who was crazy insane about both. this was the MOMENT for me in spring 2022. its a crime mafia type au where kates character is inspired by selina kyle and the pebble lounge where she worked in the batman movie. and well. if youre about that specific combo check it out. if you arent i wouldnt recommend this lmao. its not a batman au

break point (series) by penny_loaf. (multiple. ~25k) like prev this entire series gets kind of dark bc it really delves into the pressure of the world its set in. on TOP of the issues kate and anthony already have. i LOVED it. BUT also i am an ANGST and crazy, complicated characters STAN. which may not be the case for everyone.. but again very GORGEOUS to ME <3 and hot. LOL

take me home by kendal_lynne. (~12k) romcom type explicit one shot where kate makes the mistake of telling anthony her ex couldnt make her come. and hes all like i volunteer as tribute PLEASE PKLEASE PLEASE PICK ME CHOOSE ME PLWASEE etc

we never made a sound by writergirl8. (~4k) spy au that was soooooo good and sexy. i wish it was longer

with elaichi by serendipityinwords (~6k) the two biggest bitches at a dinner party find out they're soulmates. LOL. hilarious dialogue

theres probably more i loved that im not remembering rn and maybe ill update this but for now have fun! yippee <3

[tossawary]

I think one of the keys to non-canon and rarepair relationships for me in fanfiction is that you have to respect the relationships that are already there. Not like in a "you have to do the canon relationships and then break them up first" way, because you can definitely make it so that the canon relationship in question never happened OR was never romantic or sexual if you want. But in a basic characterization issue kind of way.

For example, when I wrote a Shang Qinghua / Yue Qingyuan fic, I was looking at the ways to make that work given the Qijiu and Moshang situations. And I ended up making it so that Qijiu either never had or never fully developed any romantic or sexual feelings in this AU, but they're still inseparable as friends / brothers / platonic soulmates of a kind. You CAN'T write a Yue Qingyuan who doesn't care about Shen Jiu. It's just not on the table in terms of characterization.

(I mean, you could, I suppose, but then it's a case of, "Who the fuck even is this guy anymore? You undid his whole backstory and now he's a completely different person." I do think you can write interesting AU stories focused on character development in which Yue Qingyuan learns to move on after post-canon or in which perhaps Shen Jiu's treatment of Luo Binghe becomes an actual breaking point for their relationship, but even if things somehow get REAL BAD between him and Shen Jiu, I don't really think Yue Qingyuan will ever be able to stop caring completely.)

Likewise, I made it so that Moshang never fell into the master-servant situationship, and ended up as cooperative enemies / distant allies of sorts. But Shang Qinghua still thinks Mobei-Jun is sexy. That's his ideal guy! Airplane Bro still being a little weird about his favorite character is not really negotiable to me, even if he's in love with someone else. He has eyes! He can still look at other men disrespectfully! He just doesn't act on his attraction.

Like, you can totally just sidestep any romantic / sexual feelings and make it so they never existed, in order to pursue your pairing of choice. But you cannot easily deny, in my opinion, the basic fact of a character caring on a basic level about someone important to them. I think it gives weird "you're only allowed to care about your romantic partner / no friends allowed" vibes to just completely cut off all other relationships. There's not a hard line between "love-triangle-fixing polyamory" and "completely isolated from even friendships because maintaining friendships with exes is cheating somehow monogamy" as options here.

[sixosix]

hello!! this is my first time asking so forgive me if i do anything wrong.

so i just saw your event anddddd first of all, i just want to say congrats on 5k!!! and also happy birthdayy!! if its not a bother, can i participate in the event?? if so heres the prompt,

[lyney, earphones(the wired ones), fluff]

your thawed series really made me fall in love with the way you write lyney😭 and because of that, i want to read more of him from you!!

once again, congrats on 5k!!

a/n HELLO ANON!!! thank you so much + dont worry u sent an ask right! im so happy u like my characterization of lyney hehe hes just a silly guy…

info 500 words, short and sweet, modern college au

5K EVENT SPECIAL | EVENT MASTERLIST

Lynette texted you this morning saying that she had a fever.

Usually, this wouldn’t have been a problem. Get well soon! or an I’ll send you the notes later would be the end of the conversation. Then you’d go on with your day and miss her, but that would be it. That was supposed to be it.

But it was Lynette. And if she was involved—

“Hey.” Lilac eyes overtook your vision, shockingly close. You jumped back, and Lyney grinned. “Are you still texting my sister? I’m right here, you know.”

Lynette You’ll be fine

You LYHBEDTTE

Lynette He’s just Lyney

You EXACTLY WHY

This was a problem because you had been nursing the biggest crush on Lynette’s brother since you met her—and it’s been years. The color of his eyes, the softness of his hair, the crinkle of his eyes as he smiles—

“I’m telling her I wish she were here instead,” you said, hiding your screen from his sharp eyes.

