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Everyone was asleep.
Everyone always seemed to be asleep around Chuuya. It was his existence that where he was, sleep would also be there. He knew why: it was his job to deliver dreams to others, something which could only be done when they were asleep.
It was a lonely job and he never asked to do it. But there was a drive in him that made it impossible to do anything else, because he was made for this.
He walked around a lot, unaware if he was really walking through reality or stuck in his own dream. He would never know. The realm of the gods was separate from that of mortals, and the realm of dreams was separate from both of those, but no matter which one Chuuya walked, everything was quiet and everyone was asleep. All of them could just as easily be the same realm.
Sometimes he would look into the dreams of others. Sometimes he would go into them to pretend that he actually was a part of someone else’s life. He had been doing this as long as he could remember, too, making his way through various gods and mortals, never staying with anyone too long no matter how much it pulled at his heart to walk away. He didn’t know the effects of dreams in the waking world.
Sometimes, he felt the need to make people dream about certain things. He assumed this had something to do with their waking life, and as with the impulse to look into dreams and make people dream at all, he followed through with this.
Time didn’t pass for Chuuya. If it did, he didn’t feel it. One day, or night, he felt the urge to give someone the dream of a conversation that never happened.
The person in question was a young man dressed in black with bandages wrapped around his neck and arms where skin otherwise would have been exposed. He looked pale, dark circles under his eyes, and he was sleeping on the ground in a forest despite how uncomfortable it must have been. Chuuya didn’t think he’d seen him before, though he couldn’t remember everyone he’d ever seen. The impression he got was that this person didn’t sleep much. He supposed it was a good thing that he felt the urge to give this person a good dream.
He knelt down and brushed the young man’s dark hair from his face, resting his palm on his forehead. He closed his eyes.
Immediately he felt something powerful and strange run through him, coursing through his veins to make his blood sluggish and strangling his throat. He couldn’t die, which was the only thing that kept him from panicking, but he could feel death trying to take the life from him, his body protesting. This was such a tangible, painful feeling that for the first time, Chuuya felt like he was genuinely awake rather than asleep.
The sensation ebbed away and was replaced with a cold sharp enough to send shivers running up and down Chuuya’s entire body. Instinctively he knew what this was.
This was another god.
Chuuya didn’t interact much with the other gods because they were asleep when he saw them, and because of that he didn’t really see them as much different to mortals. The only thing that distinguished the two was how they felt when Chuuya touched them. Mortals always had a certain feeling, subtle but warm, and the gods each felt different depending on what they were the god of. He could tell that this young man-god was the God of Death.
That just made the dream more strange.
Chuuya immersed himself in the consciousness of the death god and brought with him the dream that he was supposed to deliver.
They were standing by a river.
Chuuya was there but wasn’t there at the same time. A man with short red hair stood at the edge of the river and Chuuya got the feeling he was a god as well. The man whose dream Chuuya was in also stood there. The two of them were talking.
Sometimes Chuuya didn’t pay attention to the content of the dream, but right now he felt like he should. The river ran swiftly, deep enough that the bottom couldn’t be seen. The sound of it drowned out everything else.
“Please, come sit.”
Chuuya watched as the young man grabbed the red-haired man’s arm and led him towards a nearby tree. The red-haired man seemed drawn to the river and it was a struggle for the other man to pulled him away.
“Go,” Chuuya murmured.
Suddenly, the red-haired man ceased resisting.
At the same time, the dark-haired man looked up and met Chuuya’s eyes, despite Chuuya not having revealed himself.
Shit.
The red-haired man and the river disappeared, leaving the two of them standing in a field with a tree. Everything about this was strange, a hollow world with all the intangibility of an ill-formed dream.
Chuuya wondered if the man could see him or if he just sensed someone was there.
“I’ve never seen you before,” the man said, coming closer. His eyes were dark, but they were very piercing.
“I’ve never seen you before either,” Chuuya said, because it was true. “But I know you’re the God of Death.”
“I am,” the man said. “And you? I can feel that you’re a god. I can’t kill you.”
“Is that the first thing you do?” Chuuya asked. “Check to see if you can kill someone?”
“What am I the god of again?” the man asked sarcastically. “Let me guess who you are...the God of Sleep? Dreams?”
