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The sun had gripped the edge of the horizon and was lurching to its feet by the time Chuuya stepped into the elevator in his apartment building. He had been out since before sunrise the day before; his limbs and eyelids as heavy as each other and he couldn’t find the energy to draw his hand up to scratch at the itching of the fresh bandaging encasing his left arm.
It was early enough that it was unlikely he would see another soul, and so he risked the public elevator rather than trying to drag himself to his private one through the back entrance. Though he still did his best to stay upright and only leaned his weight against the mirrored wall of the small space rather than sinking to the floor as his body screamed for.
“Of course Chuuya wants to sit on the floor, that’s where dogs are supposed to stay. Will you heel for me, Chuuuuya?”
He physically bats at the air in front of him, hoping it will reinforce the mental dismissal he issues the lilting voice that took up residence in his brain six years ago and seemed as much a freeloader as the owner. When he finally left the Port Mafia, Chuuya had assumed he would be free of the voice, and yet it stayed, it evaded his every search, probably giggled quietly in nooks and crannies as Chuuya ransacked his entire brain to try to evict it. Four years later, he had accepted its insistent tenancy, but that didn’t mean he had to house it with any kind of civility or friendliness.
When the doors open on his floor, it takes him almost until they start to close again to push away from the wall. He pulls on Upon the Tainted Sorrow to lighten his load enough that he doesn’t have to stagger to his door and only fumbles twice before he gets the key slotted into the keyhole and turned. As soon as he’s inside and the door is shut behind him, he lets his body slide down to the floor as it had begged to in the elevator.
Staring at his shoes for a moment, he sighs and pulls at them to get them off. He knows he’ll berate himself later for not untying them properly, but isn’t certain he could identify the end of a lace in this state. He is still lucid enough, thankfully, to float his hat and overcoat up to their respective hooks without any crumpling or creasing.
Chuuya spends a moment breathing, lets his hands slowly unbutton his waistcoat and drags out the hair tie to finally run a hand through the tangled curls that hang over his shoulder. For a moment he considers showering to wash it, but dismisses the thought promptly as he imagines drowning in two inches of water after collapsing. Once he had slept, he would run a bath and treat his wounds properly, wash his hair and maybe finish a bottle of wine off, but for now, his goal was to make it to the bedroom and pass out until he felt as close to human as he was capable.
“The chibi is going to sully his sheets with filth? After he yelled at me for touching his bed with OUTSIDE clothes that were basically clean? This feels like a double standard, Chuuya.”
He doesn’t even bother with a dismissal this time. Internally snorting at the indignation.
You deserved it, smelly mackerel.
Chuuya is slow to stand, leans on the wall as he slides his gloves off, placing them onto the hall table with his keys and phones, glaring at them, hoping to intimidate them into silence for the next eight hours. He turns to get a bottle of water from the fridge before he heads down the hallway to the ajar bedroom door. By the time he gets there, he has removed his waistcoat and weapon harness and is in the process of unbuckling his choker when he pushes the door further open with his foot and stops. He feels every muscle in his body freeze, his heart pauses and then stutters back into life, his brain whirrs, trying to process the scene before him.
He takes a step backwards, gingerly, out of the doorway and back into the hallway and squints back toward the genkan. He didn’t turn on the lights, but the beginnings of the morning light forcing its way in through his apartment windows illuminate the space enough for him to see the second pair of shoes, several sizes too big, and the tan trench coat dangling from the fourth hook, always left empty.
Just in case.
Chuuya swallows and turns back to his bedroom doorway. His choker is unbuckled and dangling around his neck. He slides it off and steps quietly into the room. The curtains are half pulled shut, keeping most of the bed in shadows, but allowing enough soft light in for him to see Dazai’s sleeping form curled into itself on top of the covers. His sleeves are rolled down, cuffs unbuttoned, and Chuuya can see his wrists are free of bandages. His neck is in a similar state; exposed, vulnerable, overwhelming.
Wonder who else got to see under the-
Chuuya almost hisses at his own internal voice, immediately furious such a thought would even waste its time barging into his head.
Chuuya had unfortunately seen Dazai around Yokohama on occasion in the past year and a half, since he had finally crept out from wherever he was hiding and joined the Armed Detective Agency, but had always made sure to turn the other way before he himself could be seen. As a result, Chuuya knew Dazai kept his face uncovered now, instead gracing it with a too-big smile and a too-bright light in his eyes. He also knew, though, that the bandages on his body had stayed after his transition, knew they had been there just two weeks ago wrapped around his arms that hung over the bridge railing, seemingly reaching for the river running fast below him, still aching for the fall.
