Work Text:
“Pipsqueak, remind me again… Why are we here?”
Chuuya Nakahara was, and always has been, someone to be feared. Someone you would run into during a particularly bad nightmare. Someone who had killed hundreds, even thousands, of people both innocent and guilty. Chuuya Nakahara was a weapon. Chuuya Nakahara…
Was currently babysitting.
“Because,” a girl only a few years younger than him, who he had addressed as Pipsqueak only moment earlier, “Elise asked to go to the fair, Chuuya.” She says it so matter of factly with Elise clinging to her skirt, that Chuuya would almost accept it. If it were just Elise, surely, it would not be so bad. He was used to humouring the whims of both his Pipsqueak and Elise. If he was forced to admit it, he probably would even enjoy it. What he was not used to, however, was the fact they were accompanied by two other people he would really rather not deal with in a situation like this.
First, the brooding man shooting them all murderous glares while also somehow trying to make it look as if he were not accompanying them— Akutagawa Ryuunosuke, who would prefer to be anywhere but here — and second, the small body clinging to his Pipsqueak, who was perhaps the one person Chuuya felt he understood most.
“Big sis,” they say, an innocent smile that Chuuya hates because he knows it is both fake and real at the same time and it feels far too familiar to him, “Can’t we just get rid of him? Q thinks he’s no fun to play with. Aku, too. Just play with Elise and Q! Those two,” Kyuusaku raises their finger (because that is their name, and Chuuya does not want to let them forget that they are more than just a weapon) slowly, deliberately to point at Chuuya and Akutagawa, “should just disappear.”
The smile on Kyuusaku’s face twists. They tighten their fingers around the doll they always carry, as if daring Chuuya to act. Daring Chuuya to snap. Daring Chuuya to remember that he had offered up the smaller one’s life on a platter. Chuuya wonders why he cannot bring himself to hate them after all of his friends they had killed.
Before he can say anything, of course, Elise releases her grip on his Pipsqueak’s skirt and pokes her finger into Kyuusaku’s cheek. “Chuuya’s fun,” she refutes, “He plays hairdresser with me and brings me sweets. Besides, Q…” Elise lowers her voice, and Chuuya is reminded that Kyuusaku is not the only child who had seen too much at far too young as she continues with such ice in her voice, “If you get rid of Chuuya, you’ll never see the sun again, and you’ll be all alone again,” once again, her tone shifts suddenly, and she’s back to a playful child, “forever!”
Something in her words seems to resonate with Kyuusaku, though Chuuya wonders if Kyuusaku understands that they do no deserve that. Kyuusaku loosens their grip on their doll and sighs in defeat. His Pipsqueak gently pushes down on both the children’s heads and muffles their hair, smiling as if they weren’t both threatening murder. As if they were normal, misbehaving children. Chuuya wishes that were the case.
“…Fine,” Kyuusaku huffs out after a moment, though their mood perks back up quickly as they continue, smile widening on their face as they lift their head to look between the two girls. “What about Aku, then? Can I get rid of him instead of Chuu?”
Akutagawa clicks his tongue. Pipsqueak laughs. Elise seems thoughtful, for a moment, and opens her mouth to respond— Chuuya practically hears her say yes, because that's the sort of smile she has on her face— but Pipsqueak speaks up first.
"No one's getting rid of Akutagawa," she announces, moving her hands from the children's heads and taking their hands instead, "I mean, really, what's a family outing without the brooding teenager?"
The children laugh. Akutagawa does more than click his tongue. He stops walking, all but slamming his feet into the ground, darkness gathering— "You're younger than me, girl," he hisses— and the darkness rushes forward towards the girl and the children with something close murderous intent, ready to slice.
But Pipsqueak does not flinch. She sticks her tongue out, and the darkness continues past her, slamming against something wooden that Chuuya can no longer identify. The children laugh once more. Chuuya, meanwhile, does not, and lurches backward to grab Akutagawa's collar roughly, pulling him up ever slightly off the ground.
"Don't." He commands. Akutagawa glares down at him. Chuuya glares back. Akutagawa wouldn't have gone through with it, he knows, because Mori had told them all in no uncertain terms that anyone who ruined Elise's day out would be dead to the Port Mafia.
