Work Text:
Today, the Armed Detective Agency waits for something to go wrong.
They wait eagerly, dreadful for what will ruin their too peaceful afternoon. Atsushi keeps his tiger ears sharp enough to hear a pin drop. Kunikida is stiffer than usual, sweeping glances around the room, keeping a thought on the weapons hidden in the office. Kenji’s happy mood is tinged with worry and Kyouka has gone to Yosano to share concerns and sharpen her knives. Yosano herself has commented on the imbalance of the usual chaos and she keeps an eye on the desk opposite Kunikida when she checks on the office. Tanizaki has been particularly protective of his sister, not enough to raise alarm.
And Ranpo… Ranpo isn’t present, which isn’t too much of a concern since he did tell Yosano he would be out with Poe and to take care of everyone, something which does raise her alarms, but she keeps that to herself.
The source of most of their anxieties has not moved from his desk in an hour. He isn’t working. A stack of paperwork sits at his right elbow on Atsushi’s desk. The end of the world would really have begun an hour ago if he were working diligently. Dazai rests his head on his arms. If he really were napping everyone knows he would prefer to stretch out on the couch.
This new tactic of disturbance is unnerving.
He’s got to have some discomfort in his neck. Such awful posture is dangerous, Kunikida has written that down and reprimands Dazai whenever he can. But today… He’s a little frightened to even touch the man. Dazai hasn’t spoken a single word in the hour, not even to bug him.
Atsushi speculates he might just be tired. It is an awfully quiet week, almost deceptively so. Since the Decay of Angels fiasco and all that followed within a week they’ve hardly had a break— in Atsushi’s entire stay with the agency— so the moment they do it only makes sense for Dazai to be as lethargic as he is. It’s almost like normal. Atsushi particularly believes Dazai should be tired. All that he hasn’t completely revealed about his own experience, he did return home injured. With a temporary cast someone helped him with. When asked about the injury, Dazai only told Atsushi gravity was not his friend that day.
If he isn’t getting enough rest, Atsushi wants to wake him and tell him to move to the sofa. Wants to, doesn’t mean he will. Dazai would just say no anyway.
Eventually the lazy atmosphere is startled by a minor case they are handed. One Ranpo is requested for, but in his absence Kunikida volunteers to go. It’s only a simple matter of deductions the local authorities want another objective opinion on. Atsushi also stands, both stare at Dazai, who would solve the case faster than either of them if he really tried. But… neither of them really want to wake him.
“You can handle this by yourselves, can’t you?” Fortunately for them, Dazai raises his head. Tired smile, just the tiniest bit strained, no one can blame him. Not even Kunikida who, for once, prefers it if his partner doesn’t do his job.
Atsushi and Kunikida share a glance, start to say they can indeed handle the case by themselves then stop. Their voices trail off as Dazai stands up, waves his hand dramatically.
“It shouldn’t take long. I’ll keep you company.” Paired with blinking to adjust to the light, Dazai grabs his cane and walks up to them. He pats Kunikida on the shoulder and carefully pushes Atsushi along and out of the door.
He strictly refuses to take the elevator, brushing off their reassurances and reasonings, excuses to his ears. Dazai goes as far as to walk down the stairs first, several rushed steps ahead of his companions just so they wouldn’t have to wait up on him. With his back to them, Dazai can freely wipe his face and blink drowsy eyes. This position persists during the car ride, facing the window away from view, chin in hand. Every so often his nose twitches.
The case isn’t difficult. The culprit runs as Dazai anticipated, but it is the shortest chase in the history of any mildly exhilarating case the agency has handled since Dazai joined. He watched Kunikida and Atsushi dodge civilians and catch the guilty man all under a minute. It took longer to direct fingers than Dazai predicted, only because Dazai fought against the stuffed pounding in his head and hesitated to give input to his colleagues. Leaning on them to do the rest and his own portion, save for a few interjections. He offered to tag along so why couldn’t he be useful? And why was it bothering him, doing the bare minimum, less as he usually does?
‘Are you all right?’ Dazai mishears. Turning sharply to the woman beside him, hovering where he has defeatedly seated himself and resolutely ignored his leg. She has light eyes and her golden brown hair is piled neatly on her head save for the stray strands loosened from the sudden motion of being pulled aside.
She is speaking, repeating her words when Dazai expresses politely for her to repeat herself. The stuffiness in his head crowds his ears. It leaks out as he hears her thank him. Nothing at all about his well-being. Oh. Right, he had jumped into the bustle of people to pull the nearest person away before the man could shove his way through, bolting without so much as a warning aside from his clenched jaw and darting eyes. That nearest person happened to be her; and she is thanking him.
Thanking him and expecting a response. Right.