Chuuya had waited on the rooftop adjacent to the bridge long after Dazai had finally left and he had steadfastly ignored the chattering in his head and the hammering of his heart.
Now, Chuuya stares at the bare wrists peaking from his striped dress shirt, furiously attempting to stop the panic screaming at him to figure out why he likely remains the only person to see the skin that holds Dazai’s past, that exposes his every intention and regret, and why those secrets are currently laying open on his bed.
”Well obviously I wouldn’t be bothered by a chibi like you, inconsequential, my very own dog, seeing under the-“
Chuuya manages to land a mental slap on the taunt this time and the Dazai-voice slinks off to sulk behind a wine rack storing some old case files rolled up and slotted where bottles would live if it existed in his physical space.
Chuuya feels anger boiling in his chest and on most days, he would gladly reach into the scalding pool of rage, burning his fingers and soaking his sleeves to coat himself in the fury, allow it to rip through his throat and set everything alight. Dazai was usually the trigger, even in the years he’d been gone, especially in the years he’d been gone, his smirk the image that would reflect back at Chuuya from the water’s surface. Today, though, Chuuya only glances at the rippling water, sighs, and walks on by.
The face in front of him, the one resting on his own pillow in the soft light of the sunrise is not the face he sees in the pool, not anymore. This was the most peaceful Dazai had ever looked, this was the closest to content, the closest to sane, the closest to human he had ever seen the demon prodigy.
Dazai’s face was smooth, his lips tilted down slightly, rather than the patronising tilt they usually carried when awake, and his eyelashes hid some of the dark circles that hung heavy below his eyes. He looked young, he looked like he should have looked when they had met at 15 years old; like the weight of his own life wasn’t crushing the very will to live out of him.
The first time Dazai had snuck into his room in the dead of night, it was really closer to dawn. They had come off a mission that had taken too much from them both; too much energy and focus and fucking time. Chuuya felt like he was basically asleep trying to wash the blood out of his hair, had barely managed to get the last of the gunpowder grime off his skin before he was collapsing into bed, barely dressed.
When he heard the pick in the lock, he knew it was Dazai but that didn't stop him from picking up a gun and directing it straight at the most annoying teenager he had ever been cursed to meet as he stopped in the doorway to Chuuya's tiny bedroom. His hair was still wet from a shower, his clothes clean, and both of his eyes on display.
Chuuya had treated a headwound on Dazai once before, had seen him without the bandage over his eye for a whole half hour before Dazai was wrapping fresh gauze to cover it again. During that time, everything about the eye seemed fine; no cloudiness or haziness, it tracked the same way the left eye did, and Chuuya knew he had been in the way of Dazai watching the door with his left eye but still he had kept a keen lookout. He had spent a day wondering what necessitated the bandage, came to the conclusion he didn't care, and moved on.
Both of his eyes were communicating the same dead fish expression Dazai always carried, he even raised his hands and smirked lazily at Chuuya.
“If I wanted the slug dead, he would be dead.” Chuuya didn’t lower the gun and only glared a little harder, too exhausted to bother with banter. Dazai sighed. “No tricks, Chuuya.”
Chuuya was wary but returned the weapon to his bedside table nonetheless.
“What do you want?” Dazai had lowered his hands and shrugged off his coat, draping it over the fading, thread-worn armchair Chuuya utilised for his own pile of clothing.
“Can’t sleep, too cold. Had an idea.”
Chuuya frowned, thinking of Dazai’s strange living accommodations. He was sure the shipping container was drafty, but it was hardly a cold night. Chuuya always ran warmer than most people, but he was fairly certain that even the average citizen of Yokohama would label the evening as “muggy”. Dazai was removing his tie and rolling down his sleeves, leaving them uncuffed.
“You said no tricks. What the fuck do I have to do with your ‘idea’?” Chuuya could feel his body tensing, the exhaustion fleeing to the back of his brain in the face of imminent danger. While he had managed to convince himself, mostly, that Dazai wasn’t actually trying to kill him and tolerated him as a colleague because of Mori, he hardly felt “safe” around the mackerel and his schemes.
“Just trust me. No harm will come to you. I don’t feel like trying to explain it all to someone with your… mental facilities.”
“Hah?!” Irritation flames through Chuuya’s veins and then any and all desire or inclination for rest is immediately burned out of his system as a bandaged hand reaches for his throat.
Chuuya stares for a minute more, wrestles with his battling desires for sleep and throwing the bastard out of the window. With Dazai though, Chuuya has never really had choices so much as a path of least resistance. Before he can think it through, he is back at his fridge door and is removing a second bottle of water. He juggles the bottles and his clothing, doing nothing to mask his steps as he marches back through his bedroom door.