“Dreams,” Chuuya said. “You can call me Chuuya.” Chuuya was a more human name, which he gave away in dreams. He assumed they all worked that way, if they didn’t want to be noted as gods, when interacting with mortals. This man wasn’t a mortal but Chuuya liked the name he gave people, so he gave it to him, too.
The young man’s lips twitched into a smirk. “You can call me Dazai.”
“Dazai,” Chuuya repeated. “How come you stopped your dream?”
“I don’t dream,” Dazai said. “I don’t sleep, either. So I don’t understand why you need to be in my head.”
“I don’t see what the problem is,” Chuuya said. “Surely you don’t have any big secrets in here. It seems pretty...empty.”
“It’s empty because your head is empty,” Dazai said, “not mine. You’re the one creating this space.”
“My head is not empty,” Chuuya snapped.
“Who knew the God of Dreams was so...restless?”
“I can kick you out, you know.”
Dazai raised an eyebrow. “You can kick me out of my own dream?”
“I’m the one making you dream,” Chuuya said.
“Maybe I want to wake up.”
They looked at each other. “Maybe you should.”
Dazai’s face split into a wide smile. “Great idea! Bye Chuuya!”
In a split second, the bright field and tree disappeared and Chuuya found himself on his back in the dark, staring up at a starry sky.
*
As much as Chuuya would have liked to avoid the weird unsettling presence of the God of Death, the universe had other ideas.
It started as a tiny thought and then grew to an urge that made him want to scratch his skin off. He wanted to — needed to — make Dazai have that dream and make him finish it.
He found Dazai sleeping in a cemetery this time. Clearly, the God of Sleep was having a similar urge to Chuuya’s, because otherwise Dazai wouldn’t be asleep. He said he never slept, and Chuuya believed him, so something was definitely making him sleep.
The dream with the river lasted a solid five seconds before Dazai was in front of him again and the red-haired man was gone.
“What does the God of Dreams dream about?” he asked.
“I didn’t come here to talk to you,” Chuuya said. He was tempted to wake Dazai up and start over, but he knew that unless he convinced Dazai to just have the dream, he’d be coming here night after night, stuck to Dazai like some kind of magnet.
“But don’t you enjoy the company?” Dazai asked. “Isn’t this the only time you get to talk to people? When they notice you in dreams?”
Chuuya didn’t like that Dazai guessed that about him. “I’m sure this is one of the few times people talk to you, too, considering you kill everything that isn’t a god.”
“And sometimes I even kill gods,” Dazai said, his eyes going flat and his voice cold. “Death is the most inevitable of all things. Perhaps some gods now can’t die, but there are gods who are dying, so none of you will be safe forever.”
“And when everyone is dead doesn’t that mean you’ll die, too?” Chuuya asked. He didn’t like how frigid Dazai’s gaze made him feel, but he refused to shiver or step away.
“I would welcome it,” Dazai said, his voice suddenly lighter. “A peaceful sleep!”
Chuuya felt off-balance. “What?”
“Oh come on, don’t you get tired?” Dazai asked. “Don’t you want to rest? Death is the ultimate rest! Maybe if we work hard enough the two of us can die together!”
“I’m not dying with you,” Chuuya said. He knew that right now, at least, it was impossible. Not that he’d ever tried.
“What a shame,” Dazai said with a pout.
Then Chuuya was kicked out of the dream.
“Fuck!” he hissed at the night sky.
He got no response.
*
This continued for several nights. Chuuya would force Dazai to dream and Dazai would change the dream so that they were talking to each other, and then Chuuya would be kicked out. It was frustrating him. He’d visited the same person more than once on a few occasions, but never like that.
Dazai made him want to tear his hair out.
The dreams themselves weren’t terrible, though. The only frustration was the urge he felt to get his job done and not being able to do it. The actual dream sat like a weight in Chuuya’s chest, making his throat feel tight. He didn’t know the content and wouldn’t know it until Dazai let it play out, but he knew which emotion it had carried. Bittersweet.
It was a good dream. Chuuya felt like despite the bittersweetness it was a good dream, and yet it was the hardest dream to get rid of.
The dreams with Dazai didn’t make him feel cold. The initial unpleasantness of touching Dazai’s skin faded when the dream began, replaced with a warmth that didn’t seem to come from the air around them. Chuuya found it natural to talk to Dazai, easy despite not talking to people often. Dazai seemed to be at ease talking to him most of the time.
