Rated: E – NSFW

Length: 7,400

Call

For the first time in a long time, Dazai didn’t mind Ango’s presence.

It helped that Yosano was there. It helped that he was exhausted, mentally, enough so that no hint of a strong emotion could rise in him anymore. After a while of the silence it also helped that footsteps went their way, footsteps he would have recognized blinded and deafened. Chuuya walked with a purpose even when no purpose was there. His feet crushed the ground and hovered over it in turn.

Dazai couldn’t help but let his head rest against the wall at his back, just to let him enter his line of sight. By his side, Ango’s leg twitched.

“What a sorry lot,” Chuuya commented, giving Dazai a glance. The cigarette he was holding came to rest between his lips, and the sound of his zippo snapping open and shut cut through the silence. “Any of you wanna fill me in on what happened?” he asked.

His next exhale was only smoke.

Ango wasn’t so far gone yet that he could dismiss the occasion to organize. He cleared his throat and replied, “Shibusawa’s dead.”

His voice was still rough. His neck still bore the marks of Chuuya’s anger. Dazai felt some satisfaction at that if nothing else.

“What about Dostoyevsky?”

“On the run. Probably.”

Chuuya clicked his tongue. “Who knows, with that guy,” he commented. Then: “Get up, Dazai. Don’t get that suit any dirtier.”

“More worried about the suit than me?” Dazai replied mechanically. “I’m hurt.”

“God, I wish you were.”

Chuuya walked past him and past Ango, extending a hand to Yosano. She huffed at him, smiling twistedly, but she accepted the help. Her wounds were all gone now. She had come too close to dying for her ability not to heal her. Still her clothes were torn, and she laughed outright when Chuuya shrugged off his coat and gave it to her for modesty’s sake.

“That’s cute,” Dazai said, allowing himself a smile. “Really cute, Chuuya.”

“Jealousy’s an ugly look on you,” Yosano told him.

“Which one of you am I supposed to be jealous of?”

“No one,” Chuuya said, rolling his eyes.

He was more amused than anything. His next steps took him closer to Dazai, and Dazai met his hand halfway. Chuuya was solid enough even after such a day that pulling him upright was done with the strength of one shoulder alone; Dazai wavered once on his feet, leaning close and then away, and he didn’t miss the way Chuuya’s other hand twitched as if readying itself to catch him.

“Thank you,” he said. He was talking about more than just the immediate.

Chuuya took his hand back and looked away. “Don’t mention it,” he replied.

He didn’t help Ango off the ground.

They stayed silent in the time it took for Chuuya’s cigarette to die. Dazai fiddled pensively with the soot-stained sleeve of his shirt, unable to think of much more than the various aches littering his body. He wasn’t hurt in any consequent way, though his bottom lip had bled for a few minutes and his right ankle felt a little weak. He dragged his teeth over the cut gently.

A flash of orange flew past his unfocused eyes. He watched Chuuya crush the ember under his foot and heard him ask, “What are you guys gonna do now?”

“Go back, I suppose,” Yosano answered. “Kunikida’s probably growing ten new ulcers waiting for us.”

“Good times,” Dazai said.

“This is why no one likes working with you,” Chuuya sneered. He sighed. “Well, whatever. My phone’s dead, but I saw a car on my way here. Looked abandoned enough.”

“We really shouldn’t let you take someone else’s property like this.”

“The city’s my property,” Chuuya shot back, but he sounded distracted. When Dazai glanced at him again, he was looking at Dazai’s chest. “What the hell happened to your coat?” he asked.

Dazai stared at him, confused. “What?” he replied eventually.

“Your coat. The really long white one you were wearing earlier.”

“Oh. I’m not sure.” His mind was so hazy with exhaustion that every image of the day came back blurred and unstable. Dazai had to take a moment to retrace the steps of the battle, however little fighting he had done himself. “I think it got stuck while the roof was crumbling,” he said. “I left it there.”

“That’s a shame,” Chuuya muttered. He didn’t look aware of the company anymore; his hand lifted, his fingers hooking into the collar of Dazai’s waistcoat, pressed against his collarbone. He rubbed the fabric with his thumb. Dazai could do nothing but stand absolutely still, his chest suddenly devoid of heartbeat. “You looked good in it,” he added, thoughtful.

“Um,” Dazai said weakly. “Chuuya?”

“What?”

Keeping track of his own thoughts was a struggle once Chuuya’s eyes met his again. The lone light that had survived destruction shone upon him, turned his gaze clearer, starker than it usually was. There was an casual sort of appreciation there that Dazai had no idea how to deal with now. There was intent in the way Chuuya looked at him, however absent-minded.