Dazai shrugs his shoulders, the movement irritating the rest of his body. He pulls on a smile, recalling the flimsy action that strains his mind as much as forming words in response. A polite ‘no problem’ a ‘you’re welcome’ or even an ‘it was my pleasure’ tread heavily out of his mouth. Why didn’t he stay in the office where stillness could freeze over his body, settling deep into his bones with his eyes shut tight in his arms to block out the light and pretend he was back in his dorm? He’ll make decisions but he finds the personal ones aren’t often the right ones.
His colleagues approach him as the woman walks away, no doubt in his mind that she found the gratitude wasted on him.
“What did she want?” Atsushi watches her go, his head tilted curiously.
“I saved her lovely life.” Not that she would have gotten anything more than bruised. Dazai stands, catches every bone in a stretch and bites back a wince from the ache pulsing from nothing but his head. When he looks, Atsushi has two hands out, expression open with concern. Kunikida has a hand on his back. His face is drawn in a tighter version of Atsushi’s. Dazai can have two left feet on a good day, on any day chalked up to another one of his tactics to lighten up the lulling dullness of the slow days. He can’t press this dizziness into that excuse.
Dazai laughs, taking his cane from Kunikida’s other hand. But he will brush it off.
“If it’s too much for you to handle, just say so.” Kunikida exasperates, reaching out a hand to help Dazai for the third time today. If Dazai isn’t careful, their concern will bleed into every glance and action towards him. He can handle the stairs. He can. His head isn’t spinning and his balance is fine. He takes a deep breath and keeps the smile on.
Atsushi saw it happening before Dazai did. The abrupt tilt of his body. The misstep. Dazai trips up the stairs and he is lucky Atsushi is there to catch him. Although he isn’t happy. His mentor still insists on making the several flights of stairs and Atsushi has to contain himself from picking the man up and carrying him the rest of the way. There are few times Dazai has ever been angry, crossing this boundary may do so, Atsushi won’t risk it. But they still press the elevator subject to his chest. Dazai is adamant on ignoring it. He lets out a cheerful, bordering exhausted laugh when they reach the door.
“See? Couldn’t be better!”
He takes one step inside but a certain agency doctor waits like a vulture to swoop down on dead prey. Dazai is not dead, but he wishes he is as Yosano drags him to the infirmary. Yosano shoves him onto a bed and turns her back to grab a clipboard. Dazai’s body silently screams— not at the swift action, but at everything else clinging to his insides since he woke up. When Yosano turns around, his muscles sing their demise under the doctor’s gaze.
“My leg’s healing fine. Swell! The impromptu check up is awfully kind, thank you.”
Yosano doesn’t spare a glance at his leg. She sits on her stool with her hands folded in her lap. Her eyes never leave his face, gaze roaming over every bit of him. Can she see the small, faded scars? The mark under his bangs on his forehead? Under his eye? Yosano drops her gaze to say something.
That’s when she hears it. A small, deliberately muffled sound bitten back, hidden behind a thin, tense smile. Quick to drop as another poorly— not at all— concealed one has Dazai squeezing his eyes shut and jolting forward. He sits up and opens his eyes to see her grinning.
“Did you just sneeze?” She’s happy to be correct, nevermind Dazai not covering his nose.
“No…?” It wouldn’t be a stretch to say Dazai looked like a dog caught with something in his mouth.
The off caper, act. Languid and unmoving from his desk. Collision on the stares she overheard. All of it strings together. A complete and shaking picture when Dazai sneezes again, this time covering his nose, looking hounded and tired.
“Congrats! I did. Do you want me to stop?” Dazai hums. His guarded tone tells her he isn’t joking. She rolls her eyes, the action goes unnoticed. Missed. “I can stifle them. And if I hold my nose I can certainly stop sneezing.”
“Are you going to hold your nose forever?”
"...I haven’t gotten that far; I’ll figure it out. There. All good, I can continue working, Yosano-sensei.”
The shake of her head gets him to freeze where he is, pushing himself up off the bed.
“Dazai, you’re—”
“Fine. I’m fine! It’s not getting in the way of work.”
“Dazai. You’re sick.” Both of them choose to ignore that he hardly works most days.
“... I might be. But that’s not going to compromise anything. It’s just a few sniffles.”
Yosano wants to shake him by the shoulders and ask if he even hears himself, but calling a patient outright delirious is going to be taken the wrong way. Maybe if she offends him, he’ll go home.
“Maybe you’re not; but you can afford to rest until you’re better.” She takes on a softer tone, finding it natural and right. Dazai looks at her as if he really can’t afford to do that.
“The agency needs me, Yosano!”
“We haven’t fallen apart in Ranpo’s absence and we have faced much worse with you absent before.”
