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“Black coffee,” Fyodor greets, slipping into one of the bar chairs, voice perfectly polite, “two cubes of sugar, no milk.”
The server behind the counter is stock still, eyes wide, their hand faintly trembling. He expected it; anyone working at the Agency’s pet café would recognize his appearance, no matter that it’s been seasons since his supposed death. He’s hardly bothered disguising himself, cloak familiar around his shoulders, hat warm over his ears, loose hair tickling along the edge of his jaw and curve of his neck.
“O-of course,” they say. Squeak, really.
He hums, resting his arms onto the counter, and his head into his arms. He tracks her movements like that, eyes half-lidded, body slumped. In the back of his head, Nikolai says, Chronic back pain would be a really boring way for you to die, y’know! In the back of his head, Fyodor tells him that there’s no causal link between back pain and mortality, but almost straightens himself anyway.
The server is going for the phone.
“I wouldn’t recommend that,” Fyodor says, because he’s enjoying this mellowed quiet before the inevitable storm. They flinch. Fyodor gets his coffee approximately two minutes and six seconds later.
Three minutes after that, and the storm breaks.
“D-Dostoyevsky!?”
It’s Nakajima and Kunikida in the stairwell, visibly shocked. Nakajima looks like he’s seen a ghost, and Kunikida is stone-stiff, knuckles white where they’ve jumped to the handle of his gun.
“What are you doing here!?”
Nakajima is awful at playing calm. His panic shows crystal in his face.
“Relax,” Fyodor says, pulling himself up, just a little. A yawn builds in the back of his throat—god, it’s been almost twenty hours since the motel bed, hasn’t it—and he indulges it. “I’m not here for work.”
“Oh, yeah, so we’re supposed to believe you’re just here for the coffee?” Oh, the weretiger has some sarcasm in him, hmm? Fyodor answers with a small nod. A beat, two, and—“As if we’d believe that!? There’s no way you’re here for something like that!”
The funny, or rather, the absolutely, pathetically boring thing, is that he's wrong in his assumption that Fyodor's here for anything malicious.
He allows himself to smile, small and curious, head tilting. Hair brushes over his cheek. “You really think you can read me well enough to know my intentions? Truly, sincerely, you believe that?”
Nakajima falters. “I-I mean—”
“There’s no way you’d be here for some frivolous reason like that,” Kunikida says, apparently having finally found his voice. It’s steady, but the white of his knuckles betrays him; he hates him. Fyodor has him pinned as a deontologist; of course he hates him.
“Alright,” Fyodor grants. “Let’s say that I am here for something...ah, let’s put it in your terms, malicious—what can you do, if that’s the case?”
“...”
“I never put myself in dangerous situations without a way to get out. I’m weak in combat, don’t you see? Perhaps I have a sniper trained for this café right now, or bombs set on a timer to detonate without my command against such an event. Certainly, those are all tactics I’ve used before. So, tell me, what can you do?”
“We could...” Nakajima worries at his lip.
Fyodor waits for a beat, two. Sighs. “If there’s nothing you can do regardless, wouldn’t it simply be better to take the easy way?”
Kunikida’s eyes narrow. “The easy way?”
“To act as though I’m sincere in my words. Is that not the better option, in this scenario?”
“...”
It works. Just a few simple, barely even open ended questions, and suddenly they act as through their conclusion is their own. Fyodor wasn’t even subtle. He’s sure at least Kunikida knows what he did, and yet, and yet.
God, it’s predictable.
Kunikida’s jaw looks so stiff, he might be biting his tongue. Finally: “Then what are you supposedly here for?”
“I’m waiting for someone,” Fyodor answers, easily. He toys with his coffee cup, fingers flexing against it, lets its warmth soak through his gloves and lay almost scalding on his palm.
“Who?”
Instead of answer, Fyodor gestures the pair closer. They come with the hesitance of a man on death row. Stop just barely out of arms length. Fyodor, without hesitation, reaches out for the book held tightly in Kunikida’s hand.
Nakajima is fast to react. Lunges forward, and—he does accomplish his goal, in theory, because Fyodor does jerk back on instinct, to avoid the grab.
“I would not recommend touching me so recklessly,” Fyodor advises, only a touch icy.
“...Ah.” Nakajima stares at his hand, already transformed.
Fyodor sighs, and reaches out once more. Even through his glove, Nakajima’s hybrid paw holds an interesting texture. It’s built oddly, and Fyodor traces the joint. “I said so out of concern for your safety. We both know the harm an unstable ability can do, don’t we?”
“I...”
