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Ears ringing, Dazai slumped against his office wall. He stared blankly into the distance for a few seconds before realizing he was shaking. Spasm after spasm ripped through him and when he looked down at his hands, his vision blurred. Why did he...
A tear slid down his face.
I did everything he asked for...
But Mori had always been unpredictable like that. Dazai could complete his tasks flawlessly or not do them at all, the probability of getting backhanded across the room was still the same. No one knew what influenced the mafiosos moods, all Dazai could do was make himself as small as possible and hope the boss didn't notice him.
It only took a minute or two for him to calm down, though his body still ached from getting slammed into a wall. This wasn't a rare occurrence, after all. And Dazai was a master at disguising his true feelings.
Not that he was actually calm, more so in a dulled state that allowed him to go about his day without issue but break down the second no one was looking. Maybe, on another day, he would've sat there a bit longer, dead eyes gazing into the space in front of him. But he couldn't afford to do that today, there was too much to do.
Cursing inwardly, he got up and headed over to his calendar. What do I do now again?
Ah. A strategy meeting with the crew for the new mission Mori thought up. It was my idea, the bastard.
But sulking wouldn't pay for his food, so he quickly glanced over the list of people that would be going. A smirk pulled at his lips when he saw who would be leading the mission. If Chuuya was at the meeting, maybe it wouldn't be so bad. At least he'd have some comic relief.
He turned and stared at the door, a wave of tiredness washing over him. All Dazai wanted at that moment was to go to bed, wrap himself in blankets and stay there forever. He silently willed the door to be stuck or locked from the outside, anything to prevent him from going to the damn meeting. Or talking to anyone in general.
Instead, the door silently swung open when he pressed on the handle. Disappointment mixed with resignation swirled around in his brain on the way to the meeting, but he was Dazai. No one cared how he felt, so why should he care how he felt? Maybe I'll try jumping out of a window next time.
-
The meeting had gone fairly smoothly, despite him zoning out enough times for Chuuya to actually take notice and ask him what was going on. No one else had batted and eye at it though, so that was a success.
What wasn't a success was the shit-load of paperwork he had gotten to doing afterwards. It wasn't a huge pile, only about twenty sheets of paper to fill out plus a report on how the meeting went, but Dazai couldn't focus. Every time he tried doing something, anything, his eyes started closing and his mind floated off to a comfortable bed that smelled soft and nice, like the cologne a certain redhead he knew wore.
"Kill me now" He muttered, letting his head drop to the desk with a dull thunk.
He obviously wasn't capable of getting anything done now. Not after he'd been sitting there for four hours and only finished five documents out of fifteen. For god's sake, he hadn't even started the report yet and he was already exhausted.
If this were any other job, he wouldn't have bothered and would have just gone home to sleep. It wasn't particularly urgent work, it wouldn't matter if he did it today or next week. But sadly, that's not how being in the Port Mafia worked. You either worked yourself to death or were deemed useless and killed. And for Dazai, the second option didn't exist because Mori enjoyed his suffering too much to get rid of him.
He turned his head over slightly in search of the clock next to his head and groaned at the clock hands. It was 11pm and he still had a couple hours of work left to do. That dashed his hopes of going to sleep before 3am quite thoroughly.
Well, since he didn't have a choice, he might as well write the report. But before that, he definitely needed a cup of coffee.
-
An hour later, he had the report written. It was probably full of spelling mistakes and incorrectly remembered facts, but it was done. He'd double check it in the morning and probably cry over how bad it was.
It took around five minutes to gather up the strength to get up, and he still swayed on his feet.
Then he snapped awake in an instant as he heard a knock on the door behind him. Who the fuck is wandering around here at midnight?
The answer to his question was Chuuya.
"What are you still doing here? It's midnight, mackerel, jeez. Even you should be gone by now." His partner frowned at him, but despite the sharpness of his words there was no anger in his face. He looked almost... worried.
Dazai shrugged off the idea, knowing he'd be hard pressed to find anyone in the whole universe who would actually worry about him. Then he visibly shrugged, in answer to Chuuya's question.
"I was finishing the meeting report. Got a problem?" His attempt to look menacing was a failure, thanks to him swaying on his feet and blinking quickly to dispel the black dots dancing in front of his eyes.
Chuuya didn't look convinced by the expression either. "Do you even have anywhere to go? I know for a fact you don't have an apartment."
