Chapter Text
“What is this about?” Mori hummed, his throat tight. He did not attempt to move, only stared into the darkness. He had woken to find a black shadow over him and his ability inaccessible, a scalpel brushing the skin over his jugular.
“I thought we had an agreement, Mori-san,” the figure said pleasantly, its face featureless, merely a demon in the night.
Mori carefully raised an eyebrow. “I have not broken any agree—” He cut himself off as the blade pressed further, closer to the thin line that separated him from the dead.
“Let’s not play games, Mori-san,” it said playfully. “You asked a question. This is my answer.” It leaned closer, eyes bleeding red, filling Mori's vision. Mori held back any urge to move as the blade broke skin, life trickling down his throat, warm; for now. “This is my last answer,” it whispered, no longer jovial, only empty, a gaping maw that threatened to swallow Mori whole.
“I thought,” Mori said carefully, hyper aware of how every word caused his throat to push into the blade, “that you hated pain? Dazai-kun.”
The demon smiled. Mori tensed as the blade slid across his throat, drawing a thin line of death. It was not slitting, not yet, no, not yet; merely tracing a pattern, a promise.
Mori huffed a laugh, sensing rather than seeing the shadow pause, a predator considering its prey. Mori let a light sneer show on his face. “I thought you had outgrown your tantrums, Dazai-kun.”
Mori had to repress a hiss as what felt like an awl entered the conch of his ear, sliding through it with no resistance. The demon raised its hand to its face, licking the blood from its claw. “Sour,” it hummed.
The pools of red blinked, and the blade vanished from Mori's throat. He sat up immediately, grasping it. “Impudent fox,” he snarled, attempting to steady his heart. Whatever Dazai threatened, Mori knew he could not kill him, but…
He got up, heading to the bathroom mirror to inspect the hole in his ear. It was a clean hole, flawless.
Mori laughed, gripping the edges of his sink. He looked at his reflection, wild eyes, hair mussed.
“You look ugly,” Elise snarked from the doorway, her arms crossed and a look of disgust on her face. “Even uglier than usual.”
“It seems some efforts are needed, doesn’t it, Elise-chan,” Mori said, running a hand through the mess. “It’s best to keep things tidy, lest they tangle and tear.”
“What are you talking about?” Elise snapped, setting her hands on her hips.
“What to do…” Mori hummed, fixing a smirk back on his face, ignoring how Elise shouted at him, how his heart still hammered.
Dazai slipped back into the apartment, toeing his shoes off—tight, they felt too tight; everything felt too tight—intent on slipping back into bed with Chuuya. He had managed to get away without waking the slug, though with great difficulty, as the slug had been holding him quite tightly, as though protecting him from something. Dazai rolled his eyes, gently pulling the door to their shared bedroom open, only for something large to slam into his chest, knocking him off his feet.
“That hurt, slug!” he whined, rubbing his backside as Chuuya stumbled, looking at him with wide eyes.
“Where the fuck were you?!” he shouted, grabbing Dazai's shoulders gently. Dazai frowned, then hitched a smile back up.
“Just doing some errands.”
Chuuya shook him softly—stop, stop being so gentle, stop—his expression concerned and upset and pitying and Dazai knew he would throw up if Chuuya kept looking at him like that. “I told you not to leave the apartment, when you remember you'll freak the fuck out that someone saw you like this and—”
“Aw, chibi cares about me?” Dazai cooed, forcing his tone to be teasing, taunting, normal. Everything was normal.
“Yes, you skinny-ass bastard!” Chuuya shouted, letting go and running his hands through his tousled hair. “You-!” Chuuya froze, looking back at Dazai with wide eyes.
“What's wrong?”
“You… you're back?” Chuuya asked, eyes running over Dazai's head and checking behind his back and Dazai didn’t notice anything weird about his expression, nope. Everything was normal.
“I did just come through the door, yes,” Dazai said, raising an eyebrow. “Are you sleepwalking again?”
