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There is an aching maw in the space where Fyodor’s thoughts are supposed to be, like stepping into a puddle but instead of pavement your ankle is grabbed by a demon and you’re dragged to a world below. Dazai knows that there are thoughts in her head, she speaks like they’re there—but Dazai can only imagine what she’s thinking instead of knowing for sure.
It’s why he calls her a demon, because he understands humans. He knows what makes a human tick, he knows that it’s a human response to reach out to someone you know whose walking around in the rain and offer them a space under your umbrella. Dazai knows that if he were looking at the hand of any human he knows, he’d see concern on their face. Annoyance too, because his existence is contrary to a normal humans so of course he grates at them.
Fyodor looks at him, eyes black under her umbrella, dressed in a dark purple poncho that covers him nearly entirely. Only the hems of his white pants and his white shoes to match are exposed to the world.
He can’t see a glimmer of humanity in her dark eyes so he doesn’t know what she’s thinking as she holds her hand out for him and tells him that he looks cold.
Dazai doesn’t have any energy to return the kindness she gives him—it’s likely fake, firstly. He’s been aware of Fyodor’s many betrayals for a while now, there is no doubt in his mind that she would stab him if given enough reason and opportunity. (Well, ‘reason and opportunity’ as compared to the average person.)
Instead, he gives her a flat stare and says, “Of course I look cold. I am cold.” Dazai spreads out his coat, grimacing as the now-slick fabric clings to his skin. Being alive was already enough of a weight when he wasn’t sopping wet. At home he was a scattering of parts that tried to find harmless things that could put himself together: so he went for a walk.
Rain is refreshing, right? Dazai had assured himself as he put on his clothes. It was a Sunday, so he had no obligation to get out of the sleepwear he had went to bed with on Friday night. It’s still good, with no holes or anything like that. The last thing he would want to do is draw unwanted attention to himself—he holds people’s eyes on him a master artist uses their paints. In The Last Supper, every child is God is on the same side of the table, not a single person is left out. It’s a magnificent piece of framing by da Vinci, because it is a complete work of art that doesn’t leave people thinking why the table is half-filled.
That is the type of image Dazai projects, where everything is presented so well that the holes simply do not exist.
The rain was not refreshing and it was still too early in the day to be certain that he could slink back into the dorms without running into anyone. And, it was a bit childish but Dazai didn’t want to slink . He wanted to feel like a full being, not sneak and hide.
“That I see. I know a place where you can dry off and avoid wandering eyes.” Fyodor tilts her umbrella forward. The edge of the black umbrella shields the front of his face from the rain and Dazai is immediately protected from the downpour. Instead, he is faced with Fyodor’s thin smile. He would call it kind, if it were not Fyodor’s.
“Is this the point where you invite me back to your home?” Fyodor’s smile falls. Even if they can’t read each other’s minds, they know each other just well enough to skip a few sentence of conversation.
Fyodor simply tilts her umbrella farther forward, until Dazai knows that the relief to him comes at her expense.
He takes the handle of the umbrella, making sure that his fingers rest far above Fyodor’s.
Unlike what a romantic cliche would entail (that is, if this situation is a romantic one. Dazai isn’t quite sure) their hands do not touch. Instead, their hands remain quite a distance apart.
Fyodor takes him home.
Fyodor takes him open and welcomes Dazai like he belongs there.
Dazai doesn’t belong here and doesn’t wish he does either. He doesn’t let Fyodor take off his coat, grabs it when she tries to take it away from him. Fyodor discomforts him, and they both know it’s on purpose. They both know how the act around humans, and how to act around each other. Fyodor is trying to get something from him, peeling away his shell while keeping the delicate membrane of his mind still intact.
No matter what they might do to each other, no matter how they manipulate and scheme, they respected each other minds like zealot to their god: they might seek to change but the core must remain (the core that they acknowledge, at least).
So when Fyodor says welcome home in a sweet voice, Dazai knows she doesn’t mean it.
Maybe it’s a joke of some sort, but this isn’t his home, and she knows it.
He closes the door, locking the rain outside.
“Remind you of home?” Dazai asks as he walks up to the Russian. Fyodor turns quickly, purple eyes cold for a moment. He swears that they soften when she looks at him and sadly he is smart enough to know that isn’t any type of ploy. He allows his eyes to do the same.
“The cold is more suitable to my temperament.” Fyodor says with a tilt of her hand, “Rarely do I find myself quoting contemporary poets—”
“Because you’re an anachronism.” Dazai interrupts. The irritated pout he gets in return is more than worth it.
“—Rarely do I find myself quoting contemporary poets,” Fyodor continues, as if he hadn’t spoken, “But I rarely find myself in a situation where words from recent times are more expressive or explain my current situation more than words of the past.”
Because you’re an anachronism. You just don’t quite fit.
“o California, don’t you know the sun is only a god—if you learn to starve for her?” Fyodor sighs, “This place is far too warm for far too long. There are too many days with no harsh edges.”
That makes Dazai stifle a laugh.
“Yokohama is actually considered quite temperate.” Dazai says but that wasn’t what was humorous before, “And just because there are many people with abilities here doesn’t mean that things no longer make sense.”
Fyodor’s eyes widen, just for a moment. She might be an actor but Dazai is an entire play (set, stage, director, actor, audience). She smiles and it is true. A cold wind blows out from the ocean, up and through him.
She gives him a lingering look, one that understands and does not mock him as he wraps his coat tighter around himself and runs for warmer land. Fyodor doesn’t follow him. He never expected her to.
Steam presses against the glass walls, swirling around their bare bodies. A bath is one of the many things Fyodor’s home isn’t lacking but she prefers the shower. Dazai would have preferred the bath but Fyodor managed to convince him. It wasn’t hard, Fyodor had thoroughly fucked any arguments out of him. Along with most of his thoughts.
