Chapter Text
Gunshots, shouts, curses, wooshing, static,
laughter.
That’s all that filled Dazai’s ears as he rushed out of the enemy’s base, high on adrenaline and hysterics. Hysterics, Dazai is aware, simply because the one he’s partnered up with is joyous, soaring through the sky, shouting curses right back, and howling that sort of laugh that’s reserved for every chase or successful mission– all of which is upsettingly contagious. Dazai can’t stop grinning as he runs with a big case full of stolen gems in hand, its replica in Chuuya’s.
A rush of bullets fire past, and Chuuya is never far from Dazai’s back, deflecting each one that comes his way. It’s the only reason the slug’s still within range, as he normally flies ahead because Dazai is just ‘too slow’ and he ‘doesn’t wanna get bored to death trying to match his lousy speed’. Dazai would roll his eye, claim that Chuuya’s cheating with his ability, and sometimes nullify it when they’re safe enough, just to see Chuuya’s hilarious reaction once he face-plants on the dirty ground-
“C’mon, slowpoke!”
Here we go again.
Dazai huffs, watching the irritating slug fling from behind him to beside him, then up at the sky to flip the opponents off, all in the span of a second. The way that reminded Dazai of a hummingbird is an insult to all hummingbirds in existence– at least they had the courtesy to be graceful. This, however, was nothing but an eye-sore. “You that eager to get blasted?! Get those legs working!”
Dazai, despite himself, does get faster, eager to get out of the enemy’s enormous territory. They’re on the city’s outskirts amidst a forest, where a single building that happens to be the headquarters of some organization that double-crossed the Port Mafia resides. They’re here to retrieve what belongs to them, and to cause collateral damage in their wake.
“Have as much fun as you want!” is what Mori chirped and well, who are Soukoku not to take that chance?
Dazai wheezes, miserable for his inability to counter Chuuya’s weak insults. The distance between the fence surrounding the building and the building itself is lengthy to the point of being stupid. Almost a kilometer of nothing but grass, if his estimate is of any accuracy when it’s currently the middle of the night and there is little to no illumination to help with that either.
They’re only basked in the moon’s light, and Chuuya’s hues of red. The fire of bullets give mere flashes that wither too quickly to be deemed useful.
The contrast of red and blue would be silently admired any other time, but now Dazai only squints ahead, spotting the electric fence. It’s not the same spot they sneaked in from, so the hole they cut open isn’t present. His tired legs pick up the pace, placing the case on the ground to take out his wire-cutters, and shouts in order to be heard,
“Gloves!”
Chuuya, already behind him, is careful not to press his back to Dazai’s as he unsheathes his garments and lets them fall to the ground without taking his eyes off the enemy. The gloves are secured faster than Chuuya can give a holler of sheer excitement, ready to take his never-ending hunger for chaos out on the hundreds shooting at them.
Dazai works fast, cutting open a hole big enough for him, which would surely fit Chuuya as well. Normally, Dazai wouldn’t even consider whether Chuuya would fit or not, as he could hop or fly over the fence, but in this circumstance, there is an ability-based force-field doming the territory in its entirety, one the Dazai can’t nullify for how high up it is to touch.
No matter, Dazai feels the foreign sensation of leather gloves encasing his fingers, momentarily glad to have 89% of his skin concealed since the electric voltage is high for this particular fence. He’s listening in on the grunts of pain and screams of anguish that reverb through the forest– fascinated, not for the first time, by the amount of damage one tiny bundle of chaos could cause.
During these moments of gloveless endeavors that don’t involve corruption, Dazai likes to call Chuuya’s burst of liveliness dog zoomies, since he’d contain too much energy and too little brain cells to make proper use of it– and isn’t that overly on the nose, now?
With the fence finally acquiring a half-folded shaped door, Dazai snatches the case on the ground and widens the gap further, “COME ON!”
Chuuya makes a disgruntled, perhaps disappointed noise, but doesn’t take long to retreat.
Some snipers are still alive, which is evident by the gunshots that resume firing in their direction, albeit far lesser than before. Dazai passes through the fence, relieved to see the trees in the distance where they can lose the persistent shooters. Looking back, he checks to see if Chuuya’s still holding onto his gem case, and is glad to find it in one piece-
His eye widens, taking notice just a second too late.
Chuuya’s halfway through the hole Dazai’s made, and it’s then that his hand absently reaches for the side of it-
His gloveless hand.
“Don’t—-!”