Except when it came to the dream.
“Dazai...why don’t you just let the dream happen?” Chuuya asked. “It’s a good dream.”
“How do you know that?” Dazai asked.
“Because I can feel it,” Chuuya said.
“Do you know what it is?”
“No.”
Dazai considered him and then, suddenly, reached out and grabbed his hand.
Chuuya expected to feel the same suffocating feeling he felt when awake, but all he felt was Dazai’s cold hand in his warm one. He realized that it was because they were dreaming that he couldn’t feel the full effects.
“Only another god can touch me,” Dazai said, “and even then they don’t like to.”
“Your hand is cold,” Chuuya said.
“Then Chuuya’s hand can warm me up!”
Chuuya didn’t make a move to pull away. He could feel Dazai’s temperature adjusting to his, though there was always an underlying chill.
Then he woke up.
The next time he tried to make Dazai dream, the first thing Dazai did was grab his hand.
“You don’t try to pull away,” Dazai said, looking down at their interlocked fingers. “Your hand is on my head for the entirety of the dream, you know. No one else would touch me for that long.”
“I have to touch people to get them to dream,” Chuuya said. “It’s not like I can feel your head in my hand while we’re here.”
“You can know what someone feels like and still not want to feel them touching you,” Dazai said, “or want to touch them again.” His hand was warming up again.
“It’s not like I have a choice.” Chuuya didn’t like the feeling, but it was only coldness in the dream, which he didn’t mind.
The sound of rushing water filled his ears.
“Ah,” Dazai said with a sigh. “I’m letting my guard down.”
Chuuya frowned. “Seriously, Dazai, what the hell is it that you don’t want to dream about? It’s a good dream. I don’t know what it is, but I can tell.”
Dazai let go of his hand. The sound of rushing water grew louder, almost to a roar.
“Then tell me if this is good,” he said, and thrust his hand into Chuuya’s chest. The impact sent Chuuya flying backwards.
He thought he would wake up, but instead he fell underwater.
The water was cold and swift and he tumbled with the current, trying to get to the surface. He opened his mouth and water filled his lungs, and he knew he wouldn’t die but he was drowning anyway. It felt like water was in every single part of him, his bones, his brain, and he could hear the rush of it above all other sounds and could only see the dark blue, almost black, with no surface or bottom or end. He began thrashing around panicking at the idea of being stuck perpetually in this dark, suffocating environment.
Then something yanked him up and he was pulled on to dry land.
He rolled over and heaved up water, way too much water. If he wasn’t a god he would have been dead. The cold that sank into his very bones was worse than the cold that he felt when he touched Dazai. He was shaking so hard that he thought he might fall apart.
When he looked up, Dazai was kneeling in front of him, looking down at him with a satisfied smile. “Was that good, Chuuya? Did you enjoy that?”
“Fuck you,” Chuuya snarled, pushing himself off the ground so he could wrap his hands around Dazai’s throat.
Dazai fell backwards and hit the ground hard. Chuuya barely felt like he could hold himself up but he did, straddling Dazai as his hands squeezing Dazai’s throat. Dazai looked up at him with dead eyes. Chuuya squeezed harder. Dazai couldn’t die, but dream-Dazai could pass out, and then Chuuya could make him dream, because it was harder to wake up from passing out than it was from sleep.
Dazai’s body went slack under his and Chuuya let go, and the dreamscape changed.
The river remained, but it was dark now, and someone was kneeling beside Dazai, peering into the water. Chuuya moved away so that Dazai wouldn’t see him and watched as Dazai turned to the man.
“Odasaku…”
Odasaku turned to look at him and Chuuya caught sight of his face. For some reason it made him feel at ease.
“There was going to be a sacrifice,” he said. “I would rather it have been me than you.”
“But — “
“I am the one who asked for a mortal’s death to be reversed,” Odasaku said. “For more than one, actually, because they died before their time. I know such a thing requires sacrifice, and although death is your domain, I didn’t want you to suffer for my choices.”
“I didn’t want to lose you,” Dazai insisted, sounding oddly small. “I would have been fine. I would have — “
“You would have forgotten.”
