Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Are you really going to wear that again?”

Dazai loops his blue bolo tie around his neck. “Yes,” he says, rolling his eyes, “obviously.”

Fyodor shakes his head and scoffs. “It’s so gaudy.”

“Your face is gaudy.” Dazai returns to fluffing his hair, flicking his head this way and that to survey the tensile strength of his curls.

Fyodor brushes through his own dark locks. He sits on a nearby chair, watching Dazai work. “I’m not sure why you bother with all that. You sweat so much when you dance it’s all limp and greasy in thirty seconds.”

The brunet barks a laugh. “At least I need to dance to make mine look like that.”

Behind him, red-violet eyes roll. Fyodor pushes Dazai from the mirror to swipe his perfume, which Dazai himself swiped from a Macy’s three months ago. 

“Shoplift your own shit,” he whines. Fyodor sprays it in his ear. “Hey!”

Backing away just in time to avoid the other’s swat, Fyodor adjusts the last of his accessories. His rings, freshly polished for tonight, decorate his pale fingers. The silver and gold bands shine under vanity lights, framing tiny sapphires, bits of ruby, and his favorite, amethysts. His outfit is otherwise quite plain: black slacks and a gray shirt (although the thread count, of course, is exceedingly high). 

Dazai turns then to wrestle back the cologne. “Can’t believe I’ll be smelling like you tonight…”

Fyodor hums and goes to grab their keys. While waiting for the car to start, the brunet debates wearing his own coat or stealing his friend’s. He ends up donning his regular apparel since Fyodor’s cloak smells like old alcohol and unwashed fur—and he’d rather share the same scent than walk around like a wasted polar bear.

The clock strikes eleven. 

They smile. 

“You think this place’ll be fun?” one of them asks.

“Sure,” one of them answers. “For me.”

🎶

The club is already crowded when they arrive, but Dazai and Fyodor are both unnaturally good at getting what they want: they easily acquire two seats toward the edge of the bar—a suitable spot to set up base. They shrug off their coats (and in Fyodor’s case, hat) to check their surroundings. Fyodor is searching for someone his friend will be utterly repulsed by when the brunet grabs his shoulder, a serious look on his face.

“Fedya,” he whispers. “I don’t feel like playing anymore.”

He follows his gaze to the bartender, a short, blue-eyed man with a strong build and a shock of red hair. 

“Him?” Fyodor asks. He isn’t impressed.

Dazai nudges him. “Yes him,” he hisses back. “You have horrible taste.”

Fyodor huffs through his nose. “Horrible taste and high standards are synonyms to you.” He reaches over Dazai to read a dingy menu. “Unfortunately, it takes two people to quit the game.”

“Yeah, fuck you.” He waves a couple fingers to catch the man’s attention. For drinks. Flirting can come later, when Fyodor’s not there to ruin his chances. 

Fyodor smacks him with the plastic. “Tell your dick to slow down. I have not even looked through the menu.”

“Ow!” Dazai whines, rubbing his elbow. “Like you were going to get anything different tonight.”

“Hmph.”

The bartender approaches them, wiping out a glass with a dingy white towel. 

“What can I get you?” he asks, leaning across the table. Dazai’s eyes accidentally drop to his forearms. They um. Look strong. 

“He’ll just have whiskey,” he hears Fyodor say, distantly. “Right, darling?”

Dazai snaps up suddenly from his accidental-but-appreciative glance with the disconcerting realization he’d left his sadistic friend to his own devices. He flicks his gaze over and glares daggers. 

He sniffs and says to the redhead, “Whiskey’s fine.”

If the bartender notices the malintent between them, he keeps it to himself. His blue eyes bounce from Dazai back to Fyodor. “How about you?”

After Fyodor orders his shitty vodka cranberry and the bartender’s back is turned, Dazai takes his own chance to whack him with the menu. “You are such an asshole,” he hisses. “Now he thinks I’m with you! God, I’m going to throw up…”

Fyodor blinks innocently. “You are with me.”

Dazai sighs and spins away from him. “You are the worst.”

“I was being nice,” he insists. “What good is a game with no hoops to jump through? I only wanted to increase the difficulty for you. Surely you can handle it?”

“I don’t want to play the game in the first place! You’re paying for this,” Dazai says with a scoff. “Like literally. You’re paying for these drinks.”

“Mm. We’ll see.” 

Fyodor rests his chin on folded hands. He doesn’t expect this night to get any better for Dazai, of course. He has plans—and Fyodor always executes his plans. 

Their drinks arrive a few minutes later. It’s not the redhead who drops them off. Or at least, not the redhead Dazai was hoping for. This one has a bandage over his nose. 

“Here ya go. Chuuya took a smoke break,” he explains, dropping off their glasses, as if either of them should recognize the name. Fyodor watches Dazai’s doe eyes glitter with interest and sighs internally. There’s a lot his friend can do with microscopic bits of information; if Dazai leaves here without learning Chuuya’s number, he’ll no doubt just detective-style stalk him online tonight with the only clue that singular name. 

So, it seems, there’s nothing left for him at the bar. He’ll have to cause malfeasance elsewhere. Satisfied with the idea of a switch in scenery, Fyodor nods once and picks up his drink. “Alright then,” he announces. “Have a lovely time without me.”