Sighing, Dazai shook his head. "I stay at Oda's place most nights. He lives in an inn near Yokohama Shopping Centre." It went unsaid what he did when he couldn't stay there. Despite being one of the Port Mafia's executives, he didn't have a paycheck high enough to afford renting a flat. Yet another example of Mori's cruel sense of humor.
For some reason, Chuuya's brow creased. "That's on the other side of the city." Another shrug.
"I don't have anywhere else to go, slug." He slid passed his partner and walked down the corridor. Chuuya frowned at the repetition of his own words.
"You could stay at my place. It's closer and I have a couch."
Dazai stopped in his tracks. He had only been in Chuuya's apartment twice before, once to deliver a message from Kouyou and once after a mission during which both of them got so drained they passed out on the couch. He'd gotten pretty much banned from the place after waking up hugging Chuuya from behind.
"What?"
"I said you could stay at my place, idiot. You coming or not?" The redhead was already walking away, leaving a stunned Dazai to catch up with him.
-POV switch-
Chuuya had seen Dazai in a lot of different states. He'd seen him angry, happy, tired, even sad sometimes. But he'd never seen Dazai this unfocused. Even when he was a walking corpse thanks to sleep deprivation, he was always calculated, never once letting his guard down.
But something was off about his partner today. During the strategy meeting, Dazai had zoned out multiple times. Chuuya had had to repeat his name twice only for the brunette to flinch and resume talking as if nothing had happened. No one else had noticed, but Chuuya had been worried enough to ask what was wrong after the meeting ended.
Dazai's eyes had narrowed, but he hadn't responded with anything apart from stating that he didn't know what Chuuya was on about.
It was enough to make the redhead check up on his partner the second he finished work.
Asking why Dazai was up and about at midnight may have been a bit hypocritical, but it worried him even more when the brunette didn't point that out. He'd only shrugged and blamed the meeting report. But that wasn't a very good reason, considering reports like that only took him about half an hour.
The conversation had then gone over to where his partner would go now, Chuuya wanting to make sure that the man wasn't sleeping on the streets. It was fairly well known information that Dazai didn't have his own apartment. Chuuya wasn't sure who this Oda person was, though he vaguely recalled something about the lowest ranking member the Port Mafia had. When he heard where the guy lived however, he made up his mind.
Dazai had seemed genuinely shocked when Chuuya had suggested he sleep on his couch, an expression that Chuuya reluctantly admitted made him look quite cute. He didn't have time to get a good look at it though, as it was gone in an instant.
Lacking anything to look at, he started walking away. He knew that Dazai would follow him and sure enough, it took less that five seconds for his partner to regain his bearings.
"I'll come," Dazai caught up with him, swaying on his feet ever so slightly. Jeez, how long did you sleep last night? Wait, you didn't. Idiot.
Well, as annoying as Dazai was, Chuuya hated knowing how badly he treated himself. And this gave him the perfect opportunity to actually make sure the bastard slept a bit. Maybe he'd even get him to change the bandages, as, from what he gathered, he'd been reusing the same ones for months now. And maybe he would finally find out why he wore the cursed things in the first place. That was less important though.
They took a bus back to Chuuya's apartment and as soon as they entered, Dazai flung himself onto the couch. Rolling his eyes, Chuuya pushed him off with his foot.
"Take bloody shower before you contaminate my furniture, asshole." He hissed, teeth clenched. Dazai stood up and shrugged. Then an awkwardness Chuuya hadn't really seen before made it's way onto his face.
"Uh."
"What?"
"I don't have anything to change into. And I'm guessing you don't want me to sleep in my day clothes."
"No shit, Sherlock." Goddammit, now he'd have to give the rat clothes. He tried to ignore how that made his heart rate quicken. "I'll give you the shittiest sweatpants I can find."
Dazai blinked at him. "Slug, is everything okay? You're being very... nice."
"I can be nice when I want to, shut your trap" Chuuya glared at him, eliciting a snort of disbelief from his partner. A small smile tugged at his lips when he turned to find the worst clothes he owned. It was nice seeing Dazai in a better mood. "Go shower." He called over his shoulder, receiving a sound of acknowledgement in answer. "And change your bloody bandages, they're starting to stink. I have some in the first aid kit on the shelf, if you use all of them then you'll be paying for the next ones."
There was silence for a moment, then Dazai's voice sounded from a different room, presumably the bathroom. "Do you have antiseptic cream?"