He lays his waistcoat, harness, and choker onto the dresser and walks to the table beside Dazai to slam one bottle of water onto the coaster set toward the edge of the mahogany. He unbuttons his shirt while walking around to the base of the bed. He pauses briefly to pull the curtain all the way across the window, leaving only a gap at the very end to let in enough light to navigate. He knows Dazai is likely awake, knows he was likely awake from the minute Chuuya opened the front door, if he was really ever asleep at all.
He lets his body drop to sit on the edge of his own preferred side of the bed, always opposite Dazai's. He places his own water onto the matching coaster and finishes the buttons on his shirt before shrugging out of it. Reaching down to pull the socks off his feet, he feels the stirring behind him on the bed. He ignores it. As he swallows down half the bottle of water and wipes at his mouth, he hears the plastic top hesitantly twist off the bottle on the other side of the bed.
I sincerely hope you know how to hydrate yourself now. Why did you always need me to model survival behaviours, idiot mackerel?
“Chuuya was always much better at being human than me.”
The Dazai-voice is quiet in his admission. Chuuya swallows, always uncertain of how Dazai the Dazai-voice actually is. He lets himself fall onto the mattress and stares at the ceiling, lets himself feel the slow movements beside him and pretends, for just a moment, he’s 18 again. But he isn’t 18 and it’s been almost four years and things are different. He turns sharply onto his side, careful to not jostle his bandaged arm and curls into himself to ignore the existence behind him.
Chuuya tries to calm the tension in his body, tries to slow the hammering of his heartbeat, tries to shut his eyes and shut out the world. He fails.
They lie in a silence Chuuya can’t label as anything other than normal for them despite the tension, maybe because of the tension, until a voice Chuuya hasn’t been able to escape breaks it.
“The chibi has evolved into a rational human apparently.”
Chuuya wants to leave it. He knows nothing good will come from letting Dazai rile him up, but years without exposure have weakened his immunity.
“The fuck does that mean?”
“Ah, maybe not quite rational then. The Chuuya I knew would have thrown me out the window on sight. Apparently-”
“I contemplated it. Could still change my mind. My windows are definitely big enough for a lanky bastard like you to fit through.” He hears the quiet huff of a breath from Dazai; the closest he ever gets to a genuine laugh.
Chuuya lets the silence sit. He can tell there’s something and he’s not putting the energy into dragging it out of the human puzzle box next to him, instead leaving the silence to push Dazai to act or drop it.
“Is Chuuya planning on kicking me out?” Dazai’s voice is teasing, lilting as always, but Chuuya hears the uncertainty it tries to mask. He sighs but steadfastly does not turn to face Dazai.
“Depends on how long I have to put up with you and how annoying you are.” He layers extra venom over the words, knowing Dazai will hear it for what it is; an offer, a question, a wary invitation.
He feels the mattress shifting behind him, can feel the cold Dazai carries with him leeching the warmth from the space around him. He holds his breath as the weight settles only inches from his back, familiar but somehow different.
Dazai’s hand touches his shoulder blade, fingers cold on Chuuya’s always burning skin. He feels No Longer Human leak into his bloodstream and his muscles properly relax for the first time in years. He feels a release from the gravity of his being, of his past, of his heart as it soothes his burning. He hears the sigh from Dazai, knows he’s experiencing the warmth in the face of nullifying Chuuya’s ability, of quietening Arahabaki.
The hand wraps around his jaw, fingers stretching all the way around and gripping into his cheeks. Chuuya's immediate reaction is to throw it off, to fight off the attached human, but dead eyes, as cold as the fingers on his face, stall him. He feels the coolness spread through his system like that first day in Suribachi City. A soft silence follows the chill, every nerve in his body settling back into itself, every screaming voice drowned by the trickling ice.
It runs from his head down his body, raising goose bumps on his neck and arms, dripping cold tingles through his fingers. His chest feels tight and frozen for a moment, and then it’s like the air rushes out and every muscle in his body settles.
Chuuya wants to throw off Dazai’s grip, wants to rip the fingers from his face and then break every one individually. Being confronted by both of Dazai’s eyes like this, seeing him uncovered and exposed like this, only heightens the reflection of those same feelings mirrored back at him from the mahogany depths. There is a repulsion, a fury at the feelings coursing through his body. But Chuuya sees the same relief settling in beside them.
And that’s when he knows that whatever it is No Longer Human is doing to soothe his body, his mind, his very being, Upon the Tainted Sorrow seems to be doing the same for Dazai.