Dazai had looked for this—he had hoped for this—but he couldn’t have it. Not now, in public, with so many things he still wanted to say. Instead of leaning in he nodded to his side, where he knew Yosano stood. Chuuya followed the movement with his eyes after another second of absence.

They found Yosano grinning at them, her arms crossed, her eyes gleeful. “Don’t mind me,” she said. “I love a good show.”

Chuuya tore his hand away from Dazai’s collar under the sound of her bright laughter, blushing furiously. Dazai’s smile was honest, if embarrassed. It stretched the wound at his mouth painfully.

“I wasn’t gonna do anything,” Chuuya spluttered. He was pushing down on his own hat, now, as if it would be enough to hide him. “Fuck. I wasn’t.”

“I can’t say I blame you, Nakahara—he does look good in that suit. Fix his hair and he might actually look like he belongs on your arm.”

Dazai grinned and said nothing of what he knew—that Chuuya liked his hair just the way it was. “Please stop objectifying me, sensei,” he replied playfully. “That’s Chuuya’s prerogative.”

“I’m going to kill you both,” Chuuya declared.

Yosano snorted. All the tension in the air had decreased with her words, leaving Dazai feeling a little numb, a little content. The sight of Chuuya’s embarrassment pressed warmth onto every exposed inch of his skin.

“How can you be laughing?” Ango said then, cutting swiftly through their relief.

Dazai had to brace himself to look at him. He always did. Watching his face never failed to drag him back to times he wished he could both forget and relive eternally. It made the light around them dim to fit a bar’s interior, made him want to turn his head sideways and see a face he hadn’t seen in years.

A face he would never see again.

Now Ango was looking at him with despair, with exhaustion and anger; he was pleading with his eyes, as always, for forgiveness that Dazai didn’t have it in him to give.

“How?” he repeated bleakly. “After everything, how can you possibly—”

“I just can,” Dazai cut in. He smiled, then. “You should try it sometimes, Ango.”

It was a weird sort of turning around, having Ango resent him for happiness. And it took that thought for Dazai to understand that happiness was the right word, that Yosano’s snide comments and Chuuya’s unabashed want constituted two of the pillars he leaned on nowadays.

Ango’s eyes were wet, his lips shaking. He pressed a hand over his face and didn’t speak again. Dazai left him to his grief with only very faint regret; he turned toward Chuuya and found him looking back, composed and quiet.

“I’ll take the lead,” Yosano said. She walked past them with a brief smile.

The way to the abandoned car Chuuya had seen took them only five minutes. They were spent with no chatter, and the nightly sounds of the countryside surrounded them the whole time, shifting and bristling around them like paper. The stars were very bright at the edges of the city. Chuuya walked by Dazai’s side without a word, and it seemed the only warmth Dazai could feel came through the brush of their arms.

Neither Yosano nor Dazai minded Chuuya breaking open the car’s window to open it and then leaning inside to fiddle with wires. Yosano had taken out a cigarette herself, still wearing Chuuya’s coat.

“Want that back?” she asked him once the car’s engine was stuttering. She tugged on the collar of the coat. “It’s not that cold.”

Chuuya shook his head. “Keep it,” he said. “Take it as thanks for today.”

“I didn’t get any replacement coats,” Dazai complained.

“Do I look like I carry a wardrobe around? You shouldn’t have destroyed yours.”

“So mean, Chuuya.”

Yosano’s phone rang, and they both turned to look at her as she pulled it out of her skirt’s pocket. She mouthed ‘Kunikida’ at them before answering the call and turning her back to them.

“Well,” Dazai said, looking in her vague direction. “This suit is ruined anyway, coat or not.”

“It’s not ruined,” Chuuya replied. He stood out of the car again and leaned against its side, frowning a Dazai. “You’ve what, torn a bit of the stitching? Send it to dry cleaning and then to a tailor.”

“Like I have the money for that.”

“I’ll pay for it, then.”

Dazai looked back at him. Their only source of light now came from inside the car, and it wasn’t enough to truly see color, but he knew Chuuya had flushed. Chuuya licked his lips before speaking again.

“It’s—a good suit,” he said. “Expensive. You can’t throw it away just because it’s a little stained.”

Dazai’s smile was slow to grow but all the deeper for it. At the sight of it, Chuuya’s face turned even darker. “If you say so,” he replied. “I only got it for this little group, I wasn’t expecting to wear it any other time.”

“You should,” Chuuya muttered. “Just get rid of the creepy pin.”

“It’s a solid gold brooch.”

“It’s ugly.”

His laughter came to a stop when Chuuya stepped forward, too fast for him to back away in time. In the space it took to understand it, Chuuya had crossed the distance between them and put his lips on his, plucking the smile out of him. It only lasted a second. He breathed as he pulled away, warmly, over Dazai’s mouth. There was yearning in his eyes when Dazai managed to look at them.

