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Unbelievable. Un-be-lie-vable.
Did he just hear that right? Mori can't possibly want him to team up with that damned guy again. There is absolutely no way in hell that his boss would ever agree to cooperate with the Armed Detective Agency, let alone with that traitor of a man, who left the Port Mafia on a whim without so much as a notice.
Who left him, sneaking out at night without so much as a goodbye.
“I would like you to join forces with Dazai one more time to defeat our mutual enemy — bring back the magnificent partnership that was ‘soukoku’, if you will.” Mori chuckles quietly at his own words and Chuuya just stares at him incredulously, refusing to believe the words that just came out of his boss’s mouth. He grits his teeth and clenches his fists, his whole body shaking with suppressed anger. Doesn't he remember what Dazai did?! Did he forget what he'd done to them — and to him?
“Do you have a problem with that, Nakahara?” Mori turns to look at him and finds the red-haired agent standing there, fuming with anger. He cocks his head and grins. “Careful, careful, you don’t want to burn your pretty hat with that anger of yours, do you?” He laughs. Chuuya huffs and bites down on his tongue. “Alright. I’ll do it. But just this once! After this, I don’t want anything to do with this traitor ever again.”
He turns on his heels abruptly, causing his coat to swish behind him as stomps out of the room, not even trying to conceal his anger. Partners in crime, his ass! They may have once been the most dangerous and deadly duo to ever exist but that doesn't necessarily mean that they were ever partners. What kind of partner would just up and leave in the middle of the night? What kind of partner would do what Dazai did without so much as a second thought?
Basically, Dazai left him to die. Without the other, there's nobody and nothing in this world that can get Chuuya back from the brink of death when he uses his ability. Dazai is the only person who's able to save him from himself. And it sickens Chuuya.
Some people even whispered back then, that it's like they were made for each other. Without Dazai, Chuuya's ability is like a wildfire, destructive and deadly, and it could – and would – instantly kill him if it isn't stopped. Likewise, Dazai’s ability brings death to every other ability, everything he touches evaporates, like water under the sun. Dazai will only ever be able to take things, his ability wasn't made for giving.
Except for Chuuya. The red-head is the only person currently alive who Dazai is able to give something to, rather than take. Just with a touch of his hands, he's able to save the other and rather than depriving him, he returns a part of him. He makes the demons go away, freeing him from the chains of his own ability.
But that's bullshit. Soulmates don't exist and even if they did, he and Dazai would never even come close – for God’s sake, he hates that guy! Dazai leaving the Port Mafia like that speaks volumes. He either didn’t think about the consequences for Chuuya or he did think about them but decided that it wasn’t worth staying for. Chuuya doesn't know which option he prefers.
At least that's what he tells himself.
__________
“They’re too strong, Dazai! We need backup – right now!”
“There’s no time,” Dazai replies calmly. “We’d be dead before they arrive. You know that, Chuuya.”
Chuuya is fuming with rage and shaking with frustration. Dazai's lying on the ground in front of him, fatally wounded, while the enemy doesn't even seem to have a single scratch. Yet somehow, the brunette agent is the one analysing the situation completely rationally. It has always been like that, Chuuya remembers, Dazai has always been the one keeping a cool head in situations like these, preventing Chuuya from acting on his impulses and emotions.
They've always been like fire and water, like day and night, like black and white.
“Well, we don’t have any other choice right now, asshole! As long as you don’t want to die here — which would be fine with me, by the way! — we clearly either need to call backup or abandon the mission!”, Chuuya shouts while glaring down at Dazai and hates his voice for shaking.
“There might be. Another choice that is…”, Dazai wheezes through strained breaths and peers up at his partner. “Or did you forget what it is that made them all call us two invincible?” The cheeky grin Dazai forces despite their grave situation makes Chuuya want to slap him. “You honestly expect me to trust you after what you did?!” The red-head gives an exasperated snort and kneels down next to Dazai. “Who’s to tell me you’re not gonna leave me to die like you did the last time?”
Fuck. He didn't mean to say that out loud. He stops breathing and grits his teeth, waiting for the inevitable. “Leave you to die like last time?”, Dazai repeats questioningly and furrows his brows. Chuuya feels the the seriousness in his voice and he wants to bite his stupid tongue off for betraying him like that. He does not want to have this conversation right now – or ever, for that matter. Why couldn't he just have kept his mouth shut? It's not even like he cares that much about it anymore, the past is in the past and Dazai did what he did, there's no changing that. In fact, his life had even been better after that stupid bastard left and there was no one to annoy the living shit out of him anymore.