Chuuya flushed, glowering at him. “Oh fuck off, you know what I meant. Speaking of,” he added, grabbing Dazai a bit more aggressively than before—not aggressively enough, not normal, and everything was normal—and dragging him to the living room. Dazai let him, sighing in exasperation at the chibi’s dramatics. Chuuya pushed him—he should have shoved him, or thrown him, or anything but little more than nudge Dazai in the sofa’s direction with that damned expression because everything was normal normal normal—to sit, standing in front of him with his arms crossed.
When Chuuya didn’t immediately say anything—normal normal normal—Dazai crossed his own arms. “Do I have something on my face?”
Chuuya's expression soured; Dazai brightened. That was normal.
“Or do you just like looking at it?” he suggested, smirking. “I know I'm handsome, but Chuuya, rather than stare why don’t you take a picture? It will last longer, and then I won't have to sit here. You can hang it up in your room, print it onto a shirt and where it around proudly—”
“Mackerel.”
“Oh, are you embarrassed?” Dazai said comfortingly. He nodded, a hand to his chin in consideration. “Maybe you can get it printed on a blanket then, so that you can hold my beauty close to your face at night—”
“It’s been a whole week, Dazai!” Chuuya shouted.
Dazai tilted his head, confused. “Did you just learn what a week was? Who taught you, I need to thank them—”
“For fucks sake Dazai we can't just ignore this!” Chuuya screamed, his arms uncrossing. “You can't just—”
“Ignore what?” Dazai interrupted easily. He tried to meet Chuuya's eyes, but was distracted by the sun rising. Completely normal. “Time passing? Chuuya—”
He flinched—he didn’t he didn’t he didn’t he was acting normal everything was normal everything was normal—as Chuuya leaned over him, his arms pressed into the cushions behind Dazai. “Stop! Just stop! I can't just move on and pretend nothing happened again, Dazai! This is a problem! I can't watch you suffer like that, I don’t give a damn about Mori's threats—”
“Chuu,” Dazai managed, dread clogging his throat—n-no, not dread, there was no dread, he just needed Chuuya to, “take it back.”
“I will not!” Chuuya shouted, his face inches from Dazai's. “Mori can go fuck himself, I won't let him keep doing this to—”
“Please, Chuu,” Dazai interrupted, not trembling, his voice not shaking, everything was normal. “Please take it back.”
Chuuya growled, stepping back and starting to pace. “No, no I will not take it back! You are just as important as Kouyou and more important than anyone else! I will not keep doing this to you!” Chuuya's voice broke, and he buried his head in his hands, strands of hair catching on his fingers. “I can't keep hurting you like this! I can't keep letting you take the fall for shit that you didn’t do! I can't stand by as you get tortured! What the fuck don’t you understand about that?!”
“Chuuya, please,” Dazai pleaded, not crying, his cheeks were not wet, his breaths weren’t choking on sobs, he was perfectly fine, if only Chuuya would take back that damned command. “P-lease,” he heaved, his lungs screaming for air as if it didn’t have it already, as if everything wasn’t normal, which it was.
Chuuya snarled, looking up at him. His fury dropped slightly. “Dazai?”
Dazai blinked hard, trying to see straight—normal normal normal. “Take it back,” he whispered, no longer able to see Chuuya clearly, his vision blurred into a swirl of color.
“Take what back?!” Chuuya was screaming, his rage redoubled. “That you shouldn’t be—”
“Take back the command,” Dazai forced out, his throat not tight, his words not pitched.
“What fucking command?!” Chuuya snapped. “I didn’t—”
“Chuu,” Dazai gasped, his fingers tightening on fabric that he couldn’t see. “Chuu, pl…”
“I—fucking fine! I take it back!”