“Chuuya,” he said.

But Chuuya shook his head again, his lips twitching between smile and frown. They had been so soft against Dazai’s. “Not now,” he replied.

He bore a striking resemblance then to the child he had once been. Dazai felt shorter and more awkward, not a man in a fitted suit but a boy dressed all in black, and Chuuya’s form blurred in front of him, youthful instead of tired.

It was a boy that Dazai leaned down toward. It wasn’t a sharp-edged jacket he felt against his chest but the soft of a hoodie, and he was a lot younger when he kissed Chuuya’s cheek, something he hadn’t done in almost a decade. He felt as though the last time was only yesterday.

“All right,” he said.

Chuuya’s very breathing seemed tentative. His fingers wrapped around Dazai’s wrist almost too lightly to be felt, as if he didn’t know how to hold anything without breaking it anymore.

---

The white suit and its effect on Chuuya stayed far away from the front of Dazai’s mind in the months that followed. In fact he forgot about it completely, after Chuuya made right on his promise to get it cleaned and fixed—even buying a new coat to complete the set, regardless of his complaints. There was no time to think of clothes when Dazai could think of Chuuya himself; and that first brush of lips after a trying day, after unearthing a past fraught with misery and pain, gave way to a lot more.

Chuuya wasn’t one to run away from what he wanted. Considering that Dazai was what he wanted, he didn’t allow Dazai to run away either. One kiss turned to two, turned to too many to count; one evening turned to several nights spent in sweat-soaked sheets, breathing in Chuuya’s voice as it fell out of his lips, welcoming him between his legs and back around.

So Dazai forgot all about the suit, which he had put on a hanger and wrapped in plastic and shoved at the back of his closet, until the day Chuuya texted him, My place at eleven. Wear that white suit.

“Interesting,” someone said over his shoulder.

“Ranpo-san,” Dazai replied, sliding his phone back in his pocket. He smiled at his co-worker evenly. “Please don’t read my texts.”

“What did it say?” Naomi asked immediately from across the office.

Dazai rolled over Ranpo’s toes with his chair just in time to prevent him from answering, and the yelp of pain he gave made Yosano laugh from the open door of the infirmary.

“This is harassment,” Ranpo complained, teary-eyed, holding his foot with both hands.

“You were the one invading my privacy.”

“I could’ve guessed what that message said from your face alone anyway!” Ranpo smiled, voice turned to a purr over his next words. “Someone’s about to have a great night. Should we expect you to be absent tomorrow?”

Someone cleared their throat behind them. When they turned around, Atsushi was standing by Dazai’s desk, looking flustered but unsurprised.

“I don’t want to know,” he said preemptively. “But we really need to go now, Ranpo-san.”

Ranpo groaned loudly, though he went for his own desk to fetch his coat. Atsushi gave Dazai a smile, one which Dazai found himself answering out of habit—and he felt a little shaken at the way Atsushi’s face lit up, not stunned but grateful. He hadn’t realized how much he had been smiling lately.

His humor vanished when Yosano sat down on the side of his desk and said, “So. You’re in a good mood.”

“You’re both so lucky Kunikida-kun isn’t back yet,” Dazai answered.

“Was it Nakahara?”

“Why do you care?”

Her smile was avid. “I don’t,” she replied. “I was just wondering if he’d be willing to give me Ozaki’s number.”

It was Dazai’s luck that he had extensive experience in hiding his horror.

The rest of the day unfolded in bursts, through the sometimes-stifling air of the agency, through Naomi’s well-meaning poking around, through the weight of Yosano’s knowing glances. Whatever Ranpo saw during his trip to the police station occupied his wide mind for the rest of the day. He didn’t ask about Dazai’s plans again.

Dazai found himself walking under the night sky sooner than he expected. It was a thirty-minute trek from the agency to where Chuuya lived, and he spent them full of easy silence, rocked by the sound of sea and the rush of evening cars. It was just warm enough to be dressed as he was, and if he attracted a few odd looks, he knew how to blend away from sight. Even while wearing a white suit.

He knocked on Chuuya’s door at ten past eleven. It took a moment for Chuuya to answer, and when he did, he halted, looking Dazai from head to toe as if he couldn’t believe that he was there.

“You came,” he said eventually.

“Why wouldn’t I come?” Dazai replied.

“You didn’t answer my message.”

“Must’ve slipped my mind,” he said absently, staring at Chuuya.

For all that Chuuya had requested Dazai to be dressed up, he was surprisingly dressed down himself. Barefoot on the wooden floor, shower-damp hair over his shoulder and his shirt open widely at the collar.

It was distracting. It made Dazai want to follow the line of his choker with his teeth, to slip his fingers between leather and skin and tug.

Chuuya smirked slowly. “Come on,” he said, stepping aside so Dazai could enter. “Make yourself comfortable, I’ll be just a second.”

