you can take my Soul, but never my Heart (omegaverse)

Chapter 9: consequences

When Dazai knocks on Atsushi's door at two thirty in the morning, the weretiger isn't the one that answers. Instead, it's a young omega girl that smells of the freshness of fallen snow and a breeze of sakura, face blank and impassive as she looks up at the man in the doorway.

Now, were it not the middle of the night and were he of all sanity, Dazai may have panicked that the Port Mafia had finally succeeded in capturing Atsushi. But the fact of the matter is that Dazai is exhausted and sweating with fever, in very short supply of sanity, and the girl in front of him is in a pair of blue pajamas that are too big on her that smell of citrus and cat dander.

"My, you're a little young for him."

She just stares. She doesn't even blink.

The way she's standing, she isn't exactly in the way, so Dazai shoulders past her with a muttered "I'm coming in" as she gladly gets out of the way to make a face at the scent clinging to him. He toes off his shoes in the genkan before stepping inside, finding the apartment to be much the same layout as his own dorm, though larger (and there's even a laundry room instead of the machines being right there in the kitchen) and lit by a single ceiling lamp. The girl shuts the door behind him, but he ignores her as he steps into the main room. Atsushi isn't visible.

"At-su-shi? Emergency!"

There's a muffled thud and a yelp of pain, and Dazai comes up short when the closet door slides open and Atsushi crawls out of a mess of blankets on the floor, because he had been sleeping there. There's a futon already out, but that must have been where the girl was sleeping. But-

"Why are you in the closet?"

"Dazai! You're alive!"

He blinks.

Atsushi scrambles to his feet, wearing a matching set of pajamas to the ones the girl is wearing as he starts looking around frantically, darting to the window to check. "Is someone coming? What's the emergency? Are we under attack?"

The girl yawns as she comes back to the room, and Dazai watches with muted amusement as she sinks back into her futon as if Atsushi's panic is a lullaby.

"Actually, Atsushi, I need to use your shower. And I need a change of clothes."

The younger man freezes, all panic flushing out of him as he blinks dumbly. "You... Huh?"

Dazai smiles, trying to displace the panic. He wants to get home, he needs to get home, but he can't go back to Koko reeking of heat and rust and sex and ozone. He wanted to keep the smell long enough to ensure he wasn't about to get jumped on his way home, but now he wants nothing more than to scrub himself clean. "And some bandages, if you have any."

Atsushi seems to notice the mark on his neck at that, and his sunset eyes blow huge with panic and surprise and curiosity all rolled into one. "Are you okay? Your neck, it's-"

He shrugs, raising a hand to place over the wound. It's not bleeding, but it still feels terribly tender. The ache comes in waves, but it's much duller than it had been before Chuuya had knotted him. He's not going to think about what that means. "It's been like this for four years. It's fine."

Atsushi looks like he's about to scream about how it's not fine, but he just nods and awkwardly moves back to the closet. "Um. I don't know if my clothes will fit you..."

Atsushi is still sickly thin, considering he was on the brink of starvation less than a month ago. All of the clothes provided to him were purchased a size or two up in hopes that he'll grow into them once he puts on some healthy weight. Dazai is still thin as well; he never really gained back the baby weight he shed within days of Koko's birth. He's always been thin, always had an odd relationship with his eating habits, but he's sure Atsushi has something.