Dazai gasped for air like a drowning man. He took three seconds to gather himself, then forced himself to moved to sit upright, rubbing a bandaged arm roughly across his face. “Sorry, you were saying something?” he said, lowering his arms to smirk at Chuuya. “You look like a fish,” he mused, getting up to nudge Chuuya's mouth closed.
Chuuya smacked his hand away. “Fuck you,” he snarled, his eyes bright.
Dazai cocked his head, his stomach feeling pinched. “I haven’t even done anything?”
Chuuya snorted, stepping away. “You were less insufferable when you didn’t have so many damn walls up,” he attempted to sneer, but it sounded like a sob. Dazai's stomach twisted.
Normal normal normal.
“Are you feeling okay, chibi?” he asked, reaching a hand out (it was trembling. Stop trembling. Stop. It needed to stop. It needed to be normal).
Chuuya jerked away, snarling. “Fuck off. You don’t give a fuck, I get it. Just leave me alone.”
“Chuuya—”
Chuuya stalked past, heading to the bedroom and slamming the door.
Dazai stared after him.
I'm sorry chibi.
His throat was tight.
I'm sorry I'm so weak.
Chuuya rubbed his stinging eyes, cursing under his breath. He was sitting on a park bench, a now cold coffee in one hand and his phone in the other, open to ‘Mackerel’. He snarled wordlessly, shutting it off to lean back, draping an arm over his eyes. “You're a real piece of shit.”
“Something wrong?”
He startled, jerking up to see a man sitting next to him. He wore traditional clothes, and was holding two cups of tea in his hands. “When the fuck did you get here?” Chuuya snapped, far too aggressively. He scowled at himself. This was just a civilian, he didn’t deserve Chuuya's pettiness.
The man took a sip of one of the drinks, looking out at the park. Chuuya followed his gaze to see the group of kids that had been playing in the grass. “I've been here for a while, waiting for someone.”
Chuuya raised an eyebrow, his eyes narrowed as he glanced around. “So you just decided to sit next to me?”
The man shrugged. “You seemed agitated; I thought I might be able to help.”
Chuuya snorted. “I don’t need help.”
“Everyone needs help,” the man intoned, not looking at Chuuya. “Often the people who say they don’t need it the most.”
Chuuya watched him, thinking of Dazai, teasing him as his hands shook like he was in a biting wind. He sighed, leaning back against the bench as he concluded the man stood no threat. On the contrary, the man seemed to radiate calmness, something soothing that Chuuya couldn’t quite pinpoint. Perhaps it was the feeling that the man spoke plainly, no ploys hidden in his words, no subtext that could get Chuuya killed.
The man continued to take sips from his cup, completely relaxed. Would he be so relaxed if he knew Chuuya was a Port Mafia executive? Chuuya knew that civilians would panic, but, somehow, he was sure this man would not care at all.
Several minutes passed. Chuuya listened to the sounds around him, trying to relax, to not think of a certain fish that wouldn’t accept help if it would save his life. He wanted to cry laugh. Dazai wouldn’t do anything to save his own life, he had no value in living. He lived because he could not die. He would leave Chuuya behind die if he could, all the while with a childish smile on his face, emptiness in his eyes.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Chuuya glanced at him, considering. If there was someone to ask, it might as well be a civilian, someone who was not involved in the Port Mafia. “Someone I know is refusing to deal with a problem.”
The man took another drink. “What kind of problem?”
Chuuya weighed what else he could really say. He knew this man was not mafia, but he could very well be part of the underworld, in which case he could not give out any possibly dangerous information. “He keeps putting himself in danger,” he finally said. “He gets hurt, comes to me, and then goes and gets hurt again. He keeps pretending that everything is fine even if he was in fucking pain just a minute ago. He doesn’t give a shit about it!”
“Did he say that?”
“All the fucking time,” Chuuya laughed coldly. “As if I hadn’t just patched him up again, having to watch him get hurt again. It’s always the same fucking thing.”
“And that hurts you,” the man mused.