Dazai did so, watching Chuuya disappear through the door leading to his wine cellar. He sat down on one of the high stools lining the kitchen separation, getting rid of his coat and tapping his fingers against the wood. Music was playing out of the old radio perched above the stove. Something old-fashioned enough to feel faintly familiar.

He heard Chuuya come back without seeing him, too busy trying to make sense of the atmosphere and deciding whether this was a date or a call for sex. He smiled when he felt Chuuya’s hand brush against his back. There was a bottle in his hands, unsurprisingly, but it didn’t look like any wine Dazai had seen before; it was too small for one, covered in dust and lacking a brand name. Chuuya’s fingers had left trails through the grey layer sticking to the glass.

“You know I’m not really into wine,” Dazai said, studying it.

“You’ll like this,” Chuuya replied. He set the short bottle down alongside two tiny glasses. The bottle itself was a dark green. Impossible to see the color of the liquid inside. Chuuya spoke again as he uncorked it: “Straw wine. Fifty years of age. Doesn’t taste like anything you know, I promise.”

“It doesn’t have a label.”

The wine, when poured into the glasses, was golden in color. It caught the light more warmly than any white Dazai had seen before, and it smelled much stronger as well.

“This one was made by a friend of a friend’s grandfather in the Jura,” Chuuya said. “Completely artisanal. She gave me the bottle after I got her out of trouble with the cops a few years ago.”

“And you’ve kept it intact since then?” Dazai asked, taking his glass in hand. “I thought you only did that for the really expensive ones.”

Chuuya grinned. “This one is priceless,” he said. “I’ve been waiting to try it for a long time.”

He clicked their glasses together before taking a sip. Dazai mimicked him, tasting it from the edge of his lips rather than drinking it in one go, as the shape of the glass would suggest. It didn’t taste like wine at all; sweeter and stronger, it was something like honey, like overripe fruit turning sour on his tongue. The alcohol didn’t burn as it went down. His mouth stung with the taste long after every drop of it was gone.

“Not bad, right?” Chuuya murmured, looking at him.

Dazai looked back and took another sip, warm through the chest, lips tingling.

It was such a small thing. It wasn’t even surprising. Chuuya knew he didn’t like wine, he had always made whiskey or other strong spirits available to him when they drank together, but this felt different. This felt better. Chuuya being excited at the thought of letting him taste a kind of wine close enough to liquor to be enjoyable made Dazai want to drop everything he held and grab him by the nape.

He did, after the last of the wine was gone from his glass; he gave Chuuya time to set his down as well and then slid his hand through his damp hair, pushing their mouths together and licking into the part of his until he could taste him, sour-sweet and wonderful. Chuuya hummed in appreciation, his own hands brushing over Dazai’s waistcoat and settling at his hips, his lips following every motion that Dazai’s made without ever trying to lead them. They were always so soft, always swelling with blood and breath. Focus slipped out of Dazai’s mind entirely.

He was light-headed with it by the time they parted. Chuuya’s smile felt palpable, even with an inch of room. Whatever song was playing now seemed different from the ones before, slower, a perfect fit for the heat that alcohol and want had blooming in him.

“You wore the suit,” Chuuya said, eminently satisfied. His grip tightened at Dazai’s hips, his thumbs brushing over the fabric roughly.

“You told me to wear it,” Dazai replied.

“I wasn’t sure you would. Reply to your goddamn texts, Dazai.”

He could only chuckle in answer.

This time Chuuya dragged him off the stool as they kissed, still strangely accommodating, mouth warm and pliable under Dazai’s own. Dazai didn’t tread his fingers through Chuuya’s hair too harshly, the wetness there still too present to make the drag comfortable, so instead he fit his palm to the back of Chuuya’s skull and kissed him more insistently, knowing that Chuuya would feel where each of his fingers pressed. Chuuya’s breath caught for a second. His lips slid away from Dazai’s for the time it took to embrace their new difference in height, now that they were both standing.

Dazai knew with certainty what Chuuya had called him here for now, but he was very far away from minding. He let him set the pace, content with kissing him in the middle of his living-room for hours if that was what he wanted. He smiled when he realized that the music was still playing.

“Are we dancing?” he asked against Chuuya’s mouth.

In lieu of an answer, Chuuya linked his hands behind Dazai’s nape and started swaying against him. Dazai followed suit, careful with his steps, his own palms sliding down to grab Chuuya by the waist. The shirt he was wearing was made of silk, he realized. It flew under the pads of his fingers like liquid.

“I might step on your toes,” he murmured. “It’ll be painful, I’m still wearing shoes.”

“Then be careful,” Chuuya replied easily. “Or I’ll have to kick you out. No matter how nice these shoes are.”

