Daichi Rare Pair Week Day 1: Seasons / Injury / Same team AU
Daichi Rare Pair Week Day 2: Stars / Memes / Modern fantasy AU
“Remind me again why I shouldn’t just gut you where you stand?”
Daichi froze with his hand halfway to a bag of herbs and pasted the sunniest grin he could manage onto his face. Kyoutani stopped grumbling about the inconvenience of having to wear pants long enough to give him a disturbed look and then turned away to follow Hajime out of the main street of shops towards, most likely, the slightly seedy armor and bookshop that Hajime liked to frequent.
“Cause you love me?” Daichi finally managed to say.
Issei snorted from where he was poking through a display of charms and blank rune stones a few feet away.
“Try again,” the voice behind Daichi said coldly.
“Because you dislike displays of violence?”
“I could make an exception for you.”
Daichi chuckled and grabbed the bag of herbs from the basket before he turned and showed his bright grin.
“You always made exceptions for me, Morisuke.”
“Yaku,” he hissed between his teeth. “You lost your ‘Morisuke’ privileges when you left me naked in a bed you claimed was yours and I almost got arrested.”
“Oh?” Issei perked up as he abandoned the charms in favor of edging towards the dimly lit shop next door. Daichi could hear a heavy bass beat pumping through the air when the door opened and a groups of dark clothed teens shuffled out, studded collars and jackets shining in the morning light.
“No.” He pointed towards Issei. “No leather or spikes or torn black shirts or weird ass frog figurines. Not today.”
“His name is Pepe, Daichi. And he is my soulmate.”
“I’m not sure if I feel better or worse knowing you left me and wound up with this,” Yaku stated calmly before he hopped up onto his counter with a bowl of silver charms and wires and beads and chains in his lap.
“Anyway. As great as it is to see you alive and well, my dear. The reason we’re looking through this shop,” Daichi said as he stared pointedly at Issei’s hand reaching out for a light orange blank rune stone, “is because we’re looking for something for a shifter.” Issei grinned and wiggled his fingers at Daichi.
“Is something wrong with Kyoutani? Did something happen to your charm? I made that thing up myself it should be good for years yet.” Yaku reached out and yanked Daichi forward and slid his fingers into the neck of Daichi’s shirt - much to Issei’s apparent amusement since he started snickering at Daichi’s surprised face - to pull his silver necklace out.
“Your charms, as always, are masterpieces and work like, well, a charm.” Yaku rolled his eyes at Daichi’s lame joke but still blushed a little as he studied the necklace and the magic woven into it and the beads strung on it carefully.
“So then what do you need a charm for a shifter for?” Yaku eyed Issei warily. “How many shifters do you know?”
“Closely? Still just Kyoutani. And it is for him. But it’s more to help with a problem he’s having.”
Issei dropped himself against Daichi’s back so that his weight pushed Daichi forward and he had to slam his hands down on the counter on either side of Yaku’s hips to keep from crashing into Yaku.
“Our shifter is going through puberty,” Issei stated plainly, chin hooking over Daichi’s shoulder. He didn’t say anything out loud about the flush covering Daichi and Yaku’s faces at the sudden close proximity but his grin was saying plenty. “And his control is pretty good but he keeps trying to shift without meaning to and it’s starting to pull at everyone’s magic. Even people who don’t really have magic in them.”
Yaku hummed and lightly kicked the counter with his heel.
“I think I might have something,” he finally said with a wicked grin. “But, Sawamura Daichi, it is going to cost you.”
—
A soft crunch of boot on tile alerted Daichi that he wasn’t alone on the rooftop. The steady breath in as a second crunch sounded let him know it was simply Hajime joining him. Hajime settled next to him carefully and pressed their shoulders together. Daichi reached out and twined their fingers together. It was a clear night and they sat in silence for awhile and stared up at the sky, content to simply be in each other’s company.
“The stars really are brilliant, aren’t they,” Hajime finally broke the silence. Daichi glanced over and felt his lungs seize at the sight of Hajime painted in moonlight, stars reflecting in his dark eyes, glasses shoved up into his spiky hair. He let his gaze travel down to the smear of ink on Hajime’s chin and over Hajime’s well worn jacket and faded vest, runes and wards and summons woven into the fabric and glowing faintly in the moonlight, down to where Hajime’s ink stained fingers were tangled with Daichi’s calloused ones.
“You’re far more brilliant than any of them,” Daichi whispered, bringing their hands up to kiss the back of Hajime’s.