Chuuya blinked. Antiseptic cream? "The one you use on cuts? The fuck would you need that for?"
More silence.
"Do you have it or not, slug." Dazai's voice was a tad colder this time. Chuuya groaned inwardly.
"It should be under the bandages, if not then I don't have it."
Why would Dazai need antiseptic cream of all things? He hadn't been on any missions this week and Chuuya would know if the idiot got himself hurt some other way, he would've complained about it incessantly.
An idea sprung up in his head, but he pushed it away. Sure, Dazai was worryingly fixated on suicide, but he wouldn't actively hurt himself, would he?
It nagged at him though. The antiseptic, the bandages, the death wish... It would make sense. I'll ask him later, hopefully he won't decapitate me.
If Dazai really had gone to such lengths to ease his supposed suffering, then Chuuya would make sure he spent more time with him. If only to give the man less time to be self destructive.
-POV switch-
As Dazai covered the last of his scabs with the cream, he wondered why he even put up with all this. It wouldn't really matter to anyone if he left, apart from maybe Odasaku. And Chuuya? He wasn't sure about the redhead, but he did know that apart from those two there was no one who would even notice he was gone.
Well, Mori would, but Mori wouldn't care. He'd find another helpless child to torture quite quickly. Probably that scrawny new kid, what was his name? Akutagawa? Dazai had seen the boy a couple times and recognised the emptiness in his eyes. He also knew that Mori would probably assign him to be Akutagawa's mentor.
If that did happen, then the kid would have it just as bad growing up as Dazai had it. Mori wouldn't let him treat the boy differently and even if the boss didn't pay such close attention to the trainings, Dazai wasn't sure he knew how to treat anyone differently from how he was treated.
Yet another traumatized orphan in the Port Mafia's quadrant. Mori was doing a really good job in collecting them, it would seem.
Dazai sighed inwardly. He started wrapping himself up in the bandages, reusing the freshest of his own and replacing the rest with Chuuya's supply.
Suicide was becoming more appealing by the day and despite not actually wanting to die, Dazai could see no other escape from the miserable life he was trapped in. Sometimes, he would end up at the top of a building, staring down into the bustling streets of Yokohama. Then he'd spend too much time looking and he'd choke up, resorting to the knife he kept in his boot in case of emergencies.
He would sit on that roof, blood trickling down his arms and more welling from other places on his body. It made him sick, to be so weak as to resort to self-punishment.
But what else could he do? It wasn't often that he went that far, normally sticking to punching walls, but there were times when he felt so useless, so pathetic and full of self hatred that the pain of abusing his knuckles simply wasn't enough. It was in those times that he cried. Properly cried, screaming his lungs out and sobbing until his throat hurt and he didn't have any tears left behind his eyes.
That was what had happened three days prior, and now Dazai had to stop himself from wincing every couple minutes.
He spent ten minutes carefully arranging the bandages, making sure they covered every scar. It was 2am when he finally left the bathroom. Chuuya was reading some kind of magazine, but he glanced up when Dazai came out.
"Took you long enough, mackerel. I thought you drowned yourself in the toilet or something." He got up and threw a pair of sweatpants at Dazai, who caught them just before they hit his face. "Now change outta those and let me take a shower."
Dazai raised a teasing eyebrow at his partner when the man cast a disgusted look at his clothes.
He changed quickly, curling into a ball on the couch when he was done. Chuuya would probably be annoyed that he had kept his coat on, but he didn't want his partner to start asking questions about why his torso was covered in bandages too. Explaining Mori's temper tantrum would be time consuming and really, Dazai just wanted to sleep.
His brain however, had other ideas.
As the minutes passed, his thoughts got progressively darker and darker. With each suicide tactic he curled into himself more and more, eventually ending up so compressed that his breathing was obstructed. It wasn't uncommon for him to sit like that for hours at a time, the pressure on his ribcage strangely soothing.
But as his mind spiraled, images from two years prior began cropping up behind his eyelids. Tonight would probably be plagued with nightmares, most likely ones filled with spurting blood and crazed scarlet eyes. Why did it have to be today? The one time I'm sleeping within three meters of someone?
When Chuuya came back into the room, hair still wet from the shower, Dazai was already pretending to be asleep, hidden under a blanket to obscure his shaking.
He heard Chuuya sigh softly as he moved to turn the light off.