“Always do,” Dazai says in return, tipping his own glass toward the sky. “Don’t get mugged, ne? I’ll need the money.”

A scoff and he’s off. Fyodor paces for a bit around the floor perimeter, taking note of possible targets and occasionally dodging the very drunk, before striding over to the opposite side of the bar. It’s ideally concealed by a blocky black hutch and the speed rack: after all, he doesn’t want Dazai to see what’s coming. That would ruin the surprise. 

Finally, after searching through balding heads and faces he just knows will send his friend into a seizure, Fyodor makes his first play. 

“You see my friend over there?” he asks an older gentleman whose shirt is sweaty in some unattractive places. “He’s very lonely. I will pay you ten dollars to sit next to him and talk his ear off for twenty minutes,” he whispers, flashing him a bill. 

The man takes it. They usually do. In fact, Fyodor usually checks to be sure they’re already staring at Dazai, so that they’re more likely to accept, and less likely to leave him alone when he tells them to go away. The money doesn’t matter—Fyodor always finds a way to swipe it back. That’s part of the fun. 

He goes on to the next one. Fifteen dollars to show him every tattoo that you have. 

The next one. I think that brunet over there likes you, he says. You know, he loves it when people play with his hair. He doesn’t even have to pay.

The next. Order crab for the both of you, but only let him eat it off your fingers. Shrug. He’s into that sort of thing. 

The last one is a kindness, of course. That bolo tie is the single ugliest adornment he’s ever laid eyes upon, and he’s doing Dazai a favor by destroying it. Twenty-five (after the deed) is honestly too cheap.

Quite pleased with his scheming, Fyodor sips his drink and saunters off. It will be best not to interrupt the suffering that will ensue. 

🎶

At a tap of his shoulder, Dazai turns. 

“Hi sweetheart,” says someone he is not interested in and never will be. 

Dazai does not even bother to say hi back, instead returning to his drink—and his sightseeing. Chuuya is chatting with some other customers now. Chuuya is wearing a pencil on his ear so he can scribble down their orders. Chuuya’s box of cigarettes is sticking out of his back pants pocket. Dazai respectfully will not mention the way Chuuya’s body holds those pants in place. 

The stranger taps him again.

Dazai grumbles. 

“I’m,” he says a name—apparently not quite realizing Dazai hadn’t asked for one and was actively trying to avoid knowing it. The man, at least twenty-five years older than him, takes Fyodor’s vacant seat and pulls out his phone. “How about we get to know each other?”

He then swipes through his gallery, yapping as he shows Dazai photos of his three dogs despite the younger’s obvious displeasure. Two are yellow and one is black, and all of them look hopelessly stupid. Cats and maybe he wouldn’t have minded… but dogs? And only pictures of dogs? And still he’s droning on. Does this man have no other interests?

“Wow,” he says in monotone, “they’re so cute.”

The man cocks his head and coos in his ear, “So are you.”

Dazai swishes down another sip of whiskey. It burns, and the sensation is arguably more enthralling than sitting here listening to this random guy talk about the ugliest animals he’s ever seen, and then deliver compliments at about their same intelligence level. He can’t believe Fyodor found a man this boring. Kinda impressive, actually. 

“I appreciate that,” he tells him, “but you aren’t. So shoo. Bye now.”

The man is rightfully offended, and his eyebrows screw down in anger. Dazai admits he could have said that with more tact, but he tried to give him a few hints. It’s not his fault the guy couldn’t figure them out!

“No wonder you’re lonely,” he scoffs, scooting off the stool and shaking his head. He shuffles off in another direction. 

Lonely? Had Fyodor told this dumbass he was lonely? What other lies had that asshole been spreading?

Dazai swerves around to scour the crowd for his friend—only to come face-to-face with a man covered in tattoos. “Oh, sorry,” he explains, leaning away against the bar. “I’m looking for someone.”

The guy follows, laying a hand on Dazai’s chest like he’s calming him down. “I think you’ve found him.”

Another set-up? Sigh...  

Dazai swats him away, squinting his eyes in annoyance. “Let’s agree to disagree.”

“Come on,” the man presses. “I talked to a friend of yours. He says you’re into my ink.”

“My friend lied to you, unfortunately,” Dazai says with as much consideration for feelings as he can muster. He reaches back around to grab his whiskey, eyes dull with disappointment when he sees the man is now unbuttoning his left sleeve. 

“Got this one to cover up my ex’s name,” he laughs. “She hated sharks, so I knew exactly how to hide it.”

Dazai nods but never looks at it. He’s still scanning for Fyodor so he can shove a vodka cranberry cocktail up his ass and get back to flirting with Chuuya. 

“Got an anchor here. Ever been on a boat before? I could take you some time.”

“Pass.”

“How ‘bout a rock concert?” He is pointing, probably, to a bunch of music notes. 

Dazai shakes his head. “No. Listen, go show those to someone else. Art is wasted on me.”

The man finally seems to get the message; he bobs his head and sighs, taking a sip of his drink—a plain beer—as he backs off. Consoled, Dazai shifts to make sure Chuuya is still serving. He doesn’t know when he’ll be off the clock, and seeing as it’s already midnight, Dazai should keep a close eye on his could-be schedule. A flash of red hair pops up from behind the counter. He’s re-stocking, it seems. Squatting to level some ingredients on the lower shelves. His legs look nice like that. Not that he’s looking. 

