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Hate is a funny thing. There's a heat to it, something you can feel. Haven't you noticed?
- Gilda
When Chuuya pulls him out of a collapsing building for the last time, fingers locked around his wrist like shackles, dust filling the air until he choked, Dazai decides that this is it, he's finished, that he hates Chuuya so much that he wants to kill him.
Instead of killing him, however, Dazai stops under the red sky, where the air smells like blood and Chuuya's back to him is open and unguarded, and he sing-songs: "I don't want to be your partner anymore. Let's give it up. Let's quit."
"Keep moving," is all Chuuya says, back still unguarded, as if all Dazai had to do is to sink a brass knife in between his shoulderblades, drag down. For a moment, he fantasizes about it, all that red. Chuuya doesn't even notice.
His hat has gotten lost in the melee, his hands in his pockets, as they always are. He doesn't turn around. Dazai wants to kill him, and Chuuya treats it like it's just another day.
"I'm serious," Dazai says, and ha, that's funny. He can pretend to be a teacher and be called sensei, he can pretend to be a joker and be called funny, he can pretend to be in love and be called romantic, but he can't pretend to be serious.
Chuuya's not listening to him. Dazai hates him so much that it's become an old feeling, by now, a familiar sub-burn in the background of their relationship. Chuuya, loud and brash and normal, always moving, always there, even when he's not. Dazai, quiet and calculating and pieced together wrong, missing something essential, missing the will to live, and replacing it with whatever he could siphon up from his surroundings - the thrill of victory, the despair of his enemies, the pleasure of killing.
"You should jump off this building and die," Dazai says, sincerely, sweetly, as proof that he is being serious. Of course, Chuuya would land just fine, instead of making the splat that Dazai longed to hear. Then he lowers his voice, whispers longingly, "You should have left me back there, Chuuya. It was perfect."
The first half is barely enough to phase Chuuya. It passes right by him. The second, however, digs into his heels and roots him to the spot. Finally, he turns around.
"Enough."
That's when he sees it, the worry, the fear all wrapped up in pain and rage. Chuuya looks at him as if he had almost lost him. His teeth are gritted and he looks furious. Worse, he looks like he cares. He has never let that slip before.
"What the fuck were you thinking, back there?" He steps forward until he's in Dazai's personal space. There's a gravity to him that has always been his own, and not his powers. Dazai hates him, but he's caught up in the gravity well, and can't move. "Every time I see you, you're wearing more bandages. Every time we get sent out, you just tag along and put yourself in as much danger as possible. You're my partner, you dumbass! I can't trust my back to someone who's constantly trying to get himself killed."
Dazai blinks at him, trying for innocence, but then he can't help himself - he laughs.
"What's so funny?" Chuuya growls. He grabs Dazai by his collar, shakes him until his laughter rattles. "Dazai, stop laughing. What's so goddamn funny?"
Dazai chokes when Chuuya's grip goes too tight, the collar squeezing around his windpipe. Then, when Chuuya lets up, he goes right on laughing.
He can tell that this scares Chuuya, just a little. There's a sudden vulnerability to him now, as if the Dazai's laughter scared him in ways that his taunts did not. Arrogant, indestructible asshole. Dazai wishes that he had known this earlier.
He has tried, and tried, and tried, and tried to hurt Chuuya. But until now, he has never managed to, not in a way that mattered.
Mocking words and cruel teeth are such paltry weapons against Chuuya. They barely edge in underneath his armor. All they do is make him mad, although Dazai has to admit - it's fun, watching Chuuya dance and howl in irritation. It's retribution, for making Dazai continue to live. But it doesn't hurt, not the way Chuuya hurts him.
"You're the reason why I can't die," he says. You, and your blind trust, and your reckless foolishness. If you stopped fighting, if you stopped needing me, I could die. But no, you would never give it up, would you? You would never give up on me.
He wonders if there's enough sincerity left over from before, to make his words sound real. Chuuya goes still, eyes wide and startled. Dazai smiles up at him, and now the secret's out.
"What do you mean?"
You make me want to live. "I'm saying that it's your fault."