There’s still an undercurrent, several tracks of thought still chugging along but they’re not as loud now. When Fyodor checks the temperature with her hand and gestures for him to enter, he does not think of her drowning him. His mind is still on the soft marks on the insides of his thighs, from when Fyodor was playing with the idea of marking on. On biting down and creating new marks on top of the ones he already has.
Dazai would not call Fyodor nurturing. That seems like a disservice to someone who can be so all-encompassing with her affection. They couldn’t read each others minds, could only follow the outlines of each others thoughts. They knew each other through themselves, they loved the pieces they claimed to know. (Dazai doesn’t love her. Couldn’t love her. Can’t love her. That’s not her fault.)
(If he could, he would love to…if that didn’t also entail being a cog in one of her schemes. Yes, all the disciplines were part of a larger plan and they fell in love with their God. However, Dazai is far from religious and has no need for such fanaticism.)
“Lower your head.” He does not think of her drowning him.
Fedya’s—Fyodor’s hands go down his sides, nails tracing his sensitive skin. Her hands press against a scar on his side and then past it, holding his hips with a gentleness that matches her smile. She comes forward to kiss him. A droplet of water runs down her forehead and transfers to his as they kiss slowly.
It runs down his neck, stopping and growing on his collarbone. It seeps into his skin.
Fyodor kisses him and kisses him and Dazai wishes that the world outsides these three tile walls and singular glass wall didn’t exist. Her hands are on his waist, he falls to his knees without being asked.
His hands go to her thighs, parting them desperately to rise up and mouth at his dick.
The maze winds endlessly, turn after turn after turn and Dazai wonders just how many enemies and how much funding those enemies had. Then he hopes that he’s incorrect with his first assumption because that would mean that they’re all surely doomed and this next room won’t be the exit, that there’s going to be another room and a hallway after that and again and again forever.
Dazai holds onto the corner of the doorway, using it to add to his momentum—Dazai stops and stares at her, watching for a moment before her eyes open and he realizes that she’s not dead.
“You should be dead.” Dazai hisses as he comes up to cradle her head, forcing her to sit up, “What are you doing here?” His voice cracks, but can he be blamed? This situation was one that should have been completely devoid of her presence. Though on second thought, it was impossible for that statement to ever be truly in this world.
He touches her without fear, just like any other person in this world now can.
Fyodor’s eyelids lower and fear blooms in Dazai’s chest for a moment before that she’s simply changing expressions and not passing out (to never wake up again, a small part of his brain says. He stabs it to shut it up), before she finally says, “Don’t you know?”
She coughs. Dust swirls in the air around them before resettling on the dirty maze floor.
There isn’t a part of her that fears her own death. Dazai tries to see things from her eyes and still sees it as terrifying and imminent.
“No. I don’t.” Dazai admits, “I don’t know.” He says, words that would bring the entire Agency to despair because in this world they have no other options. If Dazai doesn’t know, then they cannot rely on anything else. They cannot rely on physical strength, because they are outnumbered, they cannot rely on favors, because they can no longer fulfill them, they cannot rely on their abilities, because they are gone. Gone because of the man he holds in his arms, gone because Fyodor won in the end.
Gone because the villains need to win only once.
He hears gunshots around the corner and jerks his head up, as he recoils like a mouse.
“You’re scared?” Fyodor asks him.
Is he scared? Dazai wants to laugh, Are you scared? Everything he’s ever known is falling apart in the world molded with Fyodor’s fingers. Or rather, this world that she threw off the kiln and used her feet to grind to dust. This world without abilities but with so so many enemies, this world where the Agency is bombed at least once a month and the Port Mafia fives times that? This world where Dazai has lost nearly a third of the people he’s ever cared about and has to put horse blinders on his mind to survive the constant grief.
This world that Dazai has never cared for, but has never managed to leave?
This world?
Of course he’s scared. For a long time, Dazai never truly believed that he was human. He doesn’t think he does now. But he’s close to it. He’s close to human now and he hates it.
Dazai doesn’t answer her and instead just places his hand on the bloody mess that is her stomach. It’s a bullet wound, not a stab wound like he first thought—better for her because he doesn’t have anything to help a knife wound…granted he also doesn’t have anything for a gunshot wounds but she could survive this. He thinks that’s why she wasn’t afraid of dying.
The thought of losing her terrifies him. He wonders, just for a moment, that if she was gone, would he follow her? And then he dispels the thought from his mind a moment later as he hears gunshots from around the corner, closer this time, and heading in their direction.
“What are you doing to do?” Fyodor asks him, bleeding out in his arms while their attackers circle close, looming overhead with their sharp beaks and long wings. There’s a gun beside her, Dazai grabs it, takes it in his thin fingers and turns it around. He could shoot her. Maybe he should have, years ago.
Maybe, when he was first presented with something he didn’t understand, he should have killed her. There were so many chances to do so before but he— bang —didn’t take— bang —the opportunities handed to him on a silver platter— bang bang bang.
Fyodor simply looks at him, a sneer on her face. Dazai wonders if she has transcended him, has transcended all of them. She’s succeeded in a way he never did, and maybe never could.
A body falls into the hallway, bleeding from a shot to the head. To protect them both, Dazai shoots next, firing before he can see it’s Atsushi coming around the corner. Blood spurts from his protege’s neck, a wide arc that reaches the other end of the doorway. Atsushi stumbles forward, wet blood adding to the dried blood that has already drenched him.
Atsushi doesn’t speak. He just falls.
“Are you ready to go?” Fyodor says as Dazai stares at the man bleeding out who is calling his name. Again and again, more desperately each time.
Dazai’s fingers tighten around the man in his arms.
They leave before the dust can settle.