He wants to argue that those absences were planned, but that would give away how upset he really is with today going way past his expectations. The extent of his dilemma would only— would probably unsettle her day, if it wasn’t already thrown off by him just showing up to work. Dazai might never understand the depths of— or even wrap his brain around the fact he tends to lock under the floorboards of his mind—the agency’s care. There’s a reason they have all waited for something to spring from his silent presence and have shared their worries with Yosano.
“You’re under the weather. One day won’t kill you and you’ll be dozing off at home as you are here.”
Dazai sinks back onto the bed only because the pressure on his leg was not worth the pain. If he had known everyone would be so insistent on him taking it easy and just staying home, he would have saved everyone else and himself the trouble and done just that. Oh but he wouldn’t be saving everyone else from himself would he…
“If you’re going to twist my arm into not working, I might as well get comfortable here.” He pulls up the sheets and reclines on the bed, hoping Yosano will drop the topic entirely and go back to taking her weekly inventory.
She nods her head, a fraction of a smirk on her face as she opens her phone. Not taking inventory. When Dazai leans over to get a look at her screen she shields it from him and presses the phone to her ear. Confirming his fear.
“You didn’t—!” He watches in horror as she steps out of the room. His sneezes and sniffles go unheard as she makes a call that lasts for ages. Alright, fine minutes. But in those minutes he has pathetically tried to hide under the sheet and attempted to walk out of the infirmary so he won’t have to face wrath and humiliation, but he doesn’t get far without his walking stick. And his stuffy nose messes with his head. In those handful of minutes he comes to terms with whatever will eat him alive as he waits on the bed.
Yosano returns with a smile on her face.
“You didn’t have to call him.” Dazai groans as she takes her seat closer to the bed.
She hadn’t. She starts to say, prepares herself to say she had called Kouyou who— was displeased with the situation and even less pleased with Dazai risking everyone else’s health— informed Chuuya, but Dazai ‘s groan turns into a quiet almost anxious voice if she didn’t know any better.
“Chuuya won’t want to take care of me!” Subdued on the bed and sniffling, Dazai grips and twists the thin sheet helplessly in his hands. For a moment, he looks terribly small.
“Did you even tell him you were sick?” He hadn’t, she knows this but wants them to be on equal footing (as he prefers if he has to pick),so she gives him time to explain himself. He does so with a sigh.
“Chuuya was already gone when I woke up. Stupid irregular hours. And if I texted him he would know something was wrong immediately. I didn’t need that sort of bother.”
“He’s your—”
“I knowwww. It’s not about trusting him or anything, it's about him having to leave work. But he’s doing exactly that anyway; isn’t he?"
That’s considerate.”
Dazai scoffs. “You know it isn’t.”
Yosano shrugs.
“If he weren’t going to take care of you, why are you living with him?”
Dazai shuts his eyes.
“I haven’t figured that one out yet.”
When he heard his partner was a sniffling mess, Chuuya didn’t drop everything immediately.
It wasn’t as dramatic as leaving in the middle of a meeting or leaving his men in the middle of a mission if the circumstances called for it. No, it has all been fairly quiet in the Port Mafia. Too quiet. So, hearing that a certain shitty bastard was sick raised alarms in Chuuya’s head and he finished the few reports he was writing before he left for the day.
He took his time at the cafe on the first floor under the agency. He orders a warm tea and a pastry and eyes the elevator before taking the stairs.
He nods his head politely at the detectives when he pokes his head into the main office, finding Yosano absent. (They’re too used to his presence and know he won’t hurt Dazai— beyond anything he deserves— to retaliate against someone who hasn’t threatened them in this quiet week.) He knocks on the infirmary door; he has manners, contrary to what certain individuals assume. Once inside, he heads to where Yosano is sitting and stands just a few paces from her.
Dazai picks at a thread on the sheet stretched over his frame and rubs at his nose with a tissue. He turns his head slightly and glares at Chuuya. That is fine. He didn’t come here to be cordial with the mackerel, he came to drag his ass back home.
Dazai turns over onto his side to avoid him, facing away from two people who would not hesitate to remove him from the infirmary by force. It’s not hesitation, but Dazai hears the long suffering sigh anyway and his point still stands: Chuuya does not want to take care of him.
“I will resort to carrying you.” Chuuya threatens. He pokes Dazai until he sneezes, as if he is allergic. “This is one of the dumbest ideas you’ve had in a while.”
“Why thank you. You got work done, didn’t you?” Chuuya understands immediately, unable to control the brief surprise raising his brows. Yosano shrugs at him in response to his questioning gaze.
“That’s considerate of you.”
“Yosano said the same thing. Now, go away slug. I’m—” he pauses, hearing Chuuya murmur something far away to Yosano and movement. He turns just as a pair of strong arms scoop him off the bed. He clutches onto the tissue in his hand. His yelp gets cut off by a violent sneeze.
“Yep, we’re going home.” Chuuya hums.
“Don’t bring him back until he’s well.” Yosano shakes her head, following them to the elevator.