The stereo kicks up a bit, pumping a steady, faster beat and swelling the air with snare drums and synths. Tinks of glass and talking, a constant, keep up with the change in volume. Another customer appears at Dazai’s side but luckily doesn’t breathe a word to him. Instead, he opens one of the sticky plastic menus from its stack, oblivious to the other’s relief. 

Perfect, he thinks. If Chuuya comes over to take his order, Dazai can charismatically ask when his shift is over. And call for another whiskey. 

One bad thing though: the guy’s hands are grossly sweaty. Dazai can see them smearing the menu, and he’s seriously not even trying to look. Hell, he is actively trying to not look—it’s just impossible to miss the smudgy prints streaking the once-pristine plastic. And he also can’t help but notice the way he’s squinting at the menu. It’s as if he’s senile. In fact, just as Dazai is discreetly evaluating him for an eye exam, the stranger seems to notice the brunet for the first time, and leans over, one finger tapping a box of white text. “Have you had the crab here?” he asks after clearing his throat.

Dazai shakes his head. “Haven’t had any of their food.”

“Hm.” The man returns to his survey of the snack list before speaking again. “...How about we both try it then?”

Okay.

Uh huh.

Alright. 

Is this a third trap? Absolutely. But Dazai is a little hungry, and he’s never been one to pass up on an offer like that. Free crab, he thinks, is his favorite perk of being cute. 

“Sure,” he says with a shrug. And hey, for a trap, the dude at least seems somewhat normal. 

Content to avoid any conversation, Dazai sits back into his stool and waits, eyes drifting equal distance between the bastard he arrived with and hot bartender Chuuya. The song currently playing transitions into a slightly slower, but stronger beat, and he taps his shoe in time with it. He turns his head and for half a millisecond thinks azure blue eyes might have been looking back at him. Before he can blink and confirm it, Tachihara blocks his view, jotting down the other guy’s order.

Ugh! Seriously? Isn’t this Chuuya’s side?

Apparently not anymore, because as hard as Dazai tries to inadvertently catch Chuuya’s attention by careful (and he hopes, provocative) position of an empty glass, it’s yet again Tachihara who hands him a refill and slides over a fresh plate of crab puffs to Set-Up #3. 

“Ah,” the man starts awkwardly, pulling the platter towards himself, “here. Let me.”

Dazai blinks twice, communicating as much contempt as he possibly, possibly can, at the fingers withholding a crab puff from him. 

“If you are suggesting that you feed me,” he says, “I would rather bite your entire hand off and have us both be taken to opposite hospitals than eat that crab.”

For his part the guy blushes and stutters out a flustered apology. His shaky hand jolts the platter and a few puffs tumble to the floor. Dazai waves a hand to assuage him, rubbing his temple hard. Certainly it’s not his fault: this man was just a pawn manipulated into shooting his pitiful shot. He shudders to think of what Fyodor might have done to coerce someone so bad at flirting to hand-feed a stranger bar crab.  

“Really, if you want some, have it, I was just—”

“No. No thanks, I’m not that hungry anyway.”

“I-if you’re sure. I mean, can I buy you a drink or something instead—”

“No need. Look. Let’s just. Move on.”

The man licks his lips and flushes again. He lifts a finger, nods and opens his mouth as if to say sorry for the trillionth time, but abruptly stops. His gaze is fixed over Dazai’s shoulder, and he looks significantly disturbed. Dazai turns around.

Tattoo Man had, apparently, not gone as far away as Dazai’d anticipated. He had also, apparently, elected to take his shirt off and wait for Dazai to see it, because as soon as he’d spun face-to-face with the man’s bare chest, a large arm was suggestively framing his back against the bar counter.

“From this angle it’s an optical illusion,” the man slurs, leaning over Dazai and subsequently polluting his air supply with the scent of alcohol. “See it?” he rolls his hips and stomach to showcase a badly-drawn tiger opening and closing its mouth

“Oh my god, no,” he says, shutting his eyes tightly and smacking him off, “Who gave that design the green light? Go away!”

Officially angered, Dazai flings himself off the stool—fuck looking for Fyodor, he’s going to make the goddamn bouncer do it and get that motherfucker thrown out. Three at once? That’s too far.

He grabs his whiskey for good measure, but squawks when a hand is suddenly smoothing down his hair. He slaps whoever the hell it is—tattoo guy or crab with-holder—which inadvertently causes a collision with someone a few steps away, and the auburn alcohol to splash down the front of their suit. 

“Hey!” snaps a blond man with glasses as he grabs his shirt collar. “Watch where you’re going! Do you have any idea how much this shirt costs?! You’d better pull out your wallet right now if you don’t want—”

Dazai doesn’t have the time to ask why the hell you’d wear your Sunday best to the fucking club, let alone ten-inch-thick glasses, because in the next two seconds he’s tugged away by another guy, this time by his tie. 

“Back off,” this one—whose face is yet another mystery—says to the man behind him. “I was promised cash for this, and I’m not going to miss out on it ‘cause you’re pissed about a—”

“Cash!?” Dazai screeches. He and Fyodor were going to have another talk about the rules when he found that scheming little rat. Had he been relying on financial persuasion this whole time?! Economist freak…!

The guy gives a second, harsher tug on his tie, jerking Dazai’s neck. The brunet chokes out a sound of surprise before yanking back and clutching the bolo tighter. “What the—knock it off! You’ll break it!”

