Bandages and Salt (PJO X BSD AU)

Chapter Sixty-two

A/N: Sorry for the late update, I fell asleep. Also, this might seem like a filler chapter, but I had the idea and it only really works the way that I want it to inside of this AU. So, here you go:

Third person POV

Dazai grinned as he walked down the stairs to the cafe, something wide and horrifically false in every nature, no one ever seemed to notice that it was though. The detective liked it that way.

The members of the detective agency were strewn out comfortably among the shop with food or tea placed before each of them, but they all still stayed close to one another, wrapped up in small conversations that spanned tables worth. Sometimes being around them all, and seeing the easy way that they were with one another, the careful touches and secretive smiles, the former mafioso wondered if this was what it meant to be human, and if that was why he felt so reserved from it all.

As if sensing the thoughts swirling in the younger detective's mind, Ranpo glances up at the other man and motions him over, patting the seat left open for the brunette at the bar next to the black haired detective. Dazai moves to take it and sits down silently, not wanting to taint the almost domestic scene. He nods at Yosano when she leans around Ranpo to smile at him, something small and just as sharp as his own when he's not careful enough to dull it.

They never dull such things within their little group, someone has to see it or else both the younger detective and the doctor knew that they would eventually go mad from having such an inhuman beast lingering beneath their skin with no way out. Ranpo was one of the few smart enough to know that it was always there.

Dazai shifted in his seat - on the edge of their trio, always the edge and never the middle, not like how it used to be at the Lupin Bar. Ranpo never questions it, he likely already knows, and Yosano doesn't mind the distance, it was good to have when small similarities added too high - and ordered a tea of his own.

"Do you think he has a cat?" Kenji asked brightly, his head thrown to the side without a care as he smiled like the sun. Sometimes Dazai found himself feeling justly just being around the blond, sunshine boy, as if he thought that he would taint the teen just by being close to him.

"What does he need a car for when he has Atsushi?" Kyouka asked bluntly before tearing into a crape in a messy way that most likely would have had Kouyou dragging the poor girl out of the shop and teaching her manners once more if she were to have seen.

"Hey!" The boy in question protested though all of the other detectives in the cafe and the workers that knew of the teen's ability only rolled their eyes or stifled a laugh, silently agreeing with the former assassin.

"New betting pool?" Dazai asked as he held the warm cup and silently wished that it was whiskey instead so he could mess with the ice, though he already felt that he knew the answer to the question and didn't exactly like where it was going.

And when Yosano smiled like that - all mischief and the promise of mayhem - Dazai was reminded of a house close to the Port and a man that said things that made the younger want to bang his head on the table. Really, his mind stuck mostly to the table part of that memory, because the younger detective knew that whatever the answer was, he sure as Hades wasn't going to like it.

The woman hummed loud enough for both detectives to hear. "Yup," the doctor said, popping the p, "about you."

If the urge to bang his head on the table like a sixteen year old again swelled, then that was Dazai's problem.

There had been a two year standing bet as two what the brunette's former occupation had been before working for the Agency. The money had piled up over the years, but Dazai had admitted to his being a former mafioso once the Port Mafia started becoming more heavily involved with Agency affairs, and before the bet could be settled. He knew that the moment was still sitting nicely protected within the President's office - nothing that he or Kyouka couldn't get through easily if they wanted to, but the illusion of safety was there - so of course they would want to do something to settle it.