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The scent of disinfectants mingled with the remnants of gunpowder and smoke hung heavily in the air as Chuuya stirred awake in the hospital bed. His eyes squinted against the bright overhead lights, and his hand instinctively went to the bandages wrapped around his arms. Memories of the battle flooded back, the sensation of gravity warping at his will, and the aftermath of his unleashed corruption. Turning over in bed, he spots the unmistakable figure of Dazai, sitting calmly in the chair at his bedside, lifting his eyes from the book he’s holding when he hears Chuuya stir.
“How..long was I..out?” He asks, struggling to get the words out and surprising himself at just how raw and torn his voice sounds.
Dazai shuts his book and sets it on the bedside table in favor of folding his hands over his lap. “You were in a coma for four days.”
“Shit...” He curses.
Dazai hums. “You made it difficult for me to get to you this time around.” He says and gestures to his leg, which Chuuya only now notices is in a cast. “It took me ten minutes to reach and nullify you.”
Chuuya’s eyes widened. It had only ever taken, at most, five minutes for his corrupted form to succeed in destroying everything in its path and for Dazai to rush to his side and catch him as he fell, no longer human enveloping him in a comforting blue swirl of warmth that grounded Chuuya back to his body.
He has the urge to apologize. He’s not sure what for.
“What happened to my arm?” He asks instead, looking down at the bandages that wrap around his shoulder and travel all the way down to his elbow.
“Mori says it’s because you were under for so long, corruption started to quite literally rip apart your skin. It’ll likely scar.” Dazai says, and if Chuuya didn’t know better he’d say he could hear a hint of sympathy in his voice. “You’re lucky it stopped at just your arm.”
But Chuuya didn’t feel lucky. In fact, the first thing he did when he was discharged from the hospital was rip the bandages off just to see how bad it was. The wound was still raw and ugly, a jagged line of pain that stretched from his shoulder to his elbow and sent shockwaves of agony down the entirety of his arm whenever he moved. The shape and placement of the cut were nearly identical to the red lines of corruption that swirled around his skin and that alone makes it too nauseating to look at, even without the blood and puss.
The mere thought of having a permanent mark of corruption etched into his skin for the rest of his life, a constant reminder of his inhumanity, has him desperately scratching around the edges of the raw and already bleeding skin in some last ditch attempt to mask the wound with marks from fingernails and even more blood.
The longer he looks at his arm in the mirror, the more agitated and panicked he becomes. He thinks of how his coworkers will look at him with thinly concealed horror and disgust at seeing what the god that lays dormant inside him is capable of doing, even to its host. He thinks about how they’ll all flinch in his presence and mumble desperate and scared apologies, fearful one day that power will be unleashed onto them instead. He thinks about the mumbles he already hears amongst lower ranks about him, how they whisper about the “Mafia’s monster”.
His breath is coming in low, quiet wheezes and his chest is heavy with the weight of what this scar means. The solution pops into his head so suddenly he doesn’t have the time to even process the thought before he’s frantically searching under the kitchen sink for bleach and leftover paint thinner from when he’d renovated his apartment only a few months prior.
His window of time is short, he knows Dazai will be home soon from wherever he gets off to during the day and he doesn’t have it in him to face anyone, let alone Dazai, in the state he’s in and he certainly doesn’t want him to know what his solution to his suffering is, too uncomfortable with the idea of being lumped into the same category of crazy as him.
He quickly shuffles his feet to the bathroom and kneels over the tub, placing his arm over the ledge. His hands are shaking as he unscrews the cap to the bleach and he hesitates when he brings the tip of the bottle to his shoulder. It’s going to hurt, he knows, and the thought of just how much is enough to have his shaking hands hovering with doubt. Images of the pain and carnage he causes as corruption flood his mind and the idea that no one will be able to look at him without thinking of Chuuya as corruption, his scar all the evidence they need of what a monster he is, is what has Chuuya finally tipping the bottle and biting his tongue in excruciating pain when the chemicals reach his raw and open wound and drip down his skin.
He sits on the bathroom floor, writhing in pain as he watches the wound turn from a mere gash to a mess of blood, blisters and swollen skin. It’s not enough though, and he’s quickly fiddling with the cap of the paint thinner and pouring it the same way he did with the bleach, this time without any hesitation. The pain is nauseating and Chuuya’s using every ounce of strength he has left to hold himself upright and not let out agonized screams.