"My fault? You fucker, you're lying to me, you -"
Then his anger slides right out of his grasp, drains away into startled shock, as Dazai raises his hand and brushes his fingers against Chuuya's face.
It's soft, barely enough to touch. He doesn't know what expression is on his face, whether its silent resignation or despair. Or maybe it's just blank, oddly calm and expressionless. He's suddenly too tired to care.
Chuuya's throat works on a swallow. His eyes are suddenly fixed on Dazai's face, dirty-blue like a muddy river, a river Dazai once tried to drown in.
"Do you see now?" Dazai asks.
There's the sound of distant rumbling, more building crashing to the ground maybe, more people running away from the devastation they've caused. Chuuya doesn't move, and doesn't answer. For one of the brightest rising stars of the Port Mafia, he sure is slow.
Then, faster than Dazai would have believed, Chuuya grabs his hand and pulls it away from his face. The leather from his gloves feels oddly warm, and he takes a step back. The world reasserts itself between them, all smoky air and half-tone background noise. Chuuya is gritting his teeth with anger again, angry that he had almost fallen for it, angry that he had wanted to believe in it.
"Let's not pretend I ever meant anything to you," he snarls, all wounded animal and split flesh, red pouring out where there should be lies, lies, and more lies. "You never looked for me. You never lifted a finger to save me."
Dazai just looks at him, cold. How he wishes that were true.
"Okay," Chuuya admits after a pause, even his selective memory apparently not selective enough to support his own lie. "But the point remains. You hate me. You've hated me ever since we've met. Why would you live for me?"
"I never said I lived for you," Dazai explains, but that is skirting a little too close to the truth, for him. Sounds a little too similar to something else, something that other people could have, but never him. "I'm just saying that you're the reason why I can't die, and that's why I hate you."
It is, perhaps, too much to ask, for Chuuya to understand. He has always been so straightforward. He has never tried, not once, to see who Dazai really is behind his taunting smiles. Has never asked, not once, why Dazai hated him so much.
"Did you ever wonder why we got paired up as partners?" he goes on. "It's not because we work together so well. It's because you're a loose canon, Chuuya. If you ever take off your gloves, I'm the one who has to stop you."
"I don't -" Chuuya's face darkens at this reminder of his weakness. He has always hated being seen as weak. His fingers twitch, his glare sharpens, and suddenly he's angry, angry enough to bring the whole tower back down to the ground. He's already edging towards red, the color bleeding off of him just like blood. "I don't need you, Dazai. I won't die without you."
But he would. If he ever took his gloves off, if the corruption ever consumed him completely, Chuuya Nakahara would be dead to the world and in its place would be an unfeeling god of destruction. The world would either kill him or he it, but either way, Dazai had to live if he ever wanted to avoid that ending.
Let the world have him, Dazai wants to think. They deserve each other. But that would mean failure, on every level, failure to keep his promise, a defeat instead of victory. It would mean Chuuya, gone, when he had wanted to live so badly. Unfair, that one person's desire to live was strong enough to overcome his own desire to die.
"Yes you would."
And yet, how wonderful it would be, if Chuuya got hit by a truck when he was crossing the street, if he tripped and fell down the stairs, died to a pidgeon dive-bombing into his head. Then it would be an accident, and Dazai could mock-cry and jut out his bottom lip and say - what a shame, poor fool, never saw that coming, did he? At least he died a human, fully-formed and oh, look at all those memories. He lived a full life, didn't he?
Then he could go home, peaceful and empty, put a gun to his head, and pull the trigger.
"I could make it up to you," Chuuya says.
Dazai has spent so long studying Chuuya, in order to learn how to hurt him the most, that he has forgotten how easily Chuuya heals.
He blinks. "What?" Unbidden, out of habit, the old poison rises to his lips: What can you do, Chuuya, that I can't? You've never beaten me, you know. You're my dog, remember? The best you can do is bark.
But things are different now. Chuuya is looking at him with barely-disguised hurt now, hurt that he usually hides behind vicious grins and anger. Dazai smiles to cover up the despair, knee-jerk reaction and all pavlovian response to pain. He can't stand the look in Chuuya's eyes.
