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Catching Dazai Osamu while sick is a very rare thing.
Even more so due to the fact that he rarely finds himself sick at all. Even with his weak immune system, Dazai has not found himself with so much as the sniffles since he joined the Agency– not that the lack of illness has ever stopped him from taking days off. He’s regretting those days off now as Kunikida is blowing up his phone about not going to work.
Yesterday was one of the rainy days that cover Yokohama’s summers, and Dazai hadn’t paid any attention to the forecast. So much for being nice and taking Kyouka out for crepes. They’d been sitting on a bench, eating their crepes and talking about nothing really important when the sky decided that if it couldn’t be happy, Dazai and Kyouka shouldn’t be, either.
It was summer, so neither had thought to bring a jacket to shield themselves from the cold rain. Dazai, ever the gentleman, wrapped his trench around Kyouka, and walked her back to the Agency. He hadn’t accounted for the fact that the lack of a coat in the freezing rain would most likely lead to a cold, and he finds himself regretting it at this very moment.
Or at least, that’s what the pictures in his phone suggest happened, but right now, he’s sure he’s delirious. Up feels like down and down feels like left. His vision keeps blurring and blurring again until the next time he opens his eyes, the room is completely dark and there’s a blanket draped over his body. A cough rattles through his chest and he tries to reach up and pat at his chest, but his limbs feel like solid lead. It takes some time for his brain to catch up with his eyes, but once it does, he’s sitting upright, alert. When he was awake, there was no blanket in the room besides the comforter he sleeps with, and he hadn’t invited anyone in.
He knows, vaguely, that the only person who would come in and make sure he’s comfortable would be Chuuya. The other man comes and goes whenever he pleases, and Dazai doesn’t remember inviting him into the bed. But there’s something warm pressed against Dazai’s side, someone’s hand gently caressing the side of Dazai’s thigh, and he wonders how sick he is to not have noticed that. He can barely hear anything, but the sound of soft breathing drifts to him along with a familiar scent, and he realizes with a sudden jolt that, yes, that’s Chuuya.
The jolt seems to wake the sleeping redhead, as Chuuya is yawning and rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. “You’re awake. That’s good,” he mumbles, pressing closer to Dazai. “Sleep all you want. I came to check on your ass because you don’t answer my calls, suicidal bastard. You scared me half to death today.”
“Sorry, sorry…I got sick,” Dazai says, and he isn’t even lying anymore. At some point during last night, he felt extremely woozy and his chest hurt. Now that he’s sitting up, the pain comes rushing back with a vengeance. He can’t breathe properly and he thinks he might throw up– or maybe pass out. He can’t breathe, and he’s hunching over to cough into his elbow, but the coughs keep coming and the oxygen does not. When he’s finally able to pull away from the crook of his elbow, the sleeve of his shirt is splattered with blood and a bit of phlegm.
Chuuya sits up too, looking alarmed. His hands immediately fly to Dazai’s shoulders as soon as he’s up, keeping him steady as he looks over the detective’s face to inspect the damage. “Fuck... Shitty bastard, how the fuck did you catch pneumonia?”
“Pneumonia? I don’t have pneumonia, Chibi, it’s just a cold,” Dazai assures the other man, trying desperately to breathe without choking on his own breath. His body feels like it’s burning, his head is pounding and his chest hurts, and he feels dizzy.
“A cold has never had you coughing up fucking blood before, asshole! Don’t even lie to me,” Chuuya says in his sternest voice. If it weren’t for the worry written clearly across the other man’s face, Dazai might think the expression funny – the anger and concern is just too cute – but Chuuya looks like he could snap into a scowl at any second, so Dazai decides it better to shut up for now.
Chuuya is quiet for a few moments, staring at the blood dripping off Dazai’s chin and onto the comforter. The redhead sighs deeply, pressing on Dazai’s shoulder until he’s laying down again. “Go back to sleep, shithead. I’ll take your temperature when you wake up.”
And Dazai does go back to sleep, aching and struggling to breathe. He wakes up several times throughout the night, feeling a lot worse each time and unable to stop crying. He spends most of these episodes curled up in Chuuya’s arms, which feels good because he always feels safe and protected there, but he also misses the members of the Agency, and would rather be at work than suffering with pneumonia.
When he wakes up again, he’s at the agencies offices, no longer sick, conversing with his coworkers, annoying Kunikida. Or at least, that’s how it appears to him. Chuuya’s there, though, and he knows Dazai is caught in a fit of delirium, fazing in and out of reality.
He sighs, grabbing a thermometer, about to attempt to take Dazai’s temperature again. The brunette had fought him relentlessly the first time, kicking and shouting, he’d been just as delirious then as now. This can’t wait, though, Chuuya has to take his temperature and give him some kind of medication to ease his symptoms. ‘Take some medicine to relax your sore throat’ sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? After all, he is currently on antibiotics for his illness and should have enough rest that this won’t cause too many complications. Plus, Dazai has yet to notice the slight fever he feels, probably because he’s in la-la land right now.
“Hey, shitty mackerel,” Chuuya says, snapping his fingers in front of Dazai’s face. “Come on, open your mouth.”
Dazai blinks slowly, confused. “What?” he asks, blinking again.
“Your temperature. Open your mouth,” Chuuya repeats, tapping his index finger against Dazai’s cheek in order to get him to comply. And that seems to do the trick because Dazai opens his mouth obediently, allowing Chuuya to slip the thermometer under his tongue. “Alright, now close it.”
The thermometer beeps after a minute, indicating a fever of forty degrees celcius, very concerning. The brunette starts coughing and coughing as if his lungs were suddenly shriveling up and falling apart. “Damn it,” Chuuya mutters, and grabs Dazai’s water cup from where it had been placed by the table, pressing it against his lips and tilting it, allowing the taller to drink. “Slow down, bastard. You need to take it easy to recover. Just swallow it, okay?”
“Mhm. Okay,” he slurs, doing as asked and forcing down the water slowly, until he can finally breathe normally again. “Why are you here, Kunikida?”
Chuuya pauses, trying to decide between a scowl and a frown. It pisses him off, Kunikida isn’t the one here taking care of this asshole, but seeing Dazai so clearly out of it makes Chuuya feeling a pang of guilt in his gut.
“It’s Chuuya, asshole. Stop talking about those Agency fuckers. They don’t care about you.”
Dazai pauses, taking a moment to fully look at Chuuya’s face, finally processing that it’s Chuuya in front of him, a grin of realization across his face.
“Chuuya, beloved! I missed you.”
Dazai will pretend he didn’t hear what Chuuya said.