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“I want to stop,” Dazai gasps the second Chuuya opens the door, and Chuuya must see something in his face or sense some desperation in his white-knuckled grip on the doorway, because he steps back to allow Dazai in with a brief shake of his head and a muttered curse.
Dazai will take that. He stumbles in after Chuuya, already fumbling with the clasp on his tie, trying to kick off his shoes at the same time.
“Stop,” Chuuya orders, and Dazai's hands jerk into stillness. His whole body goes still, actually, testament to the command Chuuya has over him when he isn’t fighting it with every scrap in him. “You’re moving too fast.” He shoves a hand against Dazai’s chest, backing him into a wall. Even through layers of cloth the touch makes his head whirl.
He forgets it’s possible for him to be touched. For it to not hurt. “Tell me what to do,” he says, and despite everything it comes out a little mocking, a lot empty. If it were to reflect the state he’s in it should sound pleading, but he never manages that unless Chuuya makes him.
“Start with the shoes,” Chuuya instructs, taking his hand away. Dazai toes his shoes off, watching Chuuya carefully. He’s in a loose white t-shirt and dark jeans, hair left loose over his shoulders. “Now the tie.” So that comes off next, Dazai’s fingers steady but clammy with sweat. Chuuya holds his hand out, and Dazai drops the chain into his palm. “Good boy,” Chuuya purrs, and Dazai has to close his eyes for a second because of how stupidly weak that makes him feel. Already it’s a little easier to breathe. He curls his toes into Chuuya’s carpet, trying to get a sensation to ground him, but even that doesn’t work quite how he expects it to. “My bedroom, Osamu. Wait for me.”
Dazai thinks about saying something, but chickens out at the last minute. He goes to Chuuya’s bedroom instead, fumbling out of his vest. It’s stiflingly hot. But then he reconsiders that decision, because Chuuya asked him to wait—does that mean a proper wait, or is Dazai expected to be undressed and ready by the time he’s back? If he’s not, will he be punished?
He’s been punished before for not following unstated orders, and sometimes all he wants from Chuuya is discipline, harsh and exacting and as vengeful as he can make it.
Today the idea makes Dazai panic, even as some part of him wants to be punished unfairly just so he can have something familiar. If Chuuya were to punish him tonight he’d take it and he’d be good but he doesn’t know if it would quiet the buzzing in his head, the way his thoughts have been ratcheting louder and louder, thick with taunts and screams and memories he’d rather not have.
As it turns out he spends too much time thinking, because Chuuya is back. It’s only been a couple minutes, and he’s holding a bottle of water in one hand and his phone in the other. He puts both down on the bedside table before he turns to look at Dazai, who is still standing somewhat awkwardly between the bed and the door.
“Holy fuck, Dazai,” Chuuya says, exasperated. “You’re going nuts, aren’t you?” Dazai doesn’t know how to respond to that, so he stares at his socks. Chuuya sighs audibly. “Close the door, and come here.”
Dazai shuts the door with a quiet snick and pads over to Chuuya. He’s never really liked the way his body feels from the inside. The pain he can’t explain, the ugly scars, the clumsiness it takes endless effort to hide. Chuuya makes it impossible not to think about that. He makes it impossible for Dazai to avoid things. He doesn’t know how he feels about that. Mostly he’d like it to stop.
His heart stutters when Chuuya lifts his hands to Dazai’s neck, but he’s only unbuttoning the shirt. The backs of his fingers brush warmly against Dazai’s neck. He doesn’t swallow the sensation no matter how badly he wants to, keeps his eyes trained on Chuuya’s face as he moves from button to button.
Chuuya is frowning slightly, and he doesn’t touch Dazai by accident again. Dazai can’t stop thinking about that. Has he done something wrong already? Is it still wrong if he did it unintentionally?
Silly. Of course it is. The only question is how harsh the punishment will be, and trying to predict that makes him tense up, running the numbers in his head.
When Chuuya’s fingers slide under the hem of his shirt to tug it off, he flinches so badly it’s futile to try to hide it. He’s been punished for that too, if never by Chuuya. He doesn’t want to risk it.
But the shirt lands on the floor without a word from Chuuya, and Dazai desperately reaches for anything in his head that will let him hide from the intensity roaring inches from his skin. He retreats into a terror he hates feeling, but at least that means he manages to stay still while Chuuya undoes the bandages (nothing he hasn’t seen before, Dazai reminds himself, and it doesn’t help at all because there’s no telling when that switch will flip from indifference to disgust, a moment’s slip on his part or a bad day on Chuuya’s and he’ll be as vile a thing as he ever was).