“I can walk by myself!” Dazai lost a fight he didn’t fight in, but he isn’t losing this war. He made it down and up the stairs he can—
“You tripped on the way up the stairs, idiot.” Yosano corrects.
“He what?”
“Long story; no I didn’t. The stairs tripped me.” He keeps his face tucked against Chuuya, eyes shut tight even as they exit the building.
Chuuya is kind enough to strap him in the car and hand him, not his cane, a cup and a wrapped pastry. Of course, Yosano didn’t need to mention he hadn’t eaten.
Once they’ve left, Chuuya is silent as he drives them home.
Scenarios project themselves in Chuuya’s head. All different but sharing the common theme of Dazai being worse off than he is. From the job he went on to him struggling on the stairs, to even this morning. When he woke up alone and skipped breakfast while fighting off his cold symptoms and downplaying how he feels. They’re all awful and have an ending of Dazai getting hurt. Except for the ones where Chuuya stays in bed, and either goes into work a little late for his meeting with Kouyou or calls off entirely, but those don’t leave their imprint as the ones where he isn’t there do. He can make up for those ones now.
By the time they arrive at their apartment, Dazai has eaten the pastry so Chuuya keeps an eye on him as he walks (not that he was going to carry him if he hadn’t, he has to carry a couple boxes of tea anyway). Dazai doesn’t fight about the stairs this time. They would have to walk up a number far greater than the ones to the agency and he had enough exercise for one day.
When they finally reach their apartment and step inside, Dazai’s shoulders drop, although quickly hitching back up as he sneezes. They both wince. Dazai steps out of his shoes.
‘Damn, you really are sick,” Chuuya mumbles, pulling off his own shoes and hanging up his coat and hat. He frowns when Dazai sinks into the couch, coat draped over the back.
“It’ll pass in a day or so.”
Chuuya leaves him to wrap up in the nearby throw blanket as he goes to change out of his work clothes and think over a simple dinner.
Dazai wakes to Chuuya gently shaking his shoulder. The lights are dimmed and the sky is just beginning to fade into pinks and oranges. Colors lighter than Chuuya’s hair and eyes… Ah, Chuuya is saying something. He sits up, wincing as the fuzziness in his head and face spreads to his ears.
“...?”
Dazai stares at him, waiting for him to repeat the question. Oh. It wasn’t a question. Chuuya pulls on his arms and explains in a too soft voice,
“You need to change, mackerel. You’re not sleeping in your work clothes.” His everyday clothes.
He lets Chuuya guide him into the bathroom and disappear to return with clothes. But when the man starts to help him, he pushes his hands away, declaring silently that he is alert enough to change himself.
Chuuya doesn’t believe him, but Dazai’s brain works just enough to pass along a challenging glare, so Chuuya leaves the room, door ajar.
He finishes up with dinner, rice and meat plated when an abrupt thud clangs from the bathroom. He expected Dazai to need help, yet he still rushed past the door. Dazai sits on the floor,a box of tissues and hand soap on the floor after tumbling with him and the pair of pants he struggles to put on, oblivious to Chuuya’s presence.
Chuuya doesn’t mean to startle him, regretting brushing his hand when the younger man jumps. He calms when he recognizes Chuuya crouched beside him.
“Need help?” He laughs through his nose.
“No. I don’t want your slug germs on me.”
“It’s your gross mackerel mucus that has you sleeping on the couch tonight.” Chuuya might be kind, but he isn’t that nice to let their bed get infected with actual germs. He’s not risking that safety over a pout. He isn’t.
“Life has never been so cold to me before~!” Dazai whines, leaning his weight onto Chuuya. He wraps his arms around him when Chuuya pulls them up to help him dress. He doesn’t make that easy because he won’t let go of Chuuya, but the redhead makes it work and gets to unbuttoning his shirt before prying off the other’s hands.
The food has nearly cooled to room temperature when they’re done and Dazai is still gripping on to Chuuya. It takes giving him an extra soft blanket to hold to get him to let go. He isn’t done being a menace. No sooner than Chuuya setting the plate down and no later than him sitting on the couch, barely even settled, does Dazai crawl into his lap, handing all of his weight to Chuuya to hold. He hears Chuuya grumble and threaten to shove him off his lap while his actions say otherwise as he reaches for the single plate. It’s an awkward angle, but he’ll make it work and feed Dazai as long as he doesn’t complain his ears off.
This is also how they fall asleep too, with Dazai in his arms and the low hum of the cartoon playing on the television. The credits roll as the scene changes to the main characters driving away peacefully on the open roads of Europe, missed by the pair sleeping comfortably on the couch, blankets tangled around them. One snores with a congested sinus system and the other will not pass up the opportunity to tease him about it in the morning, but he will keep the way Dazai easily and happily fell asleep to himself, for the time being.