They scuffle, the guy refusing to release the tie while Dazai scratches back like a cat. Over the racket of the club the other men around them break into arguments. Dazai feels something smack into his back, only realizing it was a crab puff of all things when another sails through the air. He flips to find Tattoo Man and the one who ordered the appetizer in a shouting and shoving match. There’s no time to process what that’s about before he’s literally being hauled by the bolo tie into the blond man from before, kickstarting a second round of outrage, and now Dazai’s between two pissed-off guys with big muscles in a way he really does not appreciate. He swallows. Like seriously. This is not how he wanted the night to go.

“Hey!” someone blessedly shouts from the bar. "What the hell is going on over there?!”

🎶

“Please Siggy,” a white-blond man begs. “Please, please, do this for me! I’ll never ask anything of you again!” He grabs another man’s hand and kisses it profusely, chanting, “My sweet, sweet Sigma—”

Sigma rips his fingers away.

“Isn’t it enough that I got you in?” he hisses. “I didn’t sign up to play wingman!”

“It’s just one little favor! I promise I’ll pay you back, okay? Sigma, come on, look at him. Look at him. Look at him. Look—”

“I saw him when we were outside standing in line, while you were staring at him for the entire twenty minutes!” 

“Sh-sh-shush! Will you keep your voice down?!” 

“No!”

“You’re gonna get me kicked out again,” the taller one whines. 

“You’re going to get yourself kicked out again, Nikolai.”

“Come on,” he pleads. “I’ll buy you a box of cookies from the bakery on the way back. A whole box—”

They both shut up as the figure from Nikolai’s wettest dreams—tall and thin and dark and brooding with purple eyes and purple rings—walks by. 

Nikolai throws himself against Sigma. “Just ask him PLEASE—”

“ALRIGHT!”

🎶

“Thanks,” the guy says, smoothing his tie for the seventeenth time and pulling out a stool. “Sorry about that. My friend sends all these guys up to me as a joke and it just… got way out of hand, I guess.”

“Your friend did that?”

“What, did you think I’m just so hot six different people would come up and talk to me within twenty minutes?”

There is a stretch of silence. Minus the dancing and the drums and the drinks.

Because yes. Yes, he did think that. Look, he’s hot, alright? Objectively. Anyone would think that. Not just him. But: “No,” Chuuya says, very convincingly. “Just think that would be a really shitty friend.”

“He is a really shitty friend,” he says, smooshing his chin into his hand. 

Chuuya, meanwhile, has just now realized that this “really shitty friend” is the one who ordered the whiskey—the one Chuuya thought was his date. 

“Well,” he says. “You should be fine over here. I’m not just gonna let you get re-bombarded by a bunch of suitors your friend set up.” That sounded professional. Right? He throws aside his rag to offer a hand. “I’m Chuuya, by the way. So if someone’s bothering you, just tell them you know me.”

The brunet takes it and shakes it. “Oh. Are you popular around here, Chuuya?”

He shrugs. His hand is colder than expected. And thinner. And softer. “I was a bouncer here before I was a bartender. So the regulars know I’m not afraid to beat up anyone who pisses me off.”

“Aha. I’m Dazai.” 

“Pleasure.” He gives his hand another jerk and mmm… reluctantly lets it go. “Look, let me get you another whiskey, yeah? You can actually enjoy this one.”

“Oh. That’s alright, I don’t—”

“It’s on the house.”

Dazai blinks. His brown eyes gain a brassy, glittery spark, and a smirk spreads across his face. “If you insist. Chuuya.”

He turns to grab his tools, ignoring the heat swirling in his gut (way too close to his groin). 

Is Chuuya hoping this guy will stay til the end of his shift so he can get to know him a little better? Maybe. Is it not entirely ethical to offer Dazai a drink in the hopes that he won’t leave too soon? Also maybe. But the whiskey bottle is already in his hand, and the ice is already in the glass, and his heart is already kinda-sorta set on blowing this guy’s back out by the end of the week. 

So.

Cheers.

🎶

Dazai watches Chuuya make his drink and wonders if he imagined the intentions behind it. 

He doesn’t think he did. But hm, confirmation bias can be a bitch. Ah well. Even if offering a free drink on the job wasn’t an outreach of attraction, Dazai is confident his charm will suffice. Because, he has decided, he desperately wants his back blown out by Chuuya the redhead ex-bouncer bartender. At the very least by the end of the week. 

Just as Chuuya shakes his shaker-thing, Dazai detects someone approaching from the corner of his eye. He turns suspiciously, prepared for a fight if it’s Fyodor daring to show his face, but his sight falls on a long-haired man who looks… strangely pained. 

“Hi,” he sighs, his eyes shifty. “Um… look, I know this is childish, but my friend wants to know who your friend is. The one with the black hair?”

“Sorry, one more time?” Dazai asks, cupping his ear. He heard him perfectly the first time, but finds his awkwardness a little too funny to not repeat. 

The man repeats himself, this time a little clearer. He seems irritated, and Dazai is pretty sure his friend actually did force him to ask Dazai rather than approach Fyodor himself. Hm-hm-hmmm. Fyodor wants to play? He’ll play. It will be fun, watching his friend deal with this loser.

