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Dazai still remembers the first time Chuuya used Corruption.
That night comes back to haunt him every once in a while, invading his thoughts with images of Chuuya with strange markings all over his body, and blood.
Always blood.
The blood that Chuuya coughed up, or the blood running down from his nose, his eyes, his ears…
There was also all that blood splattered on the ground from the enemies that Chuuya completely obliterated. When Dazai starts thinking about it, his mind usually drags him into those memories, deeper and deeper, until he’s fully immersed in them.
…
“Ah!”
Dazai gasped out in pain, as a horrible pain went through his leg. Looking down, he saw blood soaking through his right pant leg. He grimaced at the gunshot wound and peeked out from around the corner he was in and shot in the direction the bullet came from. He smirked when he heard a yelp and then a thud.
“Dazai! Are you alright?”
Dazai turned his head and found himself face to face with none other than his partner, Chuuya Nakahara.
“Chuuya! I thought I told you to stay over there near that pillar, now they're going to come and close in on us!” Dazai whisper-yelled, glaring at the ginger beside him.
“Oh shut up, shitty Dazai! Your literally bleeding out,” Chuuya went to touch Dazai’s leg but the hand was swatted away.
“Focus on the battle!”
“But your injured!”
Chuuya looked genuinely worried, concern swirling in his blue eyes. Dazai internally sighed, Chuuya may be temperamental but he was a caring person and especially when someone he cares about gets injured. Whether it be one of the other Port Mafia members, a random civilian, or Dazai. Being soft wasn’t a good thing, especially in the Port Mafia. Softness was considered weakness.
“Chuuya, I’ll be fine.” Dazai said softly, “Let’s finish this fast so I can get this bullet out of my leg, and then you can stop being a pest.”
Chuuya glared at him, “I’m just trying to help you, you bastard!”
The older of the two then angrily turns and lifts up his gun, focusing on a target and firing. Dazai held back a chuckle, and did the same.
The gun fight continued for at least ten more minutes and it looked like the duo were going to win. But, sounds of tires and slamming doors from the outside of the building they were in caught their attention. They both stopped firing and huddled behind the corner they were in, out of sight.
“What the hell is going on!?” Chuuya whispered, eyes wide.
Then they heard footsteps, a lot of them.
“Backup’s finally here!” A relieved yell.
Chuuya and Dazai looked at each other in panic. There sounded like there was a whole army out there! And they were coming closer…
“What do we do?” Chuuya asked, firmly gripping his gun and sneaking glances behind them.
“We can’t panic.” Dazai said.
“Yeah, yeah…” Chuuya mumbled, loosening his grip on his gun. He then looked right at Dazai, giving the other his full attention.
“We should try to escape. From the multitude of footsteps we hear I don’t think we could take them all on. So, let’s-”
“We can’t just leave! The Boss told us we can’t fail with this mission, we have to eradicate all of our enemies.” Chuuya countered.
Dazai glared at him, “We can’t win this. Even with your ability and my brains, we’re outmatched.” “
We need to stay!”
“If you want to die then you stay, I’m leaving.”
“Says the idiot that finds new ways to kill himself every damn day.”
Dazai huffs, a spark of annoyance and irritation stirring up from within his chest.
“Look, if you wanna have an argument right now-”
A clicking noise.
“Hey! Get the fuck off me!” Chuuya screams.
The anger in Dazai quickly fading, he looks around and his heart plummets. While they were arguing, the enemy had snuck up on them. There was at least twenty armed men standing around them, and more behind them and probably all over the building. There was a man holding Chuuya down, a gun pointed at his forehead. Half of the men had their guns pointed at Chuuya and the other half at Dazai. A gun was then pointed at Dazai’s forehead.
“Well well well, not so tough now,” A man says, probably the leader. “You’ve killed a lot of my men and that makes me very angry. The Port Mafia has also induced my rage, once you two are dead we’re going to storm those fools and kill them all.”
Cheers went up in the air from the leaders words. Dazai only kept silent and glared at the man in front of him, he smirked.
“You think you can beat them? Your a bigger fool than I originally thought! Truly pathetic.”
The leader snarled and swung the gun he held in his hands, hitting Dazai across the face with it. Dazai only wiped the blood from his nose and continued to smirk at the leader.
“Dazai!”
