Silly little thing I thought of
Like like imagine dazai and the reader have been friends for years like the reader knew him since his 15 goofer era... and they got used to eachother sm they usually sleep in eachothers beds n stuff :3
LIKE SOMETHING IS GOING ON BUT THEY STILL HAVE THE FRIENDSHIP LABEL.. 🐺🤞
this concept stuck itself in my head like a tapeworm and it has not escaped me for days IM ACTUALLY OBSESSED i wrote SO MUCH for this omfg i had so much fun writing this thank u for this wonderful idea
pairing: dazai x gn reader
word count: 2.5k
content: fluff, vignette-style writing, friends-to-lovers unspoken label type of thing, soft dazai, domestic fluff without the marriage bit, banter, idiots in love
im taking requests!
===
Dazai’s toes are still as frigid at night as they were seven years ago. You, of all people, would be the best person to measure this—not in a weird way, but you two have shared a bed at least once a week since your teenage years. You know all of Dazai’s annoying sleeping habits, including his ones of sleeping without socks and digging his feet into your shins for warmth.
Annoying fucker. You sigh, batting his arm away from its loose hold around your waist. “Get your toes off of me,” you croak out, half-conscious and mind still addled with the remains of your once-deep sleep.
“What toes,” Dazai mutters back, smacking your intervening hand away and returning his arm to its rightful place around you. “I don’t have toes. I got rid of them after puberty, ‘member?”
“I’m gonna kill you.” You won’t, not really, and the threats have lost their edge after all these years, but it’s fun to throw at him when he annoys you like this. “I know all your weaknesses, Osamu. One wrong move and you’ll be missing more than just your toes.”
“I’m cold, dear. Would you really let me freeze like this? So mean.”
You try not to choke up at the nickname. He’s been a fan of those recently, at least in the last year. You think it has something to do with your new places at the Agency. New workplace, new life, and new nicknames, apparently. If you overthink it you might puke on him and fall back asleep.
“Not cruel. We have money now, you know. Go buy yourself socks. Wool, or something. Stupid ass cold ass toes.”
He goes quiet. Even in all these years of knowing him, half-living with him, you can’t tell if it’s a normal lull in the conversation or a calculated pause. It doesn’t unnerve you as much as it used to, but there’s still a cold chill at the nape of your neck that springs up at times like these.
“Why would I do that when I have you?”
Dazai has also been a fan of this recently—strange uncharacteristic moments of tenderness. He peels himself back for you and bares himself raw. The implications make you nauseous. Swathed in the darkness of the night, he can’t see your fingers twitch from where they lay next to your head, away from his sight; or the conflicted expression that crosses your face.
Easing your breath out into a steady, deep rhythm, you pretend to be asleep. It’s not like he can’t tell, but the message is there. Let’s not talk about this until the morning. Let’s just sleep for the night. Let’s keep what we have and not change it for the worse.
==
At age eighteen, shaken with the death of his friend and haunted by blood stains on his fingers, Dazai defects from the mafia.
He doesn’t take you with him—at least, he doesn’t mean to. He expects to leave quietly, or as quietly as blowing up Chuuya’s car can be. He doesn’t expect you to drag yourself along kicking and screaming.
Dazai doesn’t remember much about specifics, but he knows that one day he was alone in his underground apartment and the next day you were there. The kitchen smelled like melted marshmallows and rice krispies and his dingy counter was covered in sprinkles.
“Hi, Dazai,” you’d greeted conversationally. “I’m making your favorite.”
He doesn’t even like rice krispie treats. Hates them, actually.
In truth, your presence is less the result of you “kicking and screaming” and more like an after-effect of your own quiet stubbornness. Your kicking-and-screaming was done in the passive aggressive way that you cleaned his dishes and made his bed and left big trays of rice krispie treats in his fridge for the next week.
Neither of you talked about Chuuya. It was better for you that way.
On the first night, Dazai remembers you holding him from behind, forehead pressed into the stretch of skin between his neck and shoulder. He’s sensitive there despite being wrapped in his stupid scratchy bandaids. His memories for the rest of the night are overrun by a feeling of want, an itch to feel your fingers on his bare skin, a craving for your hand on his stomach to slide beneath the hem of his shirt and press into the tender skin of his abdomen and keep him warm.
===
“Leave me alone,” you grumble from behind the sleeve of your jacket. “I’m napping.”