Why isn’t Chuuya talking to him? What did he do wrong?
Will he get a chance to fix it?
He drops to his knees the second the last of the bandages have come off, shoulders tight with desperate unease. Every instinct in him screams that baring one’s back to an enemy is stupid, asking for trouble, and every attempt to convince himself that it’s Chuuya makes no difference when he’s never really been the best at distinguishing a lover from an enemy. When he’s slept with so many people who were itching for him to die and weren’t afraid to take it out on him if he let them. There’s an apology stuck in his throat and choking him; he can’t bring himself to say something that’s only ever made his situation worse.
“Osamu—” Chuuya starts, and the relief of hearing him speak loosens Dazai’s tongue.
“I fucked up,” he says, too eager to get the words out even if they end up being bad for him. If he’s going to be punished he’d like to show some awareness that it’s something he saw coming and knows he deserves. “I know I fucked up—”
“What are you talking about,” Chuuya snarls, cutting in. Dazai jerks to a stop. Where did he go wrong now? “We haven’t even done anything since you got here, and you’ve followed every order I gave you.”
“But,” Dazai starts uncertainly. He doesn’t know how to present his case to Chuuya, the body of evidence piling up inside him. How does he say it without sounding like a lunatic? You aren’t talking to me and you won’t touch me and you keep snapping and I still think you’re about to kick me and I don’t know if you are because I can never predict you as well as I’d like and I don’t know what’s going to happen to me but I shouldn’t have come this was a mistake can I still leave. “Something’s wrong,” he ends lamely.
Chuuya sits down on the bed with a dull thump. “Yes,” he says. “I got home half an hour back and I didn’t expect to have to top you today.”
Dazai flinches. He feels so cold. “I’ll leave.”
“Stop being stupid,” Chuuya snaps. “You’re not going anywhere.”
“But I did something wrong,” Dazai says, possibly for the second time. “You’re not.” He stops, tries again. “Not.” And then he swallows, thinks oh, fuck.
Chuuya has apparently arrived at the same conclusion. “You’re dropping, aren’t you?” His voice is slightly gentler now, and the relief it spirals through Dazai is indescribable. He nods, tips his head forward to press it against Chuuya’s knee. “You came here half an inch off, and then you tipped yourself over the edge because I didn’t fucking touch you enough.” Dazai makes a low sound. “And because I kept snapping at you.”
He slides his hands into Dazai’s hair, careful and steady. Untangling the locks from each other and smoothing them down in parallel gestures. The contact sends warmth rippling through Dazai, achy bursts of it that feel good but do little to dispel the cold settled under his skin.
“Can I blindfold you?” Chuuya murmurs. “I know it’s a lot to ask.”
Dazai shudders. It is a lot to ask. It means far too much that Chuuya knows that in the first place. “You won’t leave me,” Dazai says in a small voice. “You won’t stop touching me.”
“I won’t,” Chuuya promises. “I’ll be right here. I’ll hold you.” That sounds so wonderful Dazai could cry. He nods his assent against Chuuya’s knee, and gets a slight yank on his hair in return. “Use your words,” he says.
Dazai rolls his eyes. “I want that,” he mutters. It’s harder than it would be for anyone else.
Chuuya squeezes the back of his neck. “Up.” But he hauls Dazai onto the bed himself, laying him out. Dazai immediately turns on his side to face Chuuya, curling his shoulders in. “Are you cold? Do you want a blanket?”
“Yes,” Dazai mumbles. He didn’t know that was an option. It seems obvious in hindsight.
He gets a pat on the cheek before Chuuya gets up to find the softer, thicker blankets he keeps for Dazai. He drapes those over him first, and then crawls onto the bed to sit against the headboard. “Put your head on my lap,” he instructs, and when Dazai obliges he holds up a black strip of cloth. “Ready?”
“Yes,” Dazai repeats. Closes his eyes obediently. Chuuya does it with a competent kindness, making sure his hair isn’t in his eyes and that it isn’t squeezing his head too hard. Once done, he brushes the pads of his thumbs over Dazai’s eyelids, and Dazai makes a startled, happy sound.
“There we go,” Chuuya says smugly. “Want me to talk to you?”