Chuuya started to glow and the man holding him down was lifted into the air by For The Tainted Sorrow, then he was brought harshly to the ground and knocked out cold. Someone started to shoot at Chuuya but the bullets were deflected back at the attacker and towards others in the room. But, as soon as one man fell more rushed into the room.
“Cease fire!” The men stopped at their leaders command, and waited patiently for his next orders. Chuuya huffed and stalked up to the leader but stopped when the muzzle of the gun was put right up to Dazai’s head.
“You may be invincible, but is he?”
“ You’d be a coward to shoot him.” Chuuya growled, watching his every move.
“Am I?” the leader laughed. He snapped his fingers and men walked up and blocked Chuuya from Dazai.
“Hey!” Chuuya yelled and took a step forward, but was stopped when two men came up and held onto his arms.
Chuuya saw the leader smirk, his finger started to pull the trigger.
Chuuya saw red.
“Oh Granters of Dark Disgrace, Do Not Wake Me Again.”
Immediately, strange red marking crawled all over Chuuya’s body and covered his fair skin. A black orb was flung at the leader, it hit his face and it exploded in a gory paste. As soon as he was released, Dazai fell on his ass due to shock and scrambled backwards. He stared wide-eyed as Chuuya decimated their enemies.
Dazai felt his heart beat furiously in his chest. He felt another feeling, an emotion that he hadn’t felt in a long time, bubble up.
It was fear.
The black orbs, which Dazai would later learn were balls of compressed gravity, were hitting the men and destroying them Legs, arms, heads, and other body parts covered the ground, along with blood. Dazai had to cover his nose, even he couldn’t stand the putrid smell of this much of the red liquid. Dazai dragged his eyes to Chuuya and saw him exiting the room. Dazai shot up and ran after him. Chuuya started to eliminate more of their enemies and had even started to destroy most of the building.
When Chuuya finished them all off, he stopped. To Dazai’s horror, he started coughing up blood. Looking closer, the brunette could see blood trailing down his face from his ears, nose, and eyes.
Another ball of gravity hit a truck, one of the enemies. With every hit, more blood was coughed up.
Dazai ran up to him and was surprised when Chuuya swung at him.
“Chuuya! What the hell are you doing?!” Dazai yelled as Chuuya conjured up another gravity ball and launched it at him. Dazai yelped and dodged it with difficulty, due to his leg.
When Chuuya looked like he was going to shoot another one at him Dazai ran up to him and grabbed his hand.
“No Longer Human!” He screamed.
His ability worked, thankfully, and Chuuya fell forward into Dazai’s arms.
He realized that the fear he felt earlier wasn’t toward Chuuya, but at what was happening to Chuuya.
Dazai started to shake Chuuya, feeling panic well up in his chest. Chuuya was unconscious, and was covered in blood, his own and otherwise. His body was cold and pulse weak, so Dazai pulled him closer and held him to his chest. A lump rose in Dazai’s throat at the sight of his partner like this.
Weak, fragile.
“Chuuya, please wake up.” He whispered and was surprised by how strained his voice sounded.
Dazai lifted his arm and placed his thumb on Chuuya’s cheek, wiping away blood.
“Chuuya…”
Dazai felt a hot stinging feeling build up in his eyes and to his surprise, tears started to trail down his cheeks and run off his face. He sucked in a shaky breath and pulled Chuuya closer to him.
“C-chuuya!”
The sound of sobs were the only noise heard in the once seemingly silent night as Dazai held his partner close to his heart, hoping that he’d wake.
…
Of course, Chuuya had woken up.
Dazai had been a fool to think otherwise.
He’d also been a fool for a million different reasons that horrible night. For one, he could have stopped their argument right from the beginning and dragged Chuuya out of there. Second, he should have stopped Chuuya from using Corruption a lot sooner. Third-
“Dazai! Hey, are you feeling alright?” A concerned voice brought the brunette back from his thoughts.
It was Atsushi, he was standing in front of where Dazai was lounging around on the couch in the ADA’s headquarters.
“Hm? Oh yes! I’m quite alright, Atsushi.” Dazai said quickly, smiling.
Atsushi looked relieved, “Good! You looked completely out of it for the past five minutes, I was worried.”
Dazai nodded.
