Work Text:
“You’re enough.”
It’s whispered as a confession. Like something a tormented soul would unload to a pastor behind a screen. The words come out soft and feathery, like so many of his do; but the weight that these two words carry threatens to drag Akutagawa into the earth. He can’t move his forehead from Dazai’s chest. He can’t move at all. Even his breathing has stopped as he tries to process what has just been said to him.
How long had he wanted to hear something like that? How many people had he killed trying to earn just a miniscule of his approval? The longer the silence holds between them, the longer Akutagawa realises that this isn’t a joke or some wind up to embarrass him. It doesn’t even feel like one of Dazai’s stupid tests.
‘So this.. is real?’
A pale fist clenches at his side, teeth lash, and hair stands upright like a dog about to bite. Shallow breaths creep down his throat so that he avoids a cough, he wants to get out everything he has to say in one go, whilst he still has the nerve. He wants to chastise Dazai for how he’s treated him, he wants to make him hurt . He wants to tell him that this tenderness, this acknowledgement that he always wanted, it’s all come too late. That this isn’t enough.
He wants to hate him, hate Atsushi, for being brought into the light whilst he was discarded in the dark. He wants to ask him why he left the Port Mafia all those years ago, why he abandoned the family that he brought Akutagawa into.
‘Why didn’t you take me with you? I would have followed.’
That’s what he wants to say. Along with a long list of other things that all seem pointless at this stage. Because Akutagawa knows that he won’t be able to bring himself to say them. He can’t. Even now, trembling with a complex anger that boils throughout his entire body, he can’t bring himself to disobey his commander.
Dazai moves his palms to the shorter man’s shoulders, pushing him away from his chest. Akutagawa doesn’t look up at him, even though this is the reason Dazai created the space between them.
“Man can’t undo the past, no matter how ugly it might be,” Dazai speaks calmly, his voice remaining firm. “We can only learn from the pain of it. Something tells me that you’ve learnt a lot.”
Akutagawa scoffs, feeling the rage inside him break through the waterline of his eyes.
“I want you to know that none of it was meaningless. At least, I don’t think so.” The way Dazai references the abuse as being necessary to serve some higher purpose; it adds even more weight to the tether that’s pulling Akutagawa into the ground. But he’s the smartest man he knows, surely this was the only way then? The hatred, the denial, it’s creating a mess inside his head that just won’t stop spinning. It all feels too sharp. His whole body feels too sharp.
Akutagawa shrugs Dazai’s hands off his shoulders, stepping away from him even more. There’s a faint look of surprise in his brown eyes, before he sighs heavily, not being able to bring himself to say something normal. Something like an apology.
Because Dazai doesn’t feel like he needs to apologise for any of his behaviour, it was all for a greater purpose. It did cause his subordinate to grow stronger. He created a new generation of Double Black; a powerhouse to crush any opposing force. Everything he set out to do from when he was sixteen and found the snivelling boy in the woods, he achieved.
Dazai can’t apologise, but he does feel guilt. It’s an emotion that he despises because it inherently means that he’s done something wrong; and he loathes being wrong.
“You should hate me,” he simply states, hoping to give the other man an out.
“I do hate you!” Akutagawa finally yells back, but still not lifting his gaze from the ground; seemingly watching the imaginary weight pull him further and further down into the core of the earth.
“I hate you.” He repeats more softly, trying to convince himself, folding his arms across his chest in an attempt to stop his hands from shaking.
“Good.” Dazai says this last word in the same way that he would show he was pleased with how a mission turned out. The way that the younger man is standing, looking even more brittle than usual, Dazai reaches out to offer him comfort again.
Akutagawa promptly slaps the extending bandaged arm away. “I hate you,” he seethes, finally looking up at his old mentor.
“I know,” Dazai answers to a question that was never asked, and something that they both understand shouldn’t be said.
They stare at one another in silence. An internal battle going on between both of their minds on what the right course of action is; the better course of action for Dazai, the more painful course of action for Akutagawa. Pain is how he grows, it’s how he became stronger. It’s how he became, in Dazai’s words, enough.
So Akutagawa does the most painful thing he can do to himself, as he lunges forward, grabbing the idiot by his ridiculous bolo tie, and crashes his lips against his.
After a few seconds, Akutagawa releases his grip on the tie. Frozen in his spot and appalled with himself at the absolute subordination his actions caused. His muscles tense involuntarily, waiting for a reprimanding strike from Dazai.
And Dazai does put his hands on him. He puts one on his waist and one against his cheek. They’re warm, so warm against his pale, cold skin. So soft against the sharpness that still leaves his body taught and hurting.
Dazai slowly brings his face down, once again closing the distance between them, and places a gentle kiss against Akutagawa’s slightly parted mouth. When he doesn’t kiss him back, Dazai repeats the action again. The curve of Akutagawa’s lips move as he tentatively follows along.
“Don’t,” Akutagawa’s soft protest is muffled between their mouths. “Stop,” he repeats more strongly when Dazai’s kisses don’t let up. He pushes himself away against the older man’s chest, but Dazai’s hands remain on his waist and cheek, as do the golden brown eyes staring down into the broken grey.
“I can’t. This pain..” Akutagawa hisses and scrunches his eyes shut, trying to break the curse that the other pair has for so long held over him. “It’s even..too much for me. I don’t think I can take it, Dazai.”
“Shh...” Dazai hushes, a thumb grazing over the transparent cheek, tips of his fingers sliding through the choppy two toned hair. His touch is so peaceful and the gentle caresses soothe the sharpness. With every stroke, Dazai’s hands reach under Akutagawa’s skin and into the heart of his ego. Dazai has been rooted into the very fabric of his soul for so long, but never had his hands touched him with so much reverence.
“I could never hate you,” Akutagawa whispers back his own confession. His own pride feels ashamed to admit it so freely after commanding the opposite a few moments ago. But it’s the truth; and he would still follow Dazai anywhere, do anything for him, kill anyone in his name. “But it will never be enough,” he says aloud, “for you to love me.”
“No,” Dazai breathes, placing a kiss against the other man’s forehead. “Not in the way you need me to.”
Akutagawa can’t stop the tears from falling now. Both the confirmation and ambiguous reasoning causing a well of emotion to break through the disinterested barriers that he’d put up years ago. His shoulders are trembling as his knees buckle under the drag of the weight that continues its descent into the earth’s crust. Dazai grabs a hold of his shoulders, supporting both their bodies as they drop to their knees.
Clenching either side of his trench coat collar, Akutagawa cries into Dazai’s chest. Bandaged arms wrap around him, holding him as close as he can. Dazai rubs his mouth over the younger’s forehead, leaving a firm kiss on the crown of his head. He feels his old subordinate tremble under his hold, confused and vulnerable; just like that night in the woods.
Dazai closes his own eyes, strengthening his hold around the boney shoulders, pressing his face into the mess of black hair. He pictures meeting Akutagawa in those woods again, but he’s not wearing his facial bandages, he’s not wearing Mori’s coat. Instead, he gives him his detective’s coat to wrap around his malnourished frame. He doesn’t train Akutagawa to kill, to become a weapon for the Port Mafia, a guard dog for Yokohama’s underbelly. He teaches him about companionship and the strength that comes from relying on others. Together, they build their own community of trusted allies, of friends. He imagines that he never breaks Akutagawa, that he loves him, loves him like he deserves. And in this world, maybe life could have been beautiful for him too.
“I’m here,” Dazai whispers, hoping it will be enough to slow the weight that threatens to pull the boy under. Or at the very least, hook within Dazai himself, so that he can follow his Ryuunosuke into the dark.