——————
It wasn’t supposed to become a habit, what he did do himself. But the more he used corruption the more scars appeared on his skin. He doesn’t know why, after years of use with no scarring, all of the sudden there are permanent marks left after every use of his power. When he’d reluctantly approached Mori about it, he was told it was probably just his body wearing down and not having as much resistance to his own ability as he used to along with a lecture about this being one of the many sacrifices he should be ready to make for the mafia.
So, he buys more bleach. He decides against using more than that this time around, feeling the paint thinner was overkill and merely a product of his panic when he wasn't sure if the bleach would be enough to hide the scar.
It quickly becomes a part of his post-corruption routine; leaning his arm over the bathtub to make sure he doesn’t spill anything on the floor and holding a cloth in his mouth to bite down on as he pours bleach into open wounds.
And for a while, it helps. The ragged and rough edges of welts and blisters hid the traces of his inhumanity well behind blood and sores. Beyond just being a way to cover his scars, the friction from his sleeves rubbing against the wound during the day sent an agonizing pain down his arm that was excruciating and terrible and completely and utterly grounding in a way Chuuya has never felt before. He reveled in the pain, let it tie him to his body and help him feel the rise and fall of his chest, hear his heartbeat, and mend his imperfections with pain only a human could be capable of feeling. For once, his body felt like his.
But as he should've expected, that feeling abruptly comes to a halt when Dazai starts to catch wind of what he's doing. They’re out on a mission, in the crossfire between their men and an enemy organization and hiding behind a large crate for cover. Chuuya, ever the impatient one, is inching his way to the corner of the crate to look for an opening, tired of sitting around while his men are being shot down. Just as he’s positioning himself to lunge from where he’s squatting to attack, He feels Dazai’s hand grab onto his arm. The involuntary scream that he lets out his blood curdling and raw and like nothing he’s ever heard from his own mouth. Despite the searing pain of Dazai’s hand placed firmly over his open burn, turning his vision white, he keeps himself upright and tries to use the edges of the crate to hoist himself up and resume his original plan of attack. Dazai grabs his other arm, pulling him back down and closer to himself.
“You’ll only get more of them killed.” Is all he says outwardly, but his eyes are searching and expectant like he’s waiting for Chuuya to explain himself. Chuuya doesn't, just cradles his arm and watches helplessly as more of their men collapse and bleed out around them.
The mission is long and strenuous and by the end of it both boys are soaked in blood, some their own and some from ruthlessly murdered enemies. They had it coming for killing so many of their own, Chuuya thinks– images of lifeless faces and limp bodies flooding his brain in waves of guilt. He and Dazai walk beside each other silently, footsteps quiet and in sync with one another as they enter their shared apartment.
While they'd both adamantly been against sharing living quarters, per Mori’s request, nights like these made having another person to share space with a luxury instead of a burden– the company kept both of them out of their own heads when they were too exhausted to filter the heavy thoughts or find a way to distract themselves from them. And while neither would ever admit it, the routine they'd somehow fallen into where Dazai would collapse into the couch and Chuuya would hurry to the kitchen to grab whatever alcohol they had leftover in the cabinet and then promptly follow suit, they found comfort in it. Some nights they'd talk, most conversations disregarded by morning from shared hangovers. Other nights, they'd sit quietly beside each other and take turns picking what movie or show to put on.
Tonight, Dazai waits till Chuuya sits beside him on the couch, a bottle of wine and two glasses in hand to speak.
“Let me see.” He says, his voice more demanding than it's been all night.
“What're you talkin’ about?” Chuuya doesn't look at him, instead focusing on pouring the wine carefully into the glasses without spilling it onto the coffee table in front of them. He knows exactly what Dazai’s talking about, too perceptive and nosey for his good, he knew the moment they were out of immediate danger Dazai would ask.
“Don’t play dumb, Slug. It’s not cute.” He holds out his hand expectantly. “Your arm.”
Chuuya, too delirious and exhausted to argue with Dazai in a fight he knows he won't win– having learned from experience when Dazai sets his mind to finding something out there's no stopping him, he reluctantly places his arm carefully in Dazai’s open palm.
With an uncharacteristic gentleness, the brunette slowly rolls up his sleeve and reveals the burn that now looks even more irritated and open than it did when he left home this morning.
Dazai’s face is unreadable. His brows are pinched and his lips are pulled downward in the closest resemblance to a genuine frown Chuuya’s ever seen Dazai wear so openly in his expression. His thumb is rubbing careful circles around the edges of the raw skin when he asks, “What happened?” His voice is low and quiet, and if Chuuya hadn’t spent so much time with the other boy and wasn't so in tune with every minute detail of his very person, he might have missed the small shake in his words.