“It’s Fyodor,” he tells him. “His name’s Fyodor.”

Chuuya catches his eye and quirks a brow, nodding toward the latest individual to come near the counter. Dazai waves a hand and shakes his head; the man notices but says nothing, except to thank him, and shuffles off. 

The brunet doesn’t think Chuuya was joking when he said he’d beat someone up for him. Imagining that makes him a little woozy, which he thinks he’ll blame alcohol for. 

Dazai doodles his number on a nearby napkin. Hmm… should he draw a crab in the corner? A caricature of himself? Tattoo Man’s horrifying stomach tiger? Decisions, decisions.

“Sorry to bother you again but, um, now my friend wants to know if he’s… Russian.” The man from two minutes ago flicks his hands up and waves them, flapping his hair accidentally, which only adds to his frazzled appearance. “I don’t mean to be rude! I’m not assuming anything, I swear, he just told me to ask and he’s—”

Dazai cuts him off with a nod, sipping as he does. “Ah, like a foreign fetish? A little problematic… but oh, payback is sweet. Tell your friend he speaks it too. He’s got a really hot accent. Especially when—”

“Okay!” The man covers his face with his hands. “Thank you!”

After he’s gone, Chuuya drifts back over. Dazai is ninety-two point seven percent certain he’s interested. They chat a little, flirt a lot—or at least as much as Chuuya can say during his shift. Dazai is happy to tease him for this, dropping hints here and there buried in fake oblivious innocence. A tap on his shoulder has Dazai internally cursing every bad word he’d learned since third grade.

What the hell, is he a hostage or something?! Who the fuck is this guy’s friend?!

“Last time,” the poor, poor man says, “I swear this is the last time. But my friend, ah, wants to know if your Fyodor friend is single.”

Dazai stirs the ball of ice around his whiskey and turns. “What’s your name?”

The man, who is wearing tall ass heels by the way, shifts. “You can call me Sigma.”

“Sigma-chan, would you agree that that would have been a great question for your friend to start with?”

“Yes,” he tells him earnestly. “Yes, I would agree.”

He closes his eyes. At least he’s aware of the insanity of the situation. Maybe someone check on him? Make sure he’s not under threat of blackmail or, like, death? Someone less tipsy, obviously, and less busy… Dazai has things to do. Things to be done. 

“Good.” He pats him on the head. “Now. This is going to blow your friend’s mind, but we are actually in a gay club, which is a place where gay men go so they can hook up with other gay men. So yes. He is single.” He tilts his head toward Chuuya and says loudly enough so he can hear, “Just like me. So go! Run along now! Be free! Shoo!” 

🎶

Pale fingers slip the thin, delicate strip of a ten dollar bill from an artfully unzipped satchel. Oh, look at that—he accidentally took two. Fyodor hums in approval. Ah, heaven forgive him: certainly the money has found a better home. 

He tucks the note in a back pocket, slinking away to scout the next target and pay himself back; or as some call it, steal. And—aha—there is the tattooed atrocity. Shirtless. 

Poor Dazai-kun. Perhaps he took it a step too far. 

Not one to lament in past regret, he shrugs and starts to to walk in that direction—straight into the shoulder of someone who was definitely not there a tenth of a second ago.

“Ah—Простите!”

Fyodor wrinkles his brow. “Excuse me?”

The man misinterprets. 

“Oh, you speak Russian?” he asks with a very, very, very bright smile, coming closer to Fyodor’s face.

He backs up a step. 

“When it suits me,” he says carefully. “But I only meant it was odd for a stranger to speak a language so far removed from this country, to another stranger, so far removed from him.”

He is almost certain Dazai sent this man after him, but—his gaze trails over the other’s thighs, his two-toned eyes, his long blond hair—at least he’s nice-looking, not to mention unique. Fyodor likes the ones that stand out. Perhaps his friend made an error tonight, so absorbed in escaping his admirers. Or too busy demanding the attention of that dull bartender.

“I have no idea what you just said,” the man says honestly, “but you sounded hot and you look hotter.”

At first glance the man appears similar to Dazai—fake and flirtatious with an exaggerated, self-aggrandizing personality. The difference is that this man seems flashy not to subvert his attention, but to gain it. He doesn’t waste his time with a thank you, instead interested to see how far that gallantry may go.

“Want to dance?” the strange stranger asks. 

“I don’t come here to dance,” he says, brushing past him—a tad curious to see if he will be chased through a heady crowd. This tactic is called “hard to get,” and to be clear, he does not let it happen often. Tonight’s occurrence is a rarity. Fyodor has decided this man is a game worth playing. 

He came here for fun, after all. Dazai doesn’t want to have it, so isn’t it sweet to find a stranger so much like him? And Fyodor does like his friend, despite the pretenses they keep up. Dazai is intriguing simply because he is Dazai, and Fyodor has a habit of collecting similar things.  So, in a few moments he’s hidden himself between rocking bodies and rolling hips. The music is louder here, and the ambience too: the buzz of voices, slurred and sparkly laughter, the smell of sex and perfumed sweat. Around him people are sliding across each other, skimming their hands along waistbands, swaying in the strobe lights to the beats and sounds of EDM.

Someone, just then, slips their fingers round the junction of his ribs and waist and whispers, “What do you come here to do?”

Fyodor’s mouth curls. “What interests me,” he says over his shoulder, spinning from the hold and slipping away again.