“It’s alright. I already know. Have you ever pondered what your life could have been had you not been cursed with such a thing? Really—”
To the side, Café Uzumaki’s door opens with a ringing jingle. Fyodor turns, shifting in his seat to meet eyes with the man in the entrance-way.
It’s perhaps the most shocked he’s ever seen Dazai, stock still, hand on the door, face pale even despite the faint autumn blush that clings to his ears and nose. Fyodor savors that expression, allows himself a moment to chew on that sharp, vicious satisfaction that comes innately from surprising the other.
A beat, and Fyodor returns a façade of his attention to Nakajima.
“...Where was I? Right—”
“Oi,” Dazai finally says, voice a note off, and Fyodor watches his from the edge of his eye. His footsteps echo against the empty café. “Atsushi’s made good progress with accepting himself. Don’t reset that.”
“Oh, was I?” Fyodor withdraws his hands and settles them around his coffee, stretching idly in his seat, rolling his shoulders. He gives an apologetic smile. “My bad.”
A beat. Fyodor can’t read the expression on Dazai’s face.
“I really thought I killed you this time.” His tone, too, is utterly blank.
“It was a good play,” Fyodor acknowledges.
Dazai makes a face. “Gross. You’re like a cockroach, and I’m saying that.” He strolls over, casual, gait confident. Pulls out the chair beside Fyodor and slips into it easily, legs crossing, one over the other. “Why resurface today?”
That gives Fyodor a pause. Dazai should...honestly, Dazai should’ve known that since the moment he walked in the door, but he doesn’t seem like he’s lying. Fyodor reexamines the other, eyes narrowing.
Clothes wrinkled, tie slightly off, eyes bright but nonetheless shadowed darkly. Hair brushed, nails cut to perfect, even length, lips smooth and glossy with balm but patched with fleshy reds that indicate biting. He’s wearing earrings, the pair Fyodor gifted him after Shibusawa’s second death. A crystal peaks through his deep brown hair and glinting wine red in the autumn sunlight that filters from the cafe’s far windows.
It’s all a little too normal, a little too pretty.
“...Dazai-kun,” Fyodor says, slowly, “could you be a dear and tell me today’s date?”
Dazai doesn’t miss a beat. “Ehhh?” He leans back in his seat, all exaggerated emotion. “Who keeps track of things like that anyway?”
Fyodor does. He also keeps track of the exact minute he falls asleep, the exact minute he wakes up, and could give a timestamp for each and every other of his actions in a given day. Obsessive, Nikolai would say, with delight. It’s not obsession so much as simple sense, but Fyodor’s simple sense is not the common one.
“Alright,” he grants, because it’s not that strange, “how about the day? What day of the week is it?”
“...Tuesday?”
It’s Friday.
“Not even close.” Fyodor clicks his tongue. “Month?”
This time, Dazai winces. It’s small, minute, but there’s no world Fyodor wouldn’t catch it. It’s answer enough.
“Dear God, Dazai,” Fyodor breathes, letting something close to exasperation color his tone. It’s not entirely unfond. “That bad?”
“Oh shut up,” Dazai grumbles, “you look like you haven’t slept in a week.”
It's not an explanation, but it was never going to be. Fyodor will have to read between the lines himself.
“I always look like I haven’t slept in a week.”
“I bet that coffee is the first thing you've eaten today,” Dazai accuses, childish.
In his peripheral vision, Fyodor watches Kunikida and Nakajima. They're standing there, looking like they don't quite know what to do with themselves, hands restless. Some confusion on their faces. Fyodor makes all these observations simultaneous with speaking, “And I bet you haven't eaten anything at all.”
“Actually,” Dazai sniffs, “I passed a patch of dandelions on my way here and had some. They’re very rich in iron, you know. Maybe you should try it.”
“Ah,” Fyodor smiles, and it’s an entirely fake, constructed expression, but it sits sincerely on his face. He leans the slightest bit forward, towards the other. “Is that your way of telling me to take care of myself? How quaint.”
Kunikida is reaching for his phone, now. Is clicking fast and frustrated and muttering something inaudible under his breath. Looks a little nauseous. Nakajima is more openly uncomfortable. Dazai…
“...Why visit today of all days?” He sighs, small frown settling on his lips, brows furrowing only the slightest bit. It’s a remarkably genuine expression. “You’ve never come before.”
Ah, so he’s finally figured out what today’s date is.
“I was busy during previous years,” Fyodor says, pointedly. “I’m not currently so fervently busy. Someone wrecked all my plans for the near future, you see.”
“...So you really came back from the perceived dead for this, huh?” Dazai’s doubts aren’t dispelled; Fyodor’s wouldn’t be, were he in his position. Nonetheless, Dazai pretends to fully believe him, when he smirks and slips from his chair, taking a knee on the ground. His hands grasp Fyodor’s hand in their own before he quite has time to react. “Dear, did it hurt when you—”
“No,” Fyodor cuts, flatly. It doesn’t matter how Dazai was going to finish the awful line.