"I could try to help," Chuuya insists, coming closer, layers peeling away from him like skin, and suddenly he's vulnerable, soft and far too easy to hurt. All Dazai has to do is touch him, and his fingers will sink into Chuuya's skin like gel and leave bruises.
Dazai wants to laugh again, but the air catches in his chest, and his heart hammers too loudly for him to hear his own thoughts. "You can help me by dying," he says. "Or you can help me by giving up on fighting, ever again. Give up the Port Mafia, all the friends you've made here. Give up your life. Then I'll be happy."
For once, miraculously, Chuuya doesn't get angry. He grits his teeth, but its more pain and pity than anything else. He reaches out carefully, as if Dazai isn't frozen to the spot. His fingers land on Dazai's cheek, gentle as a butterfly. Dazai stops breathing.
"Do you really want to die that much?" he asks. Then his voice breaks, and his fingers slide into Dazai's hair. Dazai shivers with want, and then Chuuya's mouth is on his own, harsh and angry and demanding, hands fisting in his hair, body pressing forward. Everything goes numb except for the taste of his lips and tongue, the wet slide of kisses that start off too strong and end too suddenly.
Dazai can't think past the shock. Everything's suddenly a jumble of sensations, of too-much, the warmth in his chest burning up his lungs, the tight grip in his hair verging towards pain, Chuuya's mouth being softer and sweeter and more addicting than he ever could have imagined. He has always thought of Chuuya as more false bravado and recklessness than anything else, and his kisses are the same. But beneath the aggressive kiss, Chuuya is trembling.
"Fuck," Chuuya pulls away, and Dazai wants to kill him again. He looks wild and lost, and finally, finally, there is the despair that Dazai has wanted to see all along. "This is why I never wanted anything to do with you. I can't help but think, no matter what I do, one day I'll turn around and you won't be there. It'll be like you never existed."
Dazai tries smiling, but Chuuya just presses forward again, desperate. He kisses like he'll never get to touch Dazai again, might never get another chance to find out. It's intoxicating. It's the first time he's ever felt anything like this. Dazai hooks his fingers into Chuuya's shirt, and never wants to let go.
Overhead, the sky bleeds of color into a comforting dark again, until buildings become shadows and shapes in the distance. Dazai only notices this in brief flashes, in between kisses that scatter his awareness and touches that make him feel dizzy. He has never felt so wanted before, or so missed. He wonders if he would have ended up different, if he had felt this as a child.
Chuuya makes a strange sound. He is breathing hard, and warm, so warm. When he pulls back, his eyes are so dark that there's barely any blue in them at all.
"Do you still want to die now?" he asks. "Is being with me really worse than jumping off a building? I know I can be annoying sometimes, but I can't be that annoying."
Dazai wants to tell him yes, that living feels like a sin to him, that for someone as weak as him, even happiness hurts. But he's too breathless, and Chuuya looks so unsure.
"I don't know," he replies honestly.
Chuuya squeezes his eyes shut, and Dazai can tell that he's trying not to lose his temper. Fucking Dazai, he's thinking. Fucking suicidal brat, a waste of bandages, a waste of space. Why do I even bother?
But then he holds out his hand, palm up, an invitation.
"If you don't know," he says. "Then let's find out."
Dazai takes his hand, curious. Chuuya often takes the lead, but this is the first time that he has asked.
Chuuya leads him over to the edge of the building, where there's a drop that Dazai's mind automatically notes is about twenty stories tall. There's a grey lip of a wall, only several feet up. They scale it easily, Chuuya first, then Dazai, pulled up. There's a strange set to Chuuya's face, a silent resignation and determination. When his gaze meets Dazai's, it hurts, but Dazai doesn't look away.
The air still smells a little like smoke and debris, but it's starting to settle now, and there's a hint of sweet summer night air. Chuuya doesn't let go of Dazai's hand, and Dazai isn't sure what it means - that he'll jump if Dazai decides to, or that he'll hold Dazai back if he does.
They end up sitting side by side, legs dangling over a bottomless void, watching the sunset, then the stars.
Dazai doesn't jump.