The man finds him much quicker this time—probably thanks to his height advantage. He tilts his chin with a couple fingers, as if to reinstate that point. “I can be very interesting.”

Fyodor squints to incite a challenge, but doesn’t pull away. He likes those fingers there. And the eyes that are looking at what they’re holding. “Really?”

“Yes,” the other says. “See?”

And he lifts his hand from Fyodor’s chin to his ear to hold a flower out before his chest. 

Fyodor blinks. 

“Magic,” the man says, a big grin on his face. 

Fyodor blinks again, and then looks back up. 

“Take it. It’s yours.” 

He presses the flower—a pinkish daisy—and closes Fyodor’s hand around the stem with his own. 

“Magic tricks at a nightclub,” he mumbles. “Maybe you are interesting.”

“I can do more than that,” he tells him in a low voice. His lips are close to his ear; his hands close to his chest where they hold the rose together. 

Fyodor leans back only to tease him, lifting the flower to his nose to smell it. “What if I don’t believe you?”

“Then I guess you’ll have to stick around me and see.”

When he tugs his hand toward another room, Fyodor follows. Because why not? He likes secrets, and banter, and decidedly tall blond men with pretty eyes and long braids. 

🎶

“So then he was like, ‘that tie is so gaudy.’ Gaudy! Can you believe that? This tie is great,” pouts Dazai, defensively petting his favorite fashion accessory. A fourth drink is in his hand, and he tips it, swallowing his sorrows away. 

“I don’t know,” Chuuya the bartender says with a lazy smile. “There’s gotta be something better out there.”

Dazai opens his mouth, deeply offended. And drunk.

“Have you ever considered chokers?” he asks. Taps his own. “Like this one? I think you’d look good. Wearing mine.”

A fifth glass stops halfway to Dazai’s mouth. He blushes a very bright red. 

“What? Alcohol makes you all abashed and shit?”

He sniffs and sets the glass down, as if that’s so representational of his sobriety. “Of course not. Just surprised by your fashion sense. You must know chokers are so last… year. Yeah. Last year.”

“Oi, seriously, I think you’ve had enough by now.”
Dazai shakes his head, but doesn’t put up much resistance when Chuuya slides the rest of his whiskey out of reach. He watches brown eyes trace his fingers and wonders if Dazai would be into the good kind of gloves.  “Fyodor’s paying,” the brunet says while still staring. “I’m not letting ‘im leave without paying. A-hic—and he’s the DD.”

“Didn’t he order something too?”

“Just his vodka cranberry. Doubt he even drank a third of it. That stuff is horrible, you know. I chugged the whole thing once to make him mad. Wasn’t worth it.”

Chuuya snorts. “I’ll bet it wasn’t.”

“Mmm-mm,” he agrees. Sleepily, he stuffs his forehead into crossed arms. Fluffy tufts of brown hair stick up in random directions. They bob in time with random hiccups. Cute.

Chuuya watches him for a little. Definitely just to make sure he hasn’t actually fallen asleep or is in need of medical attention. When big eyes of the same pretty brown color eventually peer back up at him, he sighs and flicks his forehead. “Are you even gonna remember me by tomorrow morning?”

Dazai’s brows pinch together and he sits back up at the speed of light. “How could I forget Chuuya? He saved me!”

“Well,” he rubs his neck, “not your life or anything—”

“My hero,” he croons, and dammit, that really does something to Chuuya’s dick. “What would I do… without Chuu-Chuu…”

Chuuya laughs, smiling probably too hard at the way Dazai’s face scrunches up when he ruffles his hair. “You do look like you do need someone to take care of you.”

A few seconds to process and ah… Yep. There it is. 

God, he doesn’t see himself getting tired of that shade of red. 

🎶

“You say you don’t come here to dance, but would a slower version interest you?”

Fyodor and his fairly odd suitor are in a storeroom. They can still feel the pulse of the club, but the pounding of the bass is mostly dull, peaceful background music. Their hands are twined together. Fyodor can feel the warmth of the other’s fingers. He is surprised to realize he would like to feel more of it; more of him. 

“You are rather romantic for a man I’ve met at a random night club,” he says with a curl of his mouth. He steps closer anyway, allowing, this time, a hand to slide around his waist and stay there.

The man returns his smile.  “Are you looking for romance?” he asks. His eyes flit over Fyodor’s face before plucking the flower from his fist and tucking it behind his ear. 

Fyodor thinks if he were a weaker man—if he were Dazai, drunk off his ass—he would blush. Instead he tilts his chin up while lowering his lids. “Right now I suppose I am only looking for a name.”

The man bows to him, still holding his hand, like Fyodor is a maiden whose blessing he wishes to be bestowed upon. “Nikolai Gogol.”

“Aha,” he laughs. “So you are Slavic. I thought you’d only asked my friend about me and spoken into Google translate after taking his advice.”

“A friend of mine asked your friend,” he explains with an overdone air of suavity that suggests to Fyodor there may be more to that story. He flicks his hair with a sigh. “I admit my performance wasn’t up to my usual standard, but you must forgive me, Fedya. As you may have gathered, I’m quite the jester at heart… but somehow you’re the only soul to ever give me stage fright.”

“Did I say you could call me Fedya?”

