Dazai is better than this.

Or — well, he wants to think he is.

Everyone, even strays with frail, wobbly senses of self-worth, wants to believe they've changed for the better — that they're doing something with their life. It's a baseline instinct, and no person on Earth is above it — for the desire sits, in the heart of every human, to please others, in some capacity.

It's all that keeps you engaged with society — buying things at the corner store rather than stealing, smiling at your co-workers in the morning, offering an orphanage runaway a place with hot meals and halfway-decent clothing, finding yourself in times of need and asking yourself, what would Odasaku do?

Not this.

Only faintly brushing his comforter, Dazai rolls over in bed. Old bandages shift against his arms — mild inconveniences like these make him wish he'd bring himself to take them off some days… yet, then again, that'd require redressing, rewinding them up his skin, again and again, and frankly he's not one to put that much care into his appearance. The thought makes him remember how long it took Chuuya to get dressed in the morning some days, with all his stupid gels, ointments, moisturizers, what-have-you. Not a life Dazai's particularly interested in living.

So, how's he spending his morning instead?

Well, there's a figure beside him, with their side of the comforter pulled up to their chest, motionless.

It's the man he's called home, for a year and some change, now.

No one else knows. Fyodor, after all, is sleek — smooth, dipping in and out of shadows, the kind of man whose presence was only known if he wanted you to know. Dazai'd like to think he is, too, save for the moments Kunikida compares him to a plane crash, in his subtlety.

Still, neither of them, particularly, want anyone else to know.

So no one does — it's between the two of them, their own little game, just like back in Meursault.

Dazai adjusts himself, to press against the crook of the other's neck, with a sigh.

High and mighty criminal mastermind Fyodor Dostoevsky snores a little when he sleeps. It's silly — he positions himself, stiff, practiced, cold, as ever, even when lying down, and is out like a light in seconds, no doubt a skill honed on the same level as his chess-playing, or his cello, or his at-home-lobotomies… yet, the moment he really drifts off, he snores. Drools a bit, too.

Over a year and some change ago, Dazai would've lauded it over the other's head, his arch-nemesis fallible, human, after all — and yes, of course, he still does, lightly snickering to himself to note that Fyodor likely doesn't even realize this about himself — but…

…sometime between then and now, it began to stir a different feeling in Dazai's chest. One he was frankly embarrassed to name, even now.

"You're cute," he drawls under his breath — and really, Fyodor is, in the same way one would call a rat caught in a trap, cute. Or a sleeping tiger, knowing it's one poke away from biting your head off — but, for now, it really does look like a big kitten.

(Was that an offensive example, now that he actually knew a tiger? Ack. Sorry, Atsushi.)

…the passing joke makes him falter.

True, it's something he thinks about often.

What the people around him would say.

'cause life isn't a rom-com, is it? There's no laugh track, no oh, that's our Dazai-san, hooking up with the guy who framed us all for being terrorists, and wants to genocide ability-users out of existence, alongside everyone else in the universe along the way — honestly, he shouldn't be convening with someone like this at all, keeping a safe distance, for who knows what the rat bastard could be planning next, much less…

…the way he's lacing his fingers through Fyodor's stringy hair, his floppy bangs, fondly noting the way the top of his head gets mussed from his stupid ushanka… yeah, his moments of dull morning peace are anything but to the people he actually cares about.

He's always thought himself above the other — that looking at Fyodor was like looking at himself, distorted in a funhouse mirror, an ugly, inhuman caricature, and that the man made his intestines knot together in disgust… Well, it was a show that Dazai really was a good person, after all. If nothing else, better than he'd been five years ago — for he wasn't taking a scalpel to Akutagawa's head to carve out the undesirable bits, to mold him into a student he could be proud of… but, if he'd never been given his much-needed reality check, maybe, in some other universe's present-day, he would have.

He wouldn't put it past his old self — the one he wanted to hope had died in an oft suicide attempt over the years.

But, if that Osamu Dazai can die, so can the one who would've rather taken this moment to smother his enemy in a pillow and come back to the Agency a hero.

It's… not a thought he likes entertaining.

He thinks about Atsushi — a shambling kid fresh out of an orphanage to him, their toasts closer in nature to an uncle sneaking his nephew grape juice and calling it wine — and can picture, all too vividly, the look of betrayal in his eyes. Disgust. He'd lash out an arm, baring those tiger-growl teeth, making himself a barrier between his coworkers and the man he thought he'd trusted.