"How long has it been since you actually slept?" The redhead murmured, sitting down and resting his back against the couch. Dazai's heartrate sped up. Chuuya sounded openly worried. The tenderness in his voice made Dazai want to punch something. He didn't deserve to be cared about, least of all by Chuuya. There were so many people Chuuya could spend his time worrying about, and out of all those people, Dazai was the one who deserved it the least.
"I was gonna ask you why you needed that antiseptic cream, but I think I've figured it out. It would explain the bandages too. Who did this to you, idiot? There's no way you got to this point on your own."
Shit. Shit, shit, fucking shit. Chuuya knew. Of course he knew, he was too smart not to connect the dots.
Sighing, Chuuya got up. "Goodnight, Dazai, sleep well.." His voice trailed off and Dazai felt a hand graze his cheek. He thought he heard Chuuya murmur something, but then the hand was gone and with it, the tingling in his stomach it had evoked.
Dazai stayed where he was for a while, heart pounding and mind reeling.
It took him an hour to finally fall asleep.
-
A scream ripped him from his restless slumber, a scream that he quickly realized was his own. He clamped his mouth shut, but it was too late. There was no way Chuuya hadn't heard, unless he slept like a corpse.
With dread eating him up from the inside, Dazai tried to calm his breathing. It wouldn't do anything for the sweat trickling down his neck or the tear stains on his cheeks, but if Chuuya was worried enough to check up on him then the least he could do was stop hyperventilating.
His suspicions were confirmed when he heard the creek of a door opening. Footsteps sounded and after a minute, he felt a weight settle on the couch by his feet. There was silence for a minute, then the question.
"What happened?" Chuuya asked, his voice still raspy from sleep. It sounded nice, the kind of voice you could wake up to and know that the day would go well, if only because you got to hear it. Dazai pushed the thoughts away, face heating slightly. Where the fuck did that come from?
"A nightmare. It doesn't matter." He mumbled, sitting up and leaning his head back. He couldn't see Chuuya, but something told him that his eyebrows were raised in scepticism.
"You wanna talk about it?"
"Who are you and what have you done with the chibi?" Dazai deadpanned, though his voice cracked a bit. Truth be told, he didn't fully remember what the nightmare was about, all he knew was that there was blood involved. A lot of it.
"Ha ha, very funny. You know, if you don't tell me what's wrong, I might just have to hug you. Wouldn't want that now would you?" His partner sounded like he was trying to cheer himself up as much as Dazai.
And really, Dazai did want to be hugged. Unbearably so. He didn't know if he'd ever actually been hugged before, but he wanted it. He craved the intimacy that physical touch offered, an intimacy he was too scared to actively seek out but one he would leap at if given the chance.
Every brush of hands, every push, every swat, he always had to suppress a shiver. And now it was being offered on a silver platter, however sarcastically Chuuya had said it. Normally, the idea of asking for a touch would be humiliating for Dazai. But it was somewhere around 5am and he was tired, scared and desperate, so he decided to put his honor in the back seat for the moment.
"Could you?"
Chuuya froze. "What?"
"Hug me."
The silence that followed was almost deafening. All Dazai could hear was how Chuuya's breath hitched, a sound that had his heart pounding with triple its normal speed.
He knew that Chuuya would most likely refuse, but there was always a chance he wouldn't. Maybe out of pity, maybe out of worry. Of course, It wouldn't be the same reason Dazai needed the hug for, but it would be a hug nevertheless. He had long ago accepted that Chuuya would never touch him out of genuine care and affection.
Finally, the silence got so stifling that he could either break it or suffocate in it.
"You could just say no if it's such a horrifying thought, you know." Despite succeeding in keeping out a great deal of the hurt he felt, there was still a discernable bitterness in his voice. Cursing himself for letting it through, Dazai turned his face and pressed it into the couch.
So much for the glimmer of hope he'd had.
Then the weight by his feet lifted. So Chuuya would leave without saying a word. At least he wasn't kicking Dazai out.
Resigned to his loneliness, he thought he was hallucinating at the first slight touch of hands at his shoulders.
But then the weight settled back down, this time closer, level with him instead of at his feet. A hand caught his chin gently, bringing his face around to look at it's owner.
Dazai's breath caught, a little noise of surprise escaping him at the touch.
He could only see Chuuya's outline, the sun having not yet risen enough to make out anything else.
