Work Text:
The first thing Chuuya noticed when he woke up was that he wasn’t in his own bed.
The second, most worrying thing, was the weight of someone’s head against his chest. Of course, it wasn’t just someone. He would be able to recognize that mess of dusky hair better than his own heartbeat. To his great dismay, it was Dazai’s impossibly disheveled hair splaying on his chest, steadily rising and falling along with Chuuya’s own breathing, which was turning ragged by the second.
This seemed to alert the other man, who groggily stared up at Chuuya, vision clouded by sleep. Chuuya noticed that Dazai still was in last night’s clothes, filthy and splattered in blood. He was about to make some remark about how Dazai was getting his grime on him when he was interrupted by the other’s rough voice.
“About time,” he accused in a measly attempt at sounding aggravated. “Chibi is getting even lazier with time. You slept for centuries. Couldn’t you just die? It would have saved me the trouble of getting you over here.”
His petty speech was contradicted by the lines of worry etched on his face and the dark circles under his eyes. It had been a rough night for Dazai. He grimaced thinking about how he must look.
Chuuya was about to make an even pettier retort when his voice died with a cough in his throat. His lungs felt like they were on fire, along with the rest of his body.
He stared down at Dazai in silent question. He didn’t know at what point he had lost consciousness during the fight, but he couldn’t remember it getting so gruesome that he would end up in such a sorry state. He knew he had used Corruption, that much was evident by the strain in his muscles and the bloody lines along his skin. But still, that didn’t explain the brutal toll on his body. Hadn’t Dazai stopped him in time? He searched for answers in the other’s eyes, only to find that Dazai was avoiding his gaze.
Instead, he reached for a cup of water that was sitting on the nightstand and silently passed it to Chuuya.
“It’s poisoned,” he stated as he offered it to him.
Chuuya dismissed his words and gulped it down, feeling the water burn his throat on the way down. He forced himself not to flinch and faced Dazai.
“I wish you really had poisoned it,” he said while he felt his muscles ache as he put the glass back on the nightstand. “It would mean never seeing your ugly face again.”
“Ah, Chuuya is so cruel,” replied Dazai softly, clutching his heart. His little performance lacked its usual spark, he seemed too tired and worn out to properly antagonize him. That worried Chuuya.
“Dazai,” Chuuya tried again. “What happened last night?”
The other man mumbled something Chuuya couldn’t quite catch, so he gave Dazai a light kick with his foot telling him to speak up.
“Three days ago,” said Dazai uselessly. He saw confusion in Chuuya’s face and clarified with an exasperated expression, like Chuuya’s slowness annoyed him to no end. “The mission was three days ago.”
Dazai watched Chuuya as the clogs inside his brain turned too slowly for his liking. While Chuuya let his words sink with their full weight, Dazai busied himself picking at the healing wounds in Chuuya’s arms, pressing on the ones that looked more tender. Chuuya batted his hands away with a grunt, but Dazai started playing with his bandages instead.
“I’ve been out for three days?” he asked as he firmly held Dazai’s hands to keep them from wandering.
“I know you’re still weak, Chibi, but you’re even slower than usual,” replied Dazai trying to break free from Chuuya’s iron grip.
Chuuya didn’t know what to do with that information. He supposed that it would explain why his body felt like it had been torn apart and sewn back together by a blind brute. Corruption hadn’t burnt through him like that since he was 17, but then again, the moments in which he had been forced to use Corruption since Dazai left had been scant. His body wasn’t as used to the tearing and blistering Corruption entailed as it once had been. He felt weak.
Even the brief conversation with the bandaged freak had left him shaky and uneasy. Staying awake supposed an extraordinary effort. He was about to let unconsciousness claim him again when Dazai’s voice brought him back to reality.
“Hatrack,” called Dazai faintly in a serious tone as he sat up in bed. Chuuya tried to follow suit and lean against the headboard but failed miserably as his muscles gave in halfway. He couldn’t look Dazai in the eye as he helped him sit up. He hated feeling like that, like he was at someone’s mercy. Especially Dazai's.
“It was a close one,” continued Dazai.
Chuuya had guessed as much, but hearing Dazai’s confirmation and very obvious worry set him on edge. Just how close had they been to dying?
“Don’t ever do that again, you hear me?” said Dazai heatedly. The sudden change in Dazai’s tone relaxed him a bit. He could work with his pestering, but Dazai’s worry did weird things to him. Things he didn’t need to dwell on. Chuuya labeled it “annoyance” and focused back on the ongoing conversation Dazai seemed to be having with himself.
“You dumb slug! Are you even listening to me? Have you finally been beaten up enough times that you have turned deaf?” Dazai’s voice was drilling a hole through his skull, intensifying his blinding headache. “Hey, hatrack! Listen to me!”