“You sound like you don’t believe I own any nice shoes.”

“I wasn’t sure you’d know what shoes to wear with a suit like that, but I’m glad I was mistaken.”

Everything about this—dancing with Chuuya, talking between brushes of lips, letting warmth crawl up the length of his spine at the prospect of the intimacy to come—felt so natural and easy. Dazai had never learned how to dance in any way, and as far as he knew neither had Chuuya, but they didn’t need to.

“So what are we celebrating?” he asked, bending Chuuya’s back into a mockery of a dip, watching Chuuya’s grin dimple his flushed cheeks. “I can’t seem to remember today being special.”

“We’re not celebrating anything,” Chuuya answered as he rose again. “I just felt like treating myself.”

“And I’m part of the treat?” Dazai said, not believing him for a second.

“That suit is, for sure.”

Dazai’s next words died pressed onto Chuuya’s lips, still soft and warm from their last kiss, still tasting sweet from the wine. He kissed him slowly, since that was what Chuuya wanted. Flicking their tongues together and plying Chuuya’s wet mouth. He shivered at the feeling of Chuuya’s eyelashes batting against his cheek, at the imprint of him over his front, solid like nothing else was.

“Stop thinking so much,” Chuuya said. Dazai’s own lips moved with the words as if he had said them himself.

“That’s like asking you to think at all,” he retorted.

The bite he got for the comment was worth it. He expected Chuuya to lean back and continue the dance, but Chuuya pulled him down by the nape instead, until the side of his face was level with Chuuya’s mouth. Dazai couldn’t quite help himself from taking in the scent of his skin, not with his nose so close to being in contact with it. Strands of soft hair caressed his face with each inhale he took.

“Wanna know something interesting?” Chuuya said into the shell of his ear.

“Sure,” Dazai replied, breathless.

Chuuya’s chuckle was warm, damp, shuddering; it dragged goosebumps out every second of soft contact, following the trail of his lips over Dazai’s ear and then under it. “Showering isn’t the only thing I did before you got here,” he said.

All the heat in Dazai caught at the lowest of his belly, tightening until even air could do nothing but stutter in and out of him. He felt the shape of Chuuya’s smile at the side of his neck, felt Chuuya’s thumb stroke right under his jaw, painfully gentle.

“Yeah?” he let out at last.

“Yeah.”

He dropped his hands down from Chuuya’s hips, pressing him closer so that his fingers could slip under belt and slacks. He wasn’t wearing any underwear.

“Is there something you want, Chuuya?” Dazai asked, unable to stop his own voice from being stifled with want. His mind swam with the images that Chuuya’s confession had brought—he almost moaned as Chuuya arched against him, almost lost track of his thoughts when his fingers dug into the cleft of Chuuya’s ass and found it slick with lube.

“You know exactly what I want,” Chuuya replied roughly. He licked his lips before biting Dazai’s again, not hard enough to make it hurt. “So unless you have an objection…”

Dazai wouldn’t have objected to this in the face of certain doom—he hoped the roughness of their next kiss would be enough to convey it, that the way he walked Chuuya backward toward the open door of his bedroom would translate it without words; Chuuya laughed when they knocked into the door’s frame and then moaned when Dazai pressed him into it, grinding himself to hardness against his front.

“Is that why you didn’t sit down earlier?” Dazai gasped, taking his hands out of Chuuya’s slacks to better take them off. They slid off his thighs easily, baring more skin to the touch. “I thought you were up to something, but you just didn’t want to stain your clothes, did you, not after you made yourself all ready for me—”

“You’re going to put that mouth to better use,” Chuuya cut in, stepping out of his pants.

“Of course,” Dazai said, and the thought alone was heady, heavy on his mind and sweet on his tongue. “Anything you want.”

He caught Chuuya under the knees, helping him up until his legs were locked at his back and their faces were level. He didn’t linger at the door, opting to transport Chuuya from there to the bed directly despite how heavy he was. Chuuya was always heavier than he looked, always deceptively thin when buried in soft clothes, but now there was nothing at all to hide the truth of how he looked. Dazai spread him over the bed feeling drunk off the sight of him, the strength of his legs and the tough muscles laid under his skin, the milk-like silk flowing off of his shoulders to make room for Dazai’s lips. He mouthed over Chuuya’s collarbones without knowing where to start tasting him, where to start having him. There was more of Chuuya to be consumed than he would ever know.

The perspective was blinding.

Dazai kneeled on the floor by the bed and filled himself with it—sucking skin into his mouth and biting over sharply-lined bones, catching Chuuya’s nipples between his teeth, inhaling every slow breath that Chuuya gave as if they were his own. Chuuya’s fingers gripped his hair tighter the lower he went, and his belly was shaking by the time he reached it, rising up and down harshly. Dazai licked his way down and placed his hands on either side of where Chuuya wanted it most, pushing his thighs apart.