“Akutagawa texted me a few minutes ago, he told me to tell you to come to this location.” Atsushi shows him his phone, “I guess it has something to do with Chuuya?”
Dazai grabbed the phone and quickly scanned over the text. It was a little way from where he currently was, a weapons warehouse for the Port Mafia, if Dazai remembered correctly. Then another text popped up, as if Akutagawa knew Dazai was looking right now. The one word made Dazai freeze, his heart dropped and he forgot to breathe for a moment.
Corruption.
After Dazai got out of his shocked state he sprang into action.
He threw Atsushi’s phone at him, which the other caught with a startled yelp. Then, he ran over to Kunikida and snatched his keys from off his desk and ran out the door.
As he left he could hear Kunikida screaming his name in rage.
He quickly got in the blonde man’s car and drove to the warehouse (going way over the speed limit, almost hitting multiple people, and was that a tire marks on the sidewalk?). Dazai got there under three minutes, he could already see the gaping hole in the side of the warehouse. There was debris and dust flying around, along with bodies everywhere which looked Port Mafia and others that had a strange uniform on. Dazai guessed it was an enemy organization. Akutagawa was outside with Higuchi and some Port Mafia men, staring up at the warehouse with Rashomon acting as a shield up in front of them.
“Akutagawa, where is Chuuya?”
Dazai could see Akutagawa shiver at the older man’s cold, demanding voice. The black haired male turned to him, concern reflected in his gray orbs for his superior .
“He’s inside, in the main and biggest room. Just open the door and you’ll see him.” Dazai didn’t say anything else and walked past Akutagawa and the small group, running toward the warehouse and past the bodies and pieces of the building. He threw open the large doors and nearly gasped at the sight before him. Chuuya was standing in the middle of the room, swaying as he threw compressed gravity balls at the walls and floor which made the building shake and creak at every hit from the ability. Piles of bodies surrounded him with most of them having a different uniform than the Port Mafia, but there was one or two Port Mafia members mixed in. Chuuya didn’t seem to notice him yet which was good for Dazai. So, Dazai stepped across the seemingly never ending sea of blood and reached the ginger in only a few short strides. He grabbed the other hand and activated his ability. Instantly, Chuuya collapsed and Dazai caught him.
Dazai’s mournful gaze swept over his ex-partner’s face.
“I’m here now Chuuya, I’m sorry.”
Dazai held Chuuya in his arms as he walked them out of the destroyed warehouse. He was surprised to see Atsushi talking to Akutagawa with a worried look on his face and Kunikida was impatiently tapping his foot next to him. When the glasses wearing male saw him, his frown deepened even more.
“Dazai!”
Hearing Kunikida yell, Atsushi turned to look at him. His eyes widened at the sight of the man in Dazai’s arms. Akutagawa too, looked worried. Even Kunikida softened his gaze when he stared at Chuuya.
“Dazai! What happened to Chuuya!” Atsushi asks in a panicked voice, coming over to look at him.
“Akutagawa didn’t tell you?” Dazai asked.
Atsushi shook his head.
Dazai sighed, “Chuuya used ‘Corruption’ which is a bigger part of his ability. He completely loses himself and starts to destroy everything in his way, only I can save him. Now, I’m going to take care of him.”
Akutagawa interrupted, “No.”
Dazai glared at his former apprentice, “Yes.”
“Chuuya is in the Port Mafia, so we will take care of him. We don’t need a traitor like you harboring him, an executive. Boss would be furious and Kouyou would kill you.”
“I really don’t care. I know how to take care of Chuuya best after he’s used Corruption, after all, I was his partner since we were fifteen years old. I won’t let you take him, not when he’s like this. I could care less about what Mori thinks because all I care about right now is Chuuya.” Dazai said firmly, determinedly. His eyes bore right into Akutagawa, daring him to refuse this.
Akutagawa sighed, “Fine…”
“Good.” Dazai said with a victorious smile. “Now, I want to go back to the Agency to have Yosano look at Chuuya. Then I’ll take him to my house so he can rest.”
Dazai then looked at Kunikida, “Drive?”
Kunikida sighed loudly, “Fine!”
They walked toward Kunikida’s car and got in with Kunikida in the driver's seat and Dazai in the back so that he could make sure Chuuya was steady.