“Did someone do this to you?” He demands, a little louder now. His face is growing with thinly concealed horror while Chuuya pauses to think about how to answer him, and if the situation weren’t so personally uncomfortable for the redhead, he might have almost enjoyed the idea of Dazai being worried on his behalf. It wasn't often their relationship, tangled with half-truths and complexities, ever presented itself with the opportunity for either of them to show their care for one another on open display, and Chuuya would be lying if he said he didn’t take a little longer to answer solely so he could soak in Dazai’s expression of raw and genuine concern for him and file it away in his head for later.
“No, I did it. I burned myself while cooking earlier.” He lies.
Dazai looks at him, disbelieving. “Even you can’t possibly be so stupid.”
He scoffs. “Big words coming from someone who burns water and can’t even make instant noodles without my help.”
“At least I’ve never somehow managed to lay the entirety of my arm on the stove.” He’s calling his lie, Chuuya knows, trying to gauge his reaction and understand why this is something Chuuya’s lying to him about in the first place.
“I was tired and wasn't focused. I had a long day.” He tries. “Not all of us can slack off on work whenever we feel like it.” Dazai makes some half-assed retort back but for the most part, the conversation falls off there, for which Chuuya is grateful. They both nurse their beverages and mindlessly scroll through whatever’s playing on tv because he can’t be bothered to argue about what to watch. They stay like that for an hour or two, refilling their glasses with whatever alcohol Chuuya has laying around and by the time he starts to feel the buzz of the drinks in his system, it’s nearly two in the morning.
“It’s awfully convenient.” Dazai says suddenly and Chuuya stops himself from flinching in surprise, having assumed that Dazai had dozed off with how quiet he’d been.
Chuuya blinks. “What?”
“Where you burned yourself. It’s right where your scars from corruption were.”
Chuuya shifts uncomfortably. “So what?”
“You hated them.”
Chuuya scoffs. “Yeah, who fucking wouldn’t?”
“I didn’t.” Dazai says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world and Chuuya has to catch himself from letting his discomfort at the sentiment show. He knows Dazai likes his scars– knows Mori and the sheep and every other person that can only see him as the vessel for a power that entertains those around him, likes his scars. It’s a mark etched into his skin that invites people to gawk and stare and ignorantly wish to be blessed with power like his or find a way to use it, use him, for their own selfish gain— never once stopping to consider the possibility of there being a person with his own thoughts and feeling behind the destruction he causes.
“You should.” He mumbles. He can feel Dazai’s eyes on him, analyzing and searching up and down his body for answers Chuuya simply doesn’t have to offer him.
“Why did you burn yourself, Chuuya?”
“It was an accident.” And while he knows lying is pointless, knows Dazai has already searched him through and through and found the root of his lies from a single look and is merely asking to provoke him, he can’t bring himself to openly admit what happened— to himself and let alone to Dazai.
“I’m not like you.” Chuuya adds, sounding more like an omission than he’d meant it to. Surely, he thinks, what he had done can’t fall under the same category as what Dazai does to himself— cuts lining his wrists in a bloodied mess of self hatred. Chuuya was different, he didn’t hurt himself because he wanted to, the pain was only an added benefit he’d discovered later and still, if not for wanting to cover up something that hurt him far more than a burn ever could, he wouldn’t actively seek out the pain. It could hardly be considered self-harm.
With the same gentleness from earlier, Dazai takes Chuuya’s arm in his hand and lifts the sleeve to his shoulder, revealing the first burn he’d given to himself on, older and now completely healed. The skin is red and raised and the edges of his scars from corruption visibly creep around the edges.
“Is Chuuya truly so dense he couldn’t have found a better way to go about this?” Dazai asks, voice soft in a way Chuuya rarely hears, and that alone has him shifting uncontrollably in his seat.
“You’re one to fucking talk.” He snaps defensively.
Dazai shakes his head. “It’s different. I don’t like it when you hurt yourself.”
“Well I don't like when you hurt yourself either.” Chuuya protested, not missing the way Dazai’s eyes softened around the edges at his words. Images of Dazai laying limp and bloodied on the bathroom floor flood his mind, memories of screaming for him to wake up and lengthy conversations after Chuuya stitched and bandaged his wrists– it was a feeling of absolute dread and terror like he'd never felt before the times he'd found Dazai like that, and the way Dazai’s looking at him now, like he's the one laying in a pool of his own blood in place of him, cracks what little resolve he has left. It's not the same, what he does, but if it’s enough to elicit the concerned expression on Dazai’s face, the one he knows he's wore when he found the brunette, blade in hand, for the first time, he knows he owes Dazai some kind of explanation, if for nothing more than to ease his own guilt.