They’re barely 16 years old, cursed with anger and suffering and misery beyond their years. Why wouldn’t they grasp onto the one, single, lonely thing that seems to bring them some comfort?
Dazai’s hand slides from the skin of his shoulders and pauses on his hip. Chuuya lifts his bandaged arm and then Dazai’s front is pressed to his back and a long arm is wrapped tightly around his waist, fingers splayed across his chest, palm pressed directly over his heart. Chuuya can feel Dazai’s own controlled, steady heartbeat against his back and he breathes to the rhythm, feels the synchronisation falling back into place.
“Forever and excessively.” Dazai’s words are murmured into his hair, so soft Chuuya almost doesn’t hear it, especially not balancing on the precipice of sleep as he currently is.
“Huh?” He says it in confusion as he lets his own hand rest over Dazai’s, tangles their fingers together, ignores how much longer Dazai’s had become.
That’s something we deal with later.
“You’re going to have to put up with me forever and I’ll do my best to be excessively annoying, just for you, chibikko.”
The touches start as tentative; quiet and halting in the darkness. Movements are jerky and teeth are gritted. They face away from each other, both stripped of their shirts, but Dazai's bandages still ensure there's really only a single point of contact at their shoulders. Sometimes Chuuya wakes in the night when they lose contact, sweating and gasping while the bed seems to vibrate from the tremors rocking Dazai’s cold, sleeping body.
And so, then the touches become more purposeful, even if the darkness and the discomfort stay. Chuuya’s fingers press against Dazai’s spine or Dazai’s hand wraps around Chuuya’s wrist. They don’t talk about how their limbs sometimes entangle in the night; Dazai seeking warmth and Chuuya looking to finally rest.
It's not surprising when Dazai wakes with Chuuya sprawled across his chest, blankets discarded to the floor and the ginger hair tickling at his neck. Even that offers some warmth to him. He does make a performance of rewrapping the bandages around his chest in front of Chuuya to clearly demonstrate the drool that soaked into them. Mocks his slug slime for days after, even if no one else knows what they're talking about. He’s bruised in that spot on his chest from the constant punches directed at him in response.
Soon, the touches are constant. While they’re filling out paperwork (while Chuuya is filling out paperwork and Dazai is napping), their pinkies are brushing on the table. When they’re settled in a Mafia car on the way to a mission, their knees press together despite their matching glares directed out of opposite windows. When Corruption becomes a reality, Dazai carries Chuuya back to the extraction point, revelling in the warmth and huffing under his weight.
Dazai doesn’t really keep anything in the shipping container anymore and when it came time for Chuuya to move, he dragged Dazai along to get his opinion on apartments. He will never admit it, but he made his choice with the help of the light that seemed to glow in Dazai’s eye for a moment when he saw the large window in the bedroom.
The touches escalate until even the bandages don’t join them in bed anymore. Their movements are still erratic at times, teeth are still gritted, but for mostly different reasons. Dazai spends nearly three years warm through the night. Chuuya can sleep in silence with his limbs resting and not trying to drag him down through the ground or up into the ceiling.
Until one night when Chuuya gets ready for bed alone, opens a book to wait, and wait, and wait. He goes to sleep with heavy limbs and a screaming mind, waking at every flicker of sound, both real and imagined. And then continued to do so for another four years.
Until one night when Dazai settles under foreign sheets alone in a hideout, both bed and apartment smaller than even Chuuya’s when they were 16 and he’s so cold, no matter how many blankets he layers over himself. His sleep is fitful in the face of the chill for another four years.
Chuuya can’t stop his hand from tightening around Dazai’s, thinking back to promises made as children, back to full nights of sleep and tangled limbs, back to dead eyes looking at him as he said those words…
“No tricks?”
Dazai’s arms are steady, no tentative touches or jerky movements, just solid and certain. His heartbeat is unwavering; an acceptance, an answer, a promise.
“No tricks. I swear.”
Chuuya rubs his thumb over Dazai’s knuckles absentmindedly, feels a soft scar he doesn’t recognise and decides that right now, his brain is quiet and his limbs are settled and his blood doesn’t burn and maybe that’s all that matters.
Chuuya falls asleep like that, with a thumb pressed to a scar whose story he wasn’t present for while Dazai drifts off with his nose buried in hair that has new memories he didn’t live through at its side.
They’re 22 years old and there is mistrust and anger amidst the relief they bring each other. But really, they’re just humans who’ve been through too much, certain in themselves now even if not in each other. Why shouldn’t they grasp onto the things that bring them comfort?