“Do you have lines like that for all the scholars and mages and charm weavers you meet?” A smile danced across Hajime’s face before he dropped his gaze from the sky and met Daichi’s eyes. “Or just the ones who want to gut you on sight and that you leave alone and naked in beds that aren’t either of yours?”
A raucous batch of laughter floated up to them from the open windows of the inn below them and Daichi groaned.
“Of course he told you.”
Hajime laughed and brought their hands to his lips to kiss the back of Daichi’s hand in return.
“He was so thrilled I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I knew about it, about you two, already.”
“I just don’t understand how I’m the one he’s so pissed at. You were right there with us. You left him all naked in that bed too.”
Hajime’s laughter wrapped Daichi in a cloak and pulled him closer until he gave in and dropped his head onto Hajime’s shoulder.
“Yeah,” Hajime finally admitted, “I was there. But you were the one to talk him into that bed. Not me. I was just along for the ride.”
Daichi Rare Pair Week Day 1: Seasons / Injury / Same team AU
Daichi Rare Pair Week Day 2: Stars / Memes / Modern fantasy AU
Daichi Rare Pair Week Day 3: Colors / Video games / Sport swap AU (kind of)
Daichi smoothed down his tailored jacket for the last time before he took a deep breath and opened the heavy doors of the meeting hall. Issei followed a step behind, as comfortable and confident in his fitted trousers and jacket as he was in a pair of ragged jeans and a ratty old t-shirt. Daichi nodded sympathetically to the golden haired dwarven receptionist balanced precariously on a stack of boxes behind the desk trying to reach something on the top of the bookcase that, from the look of it, her silver haired elven friend had put there.
A series of muttered curses and muffled growls and shimmering laughter followed them through the lobby and into the maze of hallways. Every shadow made him twitch for the daggers under his jacket and every closed door they passed made the hairs stand up on the back of his neck. He itched to check and see if they were locked or not, to explore what they were hiding. It was the adventurer in him, sure, that curiosity to explore the unknown. But it was also the fact that this felt very much like a trap especially since Issei had been requested to join him in this meeting with people he hadn’t been able to glean the identity of.
“I don’t like it,” Daichi murmured as they turned down yet another hallway. The muted beige walls and boring gray carpet made his skin crawl in a way that not even the squelchy ground of the Broodmire Caverns had done when he and Hajime had stumbled through them when they were thirteen.
“Don’t worry babe. I don’t either.” Issei pressed a hand against his lower back for a moment and then it was gone as they turned the last corner and spotted a pair of guards outside the door leading to the main meeting hall.
To his credit Daichi didn’t pause when he recognized the colors and emblems on the guards’ uniforms.
He did not flinch when he stepped inside and bowed to the three people who rose to greet them.
He didn’t even look away when he met the eyes of the woman in the center.
“Sawamura Daichi. Matsukawa Issei.” She smiled at them and gestured to the chairs across from her. “Thank you both for joining us on such short notice.”
Daichi remembered that smile. Remembered it pressed against his shoulder. Remembered the ragged breaths and throaty laughter that had accompanied it.
She waved away the two men who were with her and they left begrudgingly, throwing warning glares over their shoulders at Daichi and Issei as they made their way to the door, and then it was just the three of them.
“Don’t worry, Matsukawa. This isn’t an official visit.”
“Says your uniform and the armed guards who just left.”
Yui glanced down at her black jacket and the vivid orange sash that cut across her chest and reached up for the golden circlet in her hair. The perfect picture of royalty.
Daichi was so screwed.
“If I was going to drag you back with me I wouldn’t have shown up in my nice clothes.”
“Good luck dragging me back,” Issei growled. There was a story here that Daichi hadn’t been aware of before and once they were out of their current situation he might have to try and get it out. But for the moment he was focused on just getting back out of the meeting hall and meeting up with Kyoutani and Hajime. Preferably alive.
Yui smiled at Issei and then turned to Daichi.
Alive was looking less likely by the second.
“Yui,” he said calmly.
“Daichi,” she purred. He could feel Issei’s stare on him but he refused to look away from Yui. He started to send out prayers to whatever deities or demons were listening - even Oikawa who was probably listening and cackling maniacally at him because that is how he and Daichi worked together - because he was pretty certain he was going to die soon but he was starting to be unsure just who was going to kill him.
--
“My sister?” Issei stared at him incredulously. Daichi stared up at the cloudy sky like he had never seen a better, more beautiful day in his life. He was just happy to have made it out alive. He could kiss the ground right now. “My. My sister!?”