“I just couldn’t look at them anymore.” He mumbled. A red flush of shame and embarrassment covering his cheeks.
They sit in silence for a moment and Chuuya has half the mind to change the topic and just start speaking about something else entirely, all too ready to let this conversation die. But before he can get a word out, Dazai is abruptly standing and walking into the other room. Chuuya sits, confused and left to assume Dazai’s grown bored of his issues and is tired of hearing Chuuya whine. It’s fair, he wouldn’t blame him. But as quickly as he left, Dazai is walking back to couch from his room, holding a paintbrush, tubes of paint and a glass filled halfway with water.
“What’re you doin?” Chuuya questions, head tilting.
Dazai doesn’t answer him at first, just sits on the floor in front of the redhead and sets his paints down on the coffee table and then pats the spot next to him, silently urging for Chuuya to join him.
Chuuya does, slowly. He’s not unfamiliar with Dazai randomly and completely switching gears and moving from topic to topic, interest to interest, but the concern from earlier is still laced into the brunette's expression as he follows Chuuya’s steady movements to the floor with even more intensity now.
“Can I take off your shirt?” He says it so seriously with no hint of awareness for how it could sound that Chuuya has to laugh.
“Jeez, Mackerel, buy me dinner first.” Dazai’s eyes widen at the implication, it just now seeming to click how odd his request sounded out of the blue. Chuuya can’t help the swell of pride he feels at being the cause of Dazai’s embarrassment for a change and he openly stares, taking in the sight of Dazai with his pale cheeks dusted a light pink.
Dazai recovers quickly though. “In your dreams, I'm sure.”
Chuuya has half the mind to hit him atop the head for that, but he keeps his fists at his sides for now and allows Dazai to pull his shirt over his head in an act that feels way too intimate and vulnerable for Chuuya’s liking. Slender fingers lift the hem of Chuuya’s shirt and graze over his hips and ribs and brush against his collarbone on their way up in a motion that’s slow, deliberate.
Once his shirt is off, leaving him feeling utterly exposed, Dazai turns his attention to his paints. Chuuya watches with curiosity and anticipation as Dazai mixes the colors and coats his brush in a thin layer of water. When there’s a mix of reds, greens and browns on his pallet, he turns back to the redhead and with the hand that isn’t holding the brush, he gently grabs the underside of Chuuya’s arm to better access his scar.
It’s only when the sof bristles of the brush coated in deep red paint meet his skin does he finally understand what’s happening. Dazai paints in long strokes, his hands steady and confident across raised and bumpy skin and Chuuya can hear every breath he takes from how close they are, every click of his tongue when he makes a mistake. He’s torn between leaning into the relaxation and sensations of his touch and wanting to jump out his skin, overwhelmed and shrinking under the attention. Ultimately, the movement of the bristles on his arm become hypnotic, and he feels himself slipping into a sleep-like state despite himself.
“I’m not going to lecture you—“ Dazai starts, interrupting Chuuya’s peace.
“Good.”
“—But it won't help you, what you're doing. Not in the long run.” His fingers are tracing the outskirts of his scar as he speaks, following the lines and using them as guidelines for where his brush lands next. “Scars make us human, Slug. They prove we’ve lived.”
Chuuya lets his head fall back against the couch and tilts his chin away from the other boy. “Not mine.”
“Especially yours.” Dazai chided. “I’ve always envied you. Even with the power of a god at your fingertips you still encapsulate more humanity than most people could ever even fathom.”
And if Chuuya weren’t so wrapped up in his doubt and frustration with himself over the situation, he would have stopped to soak in genuine warmth in Dazai’s words.“I’m a monster, Dazai.“ Chuuya’s voice quivers in an uncomfortable show of vulnerability that makes him want to curl into himself and hide himself from his own emotions. “What I turn into..corruption, it’s—“
“Beautiful.” Dazai interrupts, eyes softening. “I love watching what you’re capable of becoming.”