“You wound me!” It’s impressive, really how easily Dazai is able to conjure this specific sort of dreamy, charming expression. “Hey—you’re pretty and I’m cute; together we’d be pretty cute.”
(Where does he even get these from?)
Resolutely, Fyodor does not linger on the reactions of their observers. He is more than used to Dazai turning them into a public embarrassment, by now.
“That was awful. Do you have a fever? Are you sick?”
“My doctor told me I have a serious deficiency of Vitamin U,” Dazai replies without missing a beat. And—
Oh.
Back in Meursault, with Nikolai in front of them, grin splitting his face like a sickle, promise of death hanging thick in the air… Fyodor had said, Losing a chess opponent in the next thirty minutes...is still quite sad. He’d meant it, although he hadn’t been entirely sure how much the sentiment was reciprocated. Now, though…
This is a plain answer to Fyodor’s earlier, unspoken question. What has you like this?
I’ve missed you. I missed you.
“All these terrible pick up lines...” Fyodor sighs, tugging his hand from Dazai’s hold, “you know...”
he slips off his glove, and pointedly taps the band around his fourth finger. It’s a simple ring, brassy gold that glints dully under the sun. A single, tiny amethyst sits embedded near the center, violently purple.
Dazai’s expression doesn’t falter, but laughter plays in the corner of his lips. He opens his mouth to reply, to play into the joke, likely, but—
“Don’t hit on married men!” Kunikida snaps his flip-phone shut. A moment later, he falters, some conflict over his expression. “And terrorists! Don’t flirt with married terrorists! I mean, don’t flirt with any terrorists. Or married people.” Another falter, and, “I mean, assuming—”
“I’m monogamous,” Fyodor confirms, before the inevitable, awkwardly phrased question can be implied or asked.
“Ahhh!” Dazai draws back into a stand, looking very much like he’s dragging himself. It’s all so very dramatized. He leans against the counter, one hand on its edge, the other finding rest on Fyodor’s shoulder. “What are you insinuating about my character, Kunikida-kun!? I’m really hurt! You know, I’m also a married man!”
A beat.
“WHAT!?”
That’s Nakajima.
Kunikida looks at Dazai, flatly. Pushes his glasses up his nose with one hand, the other occupied with his book. “This isn’t the time for your jokes—”
“Ehhh? I’m not joking! Ask Ranpo!”
The master detective in question is right there in the stairwell, and he’s smart, genius, on a match in intellect, but he’s also so painfully open with himself. He conceals his tension so badly. The very sight makes a dirty sort of jealousy knot in Fyodor’s chest. Edogawa has no ability.
Nonetheless, it’s with a cheerful nod that Edogawa confirms, “Yep, Dazai’s married!”
Kunikida’s pen breaks. “No.”
“B-but it’s Dazai,” Nakajima says, like that’s a foolproof argument. Kunikida nods emphatically.
Notably, neither Edogawa nor Fukuzawa—the only members that have come down, although Fyodor is sure that there are other hovering just out of view, eavesdropping—agree. There’s a loud, yeah! From somewhere distantly up the stairwell, then a crash, a muffled yelp, and a hissed shut up!
“This is super hurtful you know!” There’s the slightest bit of offense in Dazai’s tone, in the line of his pout. “How come you can believe Fedya’s married but not me?”
Fyodor recalls, suddenly, Dazai at eighteen, freshly grieving. I think you have a kind ability.
It was ridiculous. It was grossly offensive. That ability took his brother, his parents, swallowed his entire childhood in its thirsting mouth, and has characterized every year beyond. Fyodor can understand, how one would think that a person that tactless could not get married.
“I don’t flirt with every pretty woman I see,” is what Fyodor says.
Dazai ignores him. “Come on, him? More likely than me? Fyodor-kun’s allergic to genuinely meaningful human connection!”
Oh, that’s rich. Fyodor arches a brow. “And who was the one who deliberately chose a given name that he despises, just to avoid the inherent intimacy of anyone using it, Лучик? It certainly wasn’t me.”
Dazai throws him a sour face.
“Wahhhh!” He gives this exaggerated, pained noise, hand drawing to his chest as he leans further against Fyodor, his hair brushing against Fyodor’s forehead. “My own husband betrays me! Do you guys see this!? My own husband is bullying me, bullying me, I tell you—!”
“HUSBAND!?”
It’s a near universal exclamation, Edogawa and Fukuzawa seemingly the only ones not participating. From the stairwell, just out of sight, he hears at least several thumps, cries, and muffled voices.