Lyney wasn’t fazed at all. He matched your steps and easily walked alongside you, his lips stretched into a wide grin. He was so suspiciously happy today.

“Are we going to take the bus there?” Lyney asked, his arms still brushing against yours. His chin was tucked in his windbreaker, muffling his words a little. He looked a little red—did he have a fever as well?

“I guess so,” you said, dragging your gaze away from the sight. You could hear your heartbeat racing.

Lyney’s smile softened, then gestured at the bus stop bench. “It’s still early. Let’s sit over there.”

It was empty, yet when you sat at the far edge, Lyney still cozied up beside you. Seeking refuge, you hid your face further in the safety of your hoodie. This was bad. Lynette rarely got sick; this was your first time alone with Lyney, and you didn’t know how to act.

When you glanced at him, Lyney seemed content with the silence. You weren’t—you could hear the loud thumps of your chest, and soon enough, Lyney would notice it, too.

You pulled out your earphones and swiped to the highest volume possible, ear damage be damned. You were not going to survive today. You’re going to embarrass yourself and make a fool of your impressions, and Lyney would get weirded out and avoid you for the rest of his life.

Your throat made some sort of warbling deflated noise as music drowned out your heartbeat, but not your thoughts. Why was Lyney so warm? Even with layers of clothing, you could feel the heat of his skin, and it was driving you mad. You wanted nothing but to curl into it like a cat with sunlight. Why did Lynette have to get sick while you were still hopelessly infatuated with her brother?

Abruptly, Lyney’s head found its way to your shoulder. Stunned, you sucked in a breath, overwhelmed with all the sensations. Your five senses were being violated left and right—all you could see, hear, and touch was Lyney.

He reached his hand out expectantly. You made a noise of confusion, then belatedly realized what he was pointing at. Careful not to jostle him, you plucked an earphone and gently placed it in his ear. Lyney flinched.

“This is loud,” Lyney chuckled, but he didn’t ask you to mess with the volume. He laid back down with his weight and stayed there, unaware of how your face was a flaming mess.

Your eyes slipped to your lap, feeling shy. From this angle, it was hard to tell what Lyney was looking at, but you could feel his smile. It could be Lyney’s unnaturally warm body heat or your burning embarrassment, but— maybe you were starting to feel feverish as well.

Lyney snuggled closer. You sighed and resigned yourself to a long day.

[oshikasa]

so like… lqq and his little guy assistant ✨

i love this donghua-exclusive guy so much!! on twitter a fan name that has been circling around in the community is “xiao mengyou” (it’s more of a title but it’s sort of slowly just becoming his name), and i’ve just been doing a lot of thinking between these two..

it’s nice for lqq to have a supporter like him (if you don’t know, this nameless character has appeared by lqq’s side in multiple episodes, both in the past since lqq was 12 AND he’s the junior official that runs after lqq after he forgot his waist badge in the first episode of season 2. he’s been by lqq’s side for 500 years)

my personal thoughts and characterizations about mengyou and lqq below cut

i’m actually writing a fic and having a lot of fun with it, i have two other fic wips that have been in progress for MONTHS but it’s hualian and fengqing so i’m way wayyy harder on the characterization in those fics even tho both of them are alternative universes, so i’m not willing to post those unfinished. for this one tho, mengyou is essentially an OC, so i’m thinking about posting the first chapter soon even if the fic isn’t nearly close to done (why do i insist on writing long ass fics when i don’t rly finish them.. is a mystery)

i characterize xmy as extremely loyal and prideful to be lqq’s longtime assistant and right hand man, but he also has some intense self deprecating issues where he views himself as a servant and ONLY that. even tho lqq expresses (mutual) feelings for xmy, xmy feels he isn’t worthy, and pushes him away. lqq is too young and inexperienced to grasp his feelings fully as well, so he lets xmy push him away bc he too isn’t sure if it’s right.

when lqq’s worldview crashes in the fangxin guoshi arc, he goes MIA in the story until mt. tonglu reopens bc he’s hunting qi rong, and he doesn’t trust anyone. i’d imagine this would hit xmy hard bc he’s been by his side since forever, and lqq, who used to respond to anyone’s messages regardless of rank as soon as possible, has probably ghosted his junior officials and xmy since he disappeared. good room for angst, lqq’s opinion of xmy is probably wavering bc he probably doesn’t trust him either, bc xmy encouraged him to protect the xianle residents after the golden banquet massacre, and also bc lqq is just unstable and tunnel-visioning after he finds out the truth. add that with their confusing feelings for each other and there’s so much room to write about!