“It’s not napping if you’re still awake.”
“I wouldn’t be awake if it wasn’t for your annoying ass.” Rotating your body to face the ceiling from your place on the Agency’s couch, you sigh when your view is blocked by Dazai’s ugly stupid face. He’s smiling in that conniving way that he does when he’s about to do something super annoying. Another sigh escapes you when he leans down close enough for the overgrown ends of his hair to brush against your nose. The puff of air from your verbal discontent makes the strands sway slightly. You try not to think about how mesmerizing he looks when he’s this close, with the light from the window casting a golden sheen on the crown of his head.
Since when did you get this sappy? Must be Dazai rubbing off on you, obviously.
“So tired already! It’s barely noon.”
“You came into work an hour ago. I’ve been here since eight. Try being responsible for a change, might exhaust you just as much.”
“Hmm.” He tilts his head, big stupid shiny brown eyes blinking down at you like he’s observing a specimen. “I think I’m more than responsible enough.”
“Sure,” you relent, turning back around to shove your face into the corner of the couch and block out the incoming light. It’s the truth—you’re exhausted. A persistent weariness permeates your bones from how much you’ve been working these last few weeks. It’s not like it’s anyone’s fault in particular, not even Dazai’s despite how much he slacks on paperwork. But looming threats from enemy organizations hang over everyone’s heads and there’s no shortage of uncertainty in the Agency. It’s been mission after mission for you, and you’re taking every break you can get.
Rustling sounds from above you, but you pay it no mind, busying yourself with nestling all of your body into the crevices of the couch and hopefully turning into a piece of furniture yourself. It might be a more peaceful life, really. The calm is short-lived when you feel fingers tap along your cheek—not in a rousing gesture, but something along the lines of placating.
Dazai squeezes a hand beneath your head and cups the side of your face pressed against the couch, tilting it closer to him before you feel a warm press of lips against your cheek. He lingers. He always does. You can feel the gentle inhales and exhales breeze against your face before he breaks his kiss away. Your cheek is warm for more reasons than one.
“Take care of yourself,” and oh, god, you’ll never get used to this, never get used to how tender and soft he’s become with you, never get used to how this Agency has fostered something like kindness in both of you. Your stomach stirs with something unnamed and if you were braver, you’d blink your eyes open and reach up and grab the sides of his face and pull him down to you.
But you’re not brave, and there’s people still behind you in the office, and you wonder what led Dazai to be soft enough to kiss your face like that in front of everyone. You’re sure they’re watching you both. The Agency is full of gossips, whether they admit it or not.
===
“Dazai,” Ango Sakaguchi grits out from behind the crackling reception of a burner phone. “They were not a part of the plan.”
“You think I don’t know that, Ango?” Dazai replies, tone more playful than aggressive. “I know they’re not a part of the plan. They knew they weren’t part of the plan, too. But it’s too late to do anything about it. It’s just a minor change.”
“A minor change?” Ango’s voice is strained with stress, no doubt pulling out strands of his hair as they speak. “I have to deal with not one, but now two members of the mafia defecting. Do you know how much work this was to begin with?”
The thing is—of course Dazai knows. He knows everything. The minute he found you in his kitchen, his stomach dropped with the uncertainty of the future. Going underground with another person was nothing short of a burden, at least on paper. But, he couldn't find it in himself to think of you like that. Like a burden.
“We’ll figure it out, Ango. If you don’t, then we will.”
A gritty sigh sounds from the other side of the phone call. “I’m putting a lot of faith in you, Dazai. Don’t screw this up.”
===
“Made you lunch. Since, obviously, you’re not gonna do that for yourself any time soon.”
A closed plastic container is thrown on the counter in front of Dazai. He looks at it, then up at you, eyebrow raised as if he doesn’t have a clue what this could be about. He’s not that stupid, though. You of all people would know that.
“How nice of you! Too bad I’m not hungry.” His lip juts out in a poor imitation of a pout, and he looks ugly with it. So ugly. Ugly enough to make you feel the need to kiss him all over and then slap him. An incredulous huff escapes you.
“I don’t care if you’re hungry. Eat. It has crab in it, see, your favorite.”
“I thought my favorite was rice krispies?”
You freeze. It hadn’t occurred to you that he might remember that, after all this time. You don’t dwell, because that’s the worst thing to do with Osamu Dazai—dwell.