He cradled Chuuya’s cock with one hand and kissed up the side that his fingers didn’t cover, happy enough to close his eyes and open his mouth, to let Chuuya have his way with him however he wanted to. Chuuya’s hold on his hair was the right side of painful; Dazai let him buck up between his lips, tongue flat and cheeks hollowed. He pulled away after only a second and said, “You don’t want this.”

He got a pillow in the face for all answer.

Chuuya was smirking at him by the time he pushed it out of his face. “For your knees,” he said lazily, and he pressed a foot against Dazai’s chest to make room for movement, so that he could lie on his front instead. “You’re gonna be here for a while.”

Dazai could only nod, struck blind with want. He watched Chuuya drag himself further away on the bed, to make room for his legs to spread; and then it was only a question of Chuuya’s low voice, of the Come on he let out as if they were still standing at the entrance of his home and nothing more. His smile was helpless. He took hold of Chuuya’s thighs and then of his ass, spreading it open before leaning forward.

Chuuya exhaled loudly at the first touch of his tongue; he shifted over the sheets with a soft sound, perhaps to place his chin over his crossed hands, perhaps to claw at them tightly.

This was not something they had done yet, either of them, though Dazai had thought about it in the darkness of his own mind. He had pictured Chuuya like this so often than not even the chemical tang of the flavored lube jarred the familiarity. It was strong enough to fill his mouth the way the straw wine had earlier, but not to stop him from lapping at Chuuya’s cleft as if seeking water. Chuuya was a suffocating presence at the best of time, the type that required attention with no effort at all. Laid out over his own bed as Dazai licked into him, he tasted better than any liquor, skin-warm and moving with each shuddering breath. Dazai could have found intoxication there, given enough time; he could’ve walked out of the experience on wavering feet, the world abuzz around him, salt and raspberries on his tongue.

Chuuya tensed beautifully when Dazai took to biting him; he moaned when Dazai let go of his grip to push two fingers inside him, not moving them yet but hooking them just short of where they would feel best. His breaths were shallow now, smothered against either his hands or the sheets. When he started rubbing himself slowly over them, Dazai followed, his whole face pressed onto him as he rocked back and forth.

What little friction Chuuya found there turned his breathing to wheezing moans. Dazai had to let go of him to open his own belt one-handed, still finger-deep into him but unable not to touch himself, and the squeeze he gave his own cock spiked up the heat already gathered in him threateningly.

“Fuck,” Chuuya breathed, “don’t you dare come from just that, Dazai, I still want you to fuck me—”

Dazai groaned, tightening his grip on himself and thrusting into Chuuya with his hand; Chuuya’s words broke into soundless exhales. He was tight now around Dazai’s fingers, in spite of the obvious work he had made to open himself up. His spine curved sharply when Dazai pushed his ring finger in alongside the previous two.

“Enough,” Chuuya said. “Just—enough, just get over here, come on.”

“With pleasure,” Dazai replied breezily.

His knees ached despite even the pillow, and it was the pillow he stumbled on while rising up, sliding over the wooden floor and falling almost headfirst onto Chuuya’s back. Chuuya gave a snort of a laughter at that, completely undignified; his shoulders still shook with it when Dazai got in place to kiss them. He stayed like this for a while, laid on top of Chuuya with almost the full length of his body, legs sore and heart afloat.

“Move, you oaf,” Chuuya ordered, squirming under him.

“I don’t know,” Dazai replied. He dragged himself further up, so that he could rest his face at the back of Chuuya’s head, mouth and nose full of his sweet-smelling hair. “I feel good like this.”

“If you think I’m gonna let you grind against my ass like an animal—”

Dazai did grind down, delighting in the sharp inhale that Chuuya took upon feeling how hard he was, how easily he rested against his backside even still fully-dressed.

“No,” Chuuya said amidst his laughter. “No, no—get off, we’re doing this the way I want.”

“And which way is that?” Dazai replied, smiling.

He pushed himself to his knees, and Chuuya moved immediately, reaching for his nightstand. He grabbed a black elastic band there with the tip of his fingers, let himself fall back onto the bed to tie his hair up behind himself in quick movements. When he was done he rose again, nudging Dazai backward and then twisting around to kiss him.

Dazai’s mouth opened immediately, heated and messy as Chuuya sought the remnants of the raspberry lube and of his own skin on his tongue. He stroked up and down Chuuya’s spine with his hand all the while.

Chuuya pulled away. His whole face was red, and the skin at his temples was damp with sweat, sticking hair to skin gently. “I want you to fuck me,” he said again. His teeth dragged over Dazai’s bottom lip for another second. “So get on with it,” he added, letting it go.