(Because Chuuya has seen the weakness that Akutagawa shows only to his sister Gin and Pipsqueak. Because Akutagawa would never risk that man's ire.)
But, even so, even if he knew it was just Akutagawa lashing out to scare them, he would not— could not— watch someone he cared about get threatened. Even more so when he knows there is no meaning behind it other than pride, that it would only hurt Akutagawa the most. The standoff continues, neither man willing to back away, and Chuuya wonders for the umpteenth time today why he is in this situation.
"— Chuuya. Akutagawa."
Pipsqueak calls. Akutagawa looks forward to her first and Chuuya wonders why the man lies to himself that he does not care. It is not weakness to care, Chuuya wants to tell him, but Chuuya’s words have never held as much weight as that man’s.
"We've sort of..." She laughs, and he turns to look as well, letting go of Akutagawa. "Got a crowd."
Only then, of course, does Chuuya notice how right she is. Gawkers and passersby surround them, attention all focused on the destructive display Akutagawa had put on moments before.
"Hey, what's going on—?" someone cries out. "Miss, are you alright?!" a particularly brave gawker asks, taking steps towards the victims— just a young girl and two children, senselessly attacked in public! He can practically hear them— and his Pipsqueak blinks owlishly, letting her hands slip out of the children's to gesture wildly.
"We're fine!" she insists, though her words only worried the poor, dumb good samaritan more. Elise's eyes narrow and Q watches the man with all the strength of a predator eyeing it's prey. The man continues to step forward, and Chuuya hopes he has a will written, but before murder can be committed, someone much smarter grabs the good samaritan by the arm and pulls them back.
"...That's the Port Mafia, idiot!" they say, and then all hell breaks loose. The crowd gathered around them begins to panic, because gawking is only fun when you are not in danger. The air turns cold, and Chuuya can feel Rashomon gathering, coiling, preparing to strike.
Public massacre, Chuuya thinks, was definitely not congruent with 'Elise's fun day at the fair'.
Chuuya grabs Akutagawa again. He drags him towards Pipsqueak, Elise and Kyuusaku, hisses "Hold on to the kids" with the most urgency he can before grabbing Pipsqueak as well. He runs.
This day was not starting well, he thinks. He hopes it does not get worse.
—
It gets worse.
"Chuuuuuuya!" a voice hums, tugging at his sleeve, "I want the stuffed bird toy!"
"No, Chuuya, aim for the bag of sweets!" calls another, smaller voice, who of course has to tug at him as well from the other side.
"Chuu!" cries a third, and he wonders since when it had started sounding so genuinely joyful. "Aim for the stall owner, it'll be funny!"
("Just get it over with, already," a fourth thinks as he hides a smile.)
"Damn it!" Chuuya swats the hands away from him, swats Pipsqueak, Elise and Kyuusaku away, and he ignores the fact that it feels empty when he does so. "Just let me aim, will you? I'll win them all, so stop crowding!" he says, taking a breath, raising the dart as he prepares to throw and just get this festival game over with—
"Chuu swore! Big sis, can we punish him?!"
He is tackled by two small bodies who bury themselves into his jacket and he releases the dart.
It falls pathetically short of any of the winning targets. The stall owner shoots him a seedy grin missing several teeth. "That was the last one! You lost, kiddo," they drawl, "But better luck next time, right?"
Chuuya curses, because that is all he can do. He reaches for his wallet, ready (because he could not say no to even one pair of begging eyes, let alone three) to part with even more money and give the festival game another go, but before he can, Akutagawa's harsh voice calls out.
"Let's go," he says. "If I have to be stuck with all of you, can we at least keep moving?"
For a moment, the world seems to hold its breath. Kyuusaku glares, Elise pouts, and Chuuya worries that he's going to have to restrain two ravenous children from eating Akutagawa alive, that he's going to be stuck in dart throwing hell forever, but Elise peeks her head out from his jacket. "Let's go get our faces painted, then," Elise decides, and his Pipsqueak claps her hands together.
"Oh! I'll get a bird!"