“Don’t act stupid. Just eat it. Even if it’s not the whole thing, at least some of it. It would do you some good.” Getting serious with Dazai is one of the most awkward, unbearable things you could ever do. He has a way of making you feel stupid for worrying about him, with all his roundabout jokes and skills of evasion built up over years. You’ve found that being straightforward is the best way to avoid all those blank moments of silence.
His fingers curl around the plastic lid and pop it open. The container is still warm, having cooked all its contents just half an hour before showing up at Dazai’s apartment with conviction in your eyes. “Sure,” he says. “I’ll have some.”
You bring out a duplicate container with a serving for you, and treat yourself to a juice box from his fridge. You try not to launch into a lecture at the sight of his barren pantry—that’s best done by Kunikida. The both of you eat in silence, sitting across from each other at Dazai’s dusty kitchen island.
He only gets through a few bites before pushing the container away and complaining about how full he is. You know it’s not the truth, but it’s the mixed-up signals that his body sends him. It’s not that he’s full, but his persistent lack of appetite has caused a lot of troubles for him in the past and you don’t doubt that it’ll keep causing troubles in the future, too.
“Let’s get you to bed, then,” you tell him, dragging him up from his chair despite his whining protests. “I won’t make you shower, but you should probably do that tomorrow, ‘cause your hair’s about to get all greasy and disgusting.”
“So crude.”
“I do my best.”
You let him change on his own, but not before picking out a nice soft set of matching pajamas from deep inside his closet. You grumble a little in annoyance. The set was a birthday gift you got for him a year ago and that asshole pushed it to the back of his wardrobe and never touched it again. What a brat. You throw a pair of fuzzy socks at him to boot.
Once he’s changed into proper sleep clothes, you can tell that the exhaustion is starting to hit him. He sways a little on his feet and his blinks last for a little too long, as if he’s chasing sleep every time his eyes shut. With another begrudging sigh, you set him down on the floor of the bathroom and dollop his toothbrush with fruity kid’s toothpaste—because of course that’s the only toothpaste he owns—and brush his teeth for him.
Dazai dozes off in the middle of it, and you can’t bring yourself to wake him up in the most annoying way possible. You try really, really hard to not think about how soft you’ve gotten. You’re an ex-mafia member, past coated with dark stains and entrails and death, all of those dark things. Your blood is just as black as Dazai’s, if not more. And yet, being a part of this stupid Detective Agency with this stupid man has melted you down into something parallel to good.
Don’t dwell. It’ll do you no good.
You use a gentle grip with the toothbrush, ensuring that his delicate gums don’t tear with the force of the bristles. A warm feeling stirs in your chest. It feels like you’ve proven something, like you’ve proven to the world that your coal-stained hands can be gentle, too. You can kill and you can nurture. You tap Dazai awake with a little more care, now.
“Rinse your mouth,” you tell him in a whisper. “Then you can sleep.” And after a pause, you add, “I promise,” because now you’re in the business of making promises to people.
Dazai rinses his mouth, and you wipe off the remaining droplets of water from his face with a paper towel that you leave on the counter for your future self to throw out. You lace your fingers with his as you walk to his bed. Not that he needs any guiding. Of course he doesn’t. It’s just a little extra insurance, you think.
“Stay with me,” he mumbles out the minute you lay him down on the bed. It’s a sentence, and not a question, because he’d rather die than ask you something so vulnerable. He’s doing it again—peeling himself back and baring himself raw for you. Your head swims and your vision blurs with either a migraine or with tears, you can’t tell. But your lips quirk up into a stupid smile and he sees it despite his half-lidded eyes, and he smiles back like the stupid dope that he is.
“Yeah, of course. I’m right here, Osamu. Go to sleep.”
And he does. Of course, not before he feels you cup the opposite side of his face and plant a warm, lingering kiss on the swell of his cheek just as he did for you weeks before. The faint laugh that he lets out before he falls asleep is enough to tell you that he’ll be making fun of you for it in the morning. For now, though, he’s soft and pliant and warm between your hands, and you sleep.
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Water Gun Fight / "It's Not What You Think"
Fandom: The Bad Batch
Characters: Mox, Stak, Deke, Omega, Lyana, Jax, Eva, Hunter, Crosshair
Set when everyone is living happily on Pabu :)
Word Count: ~1560
Read Here on AO3
Synopsis: The children of Pabu have a water gun fight
“This isn’t fair. Whoever gets the clones on their team will win.”