“But you forgot,” Dazai said, his voice cracking. “You don’t remember me. You won’t even visit. You’re not even here!”
“I didn’t want you to forget,” Odasaku said quietly. He reached out, pushing Dazai’s hair away from his face. “You have had so little in your life, so few willing to get close to you, that I didn’t want you to forget any who did. Fate made you the God of Death, but you didn’t choose.”
“It hurts.”
“I know.” Odasaku swallowed. “I’ve forgotten, but part of me will always know.”
“I miss you,” Dazai said.
“I miss you, too.”
Chuuya looked towards the river as Odasaku wrapped Dazai in an embrace, his own throat tight. Selfishly, he wished that someone had felt that way about him. He was sad, too, that Dazai had lost someone like that, but he didn’t feel guilty for delivering the dream. This seemed like something Dazai needed to happen.
Now Chuuya knew why the river had featured in the dream so prominently. Those who fell into it would forget everything, and he didn’t know what exactly it was that the other gods wanted Dazai or Odasaku to forget in exchange for resurrecting a few mortals, but Odasaku was as good as gone as a result.
The light shifted, the area growing brighter and the water reflecting sun, and Dazai’s voice was closer and soft as he said, “Odasaku protected children, and he took anything he perceived as failure harshly. Yet somehow, he never blamed me for their deaths. It was fate, and it was something he wanted to reverse. But you can’t do that every time, and I think he’s probably learned by now that he can only protect children up until the point of their death and no further. But...it came at a huge cost.”
Chuuya’s mouth was dry. “He really cared about you. Part of him must still know, to have been able to send this dream.”
“How does that work?” Dazai asked.
Chuuya could see their reflections in the water. They were both looking at the now-smooth surface. “Dreams play with our subconscious. Sometimes they unearth our deepest thoughts and memories that we would never think of when awake, and often people don’t remember dreams when waking up. This could be like that. I wouldn’t know.”
“Do you have your own dreams, Chuuya?”
“Everything feels like a dream to me,” Chuuya said. “There’s no difference between these dreams and reality, when everyone is asleep while I’m awake. I guess the only difference is that I can talk to people in dreams, but most of the time I don’t, and the dreamer doesn’t see me, and I don’t stick around.”
“It’s like there’s a wall between your reality and everyone else’s,” Dazai said. He reached over and took Chuuya’s hand. “I should be mad, but I guess I was over it when I drowned you.”
“Do that again and I’ll give you a nightmare,” Chuuya muttered.
“Luckily, as I said, I don’t really sleep,” Dazai said. “So...I know you only visit people to make them dream, or maybe it’s that they’re always asleep when you get there — either way…”
“What are you saying?” Chuuya asked, turning to look at Dazai’s face.
“I...you don’t want to just exist in people’s dreams, right? Like, once I wake up we’ll never see each other again,” Dazai said, “if you keep going on how you were. It could be that way, but I don’t think you want that.”
“You’re saying you don’t want to be alone all the time,” Chuuya said. Dazai was still clutching his hand, and Chuuya hadn’t yet pulled away. He was one of the few people, perhaps right now the only person, who wouldn’t.
“That’s not what I said,” Dazai said.
“That’s exactly what you’re saying,” Chuuya said. Dazai opened his mouth. “Kick me out of the dream if you want but that’s what you’re saying. You’re lonely and you don’t want to be alone. Is that why you took so fucking long to let me give you the dream?”
“I think we both know why it took so long,” Dazai said.
“But maybe you also wanted me to stick around because —”
“Alright, I am kicking you out.” Before Chuuya could react, Dazai pulled him close and pressed their lips together. The shock of cold that followed would have kicked Chuuya out even if Dazai hadn’t decided to wake himself up.
There was a rush of air and Chuuya closed his eyes, fully expecting to find himself on his back staring at the sky. And he was on his back, but when he opened his eyes Dazai’s smiling face was above his, blocking out the stars.
“Morning.”
Chuuya felt warmth flood his entire body. He was awake. He was awake and Dazai was seeing him and touching him and talking to him.
He pulled Dazai down to kiss him, heedless of the suffocating, head-spinning, momentary sensation of death trying to work its way into his skin because that was how he knew it was Dazai, and the sensation made him feel awake and alive in a way nothing else did.
He wanted to chase that feeling as long as he could.