“My mouth a little too good?” Dazai asked lightly. “You looked two seconds away from coming with just my tongue and my fingers. I’m flattered.”

“I’m not going to answer that, bastard.”

Dazai took the first button of his waistcoat between his fingers, but Chuuya’s hand was on his immediately, pulling them back down. His eyes were so dark that only the thinnest ring of blue remained in them, almost invisible in the nightlight.

“The suit stays on,” he said lowly.

“All right,” Dazai replied.

Chuuya avoided his kiss, choosing to bend over again so that Dazai followed suit, until he was folded over his back, both of them on their knees. He couldn’t have made his intent clearer.

Dazai grabbed his hips and said, “You don’t want any more preparation, do you.”

“No,” Chuuya answered, looking at him over his shoulder. “Just fuck me.”

So Dazai tugged him backward harshly, and his cock slid over the slickness on him a few times before catching, before being able to press in.

He was just the right sight of too tight yet that the pressure was almost painful, and he moaned anyway. Dazai could only clench his teeth and sink into him incrementally; Chuuya’s entire body seemed to ripple, the Yes falling out of his lips almost sharp enough to cut, the curve of his back worthy of an art piece. Dazai had to breathe in slowly before moving. He had to let go of Chuuya’s hips and grab his wrists instead, pinning them to the bedspread to find stability before thrusting in.

That was what Chuuya wanted, what he really wanted out of this. More than the suit and more than the show, he wanted to treat himself by letting go, in a way he never did, was too afraid to allow; Dazai breathed open-mouthed and damp over his nape as he rocked into him, thinking of the many times Chuuya had done the same to him, of how intimately familiar he was with being fucked on his knees until his mind quieted.

“Come on,” Chuuya sang like a mantra, grasping weakly at the sheets without trying to escape Dazai’s hold, “come on, Dazai, come on—”

“I’m here,” Dazai gasped in answer.

As if Chuuya could ever forget, as if Dazai could ever forget, when the heat of Chuuya’s body seemed to drag every last bit of his mind out of him. The heat crested in him until he thought he would suffocate, two layers of fabric sticking painfully to his back and armpits the more the effort cost him. And Chuuya would be feeling it all, the burn of him over his back and the snap of Dazai’s belt against his thighs with every push forward. Every inch of his bare skin would bear marks of rubbing against cloth.

Dazai let go of one of his wrists to wrap his fingers around Chuuya’s cock, and the moan Chuuya let out at that tore through the very air.

“Should I have worn gloves, Chuuya,” he expelled through his panting. His fingers were still slick with lube and they turned wetter yet, sliding over hard flesh quicker than his own hips could move. “Complete the look and everything. You like leather, don’t you?”

“I do,” Chuuya let out. “I do, yeah, I—”

“I bet you wouldn’t even care about chafing right now, as long as you get to lick it all clean afterward.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah,” Dazai said, fucking into him as sweetly as he could, dizzy and overheated. “I guess this’ll have to do the trick for now.”

He dropped the weight of Chuuya’s cock and raised his hand, pushing it over Chuuya’s face blindly, his fingers slipping against his chin and cheek before finding his open lips. Chuuya sucked them in eagerly; Dazai’s mind phased out of the moment.

“You’re so beautiful,” he said. The words felt like admitting to a crime, like baring his own chest for the stabbing. “Look at you.”

Chuuya’s teeth dragged over his knuckles gently. Dazai rested his forehead over Chuuya’s spine and let go of his wrist, just so he could link their hands together, just so he could feel Chuuya’s hold anchor him to reality. He kissed the sweat gathered over Chuuya’s skin, and he thrust into the slick heat between his legs, and the way Chuuya fit into the curve of his body made everything solidify into clarity. Everything brightened into a golden haze.

“I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve this,” he confessed.

“Dazai,” Chuuya breathed, letting his fingers slide out of his mouth.

Dazai wrapped his arm around the other’s middle in a semblance of a hug. “I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve you,” he said.

For a moment it seemed neither of them would move, and Dazai wouldn’t have minded it one bit. He held Chuuya closer to him with his cheek pressed against his back, eyes closed and mind tranquil. He let his palm follow the rise and fall of Chuuya’s ribcage.

Chuuya was the one who moved. He twisted sideways, separating them fully, but Dazai couldn’t mind the cold that hit him while he was watching him turn around He fell into the kiss as if physically pulled, content with Chuuya’s hands framing his face, content with Chuuya’s mouth.

He laughed briefly when Chuuya started unbuttoning his clothes. He made quick work of the waistcoat. Dazai himself didn’t bother opening up the wine-colored shirt he wore under it—he pulled it over his head, grateful when no hair caught anywhere, and shook his slacks and underwear off once Chuuya was done pulling them down his thighs.