“Tsk. Forget about it, we have much more important problems at the minute.” Chuuya whips his head around, escaping Dazai's gaze before he slowly begins to remove his black leather gloves and walks towards their enemies, mind set. Stupid, stupid, stupid, a voice yells inside his head but he ignores it. He knows the risks, knows that this mission might be his last, but he made up his mind and nothing could stop him now.
How long has it been since the last time he used 'Corruption'? He’d almost forgotten what it feels like. In fact, he couldn't ever remember what it felt like while using it. The only thing he does always remember is the unbearable pain and exhaustion afterwards, like his whole body has been trampled on and put on fire. Chuuya imagines that's what dying must feel like.
“You stop me as soon as they’re dead, understood?”, he bellows over his shoulder, not bothering to wait for an answer before he lets go.
(He tries not to think about how easily he risks his own life again in order to save him.)
“O grantors of dark disgrace,
do not wake me again.”
________
Chuuya rages.
Of course, Chuuya is always a raging mess of anger and vicious insults but this Chuuya right now, the one using 'Corruption' is different. It's not Chuuya.
This person is mercilessly destroying everything and everyone in its path, hurling balls of compressed gravity like it's nothing, killing for the sake of it, and it isn't Chuuya. It's only a matter of minutes, maybe seconds, until the enemy, who they we're struggling against before, has been completely wiped out. And even though there's nothing left to destroy, Chuuya doesn't stop. He makes his way towards the forest, laughing maniacally, and continues randomly flinging balls of destruction at his surroundings.
Somehow there's a kind of beauty in the way his body moves so powerfully, so efficiently, Dazai muses.
After noticing the trails of blood dripping down his face, though, Dazai finally snaps out of his trance and stops observing Chuuya before quickly scrambling to his feet. He needs to save him. Chuuya trusted him to get him back from the edge and Dazai's not about to break that trust, not if he can help it.
Just as Chuuya is about to launch another attack, Dazai reaches out and grabs him by the wrist, stopping him in the midst of his maniacal laughter. It only takes a few seconds for the brunette's touch to take effect and gradually, Chuuya's eyes lose their manic feel and turn back to normal. Dazai firmly holds onto the red-head's wrist and stares into his eyes, watching as they turn from this monster back to the small and passive-aggressive partner he knows and it feels like time stops ticking. It's only him and Chuuya in that moment and the destruction and fire around them feels miles away, like they're in the eye of a storm.
Eventually, Chuuya breaks the spell as he falls to his knees, exhausted. “You jerk! I told you to stop me as soon as…”, he yells, his breathing ragged and his body shaking. Dazai kneels down beside him and reaches out a hand before he stops himself. “I did all those things… Why do you still trust me?", he says instead, his brown eyes focused on the panting and shivering mess before him. Dazai’s eyes hold a certain seriousness and sorrow in them, that would have surprised Chuuya had he been able to see them.
“I don’t, asshole! I just didn’t have any other choice!”
But deep inside, Chuuya knows that choice didn’t have anything to do with it.
Dazai chuckles quietly and eventually does reach out for the red-head's hand. “Well, up you get then! That’s what we do, isn’t it? You defeat the bad guys and I make sure the princess gets home safely.”
He doesn't bother correcting himself to past tense.
Chuuya just growls at that. “Who… you calling… princess… asshole…” His eyes flutter shut and his struggle against Dazai’s touch weakens. “Just… get me… to base… alright…?” The brunette picks up Chuuya's limp body and chuckles again, much softer this time. And just as he's about to leave he spots something lying near the forest on the ground — Chuuya's hat.
He looks at the unusually serene sleeping form of his former partner for a moment and sighs. “Well, we can’t have you losing one of your precious hats, can we?”
Needless to say, Dazai goes and picks up the hat up to bring it back with them.
It's been five years since the last time they fought together, since the last time Chuuya used ‘Corruption’, and yet the red-head decided to trust him again in the blink of an eye. As Dazai looks at Chuuya's exhausted form in his arms, he silently wonders if what people said is true. Neither of their abilities are truly complete on their own and, Dazai feels, soulmates might not be that far-fetched of a conclusion.
Without Dazai, Chuuya's ability will slowly destroy and kill him, consuming him in the process.
Without Chuuya, Dazai’s ability will always make him feel like the only thing he can is take from people.
No matter how much they try to deny it, no matter how much they pretend otherwise, the times when they fight together are the times they feel most alive.
One could say that they are each other’s gravity, each other’s oxygen and each other’s life.