Fyodor ignores them, giving Dazai a flat look. A sudden urge to flick the other’s forehead buzzes in his fingertips, and Fyodor hesitates only a moment before indulging it. Dazai yelps. “Bullying, Лучик? No, this is mere marital banter.”
Dazai rubs his forehead with his free hand, the one not currently wrapped around Fyodor’s shoulder. Pouts. “You guys hear this, right!? He—”
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN ‘HUSBAND’!?”
“We married this day, four years ago,” Fyodor explains, inflectionless.
“We were nineteen,” Dazai sighs, dreamy, melting against Fyodor’s side, disgustingly saccharine in a way Fyodor can only pretend not to enjoy, “straight out of high school.”
Kunikida looks well on his way to breaking another pen. “You didn’t even attend high school! What do you mean you’re married—!”
“I mean we’re married!”
“But,” Nakajima looks downright pitiful in his confusion, his uncertain glances between Edogawa and Fyodor and Dazai’s hand on Fyodor’s shoulder. “But...Dazai flirts with everyone!”
Fyodor hums. “I know. I don’t care. Does it matter to you?”
“Oh...” Nakajima says, “well, okay. No of course I don’t care—it’s not my business! But...um...um...” His face lights up. “But you tried to kill each other! How could you possibly be married!? You really tried to kill each other!”
“Yes?” Fyodor raises an unimpressed brow. “Romance is not the center of everything. You're surprisingly close-minded, I see.”
Dazai snickers; Fyodor elbows him in the stomach.
“Your arm strength is pathetic, Fedya,” Dazai murmurs, right into his ear, voice low and melodic. Fyodor straightens abruptly, shivers. Dazai’s earring tickles against Fyodor’s neck.
“Fine,” Kunikida grants, sounding very much like the words have been pried unwillingly from his tongue. “Let’s say you’re married, and today’s your wedding anniversary. What are you gonna do, go on a date?”
“...Ah,” Fyodor pulls from Dazai’s hold, just a little. Dazai doesn’t let his hand slip from Fyodor’s shoulder; he’s always like this. When they’re together, he is always, always touching Fyodor. Realistically, and especially in an environment like this, it’s likely a mere precaution, but… his touch is so warm, Fyodor could cry. He doesn’t think the other knows the full extent of what it means. “Well...”
and now, Fyodor reaches into an internal pocket of his cloak, and fishes out two plane tickets. First class. Fyodor’s gaze slides to his husband, and he watches Dazai’s eyes follow his hand when he lays the tickets flat against the counter.
He sees, too, the moment Dazai realizes what they are, and what they mean.
“...Is this your way of saying sorry?”
“Have I ever apologized to you for anything?”
He hasn’t; there’s never been anything he’s done towards or with Dazai that he’s considered worthy of apology. He hasn’t wronged him, not really, and he doesn’t plan to start now, by patronizing him with a façade of remorse.
“Hah.” Dazai picks up the tickets with his long, piano fingers. Fixes Fyodor with an amused stare. “Isn’t it a bit late for this?”
“As I said,” Fyodor says, “I’d been busy in years past.”
Dazai’s lips quirk, eyes teasing. “Our stay in prison could be considered basically a honeymoon, you know.”
Fyodor isn’t amused, and he lets it show on his face, in the flat line of his lips. “When we were eighteen, you said, ‘Wait, seriously? Fine. Where would we have our honeymoon, then?’ I said, ‘Do you have a preference?’ You paused for two seconds. You said, ‘No, do you?’ I said, ‘I don’t know. Moscow, maybe.’ You smiled; you said, ‘Alright, it’s a promise.’ Do you understand?”
“Oh jeez, you really memorized every word?”
“Did you expect anything less?”
“No, no, of course not. Ahhh...” Dazai stretches, body all loose and relaxed. Smile bright and casual, a little charming. “Well, if you ask like that…” his attention shifts. “Shachou!”
Fukuzawa, who has thus not said a word, continues his streak by silently nodding. He’s naturally stone-expressioned, would be blessed at a poker table, but there’s nonetheless some exasperation, exhaustion, that shows in the lines of his face.
“Right so,” Dazai says, propping himself against the counter, tickets between his fingers, “I’m veryyyyyy sorry to bring this up on such short notice, but can I have a month vacation time?”
This time, Fukuzawa really does sigh. “Have fun.”
In truth, Dazai didn’t need any permission; he would’ve found a way to disappear regardless. But...Fyodor finds himself glad. Dazai’s hand is still searchingly warm on his shoulder, heavy as a weighted blanket, and…
It’s a blessing.