He lay back on top of Chuuya without stopping for a breath, their lips moulded together, and it was with unending sweetness that Chuuya parted his legs again and let him stumble back in.

He pressed his face into the crook of Chuuya’s neck, breathing in the scent of his skin, of his hair. Chuuya had always smelled something like home to him. Whether he was covered in blood and grime or waking up with the sunlight didn’t matter.

“This is what you want,” Dazai said again. “What you wanted to tell me.”

Chuuya rested a hand over his nape and followed the rocking of his hips, silent but for the sighs being pulled out of him.

It was the only thing he could figure out of this evening. Chuuya was too honest to be purely selfish, too straightforward to play this sort of game. Chuuya loved sex more than Dazai did, and he was always open for trying things in the purely physical way, but this…

This was more than just having fun. This was not a silent exchange.

“Me too,” Dazai said into his neck.

It was a trembling admission, more air than voice, but it was the truth.

Sliding in and out of him came easier with no clothes to hinder Dazai’s moves. In their nakedness was a newfound heat, damp skin on damp skin and bare heart to bare heart, and Dazai satisfied himself with mouthing into Chuuya’s neck what he could never give voice to. He rocked into the give of his body until Chuuya tensed like a bow; he bore the tightness of his embrace feeling not trapped at all, caught between the circle of Chuuya’s arms and the hard line of Chuuya’s cock, between his bony hips and the wide breadth of his shoulders.

He could hear nothing but Chuuya’s soft panting, feel nothing but Chuuya’s ribs against his palms, even as he burned almost to the point of pain. Chuuya’s thighs locked around his hips as if scared that he would leave, and Dazai drove into him until he couldn’t breathe at all, until his back ached and his lungs emptied out.

He came with a snap forward, one trembling hand sliding from Chuuya’s hip and to his flushed cock, his mind wiped free of thought. Chuuya spilled warmly over his fingers only a second later, his voice shaking out one last moan, his body turned to stone before loosening all at once.

Dazai didn’t let himself fall onto him immediately. He pushed his elbow onto the mattress so he could rise a little more, see the sort of face Chuuya was making now. He found him crimson, his damp lips open so he could catch his breath, hair messy and eyes lidded over.

He smiled.

“You do realize I’m never going to be able to wear that suit again without thinking of you on your knees,” he said.

Chuuya groaned, weakly trying to smother the laugh out of him with the flat of his palm. “That was the plan,” he replied.

“Really?” Dazai asked, pulling the intrusive hand away. “You want me to picture you taking my cock every time I meet with old acquaintances? That’s going to make things uncomfortable.”

“How many more acquaintances of yours are we gonna have to kill?”

Dazai chuckled. He tried to pull away, but Chuuya’s arms tightened around him.

“Stay,” Chuuya mumbled.

“I was just going to fetch us something to clean up with.”

Chuuya didn’t answer. His grip didn’t relent.

Dazai lowered himself onto the bed slowly. He ended up on his side, facing Chuuya, their legs still tangled together. Neither of them moved after that, not until every last dreg of heat was gone and sweat started cooling on their skin. Dazai watched Chuuya close his eyes without believing for a second that he had fallen asleep. He observed the movements in his neck; felt the air move out of his lips.

Trying to resist this pull would be an exercise in futility. He dragged his head across the distance without feeling like there was any, and when his mouth touched Chuuya’s, Chuuya reacted with no surprise. It wasn’t even a kiss. Their lips didn’t close on one another. Their tongues didn’t move except to speak.

“There’s something you want to say,” Dazai prompted softly.

Chuuya opened his eyes again. The following lapse of time was spent wordless, yet Dazai felt no hurry. He brought a hand to Chuuya’s face, touching his cheek with the back of his loosely curled fingers, and he waited.

“Do I need to say it when you already know?” Chuuya asked.

“I’d like to hear it.”

Chuuya’s lips curved, displacing their alignment together. This time he closed them over Dazai’s, going so far as to lick at them languidly. “One day,” he said, pulling away. He rolled over to his front, his shoulder over Dazai’s and his face in Dazai’s neck.

They wouldn’t be able to sleep like this. The position would grow uncomfortable too quickly, and Chuuya would want to clean up before slumber took him, Dazai knew. He never liked waking up crusted with the previous evening’s fun.

He didn’t find it in himself to say anything about it. Exhaustion was expanding through him now that mindless pleasure was gone; shivers ran over his skin the longer he lay unmoving; yet there was no need to cover himself or shift away, not when every nerve in him seemed alight with Chuuya’s weight and presence.

He felt sated, for the first time in years. He felt quenched of a thirst he had never acknowledged. He turned his head sideways to kiss the top of Chuuya’s head, and he thought anyone might be right to resent him for happiness now.