Nikolai smiles at his teasing, taking Fyodor’s arms and twisting them around his neck. “Do you want me to slow down?”

Fyodor laces his arms closer. “Time is a construct, no?”

“As are names.”

“And nightclubs.”

“And clothes.”

Nikolai laughs softly and controls the rhythm of their sway. In the dark, away from the strobes and striking LEDs, his eyes shine more brightly. Fyodor observes them just as intently as they observe his own, and he feels drawn to the other, as if there are magnets buried behind both their irises, interlocking their minds with bridges of inexplicable, invisible pull. Magic again? Hm. 

Nikolai leans down and tilts Fyodor’s spine with a palm to level their heights. Tilting his face slightly left, he connects their foreheads. “You’re so pretty,” he whispers. 

“Ay, Kolya,” he says, his own hand sliding one of Nikolai’s blond curls back into place. “I thought jesters were poets. Can’t you do better than that?”

Nikolai closes his eyes, tickling Fyodor’s face with long lashes. Their noses lock.

“Unfortunately no, Fedyushka, because your beauty has stolen all the thoughts from my brain,” he says, breathy. “But I broke into this club because I wanted to kiss you so bad, and I was hoping that would be enough.”

Fyodor smiles. “Mm. In recognition of the current constraints built upon us by centuries of cultural, political, and economic structures… I suppose, just this once, I would allow an exception.” 

No sooner is the sentence spoken than a second pair of lips seals his own; Nikolai’s hand is at once in his hair, at first clutching a bunch of it and then softly, carefully carding through. A break only for air, and to stare, and then fingers skirt over Fyodor’s waist, hoisting him up onto one of the nearby crates. From his new position he loops legs around the other’s frame and leans forward, kissing more firmly from this angle, arms still woven in a knot around Nikolai’s neck. 

🎶

Chuuya’s wrapping up his shift when the panicky man with a pink-and-white split-dyed wig from earlier approaches. At least he assumes it’s a wig. He hopes it’s a wig, because the poor piece of shit looks like it went through a woodchipper. Those layers. Yikes.

Dazai, who’d been bouncing between somewhat intelligent conversation and nonsensical mumbles, notices him right away. “Sigma-chan!”

Sigma dips his head in acknowledgement. He brushes a hand through a section of those god-awful hair strands and turns to Chuuya. “Hi there. I was wondering if you’d… seen my friend leave? Or go anywhere? Or… anything? I can’t find him, and I was hoping to go home at least three hours ago.”

Chuuya swishes his mouth. Seriously? Just as he was about to start talking off the clock?

  “I mean, maybe,” he sighs, squashing those thoughts. “What’s he look like?”

Just as he’s about to answer, Dazai juts in.

“Ah, Sigma-chan, your friend isn’t an ax murderer is he?” Dazai scratches his hair. “Now that you mention it, I haven’t seen Fyodor either. I try not to care about him, but he does pay the rent with me, and I’d be very sorry if he died….”

“You haven’t seen Fyodor either?”

Dazai shakes his head. “No. Well. I wasn’t looking for him. But now that you’ve brought him up, I am smally concerned for his safety.”

“Smally,” Chuuya echoes, chuckling. 

“This isn’t funny,” Sigma hisses. “You don’t know what he does when he’s unsupervised!”

“Ah. That sounds like Fyodor.”

“Alright, I’ve heard and seen enough. Let’s find these two before they blow up the club or pull some other supervillain shit. And by the way,” he points at the both of them, “you two need new friends.”

“Field trip!” Dazai sings when Chuuya slips around the bar, swinging his keys and gesturing for them to follow.

The three walk through flashing, flicking rainbow lights on shiny black flooring. Dancers and drinkers party on, oblivious to Sigma and Chuuya’s distress; Dazai, by contrast, seems more intrigued than anything. The bartender has an idea as to where their two at-large, maybe insane, individuals might be. And Dazai doesn’t, and Dazai’s drunk, so it makes total and one hundred percent sense for Chuuya to take his hand and lead him there. Sigma trails behind. 

Eventually they arrive at the used-to-be storage room, blockaded now by a wall-length leather couch and the nonsense scribbles of modern art. There’s still stuff in there: crates, reusable containers, some holiday decor, random crap. The staff has just been using a better, bigger room since their budget allowed for an add-on. How the hell those two would’ve gotten in there without a key is a mystery. Chuuya shuffles his own around and unlocks the partially hidden sliding door, sighing when fluffy brown hair is stuffed in his face as Dazai strains to get first peek.

He stares for a minute, eyes adjusting. Chuuya waits, watching endearingly, tapping his shoe, though, to maintain appearances.

Suddenly the brunet turns. His drunken expression sharpens into distress. “Oh my god,” he whispers. 

“What?” Chuuya pushes him protectively from the door. “Was he murdered? Did they both murder someone?”

“No, no,” Dazai shakes his head and hides behind the other’s shoulders, a disturbed look on his face. “No, Fyodor was… smiling.”

Now Sigma looks horror stricken. “Someone was smiling? W-with Nikolai?”

Chuuya swings around to face him. “Your friend is Nikolai? As in Nikolai Gogol?”

Sigma nods. On his tired face is a rather excruciated expression.

“He’s got a lifetime ban from this place! And from, like, every other club in the area!”

Sigma nods again, beating the impossible by somehow conveying even more emotional pain than before. 