Mox folded his arms, a faint, aloof smile painting his face. Either side of him, Stak and Deke stood loose and ready, empty water-pistols held with casual, easy confidence.
“Omega’s a clone too,” he pointed out. “So there’s four of us. You can have two on each team to keep it even.”
“That’s not even,” said Deke with exaggerated annoyance. “Omega was trained by the defectives. She fights dirty.”
“She fights tactically,” corrected Mox, smiling at the blonde girl whose own lips twitched in amusement. “Makes it a challenge.”
Around them the children of Pabu shifted and muttered as a ripple of discussion ran through the group. Some of the younger ones were already getting bored with the idea of teams and rules, pretending to aim at each other and pulling the triggers of their empty water pistols with giggles.
The older ones were taking the issue much more seriously. Nobody could decide what counted as an unfair advantage when it came to the former cadets’ and Omega’s training.
“I think the clones should only be allowed to target each other,” volunteered Jax. His confidence was blossoming with the care he received from his new foster-family on Pabu. “That would make it fair… right?”
“But the rest of you can still target us?” scoffed Stak. “No way.”
“We haven’t even picked team captains yet!” groaned Lyana, dragging her hands dramatically over her face. “At this rate the sea will dry up before we fill these water pistols!”
“I have an idea.”
Omega’s voice cut clearly over the chatter, and the children fell quiet. She had that effect when she took command.
She turned to Deke with a smirk that made her look oh-so-like her younger brother, if only she had a toothpick to hand. “You think I fight dirty?”
There was a deceptive casualness to her tone, the way her dark brown eyes flicked to his from under her long lashes.
Deke shifted uncomfortably, aware that being trapped in the spotlight of Omega’s attention whilst she was plotting something was not where he wanted to be.
“How about… I don’t participate?”
A cry immediately went up from the other children, the small crowd surging to surround her. Eva took her hand, tugging gently.
“You have to play, Omega. You have to.”
Omega held up her free hand, and all eyes turned to her. Mox was smiling out the corner of his mouth, one eyebrow raised in curiosity. He nodded to invite her explanation.
She fixed him with a firm look, challenge in her smile. “I won’t participate,” she repeated, squeezing Eva’s hand reassuringly. “I’ll direct them. The rest of the island against you three. Think you can handle it?”
Stak looked up at Mox, his face breaking into a wide grin. Mox glanced from Stak to Deke, taking in the latter’s nerves, then looked back to Omega.
His smile curved wide as he nodded.
“You’ve got a deal.”
*
“I don’t like this,” muttered Deke as they crept along the side of a building, pressed tight to the shadows and ignoring the glances and titters from the adults going about their daily business. “Omega will be planning something.”
“Exactly,” said Stak with a confident grin. “Wouldn’t be a challenge otherwise.”
Mox smiled but shushed their chatter, leaning round the wall to check the coast was clear. The water gun sat heavy in his hands, freshly reloaded. He’d emptied it – apologetically, almost – into a brother and sister in Lower Pabu.
That was the rule of the game. A soaked t-shirt meant you were out.
He ducked back when a jet of water streamed in his direction, accompanied by giggling.
Quirking an amused eyebrow at the other two, he gestured with his head. In moments the clones were storming the main street, water splashing everywhere, as shrieks of laughter filled the air.
In the end five dripping children stood about, huge grins on their faces, whilst the three clone boys were still bone-dry.
Lyana was among the victims. She had been drenched head-to-toe when Stak and Deke chased her into a corner, shielding her head with her arms to little effect and sobbing with laughter the entire time.
She stood proudly with her arms crossed now, her ‘troops’ at her side.
“Well, what now, boys?” she challenged.
Stak stepped forward, levelling the brightly coloured super-soaker towards her. “Tell us where your general is,” he demanded, unable to bite back his grin.
Lyana laughed. “You’ll never find her.”
“She’s at the Archium,” said Mox with a grin.
“You don’t know that,” piped up one of the Pabu boys bravely, but Mox just chuckled.
“It’s where I’d direct my squad from,” he said, tilting his head up and shielding his eyes from the glare of Pabu’s sun as he gazed up towards Upper Pabu.
“Reckon we can fight our way up there?” asked Deke, stepping to his side.
“Sure.” He glanced back at Lyana with a sly smile. “We’ve taken out her lieutenant. It won’t be long before we’ve ended this.”