Kunikida looked around in confusion for a minute. He looked outside the window and yelled out of it, “Hey kid! What are you doing? We don’t have all day you know, you can talk to your boyfriend later!”
Atsushi jumped, looking behind at Kunikida with a flushed face.
“Kunikida! I-I wasn’t-”
“Oh save it and just get in the car!”
“But what about the other car we used to get here?”
Kunikida facepalmed, “Dammit! That bandage wasting machine totally made me forget about it!”
Dazai gasped and put a hand over his chest in mock pain at Kunikida’s comment about him.
“I can drive it back,” Atsushi said with a kind smile.
Kunikida looked him over with a serious expression, then sighed. “Alright, just be careful.”
And with that, they took off. Unlike Dazai, Kunikida was a perfect driver. He was careful and observant, always following the rules of the road. But, to Dazai’s pleasure, Kunikida has road raged. But, that is a story for another time.
They got to the Agency a few minutes later and Dazai carefully brought Chuuya to Yosano’s office.
“Well, he doesn’t have any life threatening injuries,” she sighed in disappointment. " But He's really just exhausted, so let him get a lot of sleep.”
Dazai nodded, “Okay. Thank you, Yosano.”
The doctor nodded.
As Dazai walked out of the door she called out to him, “And don’t pester him too much, Dazai!”
Dazai only chuckled.
He walked out of the building when he realized that he would have to carry Chuuya home since he didn’t have a car. Dazai sighed and began his trek. About five minutes later, a car pulled up beside him. Dazai turned to look at it suspiciously, but relaxed when he saw the friendly face inside. Well, one was a friendly face, the other looked irritated.
“Dazai, why are you walking with Chuuya in your arms?”
“I didn’t have a ride. Anyway, what are you doing At~su~shi? I thought you were supposed to drive that car back to the Agency, and your not even driving!”
Atsushi flushed, “Akutagawa doesn’t like the idea of me diving. He says I’m too inexperienced and would crash.”
“That’s because you would, Man-Tiger.”
“Oh leave me alone, Aku!”
Dazai raised an eyebrow, “Okay then.”
“Ah, Anyway! We stopped because you looked like you needed a ride.”
“Thanks, I could use it.”
So, Dazai got in the backseat as Akutagawa drove them to Dazai’s apartment. Atsushi and Dazai made light conversation along the way, with Akutagawa joining in occasionally
“Take good care of Chuuya, Dazai!” Atsushi said with a smile as he waved goodbye.
“Don’t hurt him…” Mumbled Akutagawa.
“I won’t.” Dazai said softly after the couple drove off.
He walked up to his door and went inside. His house was a bit messy, nothing like Chuuya’s, whose house was nice and neat. There were a few bottles of alcohol, some empty cans of crab, and bandages lying around his house. The only remotely clean part of his house was his bedroom, surprisingly.
That’s where Chuuya would be.
Dazai gently placed Chuuya on his bed and pulled up the covers up to his chin in case he got cold. He put his hand on the unconscious man’s cheek then hesitantly pulled it away.
He started to walk away.
“D...Dazai?”
The brunette spun around, eyes wide.
Chuuya had one eye open, staring at Dazai as he attempted to sit up. Dazai didn’t do anything for a few seconds due to him staring at Chuuya’s beautiful blue eyes, but, when the eyes of his beloved shut tightly due to the pain his body was in, Dazai snapped out of it.
“Don’t move, slug.”
“Oh, shut up! Macker-ow!”
Dazai sighed and walked over and put his hands on Chuuya’s shoulders, pushing him back down on the bed. When the ginger tried to get up again, Dazai put his hand on the others chest.
“You need to stop moving, Corruption took a lot out of you.”
Chuuya glared up at him, “Fine.”
Dazai pulled his hand back and asked, “Do you need anything? Food, water, ect.”
“Wine.”
“Water it is then!”
Chuuya grumbled to himself as Dazai went to the kitchen and got him a water bottle.
The blue eyed male looked around the room, examining everything that he saw with his sight. He quickly realized that this was probably Dazai’s room, he was in Dazai’s bed! He blushed.
Dazai came back into the room holding a water bottle and once he saw Chuuya he frowned. He walked over and gave the water bottle to the injured male and sat on the unoccupied side of the bed. He then reached up and put his hand on Chuuya’s forehead, which caused the poor man to almost choke.