His warning is cut short as what follows after happens faster than he can wrap his mind around it– as Chuuya’s eyes gape unseeingly, mouth opening in a silent gasp while his body rocks to a terrifying degree, and Dazai’s feet are turning back before he allows them to-
“NGH!” Chuuya's deep grunt pummels the weight of the situation on Dazai’s head in full force, and now he’s spouting every curse he knows because the bullets never ceased firing and Chuuya’s ability is flickering and his hand’s still holding onto the fence and he can’t let go-
Dammit, Dammit, Dammit-
The distance between them is short, but Dazai feels like he’d run a mile, case flung away and gloved hand outstretched– ready to shove the millisecond it comes in contact with the boy whose azure pupils are rolling in anguish, teeth gritted. That fleeting sight might just haunt him forever-
And finally, he grabs ahold of Chuuya’s shoulder, and pushes.
Chuuya falls in a heap, trembling with a strained gasp overfilling his lungs. The smell of smoke whiffs through the air, amber curls frizzy under his fedora. Dazai checks that his partner’s awake, relieved when he finds his eyes open, and hurriedly retrieves both bags that have been discarded, choosing to spare Chuuya the effort to try to find where his fell, and letting him focus on standing back on his feet, or glide, for that matter.
Because this was nothing Dazai hasn’t seen Chuuya handle before– in fact, he’d seen him handle worse. Chuuya’s body is insanely durable -Dazai can confirm as much from their sparring sessions- and the voltage was indeed high, though not high enough to kill a normal human, only leave them momentarily paralyzed. It would be laughable to even suggest that this would affect Chuuya at all.
A bullet whizzes by as he crouches, dangerously close. Dazai winces, straightening to start running again. The trees aren’t far, and Dazai is desperate to reach them if only to be able to take fully-fledged breaths once more. Before he takes off, he makes sure to exclaim as a reminder,
“Stupid slug, hurry!” He provokes, because provocation always motivates Chuuya, whether he likes it or not, “They’re gaining on us!”
Two seconds. Three. Silence.
No, not silence. Dazai can hear gunshots, shouts, curses, wooshing, static,
but no laughter. No response.
The only resonances that mattered.
Dazai swallows, hating the way he slows down as he looks back. By estimate, Chuuya should be making a show of getting up, spouting shaky claims of “I’m fine, bastard, ‘m not that weak”, and willing his ability to flicker back to life. And this is Dazai’s estimate. Dazai’s estimates are never wrong-
His mind numbs.
The shaky claims never arrive, the red hues never flicker, the certainty he grasped on ends up in shambles-
Because the scene is unchanged, static. Just as he left it.
Chuuya isn’t even trying to get up.
Wh-
“Hurry up, Chuuya!” Even as he hollers, ripping his throat apart, he’s already running back, an abundance of alarm bells ringing in his deafened ears. The cases are heavy in his hands, hindering, but he isn’t in a state to consider their hindrance, mind rushing in order to make sense of what he’s witnessing. It doesn’t. It can’t. Everything’s going way too fast and Chuuya’s but a lump on the floor when he has been aching with laughter mere minutes ago-
“Chuuya-!” He stumbles right before reaching the body on the ground, lungs burning due to their exertion. He doesn’t know if he should crouch down or observe upright, limbs lost on which action to take. He opts to kneel halfway- take in the sight quickly but thoroughly. Why’s he still on the ground? What happened-? Did he pass out-?
No, Chuuya is wide awake.
Through the moon’s light, overpowering in blue, Dazai registers the tremors coursing through Chuuya’s body in waves- tsunamis. The heaving of his chest that is too quick and shallow. And the natural follow-up of that should be a deep grimace etched on his face, a wince pulling his always emotive, human expressions-
A gasp escapes Dazai’s lips before he can help it.
No-
Chuuya’s face. Chuuya’s eyes. They’re entirely blank. Dull. Dead.
Something akin to panic sprouts in the desertified hollowness that inhabits Dazai’s chest- something that feels so, so awful he wishes he could punch through his ribs and yank the offender right out. His shaky fingers can’t even hold up the bags anymore, one thumping on the ground, the other about to follow suit.
This isn’t what was supposed to happen. This isn’t normal. This isn’t- Chuuya- he’s-
Shit-
A bullet grazes his leg. Another nicks him below his eye. The stings wake him up.
“THEY’RE UP AHEAD WITH OUR STUFF!” Someone shouts through the pounding in his ears, “DON’T STOP!!”
Dazai shakes his head, eyes darting around too quickly to make sense of anything, and then he’s dropping down with the remaining case, rolling Chuuya onto his back and scrambling to get his limp self on his feet.
It’s a grueling, unprofessional process. Hasty and fueled by adrenalin being pumped in extra dosages. The arm is slung over his shoulder and the waist is pulled close as fast as his limbs allow it. Feeling another sting on his arm, the voices grow closer. Dazai doesn’t try to decipher what they’re spluttering. None of them matter.
He gives one glance to the bags thrown on the ground, the reason they’re here, before cursing to himself and sprinting. He’ll think about the consequences that await them for their failed mission later.