*
The adults were generous about letting the clones into their houses to refill their water guns. A lifetime’s training came back easily, even after the soft months without warfare on Pabu, and Deke and Stak easily fell into their roles following Mox’s orders.
They avoided combat when they could to conserve their water supplies. Were ruthless in drenching the island’s children when they could not.
Jax made a valiant attempt to divert them, dancing tauntingly in the mouth of an alley-way which wound into darkness behind the shadow of a two-storey building. Deke laid a warning hand on Stak’s arm.
“Watch out. It could be an ambush.”
“He’s one kid,” grinned Stak. “How bad can it be?”
Jax backed away slowly as Stak advanced. He held his water pistol loosely in one hand as he raised his arms in surrender.
“See?” called Stak. “Not so bad.”
A muffled giggle sounded. Then Eva popped up from the balcony above, tipping a bucket of water which splashed squarely onto Stak, soaking his hair, his shirt, and most of his shorts.
The clone gasped with the shock of it, then a grin spread wide on his face. Jax’s face danced with mirth.
“Vengeance!” howled Mox playfully, and he and Deke dove into the alley, water guns firing. Soon the two force sensitive children were similarly drenched, laughing as Stak threw an arm around each of their shoulders.
“Guess I’m out,” he said good-naturedly, grinning at his brothers. “Think you can take the general down by yourself?”
“Leave it to us,” said Deke with a smile and a salute. “We’ll end Omega’s reign of terror. Just you wait and see.”
*
Storming the plaza in front of the Archium was a running battle. The clones ducked and hid behind market stalls, weaving between chuckling adults as they pursued their quarry, the other laughing children.
Water pistols emptied. Were refilled. Were replaced with weapons ‘looted’ from ‘fallen’ enemies.
Before long they had Omega pinned. Deke leaned over her where she lay on her back, winded but still smiling slyly, where he had tackled her to the floor.
“Orders, sir?” he asked over his shoulder.
“If we’ve captured their general we can negotiate,” said Mox with a cautious glance at Omega. She smoothed her face into an innocent expression, which was a dangerous thing.
“I say we execute her.” Deke primed his super-soaker. “She’s too dangerous to let her live.”
Mox shook his head. “Let her reach her com. She can call her troops off.”
Reluctantly, Deke lifted his foot from where he had pinned Omega’s arm. The blonde girl’s smile returned as she slowly inched her arm towards her face, activating her wrist-com.
“Havoc-1?”
“Yeah?”
The deep rumble of Hunter’s voice was so unexpected that both younger clones backpedalled in shock.
“Hunter–” said Mox, startled, and Deke glanced in panic at Omega’s prone position as he added, “It’s not what you think!”
Hunter folded his arms, tattooed face shadowed with displeasure, stepping forwards to shield Omega and loom over the cadets.
Mox glanced uneasily between them, holding his hands out to his sides in surrender.
“It’s a game–” he began.
The jet of water caught him squarely in the back, running down his spine to soak him to the skin. He yelled, and his shout was echoed by Deke when a similarly targeted blast drenched him too.
The clones spun, searching for the source of the attack. It didn’t take them long to spot Crosshair perched in the weeping maya tree, an impressively large super-soaker in his hands, toothpick clenched between teeth which were bared in a grin.
“No fair,” objected Deke. “This game is supposed to be for kids.”
“It is,” said Hunter, and now he let his brooding façade crack as he picked Omega up from the floor with a fond smile. “Didn’t you hear? We’re younger than Omega. If she can play, we can play…”
Omega returned her big-little brother’s smile and turned a sympathetic look on the two dripping cadets.
“Don’t feel bad,” she said blithely, glancing first at Hunter and then at Crosshair with adoration in her eyes. Her smile turned soft. “You were never going to win, not when I have them.”
Haha well way back at the submitting prompts stage it was my kiddo who volunteered water gun fight, and I guess you know I engaged in some spurious voting practice to get it into the top 26... thrilled that it got drawn as week 1!
With thanks to @ninjadeathblade who said Crosshair should be camping in the weeping maya tree waiting to snipe the cadets :P
And thanks to the amazing @kybercrystals94 for organising this challenge! You struck up a conversation with me out of the blue last summer and it's been so fun spending the past 10 months bouncing fic ideas back and forth as well as participating in prompt challenges with you. And now you're hosting your own one! Bad Batch Themed! How great is that! :D
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