“God, will you just shut the fuck up for a damn second?” Chuuya spat tiredly, his drained voice betraying how weakened he was. He rubbed his temples as Dazai’s voice still echoed through the room, apparently refusing to give Chuuya’s headache a chance to subside.
Chuuya couldn’t take it anymore. Despite his achingly sore muscles, he managed to lunge at Dazai and hovered over him as he pinned him to the mattress with a hand clasped over his mouth. That made him shut up.
“Fucking finally,” he sighed. Chuuya watched as Dazai’s eyes indignantly stared back at him. “You listen to me, alright? I’m gonna remove my hand, and if when I do, you keep running your fucking mouth, I’m gonna use your own shitty bandages to strangle you. Are we clear?”
Dazai nodded, weirdly compliant, which made Chuuya suspicious, but the rushed movement had left him too tired to care. He lifted his hand cautiously, following Dazai’s movements from where he loomed over him.
Chuuya barely had time to open his mouth to threaten Dazai again when he felt cold hands on his hips and was roughly flipped so their positions were reversed. His head was spinning and he felt his muscles complain at the sudden movement. His whole body throbbed, and Chuuya was sure he felt some of the wounds in his back reopen.
Dazai pressed close to him and whispered against his ear in a gelid tone completely devoid of emotion, yet with bone-chilling intensity. Chuuya groaned at the new pressure against his bruises.
“It would seem that my dog has forgotten his place, hmm?” he chimed with artificial gentleness. “The only reason you got like this was because you disobeyed me. What am I supposed to do with damaged property, Chuuya?”
Chuuya refused to answer and instead chose to focus on trying to get his breathing under control. Dazai wasn’t having it. He pressed closer to Chuuya and grabbed his jaw with one hand to force him to look him in the eye, while the other was painfully gripping his injured shoulder.
“Really, Chibi. I don’t think it was all that difficult to follow a simple order,” commented Dazai as if the conversation he had started was boring him. “What are we going to do with you in this state?”
“Why didn’t you stop me in time then, huh?” asked Chuuya instead, getting angrier by the second. He desperately wanted to spit in Dazai’s face and erase that irritating smirk with a punch. Or a thousand.
Chuuya’s question made Dazai drop his sweet smile. His grip on Chuuya’s shoulder strengthened dangerously, making Chuuya bite down a sob of pain.
“I couldn’t get to you,” Dazai said grimly. A dark expression replaced his previously taunting one. It unsettled Chuuya. He hated when Dazai seemed to turn off his emotions, it made him less human. “You went too far and I couldn’t get to you. Are you seeing the problem yet, Chuuya? Are we going to need a leash? If you wanted it that badly you could’ve just asked for it, you know. There was no need to almost get yourself killed.”
“Get the fuck off me, you freak.” Chuuya fought lamely against Dazai, acutely aware of how easy it was for the other man to completely restrain him. “I’m not your fucking dog. And I don’t owe you shit.”
Not after everything, Chuuya wanted to add. He struggled helplessly, and Dazai seemed to get bored of their pointless conversation, because he released Chuuya and collapsed against him once again with a sigh.
“Whatever will I do with you, slug,” mused Dazai, drawing on Chuuya’s chest with his finger. “A dog that doesn’t obey his master is hardly a useful dog.”
Chuuya tried to push Dazai off him, but the bastard was persistent. His grip on his hips was strong and possessive, and Chuuya was sure it would leave bruises atop the ones he was sure the fight had already left.
He sighed and resigned himself to the situation. Chuuya took the rare moment of silence to evaluate his bearings. He was in a shabby room he didn’t recognize but that was so distinctly Dazai it suffocated him. They were lying in a double bed that surprisingly had a bedframe and passable bedsheets, and next to it there was a nightstand with a couple of worn books, unused bandages, and his hat. He relaxed a bit after knowing it hadn’t been lost in the fight. The walls of the room were painted in an ugly green and were chipping on the edges. That was probably everything Dazai could afford on his ADA salary.
Chuuya chuckled, he thought it served him right, even though that meant having Dazai breaking into his own apartment every now and then to ransack his kitchen and sleep in his bed, always leaving behind a certain amount of destruction to make clear that he had been there.
Dazai shifted and pressed on his side, forcing a choked groan out of Chuuya. His whole body was on fire, and Chuuya suspected a few of the nastier gashes were reopening under the bandages he guessed Dazai had applied.
The fish looked up at him when he heard his groan and shot him a look asking him what was wrong. Chuuya just shook his head.
Dazai didn’t like that answer, because not even a second later he was hovering over Chuuya peeking through the bandages that were starting to get stained in red.
“Oh my,” hummed Dazai thoughtfully. “See what I have to deal with now? Bad Chuuya, bad.”