Chuuya doesn’t, can't, respond to that— Doesn’t know how to. Instead, he breathes in the words and plays them on repeat in his head, “Beautiful”, Dazai called him while his careful fingers traced Chuuyas most vulnerable wound and held it with nothing but care and affection. An affection for Chuuya, not separated from his power or merely valued because of it, but Chuuya as a person with a gift to be admired, same as him. He reveals in that warmth and lets it cloud his brain in a fog of euphoria that makes him wish he’d found a way sooner to get Dazai to say those words to him, maybe then he could have avoided burnt and swollen skin.
In the haze of his thoughts, he almost doesn’t hear Dazai announce, “All done!”
Briefly, he mourns the feeling of the brush and Dazai’s fingers on his skin, but his attention is quickly diverted to the brunette pulling out his phone from where it had fallen between the couch cushion and flipping the camera so Chuuya could see better what Dazai had painted.
On his shoulder, where there was once an unsightly scar left behind from corruption, then further aggravated by the burn, there's now a beautiful display of red flowers. The flowers are vibrant and bright with pops of yellow amongst the red and there’s vines tracing the outskirts of scarred flesh in the same pattern Dazai’s fingers just were.
“Now I know you love it but if you want it tattooed to permanently cover it, I expect full credit and financial compensation—“ Dazai’s words are abruptly cut off by the other boy's head falling heavily against his shoulder, a pool of ginger splaying across his chest and neck.
“Thanks.” Chuuya whispers, voice swimming with emotion that for the first time that day, was positive.
“Ah, Chuuya’s so emotional.” Dazai teased, no real bite behind the words. His hand stutters for only a moment before he’s reluctantly placing it atop Chuuya’s head, caressing his hair and letting orange strands spill through his fingers and back down. They stay like that for longer than either of them would like to admit— Chuuya having pressed himself further into Dazai’s chest and settling his face in the crook of his neck and Dazai having made no move to pry the redhead off of him, only continuing the soothing motion of running his hands through his hair and occasionally rubbing careful circles into the back of his neck when he feels silent tears seep through his shirt.
“You’re getting my shirt all gross and wet.” Dazai says after a few more minutes, finally breaking the silence.
“It’s ugly anyways.” Chuuya snaps back, but still, reluctantly pulls himself away from the comforting warmth of Dazai’s body and sits himself upright.
He sniffles a little and clears his throat as subtly as he can though he knows it’s pointless to try and pretend he wasn't just crying like a child with the evidence front and center on the collar of Dazai’s shirt. He tries anyway. “I’m not getting this tattooed.”
“What! Why not?”
“The flowers are too frilly and the red you used is way too bright.” He says the first thing that comes to mind, neither one of which he agrees with. It’s perfect, what Dazai’s painted, and it’s somehow everything he’s needed and more since the first time corruption scorned his body and claimed it as it’s own.
“You wound me. After I worked so hard too!” Dazai crosses his arms, sulking. “Fine, I’ll just need to practice more on you i suppose.” And Chuuya hears the unspoken plea hidden beneath his words: let me be there for you next time
“Guess so.” he says, a silent agreement that has Dazai smiling, soft and reserved only for these moments.
“When you do eventually get it tattooed, personally I think you should put my name under it so people know who—“
Chuuya cuts him off with a firm hit to the back of the head. “I’m not tattooing anything! Especially not your fucking name!”
“But I worked so hard-! Ow-!” He hits him again.
“Is that the only reason you did this? So I would feel guilty and get your goddamn name tattooed on me? You’re fucking deluded!”
Dazai rubs is hand over where Chuuya whacked and pouts. “Are you gonna hit me again if I say yes?”
“Yes.”
“Then no.” Dazai looks down at him with feigned innocence and Chuuya can’t help the amused puff of air he lets out. “I wanted Chuuya to see himself the way I see him.”
“..Flowery?”
“Human.” Dazai deadpans. “You really are dense.”
Chuuya mouths an “O” shape, nodding and averting his eyes from Dazai’s gaze in favor of staring at the floor; the insult disagreed at that moment. “Thanks.” he mumbles, calming his beating heart that has no regard for Chuuya’s embarrassment and merely wants to hear Dazai call him human over and over again till he really believes it.
Dazai shrugs, “You’ve done the same for me.” He says, getting up to put his supplies away. And that, Chuuya thinks, is the best thing Dazai’s said all night because not only is Dazai his tie to his own humanity, but he’s Dazai’s.
He doesn’t think he minds the scars so much anymore so long as he has Dazai to paint them and replace every bad memory and reminder of his inhumanity with only vibrant colors and the safety of the hand that accompanies them.