[spiceofvy]

hello friend!

i just read your skz posts for nearly an hour straight — you’re a very talented writer! i love your characterizations of them and the scenarios you come up with for requests are all unique, i love that!

if you’re up for it, would you consider writing a soft/fluffy skz with reader who craves some attention but for some reason won’t just verbally ask for it? (maybe had a long and hard day, or is a little too shy to ask for affection straight up, or is sleepy, etc.)? especially seungmin — i see a lot of rough or aggressive seungmin but lately i just so crave a sweet and fluffy seungmin.

no worries if you’re not interested — i still really enjoy all your writing! 🌸🌼

SKZ - Reader is too shy to ask for affection

a/n: aww thank you for your super sweet words! the ask is also super adorable! while writing i also realized that i was also in need for some seungmin fluff, so i made sure to write his part extra long! i hope you enjoy!

cws: gender neutral reader, sfw, fluff

Chan: He just constantly misses you. Even when he just saw you, or made the choice to leave himself. So he is really aware of how you feel when you are around each other. And with that discovered that your habit of visiting him in the studio was not only to spend time with you but also you subtly showing him that you need some attention from him. So he just opens his arms for you and pulls you onto his lap. No words needed.

Minho: When he realizes your need for some attention he is initially unsure what to do. Do you just need a hug, or maybe some cuddles? Would a few kisses make it better or is the solution a home cooked four course meal? In the end he makes the smartest decision possible and just hugs you really tightly, softly asking what you want to do. Being all ears for what you need and then doing exactly that.

Changbin: A very cuddly person himself, so when he cuddles you it's always one of his own needs too. Especially after a long day he just wants to feel you close. Prefers the bed over the couch so if one of you falls asleep while cuddling you don't have to get up again. On the very few days he does not initiate a cuddling session himself, he does take the hints for your needs for attention very well. A pull at his hand, a look towards the bedroom and a moment later you are cuddled up against him.

Hyunjin: I stay true to my "Hyunjin can read your body language like a book" agenda. Because this is also very true in this scenario. You don't need to tell him that you are in need of his affection because he can tell just from your eyes. And he doesn't care how busy he is in theory because he always has time for you. Even better if he can share it with his other passion, art. He loves to have you on his lap as he paints, sometimes using his clean hand to caress your back.

Han: I imagine this situation to be really rare when dating Han as he is at least just as needy as you are. Most of the time he just takes the affection he needs, throwing himself on you when you are lying on the couch, cuddling you tightly. So when he can't do that it's probably because he has to rehearse a lot for a comeback or while he is on tour. But as soon as you just sit next to him and stare him down he gets the message and throws himself at you in his usual manner.

Felix: Feels your need for his attention under his skin. He is a giver when it comes to any kind of affection. So whenever he just gets the feeling that you could need some love he gives it to you en masse. He pulls you onto the couch and curls up next to you, nuzzling your neck and holding you so tight all your worries are gone. Holding your hands even after he lets you go and smiles at you until you fall asleep.

Seungmin: The thing with Seungmin is that he himself is quite shy about physical touch and unsure about how much you want from him. So he just sits next to you, extending his arm out, softly caressing your cheek with his fingertips, and when you lean into his touch he opens his arms for you, pulling you into a warm hug. Laying you on top of him, cuddling with you on the couch. After some time he starts softly talking to you about his day, and in return listens to you talk about your own, softly massaging your scalp. Letting you stay there after you fall asleep, even when he is tired himself, and his legs feel numb. Because your comfort means just so much more to him than his own.

Jeongin: Also tends to be on the shy side when it comes to physical affection. But he easily picks up on the little things, your eyes lingering on his hands, maybe you pulling over one of his sweatshirts to feel closer to him. So he just straight up asks if you want to spend some time cuddling on the couch. You don't need to say much, a quick nod is enough for him to pull you close and spend the whole night watching movies with you.

[mysterycitrus]

I know a lot of ppl ask u abt jason or dick but im wondering now, what do u think about bruce? I find him a very interesting character whose characterization is incredibly feeble, both bc of his 80 years of history and the tendency writers have to project their own male fantasies on him. So i'd definitely love to hear ur own thoughts about him. I personally enjoy depicting him as someone morally grey, although my sympatization for him changes day to day. Wether you think he is a good or a bad person, i believe u need to make him dedicated to gotham and the bat as a symbol, and that comes with all its advantages and drawbacks

bruce wayne is sooooo interesting (derogatory) because like u said, he carries the baggage of every masochismo author that decided batman was too woke and should hurt his kids and that supporting gotham’s infrastructure is for pussies. there’s also the flipside of that, where he’s the perfect father who’s waaaay too emotionally regulated for my taste. both of these interpretations are bad imo, and both functionally miss the point.