Not letting him reply, Dazai jumped from the bed and came back with a fresh roll of bandages and some disinfectant. Chuuya winced at the thought of letting Dazai patch him up, but he didn’t think he could offer much resistance if the bastard really set his mind to it, which he looked like he already had.
Dazai sat back on the bed, invading Chuuya’s space in a way that made his exposed skin prickle. Dazai methodically unwrapped Chuuya’s bandages and carefully removed them to busy himself cleaning the cuts and slashes. To think that they were all inflicted by that humming power sleeping inside of him. It sometimes made Chuuya scared of himself, of what he would become if he finally set it free.
Dazai cut his train of thought by pressing his fingers on a particularly ugly slash in his chest, making Chuuya wince.
“What the fuck was that for?” asked Chuuya angrily as he grabbed Dazai’s wrist.
The other man stared at him in confusion like he hadn’t done anything wrong and freed himself from Chuuya’s weak hold. Chuuya expected another prod, another jab, but instead, he received a soft touch he didn’t think Dazai was even able to provide.
He looked at the man in front of him like he was a puzzle.
Dazai remained seemingly oblivious to Chuuya’s utter bewilderment and resumed his task of tending Chuuya’s wounds.
His touch was gentle and tender, clashing grotesquely with his previous demeaning humiliation and making Chuuya’s head spin in a way he couldn’t entirely blame on his weakened state.
Dazai moved onto his forearms and caressed the burnt bits of skin. Chuuya’s breath hitched in his throat and Dazai looked up at him once again. Never breaking eye contact, Dazai brought his hand close to him and left a light kiss on Chuuya’s inner wrist. That was more than Chuuya could handle.
He recoiled and clutched his hand to his chest as if it had been burnt.
Dazai didn’t stop there. He returned to Chuuya’s wounds, but let his touch linger far longer than was necessary every time he stopped near a sensitive spot on his skin, getting Chuuya to shiver every time, to his absolute dismay. He didn’t know how much longer he could take that cruel warmth without jumping out of the nearest window. Dazai’s touch and presence were starting to burn through him.
He was surprised by Dazai’s fingers on his neck. Barely touching his skin, they hovered above a few angry burns, getting Chuuya to shiver as they inched closer.
Dazai leaned closer, letting Chuuya feel his warm breath over his neck. He couldn’t take it anymore.
“Stop.” Chuuya hoped it hadn’t sounded too much like the plea it was. His voice wavered as he gripped Dazai’s hair, trying to get him away from his oversensitive skin.
Dazai took no notice of Chuuya’s feeble attempt to retain his sanity and got even closer instead. His breath ghosted against Chuuya’s neck. Dazai’s closeness felt like a menace and Chuuya needed it to stop, but his protest died in his throat.
When Dazai’s fleeting lips finally touched his skin, Chuuya couldn’t repress a shiver that wrecked his entire body. That was enough.
Chuuya shoved Dazai away with what little force he could muster, but barely managed to push the other man away.
“What the fuck is wrong with you, shitty bastard?” he asked in a whisper. Dazai simply smiled at him before leaning in again.
“I’m going to kill you,” warned Chuuya as Dazai got dauntingly closer.
The bastard in front of him seemed to have a nonexistent sense of self-preservation, because he answered the threat by cradling Chuuya’s cheek. As he got closer Chuuya lost the ability to move and unconsciously held his breath. Dazai leaned in again.
“No.” Chuuya hissed as Dazai’s breath ghosted over his lips and his hair grazed his cheek. “No, you can’t.”
He felt Dazai smile against his lips, now unnervingly closer. Chuuya wanted to kill him, but he was still unable to move away.
Dazai finally closed the distance and pressed his lips against his, vanishing as soon as they touched him. Chuuya didn’t even know when he had closed his eyes, but when he opened them again, it was to find an incredibly self-satisfied Dazai. His fists ached to punch him.
“You have two fucking minutes to get out of here,” Chuuya warned as he tried to scramble back into a lying position, turning his face away from the menace next to him. His overburdened muscles were complaining after being locked in the same position for so long.
“This is my house, Chibi,” Dazai noted softly.
“Two fucking minutes,” he repeated. “And I’m burning the place down after I leave. Don’t be here when I wake up.”
“Sure,” said Dazai, and with that, Chuuya was certain he wasn’t going to keep his promise.
He waited until the bastard left the room to get his breathing under control. He was going to kill Dazai at some point, he was as sure of it as he was sure the sky was blue.
Sleeping proved itself to be a fruitless endeavor in that piece of cardboard Dazai called a bed, but he finally felt himself drift off. He was about to pass out again when he felt the mattress dip beside him and a solid presence pressing against his back.
“Good night, slug,” Chuuya barely heard the whisper, but melted into Dazai’s touch when he wrapped his arm around Chuuya’s waist.
He would kill him in the morning, Chuuya thought before falling asleep.