“Of course!” Chuuya shouted. He flushed when he realized how loudly he had spoken, retreating into his jacket. “He’s my partner; I'm supposed to protect him.”
The man hummed, considering. “Maybe he feels he is supposed to protect you.”
Chuuya scowled. “But he isn’t. I tried to tell him that I would choose him over everything else, and the asshole brushed me off!”
“He probably hasn’t had that before.”
Chuuya looked at the man, who was contemplating the other cup, presumably the one for whoever he was waiting for.
“He likely has never had someone who was strong enough to protect him, so he is keeping himself and you safe by pretending he doesn’t need any help.”
Chuuya rolled the words over in his head. An image of Dazai pleading to be punished flashed through his mind. “He isn’t keeping me safe,” he finally mumbled. “It’s hurting me more that he won't let me help until he's fucking bleeding out.”
“People who have only ever fought alone find vulnerability terrifying.”
“But I'm his partner!” Chuuya exploded. “I've seen him vulnerable more times than I can fucking count!”
“So what makes this different?”
“I don’t know!” Chuuya said vehemently.
“Then why are you upset by it?”
“Because—” Chuuya paused. “What?”
The man turned to look at him finally. Same as his voice, his eyes were calm, a steadiness that seeped into Chuuya's mind. “If it’s different now for you, it’s probably different for him.”
Chuuya stared at him. “It’s different. Because—” Chuuya struggled, “because this time I had to watch him suffer,” he finally realized. “I couldn’t help him because- he was still being hurt. He always pretends that everything is fine, even when he’s been hurt. But I saw him, and he wasn’t. He wasn’t, and I couldn’t do anything,” he finished brokenly.
“I had a friend who was like that,” the man said, something melancholy in his voice, though his expression remained steady, only a regretful glint in his eyes. “I tried, but I couldn’t protect him, and he's had to live with the guilt of that ever since. He’s terrified of his past being seen, constantly living with fake smiles and dead eyes.”
“That sounds like my partner,” Chuuya hummed, watching a ginko leaf as it fluttered to the ground.
The man didn’t answer. Chuuya looked around. The man was gone.
“Oi,” he growled, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end as he stood up, looking around. The red-haired man was nowhere to be seen, the park completely empty. Even the kids were gone from the grass, the only noise in the park a whistling silence.
He deserves an answer.
What could he possibly have questions about?
What wouldn’t he have questions about?
Dazai stared at the metal wall of his shipping container, his mind chasing itself in circles.
He wants to talk. After all I've put him through this week he deserves to get what he wants, whatever that might be.
I'm not weak anymore, I don’t submit to someone just because ‘I ought to’.
He's important though.
I thought Ǹ̵ ͛͜ ̝ȍ̵ ͍ z̴ ̓ ̼̫ő̶ ͉ ̜m̶̈ ͒ ̲̯i̸̯̼̿̆k̶̫̀̂ ͉ o̵ ͒ ̞̙ was important too.
He jerked his head over the side of his mattress, dry heaving.
He's not anything like that! Why would I think that? How could I think that? How could I think they are anything alike?!
It’s not my fault.
It is my fault.
I don’t have to talk about it if I don’t want to! It’s my life, why should chibi get to drag it up?!
I should apologize.
He rolled back onto his sheets, back to staring at the wall, unseeing. At least he had told Mori that this breached their deal. He snorted. ‘I have not broken any agreements,’ Mori had said. Dazai hoped that the hole in Mori's ear would serve as a sufficient reminder not to hurt Chuuya anymore than he already had. Dazai didn’t care that Mori was going to be even more brutal in retaliation for his answer, so long as Mori took his words and fucked away from the chibi.
The chibi, who was hurt and upset and whom Dazai had dismissed because he was too weak to acknowledge what had happened and gods he hated himself still. He let out a little manic laugh, pulling at his hair. So many years upon decades upon centuries and he still couldn’t get the damned feeling out of his head, out of his bones. The worthlessness might as well be seared into his flesh, a scar that would never heal, a taunt that would follow him until the end of time.