i think part of this (in fandom) is an obsession with moral angst — u can either be a good person doing good things, or a bad person doing bad things. think about how some characters are crucified while others are babied. someone always has to be absolutely right, and the other has to be absolutely wrong.

in reality, there are a lot of people who are fundamentally kind and fundamentally want to do good that are really terrible to the people in their lives. bruce wayne being someone who relies on having so much control that it implodes his connections to the people around him is an important part of his character. his profound love for his children, for gotham and her people, for humanity in general and his belief in peoples ability to change, doesn’t circumvent the fact that he’s often an emotionally abusive man who hurts others to achieve his own ends. he contains multitudes.

writing him as a functionally irredeemable, violently abusive person is the anti-thesis to the symbol that he himself created. no, i personally don’t believe he actively beats his kids (even though it’s supported in the text). no, i don’t think he’s an irredeemable sadist (as much as frank miller wants u to believe otherwise). to have people like dick grayson and diana and clark and dinah love and believe in u means that there has to be something there worth caring about, otherwise the whole universe is gonna fall apart.

that’s what makes his relationship to cass so interesting — he sees his neuroticism, his dedication to the cause above all else, and does not find it admirable. he finds it confronting and upsetting. and to be clear, cass (like dick) is very much the moral ideal of what batman should be, but still bruce finds it hard to deal with!!

his abject failures — his treatment of the robins, his crippling guilt about jason, his fears of becoming a killer, the impossible load he gives himself to carry — means that when he’s shown as someone who genuinely cares, it makes him more complex. like yeah, bruce isn’t actually a cold hearted person. he really really gives a shit. too many shits, to be totally honest. he’s a morally grey person that wants to do good, but is so terrified of losing control that he keeps others away and hurts them in the process. there’s a reason why his emotional crutch was a traumatised eight year old fr. nothing is more important than the mission, including bruce wayne himself

[hiskillingjar]

hello! what kind of reactions do you think the btd characters might have to a normally very serious and aloof mc suddenly breaking down and becoming clingy and needy? btw i loooooooove the way you characterize strade 💗💗💗💗💗

thank you! i love writing him so i'm glad others love it too :3

ren 🦊

i, ah- 💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕 !!!!!!!!

of course ren would love it. of course he would!

he was so nervous about you being so aloof and distant the first couple of weeks, after all...maybe he wondered if all of this was even worth it :(

but the second you started acting clingy and needy around him, he would go fucking INSANE he would be so so happy

granted he might be a little "🤨" at first, wondering if you were trying to manipulate him. so he'd for sure give it a day or two just to be sure

maybe he'd expect you to prove just how much you need him...maybe a couple of nights in the basement by yourself would do you good, anyway...

but then he wouldn't be able to stop himself from getting just as clingy and needy with you too, so you're just a couple of codependent loved up sweethearts aw!

i'm sure nothing bad will happen there!

law 🥀

i mean law kind of is the aloof and distant one so...they would probably think the attitude change is a little strange

like, why are you behaving this way now? you've been fine for days, you shouldn't be behaving like this...i have to go to work, let go of me...settle down...

they'd take a couple of days to get used to it, for sure, and might even be a little annoyed and short with you in the meantime

but slowly...slowly...

they'd like the way you cling so tightly to them when you slept, and how much you'd grown accustomed to sitting around in their flat all day while they were out without a word of complaint

you get so happy and excited when they come home too...it's a lot easier to read your emotions when you're like this and they can't deny it's kind of nice to have someone so happy to come home to

and the fact that you're so needy, you let them get away with a lot more...gone for days at a time, that's okay, just come home to me, please! leaving behind a couple of bruises when you have sex, that's okay, you didn't mean it!

maybe they'd want to make you even needier...dependent, almost

strade 🔨

girl. come on.

why are you giving this man any degree of leverage over you

you just KNOW he is going to do the worst possible thing with this

he'd expect you to prove just how needy you really are, and how much you really wanted him. i mean, you go from being aloof and bitchy to totally desperate in an instant, how could he NOT want some kind of proof that it's genuine?

and then he'd find it absolutely hilarious.

you're still so needy after everything i do to you, really? haha, how cute! i really thought you'd be smarter than that <3

he'd definitely soak in it for a little while and just. totally let his ego swim in how much you need him

it's hard for a guy to resist someone being dependent on them...or at least that's what he tells himself

he would then start to use it against you, just to see you get all worked up and upset...and easier to play with

you let him get away with so much, after all, how far can he push that until you're doing everything you can to get away from him?

and he loves pushing you as hard as he can, after all

he's never been that good at resisting you...