“Your sister. How does that even work?”
“Dude!” Issei’s voiced hit a pitch that Daichi would not normally associate with him and Daichi turned around when he realized Issei wasn’t just a step behind him anymore.
“I’m sorry,” Daichi apologized. “The last time I saw her she had her hands wrapped around my naked bits and was threatening to cut them off and then string me up with them if she ever so much as glimpsed my shadow again.” Issei stared at him for a minute and shook his head slowly. Finally he let out a disgusted noise and caught back up with Daichi. “Also to be fair I didn’t even know you had a sister.”
“Okay first of all I have seen your naked bits and as much as I love them they are not enough to string you up with. Secondly I want details about how it happened but not about what happened because ew. Thirdly we’re siblings in a very convoluted manner that is most easily boiled down to something like step-siblings or half-siblings bound by blood and eternity and the fate of the world or something. I dunno. I slept through that meeting I think.” They’ve made it almost back to the city center where Kyoutani and Hajime said they’d be waiting when Issei finally spoke again. “Do you sleep with everyone you meet? Or just the ones who you know will threaten you with bodily harm when you leave them?”
“Not everyone,” Daichi said as they spotted Kyoutani leaning against a brightly lit arcade and scowling at the cement. “But I can’t help that I’m so charming and I appreciate passionate people.”
“You would find someone threatening to cut your dick off hot.”
Kyoutani’s nose scrunched in disgust at the statement. “I don’t want to know,” he growled. “Just get Iwaizumi out of there so we can go? I’m fucking hungry and tired.”
“Get him yourself?” Issei barely avoided Kyoutani’s fist hitting his chin. He wrapped his fingers around Kyoutani’s wrist and rubbed his thumb against Kyoutani’s pulse. “Sorry. I was just joking. Shitty move, shitty afternoon.”
He waved Daichi inside and Daichi left them, Issei murmuring something soothing into Kyoutani’s ear and shielding him from the noise and colors that rushed outside like eager cats when Daichi opened the door to the arcade. He was actually rather impressed Kyoutani had managed to stay so close to the noise and colors and bustle of the arcade for as long as he had and made a note to tell Kyoutani as much later.
Colors pulsed around him, pulling him deeper into the darkened arcade, the only lights were the ones coming from the screens of the video games set up along the aisles and the lines of dim lights magicked along the floors. Most of the symbols and words were basic runes and charms to keep people from trying to cheat at the games or try to steal their money back. Daichi’s favorites had always been, and still were, the random curses and inventive swears that were peppered unsuspectingly through the carpets. He stepped squarely on one that implied something unsavory that he could have done to him by a man with extra thumbs when he heard Hajime’s voice from a few feet away.
“Sawamura Daichi. I left you alone less than six hours the last - and only other - time we were in this city. How did you manage to talk not one, but two people into bed with you in that time?”
Daichi hopped over the counter separating the arcade from the office behind it and propped himself in the doorway with a grin.
“Well I am charming. And dashing. And rouge-like.”
“Technically it was the couch and not a bed,” Kenma said flatly from where he was lounging on said couch. He gave Daichi a slight nod of acknowledgment and then went back to fiddling with the new charm Yaku had given them earlier that week with the instructions that the owners of the arcade would need to tinker the last few specifics into it for it to work.
“And I mostly just watched,” Nishinoya added before ducking back under the desk to work on whatever it was he was working on. It had a lot of colors shining from it and there were a few unholy whines and screeches coming out and Daichi focused back on Hajime. Who was giving Daichi his patented Fond Exasperation look.
“I can not leave you unsupervised ever can I?”
Daichi shrugged. Really. It wasn’t his fault he was so good at what he did.
Hal hums as he curls into Clark’s warmth, the Kryptonian’s body temperature almost a full ten degrees higher than a human’s. It feels nice, especially with the slight chill in the air tonight. Clark’s arms wrap around him and the other hero cuddles Hal, pressing a kiss into messy brown hair. Hal ignores the cracked headboard and torn up sheets, just using a slight construct to pull the undamaged blankets over them both. He lifts his face up for a soft kiss from Clark, languid and unhurried unlike when they’d been having sex earlier.
It’s nice having this sort of relationship. One where Hal knows the soft touches, the kind words and affection are real and not a means of manipulation. Where Hal knows that the other man loves him but doesn’t want to control him, to possess him. Where Hal is treated as an equal, as something precious.