Dazai settles for nodding this time. He’s allowed to be more lax about words when he’s drifting. “I’m glad you’re not gonna punish me,” he blurts out, and thinks he didn’t know those words were in him until they’re out.
Chuuya’s hands are in his hair again. “I don’t know how you arrived at that conclusion, to be honest.”
“I don’t know either,” Dazai mumbles. “It’s happened before.”
“What do you mean?” Chuuya asks, rubbing the tips of his fingers into Dazai’s scalp. Dazai sighs and whimpers. “I’ve punished you before and that didn’t—that doesn’t fuck you up so much.”
“I get punished for not doing things I didn’t know I was supposed to do,” Dazai says, trying to get the words out as fast as possible. Before they catch up to him. “And for being too smart and trying to predict what I’m supposed to do. And for asking—” he falls silent, choking on his own emptiness and the terrible pain he does his best to ignore. He doesn’t know what it is about him that inspires so much rage. He isn’t sure he wants to know.
But he does know, doesn’t he? He just likes to pretend he’s innocent.
“Dazai,” Chuuya says, and now he sounds more angry than anything. But he holds it in. “Breathe, darling. It’s alright. You’re alright, you’re with me. I’m not gonna punish you for not being perfect.”
“I know,” Dazai tries to say. Because he does know, and because he has to believe it. He owes Chuuya that much. But trust comes difficult to him, and all he can manage is a choked whimper that tapers into a moan when Chuuya curls his hand around Dazai’s neck, stroking under his chin.
“You’re doing good,” Chuuya says steadily. Dazai’s face feels hot under the blindfold. “You came to me and you trusted me to know what you’d need. That’s amazing, Osamu. I’m so proud of you.” His voice has dipped into something lower and rougher, a register that makes Dazai feel like he’s drowning in heat and light. It’s arousing in that heady way where sex is also the last thing on Dazai’s mind, secondary to touch and warmth and praise. “You have no idea what you look like right now. All pink and pretty and sweet, so fucking trusting. I know it’s hard for you. And it’s so lovely, sweetheart, you’re beautiful like this. I’d keep you here forever…”
Distantly, Dazai thinks he’d like that a great deal. Being safe and kept and Chuuya’s sounds as close to bliss as he can come to while alive. The whiny buzz of his thoughts is a distant murmur, too quiet to bother him.
His body feels light, relaxed. He doesn’t get to feel this very often, but now he can’t remember ever having felt otherwise.
“Do you want anything?” Chuuya asks softly.
Dazai tries to think. He can’t imagine that anything could make this better, but he trusts Chuuya right now, wants to make him as happy as he’s made Dazai. “Whatever you want,” Dazai slurs, tilting his head against Chuuya’s hand.
“I have everything I want,” Chuuya informs him. His hands are now smoothing over Dazai’s shoulders, and the way he touches Dazai always makes him forget that anything bad has ever happened to him. He traces idle circles between Dazai’s shoulder blades, skims the tip of a finger over a long scar on his back.
“Oh,” Dazai sighs. He’d like to ask Chuuya to lie down next to him, but that’s impossible with the blindfold on. He doesn’t know why it’s impossible except that he knows Chuuya would refuse. “Kiss me?”
It’s perhaps a little awkward, but Chuuya manages it. He presses his lips first to Dazai’s forehead and then to his eyes, over the blindfold. He’s sensitive still but barely flinches, draped in an impenetrable cloak of safety and affection. Chuuya’s lips are soft, brushing over Dazai’s cheeks and then covering his mouth, tongue flicking against his teeth. Chuuya’s hair tickles Dazai’s face with the way he’s leaning protectively over him, and he kisses like he knows precisely how to wreck Dazai, how to shatter him into a wanting desperate thing.
It works. It always works. Chuuya is everything Dazai wants, capable and fierce and here. He’s never once stopped touching Dazai and now Dazai’s lips are swollen and sore and he doesn’t care as long as Chuuya doesn’t stop. He drifts for hours, held in Chuuya’s arms.
Eventually, though, Chuuya kisses his temples and whispers, “Time's up, Osamu.” A whine, possibly from his throat. “I'll put you right back down afterwards, if you get up and let me feed you now.”
“Fine,” Dazai mumbles. His head feels heavy and cottony. He opens his eyes, is met with only darkness. “Promise?”
Chuuya laughs, not unkindly. “I promise.”