Work Text:
Chuuya was soundly asleep, soft snores came from him while his chest raised in a steadily rhythm Dazai tried his best to imitate. He’d been watching his boyfriend sleep for the last couple hours, not being able to do same, not for the last few days at least. The fatigue was accumulating in the form of dark eyebags that even Kunikida had pointed at during work, looking concerned of his sleeping habits and even letting it slide when his head dropped on his desk out of tiredness.
Rubbing his face with frustration, Dazai turned around to face the ceiling and stare at it. Since he moved in with Chuuya, some changes had been made around the apartment, especially on their bedroom. Dazai had picked up a set of glow-in-the-dark stars at the store and put them above their bed so every night they’d light up to help him sleep while counting them.
But it wasn’t working anymore. Dazai had already memorized the number of stars, along with the unconscious pattern he somehow created when putting them, so there was nothing else to do than stare at them until the glow died out.
His eyes were starting to hurt, though, so he decided to go make himself some warm milk, maybe even add a little honey to help him fall sleep, that’s what Chuuya always did when he found Dazai sitting on the couch in the middle of the night. He didn’t intend to wake up his partner most of the time, but Chuuya always managed to notice when Dazai got out of bed, so he did his best with not making any sudden moves to not wake him up.
Once in the kitchen, Dazai took his mug and filled it with milk, then he heated it up in the microwave and sweetened it.
With his drink now secured, he sat at the bar and blew a couple times before sipping on the hot beverage. It felt soothing and warm, quickly giving him a sense of comfort along with the fuzzy feeling he recognized as him starting to fall asleep.
And without noticing, his head was already making its way between his crossed arms, lulling him into some needed rest.
Colors defined most of Dazai’s memories when thinking of his past. The Bar Lupin was orange, it had warm colors and familiarity, the feeling of being home and in almost a different life from what he knew in the world outside. Everything involving Odasaku had it, if he was being honest, he reminded him of autumn and calm, with understanding eyes that looked at him in the most achingly human way possible since the day he fell unconscious at his doorstep.
The ADA was white, but sometimes it also looked grey. He used to compare it with the clouds, changing and rearranging itself every once in a while, to adapt to new members and developing relationships between people that had become a little bit more than just friends. And not everything was perfect, they made mistakes and fought and sometimes didn’t agree on anything, which ended up with even more fights. But at the end of the day, they were still there, no one left, and things sometimes got worse before they got better, still it was okay because clouds weren’t supposed to stay the same, they could cause rainstorms and even snow, sometimes they weren’t together and sometimes they couldn’t be separated, but they were still clouds.
Chuuya was blue, not only his eyes but the way he held Dazai when he needed it the most, how he put his hand on the upper part of Dazai’s arm knowing when his forearms were too sensitive for him to touch them, or the reassuring touch on his lower back while he cooked and Dazai stared at with in awe. Chuuya was like the sea, he got angry and formed waves bigger than Dazai, he crashed at the shore and carried burdens in between, but other days he was also calm and still, he was so full of new things to admire that Dazai could never see the end of it. Chuuya was blue like the night sky which Dazai loved to contemplate, filled with shining stars and unexplored galaxies that were born and died and expanded infinitely in a way Dazai couldn’t comprehend but even then, he loved it. He loved him.
Dazai’s past was mostly red, though. The hallways he walked through and the way his own eyes glowed with the moonlight of the night the ex-Port Mafia boss was assassinated by Mori. Red was the color of the blood that tainted Mori’s clothes and his face, it was the color Dazai came to know from the very first moment his future got sealed as the Demon Prodigy. There were other things colored in red too, they were the same color as Mori’s scarf which would be passed to him one day, the same color as the room where he received his punishments every time he failed a mission, every time he talked back, every time he attempted suicide, every time he was used as a guinea pig for Mori’s experiments.
Dazai’s blood was red. It dripped to the floor in alarming amounts when he cut his arms and put pressure on them to bleed faster, to end with everything, to die and leave the life he was tired of.
Dazai’s blood was red. From the moments where he got hit by others, when his calculations were wrong, and the enemies got a hold on him and beat him to make him suffer at least a little from what he had done to others.
Dazai’s blood was red. The day he yelled to people he wasn’t supposed to yell at, and his right eye had to pay for the consequences, forcing him to use bandages in order to cover the partial blindness he was left with.
Dazai’s blood was red. The same color as others but not as human, not as real, not like that, because he wasn’t human. He was a poor attempt of a child with an infinite number of existential questions and a lacking sense of empathy. Because even if Dazai’s blood was red, it didn’t mean he hurt or ached the same, it didn’t mean he suffered like other people, like real people. It just meant he was born in the body of someone who deserved to be human, but he had selfishly appropriated it, with an ambitious need to try and find what being human meant but never receiving an answer.
If you weren’t meant to be human, there’s no way you’re ever becoming one.
So, the hallways and the rooms and the cot he used to lay on grew and trapped him and glowed in red. The same as him, the same as the blood he shed but also the blood from the people, the real humans, he had killed. And red covered him and consumed his past and drowned him because who cares if he dies when he’s red, when he’s done more bad than good, when he can’t live or be killed, when he doesn’t understand the meaning behind his own existence.
And Dazai accepted it, he didn’t fight, he let red be his past, his present and future. He gave permission to his younger self to kill and torture and laugh at other’s misery because that’s what red creatures do.
Red creatures aren’t even called humans, they wander around the world with the only goal to bring suffering and ruins, crashing everything on their path and playing with the line of life and death as if they were gods in their right. Red creatures don’t deserve love or compassion, they don’t even know what that is.
Therefore, red creatures deserved to die.
“Dazai!”
He was a red creature, he wandered around the world and brought suffering and ruins.
“Dazai, wake up.”
He was a red creature, he played with the line of life and death as if he was a god in his right.
“You’re having a nightmare, Dazai, get up.”
He was a red creature and didn’t deserve lover or compassion, what were those things after all?
“Osamu, I’m serious, wake up.”
He was a red creature, he deserved to die.
“Fuck’s sake, Osamu!”
A slap on his cheek.
“I’m up, I’m up!” jolting on his seat, Dazai opened his eyes at the time his whole body kept trembling, he’d probably been doing it since he fell asleep. Tears were falling down his face and Chuuya was giving him a concerned glare, only then Dazai noticed he’d been holding his arms to stop him from falling off the stool.
“Hey, take it easy, breathe with me.”
Oh, right, breathing. Dazai wasn’t breathing, not since he woke up at least. Following Chuuya’s hand movements, he found himself feeling less suffocated and relaxing with the small circles that Chuuya was making on his back with his remaining hand.
The motion continued for a couple minutes where Dazai’s nightmare kept repeating itself in a tormenting loop, but he shifted his focus to Chuuya’s breathing, his hand moving on his back and the room he was at.
He was okay, he was safe.
Nothing was red, just blue.
“I’m okay now.”
Chuuya kept looking at him for a few seconds before nodding, but never taking his hand off from his back. Dazai sighed, looking at the kitchen bar to distract himself from Chuuya’s scrutinizing glare.
“Do you wanna talk about it?”
“No.”
The answer came way faster than he wanted it, but Chuuya didn’t seem fazed by it, willing to give him the option to not say anything.
“Okay.”
Dazai then returned his attention to Chuuya, or more specifically, his neck. Wanting to hide his face there, feel his partner’s arms hugging him and go back to sleep while holding him. Maybe then, the nightmares wouldn’t be so bad.
He was so tired.
“I want cuddles.”
Chuuya smiled, proud of hearing Dazai asking for something, and nodded opening his arms.
“Of course. Come here, Mackerel, let’s go to bed.”