Chuuya breaths. He almost thanks Akutagawa, but then he remembers that it's Akutagawa who would only take it as some sort of twisted joke, so he bites back his words. Pipsqueak gently pries Kyuusaku and Elise off of him and they gather around her like ducklings. He wonders when she had stopped looking like a duckling herself, when she had stopped following him around like that. “I think it was this way..." She looks around a few times, nods to herself, and begins to head towards a direction Chuuya is not quite sure is right but does not correct because he the genuine enthusiasm on their faces is infectious.
Akutagawa rolls his eyes and Chuuya starts to follow them.
"What a bunch of shitty brats..." mumbles from the stall they had just begun to leave.
Chuuya stops following them.
"The girl's cute, but fuck, cute's not worth dealing with that shit..." the stall owner mutters, drumming his fingers against the counter in front of him. He does not mean for them to hear him, but he underestimates how aware they are of their surroundings. They always have to be. "Get me that one, no that one," he raises his tone, emulating.
Mori would forgive him, Chuuya thinks. Just one casualty is acceptable, right?
"How damn annoying can you get..."
Chuuya turns on his heels, face harsh, ready to make that man regret ever getting out of bed today, but by the time he's facing the right way, the stall owner is already crashing backwards into the targets and prizes behind him. The stall shudders, and Chuuya only sees Akutagawa's back facing them.
"Don't just stand there." Akutagawa rubs his fingers over his knuckles, which had already started to turn slightly red. "Grab the stupid prizes and let's just go already," he commands, voice hard and deadly like he was Akutagawa the rabid dog and not Akutagawa the man who had just punched out a guy for insulting his brats.
"Akutagawa!" the brats call in unison and for the first time today it is Akutagawa who is fruitlessly trying to stop two grinning children from clinging to him.
Chuuya laughs, and thinks that perhaps it is not such a unenjoyable day after all.
—
"Half a dozen reports of Port Mafia," Kunikida says, glancing down at his notebook. "How low can they get, trying to destroy a children's fair of all things!"
"Are you sure...? I mean..." Atsushi rubs his neck, and he looks to the side awkwardly. "It really doesn't sound like their sort of thing, after all... Maybe it's just—" he means to say something, but Kunikida glares at him, and his voice falters. "—Sorry!" he whimpers out.
"A credible source said Rashomon was used," the bespectacled man slams his notebook shut. "A woman and two children were taken, an employee was attacked and his stall destroyed, someone set the face painting tent on fire and who knows how much else! And we had so much paperwork to get through today as well!"
"Aha..." the blue haired tiger laughs nervously, taking a step back from his ranting boss. He had no idea what was going on and he did not doubt that Kunikida trusted whoever reported this, but he could not imagine Akutagawa Ryuunosuke of all people at a festival. No, there had to be some misunderstanding... He looks to the third person in their group for support, but does not find it.
"Maybe they just wanted to have a day off," they say, face mirthful and utterly lacking in seriousness. "We should follow their example! I mean, we can't let them outdo us!" They pump their fists, and Atsushi can swear he almost sees something like regret in their eyes, but it is replaced quickly by their usual expression. "Right, then, it's decided! Time to go off and commit suicide by fairy floss."
"Dazai, get back here...! You're not skipping out on work again, damn it!" cries Kunikida, who's already chasing after Dazai. Atsushi takes a deep breath, wondering how the hell he ended up in this situation, then shakes his head softly and prepares himself to follow after the pair.
Something stops him before he does, though and Atsushi looks around and he swears he is going crazy because that is someone who looks suspiciously like Akutagawa Ryuunosuke and they are wearing one of those comedy headbands while giving a sleeping kid who Atsushi knows from somewhere but can't quite name a piggy back.
Atsushi blinks. That cannot be right. He opens his eyes, looks again, and...
That's Chuuya Nakahara with an armful of stuffed animals and cat whiskers painted on his face being pulled along by two girls with— one small, petite almost like a doll with a half a butterfly mask painted over her eyes and the other just a few years older than Atsushi with an owl on her cheek.
...He's definitely going crazy. Welp. Eighteen years is a good run, right? Goodbye agency, hello white padded room.
Atsushi takes a deep breath in, before he follows after Dazai and Kunikida.