A year? He'd quiver, something miserable painted in his eyes behind the unsheathed claws, like a scorned wife learning of an affair.

And what's it worth, Kunikida would crudely ask, with an expression that'd make Dazai realize he'd never seen the man truly, truly angry with him before, getting your dick wet?

(Not that, even — Dazai inexperienced, Fyodor cold, both largely uninterested. He doesn't know if that makes it better or worse — to find the bed he sleeps in now a chaste, terse one. There's sleeping with the man who made your loved ones' lives Hell, because that suave glint in his eyes just can't be turned down, or something, and then there's the infinitely more perplexing 'going on romantic walks down the beach and buying a house with the man who made your loved ones' lives Hell'.)

Maybe he could call it an undercover mission, he thinks, snorting to himself a little, remembering something about keeping your friends close and your enemies closer. Maybe there's a threshold they can handle — a point where the way he's smiling with adoration at a terrorist's sleeping face is something admirable, a token of devotion to the side of good.

…yeah, we're well past that.

Sorry, Atsushi-kun.

Or maybe, he diverts, they won't need to know. He's gone a year and some change so far, and everyone's none the wiser — so what's another?

For he gets up, goes to work, same as it had been when he lived alone — no one at the Agency notices, or rather, no one at the Agency questions, how he takes a different route to work every morning, or the increase in lavish gifts. A fancy watch he couldn't hope to buy on a detective's salary, a leather-bound copy of a crime novel he tells Kyouka is a gift from a family friend. Anniversary gifts — or the rare occasions where Fyodor's feeling affectionate, giving that sly smile he does when Dazai swoons and starts babbling about how he's the luckiest young maiden in the world…

…there's a veneer of self-awareness to it, like everything Dazai does. It's all hidden under a cheeky grin, a spared laugh at his own expense — a personality those at the Agency were no strangers to, for if you do something stupid, you're stupid, but if you tap your head and say it's all part of your ingenious plan… Well, it's enough to fool the likes of Atsushi. He learns that one from Ranpo.

…but, beneath it all, he supposes he really is the picture of a lovesick maiden — and it's a genuine feeling, one that curdles his insides to think about. Clearly it matters to him — looking at all he's sacrificing for it.

Maybe it's another suicide attempt. Maybe he's the world's most dramatic gold digger. Maybe he's tired of himself, and playing the fool. Maybe he lost something in Meursault, and would go blindly pursuing it for the rest of his life.

Maybe he's just insane — as off his rocker as Atsushi first thought, seeing him drowning in that river those years ago. Like the thin coin-flip side of that pretentious bullshit Nikolai waxes, maybe, with Fyodor, he's been unshackled — maybe he's sick of living a normal life. Maybe Meursault, where the two of them had just sat on their asses and sneered at eachother, feeling oh-so-smart, flinging traps and puzzles back and forth, picturing the other drowning to death, or being shot into chunky red paste, was the most alive Osamu Dazai had ever been.

…or maybe he just likes the way Fyodor snores. The way his hair fans out against his pillow. The way his dead eyes will light up when they're having intellectual discussions. The way, beneath his walls, beneath the unknowable ability, beneath blood and wine and brain matter and syringes of paste, he's human — and Dazai's finding it now, in the little dribble of spit down his cheek as he sleeps. In the gifts — in their sneaky little double life that makes him feel like a teenage girl hiding her first boyfriend.

There's Sigma, who fought tooth and nail to live a life out from under Fyodor's thumb, sick of being trampled on by Nikolai, and only trusting Dazai because he was on the opposite side of that battle — someone who'd skin and salt them with a smile, but wouldn't do so without punishing their abusers first. My enemy's enemy is my friend — though they carried themself with the swagger of an adult man, they had the worldly experience of a three-year-old.

Maybe learning of Dazai's betrayal would toughen them up, for the battle wasn't over after Meursault. Maybe it was a good thing, after all.

…Dazai catches himself. The same words he'd used when stomping in a sixteen-year-old Akutagawa's ribs.

Ah, Odasaku, he thinks, wearing a pitiful smile, tracing against his nails the collar of Fyodor's pajamas, staring from his resting partner, to the faintly whirring ceiling fan above their heads, you'd cry to see me now, wouldn't you?