Both of them remained stock still for a while, looking at each other. As their eyes grew more accustomed to the darkness, their faces were laid bare for the other to see.
The look of unbridled affection on Chuuya's face made Dazai's brain short-circuit. His jaw went slack, eyes widening as he look in the softness his partner’s eyes had acquired, the slight smile on his lips. Face burning, he knew he must look similar, if not completely and utterly smitten.
It wasn't a hug, barely a ghost against his cheek, but it made his whole body shiver.
Lacking the self control to prevent it, Dazai full on melted against Chuuya's hand, pressing into it and squeezing his eyes shut. Maybe he wouldn't get a hug out of his partner tonight, but this was still more than he could have asked for. So, so much more.
-POV switch-
When it had turned out that Dazai had been the source of the bone-chilling scream that had woken Chuuya up, he was only slightly surprised. Getting up as quickly as possible, he heard the short, sharp breaths before opening the door.
Trying to get Dazai to explain what had happened was a fruitless endeavour, but it wasn't very surprising that the man suffered from nightmares. Chuuya could barely imagine the horrors his partner must have gone through to have him screaming like that.
So, he offered the next best thing. It was coated in sarcasm and there was no way Dazai would actually accept, but a hug was the only thing Chuuya could think of.
And then Dazai straight up told him to do it.
Chuuya had been stunned enough to completely forget how speaking worked. Sure, he had had plenty of dreams where he would hug Dazai, sometimes in nightmares where it was his partner's dead body he was holding but mostly in sweet, soft creations of his mind where Dazai would rest his head on Chuuya's shoulder, hug him from behind or just lay in his arms, allowing Chuuya to play with his hair and smiling up at him like he put the sun in the sky.
He was so caught up in those thoughts that he barely registered Dazai's next words.
"You could just say no if it's such a horrifying thought, you know." There was a bitterness to the words, a bitterness that made Chuuya wonder if Dazai had ever actually been touched in any way other than violence.
It seemed like a no-brainer to do what he asked for, and do it properly.
So, Chuuya stood up and moved closer to his partner - no; friend, and cup his face to gently bring it back round to him. On second thought, maybe 'friend' wasn't the best word for him, because as they sat there like that, Chuuya holding Dazai's face and Dazai staring at him in confusion, it felt like more. More than partnership, more than friendship.
Intimacy was strange like that.
Chuuya knew that his expression was an open book, but he didn't mind much. He needed Dazai to know that behind all the bickering, all the snide remarks, Chuuya cared about him.
The sheer shock he saw reflected in Dazai's eyes told him he'd gotten the message through. And when the man pressed his face into Chuuya's hand, the small smile that was already gracing the redhead's lips widened ever so slightly. Now there was only one thing left to do.
Moving his hand from Dazai's face to his waist, Chuuya pulled the brunette against him and held him there, not daring to move for fear of scaring him away.
Stiff at first, but more and more pliable as he got used to the touch, Dazai sat there, pressed against his partner's chest. He didn't move for a while, until something in his brain seemed to click as he remembered that hugs are two-sided. Chuuya smiled into the other's brown, fluffy hair as he brought his arms up around him.
Slowly, he began drawing circles into Dazai's back with his thumb, enjoying the soft intake of breath the movement evoked.
As time went on, Dazai seemed to lose all the strength in his body, sagging against Chuuya and allowing him to do whatever he wanted, whether that be hold him closer or push him away. It was both sweet and sad, because no one who wasn't severely starved for affection reacted to a simple hug that way.
And when Dazai asked him, voice broken and quiet, to stay with him for that night, Chuuya promised he would, silently adding that it wouldn't just be that one night. No, if Dazai wanted Chuuya to stay for longer, then Chuuya would stay for every night. Every night, every day, every time that Dazai needed him.
Neither of them mentioned the soft kiss that Chuuya pressed to Dazai's forehead when they moved to his bed and it was just as well, because Chuuya was too tired to even register that he had done it.
"Promise me this isn't a dream." Dazai whispered as he looked up at Chuuya, who's eyes had already drifted closed.
"I promise, mackerel, now shut up and go to sleep." The words were sharp, but the tone was soft and the smile on Chuuya's lips said everything Dazai needed to know.
"Goodnight, Chuuya."
"Goodnight, Dazai."
Three other words almost slipped out along with the first two, but Chuuya bit his tongue before he could say them.
That night, both of them slept better than they had in years.