In a flash Chuuya flips the door fully open and smacks the storage lights. Fyodor and Nikolai swing their heads to the intrusion. The latter’s sight zeroes in on Chuuya and he mumbles something, either a promise or an apology, in a Slavic tongue. A disaster takes place in slow motion: Nikolai guides Fyodor off the crate, tilts his chin, kisses him in the deepest, most passionate and perverted nightclub kiss Chuuya has ever had the misfortune to witness, and then shoves the box over only to slide through a fucking hole in the floor. And then, apparently, he’s running, as told by the slapping, shoe-esque echoes resounding off the tunnel walls.

The remaining four stand for a minute in stunned silence.

Fyodor shrugs, turning as if to follow. 

“What the hell! No,” Chuuya starts in. “You’re not going after him! You need to drive Dazai home.”

Fyodor scrunches his eyebrows, thoroughly confused. “I thought you were taking him home.”

Chuuya feels his face burn. “No I’m not taking him home, he’s drunk and we just met!”

Dazai helpfully points out that he’s not that drunk, which he proves by emphatically gesturing with limbs that don’t quite cooperate.

“What is the problem? I have only just met Nikolai and I would certainly not say he is sober.”

“He’s sober,” Sigma says, “he’s just insane.”

Chuuya glares at him. “And you! Did you know about this…” he gestures at the missing floor tile. “Secret entrance… escape tunnel shit?”

He shakes his head vehemently. “No! If I did, I wouldn’t have let him make me get him in!”

“So you snuck him in here?”

Sigma snaps a couple hands to his hips. “Your security waved us through! And the only reason I wasted my time with this to begin with is, well… I’m kind of… in debt to him. He actually, uh, cut my hair a few days ago.”

“Oh,” Dazai says. 

His eyes light up and sheepishly, he smiles. “Do you like it?”

“Yeah,” Chuuya says, stepping in for the other before something too honest had the chance to slip out. “Really unique. I guess… yeah, I see why you’d want to… return a favor. But, still, I mean, that’s no excuse to—”

Sigma points at Fyodor. “If anyone’s to blame, it’s him,” he says. “I mean, besides Nikolai. Obviously. We were supposed to be going to a cookie shop. Which by the way. Closed a half hour ago. So believe me, I tried to convince him to keep walking downtown, but no no no no, he saw you step out of that car and suddenly something was more important than my discounted half-dozen box of double chocolate chip—”

“Okay,” sighs Chuuya. “This was not how I was expecting my shift to end. How about… we just call it a night? No cops. For now. Fyodor, you drive Dazai home. Sigma, there’s a box of sugar cookies in the staff room as compensation for… being here, I guess.”

Fyodor sniffs and stalks forward and snatches Dazai’s arm. “Hang on,” the brunet snaps, “I need to give Chuuya my number—”

The bartender pulls a paper napkin from his back pocket. “You wrote it on here eight times.”

He sinks against his friend in relief. And then in half a second falls asleep.

“This cannot be serious,” Fyodor groans, doing his best to keep Dazai from falling completely on top of him. “First I did not even ask Nikolai for contact information—”

Sigma clears his throat. “Don’t worry about that. He. Um. Tracked your plates and looked you up on Whitepages. So he knows where to see you again.”

Chuuya would expect most people to react strongly to that information. In, you know, terror or something. Maybe inform the police. That kinda thing. Fyodor just stands there and softly smiles.

“Second,” he continues, though, not totally consoled, “My constitution is absolutely not fit to carry this fool, and he very well knows that, so—”

“I can help.”

So that’s how Chuuya ends up with an armful of Dazai, drunk and dead asleep, trailing behind a could-be vampire on the way to their black Tesla. 

“For the record,” Fyodor says, holding the door open, “this is my car. Not Dazai’s. So do not bang him off anything, or I will sue you for damages.”

What is the deal with these two? Chuuya shakes his head and sets Dazai down gently. Whatever. He’s seen weirder things than what happened tonight. He just. Can’t really remember anyone else dropping into a secret escape chute after making out with the complicated roommate of someone he’d spent most of the night imagining making out with. Dazai's peaceful face falls against the seat, distracting him from that debacle with lips looking, wouldn't you know it, very kissable and—

“Alright then. Good night. We will not be back at this club.”

Chuuya quirks a brow, startling back and catching a hold of himself. “Eh? Why not?”

“Because we both lost,” he explains, shutting his door and shuffling into the driver seat. “And neither of us could bear returning to a place where the other would mock our defeat.”

He scrunches his forehead further, waiting for him to elaborate on that, and then Fyodor just starts the fucking car and backs up.

“Hey!” he spits, hopping out of the way of the tire. “Watch where—! Ugh! Never mind. You don’t mean like forever, do you? I’ll… I’ll still see him around, right?”

The guy looks at him like he’s got no more brains than a sponge.

“Did I not just say that?” he scoffs. He flicks a set of decorated fingers. “You console me, at least.” He then, apparently, sighs to Dazai, “Congratulations on selecting a simpleton. I enjoy digging holes for you, but it is nice sometimes to let you do the work.”

And then he’s gone. 

Chuuya stands there, scratching his head.

Well.

He’d better go check on Sigma before he clocks out and texts the brunet. Make sure he hasn’t overdosed on cookie dough or something.

And hopefully convince him to buy a good wig.