Worthless.
Monster.
Bad.
He swallowed, pinching his skin. He would not fall again, he would not. He refused. He had fought too hard and too long for the precious strip of land he rested on to lose it because of Mori.
What if Chuuya left?
He jerked up and over the bed again, nothing but saliva leaving his mouth as his stomach worked itself in knots, trying to expel the feeling of self-loathing.
Chuuya couldn’t leave. Dazai wouldn’t survive. Dazai would fracture and he wouldn’t be able to put the pieces back together again. Chuuya was all that he was holding onto anymore.
But he had hurt Chuuya, dismissed him after he had cared for Dazai, had dealt with the mess that Dazai had once been. Chibi was too good to see others in pain, especially someone he felt responsible for. It had most certainly scarred him, and Dazai had prounced in and all but told him to fuck off.
“Dazai!”
Dazai's head whipped up to stare at the entrance to his shipping container.
“Dazai, I'm coming in!”
Why was Chuuya here? Was he here to tell Dazai that he had had enough? Dazai wouldn’t even be able to blame him, but gods he hoped that Chuuya wouldn’t. He selfishly wished that Chuuya would again just take the wound and move on, as he did with everyone. Did that make Dazai like that awful silver-haired kid from the sheep? He had effectively stabbed Chuuya after being protected by him; the comparison made his stomach twist all over again.
The metal door screeched as it opened, drawing Dazai back to the present.
“Ch-” Dazai coughed, his throat feeling shredded. Right, he had spent the last hour intermittently throwing up. “Chuuya,” he rasped. “Why are you here?”
Chuuya's silhouette didn’t move, merely facing him in the doorway. Finally, a full minute later, he scoffed. “You look like shit.”
Dazai blinked. “Thanks,” he said sarcastically, rubbing at his mouth before slouching back into his bed.
Chuuya moved closer. “Are you sick already?”
Dazai rolled his eyes, trying to bury himself in the blanket, to hide away. He was still too much of a coward.
Dazai yelped as he was grabbed, blanket and all, and tossed over Chuuya's shoulders.
“What are you doing, you stupid slug?!” he screeched, trying to wriggle out of the grip.
“Taking you home,” Chuuya said, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.
“What?”
“Have you gone deaf? I said I'm taking you home, idiot.”
Dazai blanked. “I thought you were mad at me,” he pointed out.
Normal. Finally, it felt normal again.
His stomach eased a bit. “This is counter-productive.”
“Fuck off, do you want to come back with me or not?”
“No, no, I definitely do,” Dazai said hurriedly. He hesitated. “You know, this hurts my face.”
“What?” Chuuya asked, sounding tired.
“Dragging my face along the ground like this. How could you do that to your partner?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“You know, since you're so short—” Dazai shrieked as Chuuya flipped his legs over his shoulder, making Dazai land hard on his back. “Hey!” he whined. “I'm sick, you know!”
Chuuya gave him the finger, not stopping as he walked away.
“Hurry up, or I'm leaving you behind!”
Dazai grumbled, getting up and hurrying after Chuuya.
“Someday, you're gonna talk to me.”
Dazai startled slightly, looking up at Chuuya from his spot on the couch. A movie played in the background, and there was a warm cup of something in his hands—he hadn’t paid attention when Chuuya handed it too him.
Chuuya was watching the tv with a strange face, something pensive, something much older than Dazai had yet observed from him. The glint in his eyes tugged at some memory in Dazai's mind, but he couldn’t quite recognize it, the connection too small to really bridge the gap.
Chuuya looked at him, and Dazai forgot about the glint, dazed by Chuuya's cocky grin. “Got it, mackerel?”
Dazai blinked a few times, trying to gather himself. “…yeah,” he finally whispered. “Someday.”