“Your not warm,” Dazai hummed.
Then he smirked, “So that means the reason for your sudden redness is embarrassment!” He sang.
“S-shut up! You fool!” Chuuya spluttered, slapping Dazai’s arm.
“Your so cute when you blush Chibi!”
“SHUT UP!”
Dazai laughed when Chuuya hid his face under the covers.
When Dazai’s laughter died down, he cleared his throat and poked Chuuya in the side as he tried to get his attention.
“Chuuya, okay I stopped. Come out now, I want to talk to you about today.”
Chuuya sighed and pulled the covers off of him and stared at Dazai.
“Why did you use Corruption? I told you to never use it unless I’m there to nullify your ability.”
Chuuya rolled his eyes, “It was no big deal.”
“Yes it is! You could have died today, Chuuya. Your lucky Akutagawa texted me in time.”
“It was an order! What else was I supposed to do Dazai?!”
Chuuya shouted at him, getting angry.
Dazai narrowed his eyes and matched his fierceness.
“You could have refused, you could have told ME, you could have done anything other than what you did do today!”
“I didn’t have time!”
“What do you mean? Tell me what happened Chuuya.” Dazai said gently.
Chuuya sighed, “Nosy bastard…”
“For you, of course.”
“Oh shut up, anyway. I was going to inspect one of our weapon warehouses today but in the middle of my inspection Mori called me and told me that an enemy organization was planning to attack. He told me to do whatever was necessary to defeat them, even using Corruption. He told me that Akutagawa was on his way but probably wouldn’t make it in time. So, when they came I used For The Tainted Sorrow to take them on, but there were three ability users and I knew I couldn’t hold out much longer. That’s when I used Corruption.”
Dazai stared at him in silence, his expression unreadable.
Then, he sighed and pulled Chuuya in for a hug. Chuuya struggled at first and complained but after a bit he calmed down and snuggled into the taller’s warm and safe embrace.
“I could have lost you…” Dazai said softly.
“But you didn’t.” Chuuya pointed out.
Dazai tightened his embrace, “But I could have. That’s the thing, you used Corruption knowing that you’d probably die because I wasn’t aware of it. You did this just because it was an order from Mori. Look Chuuya, I know the Port Mafia is your everything but your life means a lot more than that stupid organization. If you would have died… I would be crushed, do you know how damn worried I was when Akutagawa sent me that text? I didn’t know if you were even going to be alive when I got there! I know back when I was in the Port Mafia you could use Corruption whenever you needed to, but now that I’m with the Agency you can’t. You made a promise to me that you wouldn’t use Corruption but today you broke it.”
“I’m sorry, Dazai.”
“Sorry isn’t enough. If I didn’t get to you in time…”
Chuuya frowned and put his hands on Dazai’s cheeks and lightly rubbed them.
“Hey, its okay, I’m okay.”
Dazai stared at him and sneaked a hand down to his stomach and gave him a light poke which made Chuuya gasp in pain and curl away from Dazai and into himself.
“See, that was light and it hurt you. Corruption ruins your body and the less you use it the more healthy your body will be. I refuse to let your ability ruin you, I love you too much to let that happen.”
Chuuya looked at Dazai with pure love in his eyes, “Dazai…”
The shorter leaned in and captured the other’s lips with his own.
Although their kiss was short, it was also sweet. It was comforting and warm. It made Chuuya feel safe and made Dazai feel content that his lover was safe in his arms.
“I love you too, Dazai.”
Dazai chuckled lightly and laid down, pulling Chuuya down with him. He pulled the covers over both of them and wrapped his arms around the other while Chuuya snuggled up into his boyfriend’s chest. They were both happy and content.
“So, Chuuya...You actually promise that you’ll be careful and not use Corruption this time?”
“Yes Dazai, I promise.”
“Good, because I’d have to go over and have a friendly chat with Mori if you didn’t. Actually, I think I’ll do that anyway and I’ll tell Kouyou that he told you to do that while I wasn't there. When she finds out she’s gonna have Golden Demon stick her sword so far up Mori’ s ass that he’ll-”
“Dazai?”
“Yes, Chibi?”
“Shut up and cuddle with me.”
“Okay okay.”
"Plus! I can take revenge on people just fine on my own, thank you very much!"
A chuckle.
"I know, Chuuya, I know."