The forest’s entrance, two trees amongst hundreds resembling a gate in Dazai’s eye, is so close yet so far away. Chuuya’s but a deadweight, unresponsive, and if it weren’t for the loud heaving resounding in his ears, Dazai would be convinced he’s dead-
A bullet flies past, and another. Chuuya’s calf explodes in red.
He doesn’t even blink.
“Kuso-!” Dazai audibly exclaims, sensing that any more strain on himself and he’d give up entirely, as the ache in his chest is persistent, unrelenting, and his legs burn, all blood rushing to them. It feels like he’s been running since time immemorial, the urge to pass out stronger than his will to continue-
Yet he keeps sprinting, even after he rushes through the forest gates. Even after the shouts are nothing but fleeting echoes. Even after they are completely safe, surrounded by nothing but the lull of trees and the smell of earth.
He only stops when his legs give up on him.
Dazai slows down the moment he senses so, and in a hurry picks a tree to lean Chuuya against right before he falls. He sits, steadies himself with his hands, so as to not lie down completely, and takes an embarrassing amount of effort trying to even his breath out. His legs are pulsating, trembling in riot, vowing to never be stood on again. Dazai will deal with that nuisance when the time comes for it.
He shifts his focus on the other, bigger nuisance. The one that seems to be a constant in Dazai’s life since he’d turned fifteen.
Chuuya.
Once his single eye locks onto him, it cannot avert its gaze no matter how hard it tries. And really, there is a good reason for that, given how surreal his partner’s face looks at the moment, like it is but a porcelain mask plastered onto the brutish, exhaustingly animated boy he unfortunately got to get acquainted enough with…
He didn’t move an inch from where Dazai seated him, silent and taking everything like a puppet with its strings cut. His head is hanged, chin pressed to the spasming chest that refuses to slow its pace. The wide, glazed blues are probably the most jarring things of all. Dim, the accurate description of it. It makes Dazai’s stomach churn, makes him swallow in unease, makes him feel all sorts of disgusting, unforgivable things.
He’d seen Chuuya set apart from himself before. He’d been the first to witness the sort of horrors Arahabaki seldom puts his vessel through and thus compels him to shut down under the strain. But the dim azures never fail to give him a whiplash, douse his nerves in ice, and force his mind stock still. Every single time.
He sees enough dim in mirrors, in browns. They don’t belong in blues. It’s indisputable.
And, right, he should probably start working to fix this.
Dazai all but drags himself to be seated next to his partner, legs unresponsive and choosing to get towed midst ashy leaves and mud. He sags once his back is leant onto the tree similarly, his own chest still failing to take full-fledged breaths, though faring a lot better compared to the one beside him. The sweat that has pooled onto Dazai’s face starts to turn frigid on his hot skin, and he wipes it, only to pause.
The blacks encasing his fingers, concealing what little of his skin shown, mock him with their presence.
Dazai would have ripped them off if they weren’t one of the few things that could aid in fixing this, so he pushes back the urge and resorts to unsheathing them gingerly instead. He maneuvers Chuuya’s limp and burnt hand to clothe it up, steady and calm with it, one finger at a time. The other hand gets treated in the same fashion. Chuuya, if awake, would have barked at him for handling him so gently, as if he’s a weak, fragile thing. This time the retaliations are trapped in a mind that cannot convey them. Wordless.
Dazai tilts his head, leaning near Chuuya’s face, probably too close for normal people’s comfort. Whatever Arahabaki made Chuuya witness this time is bad enough to shut him down for more than three minutes. Dazai’s mouth curls into a glower. How reprehensible.
He drapes his fingers onto Chuuya’s wrist, punishing the culprit, deadening him. It always helps, and Dazai hates that it does. Hates that he is the only one in this cold, cruel world capable of offering what his partner needs most in these moments…
For crying out loud, Chuuya is so reliant on his master. What would he do without him?
What will he do after Dazai’s attempts finally succeed?
He brushes that thought aside, too-closely observing once more. Nothing changes. The shaking is still on, the heaving doesn’t slow down, and there isn’t even a glint sparking in his eye. That’s odd.
“Chuuya.” No reaction, “Slug? Chibi? Dazai’s dog?”
He perks once Chuuya’s eyes shift, slow as if trekking through quicksand, but in his direction all the same. Dazai’s hand squeezes absently, an empty smile forming on his face,
“Was it the reminder that I’m your owner?” He huffs with no humor, the smile dropping faster than he allows it to, “You’re dissociating. Looks like it’s a bad one.” He clarifies in hopes to aid Chuuya in grounding himself, in case he hadn’t noticed, “I need you to speak to me so we can get out of here. I can’t carry you further. You’re heavy.”
Chuuya’s pupils are falling back to the ground, as if the effort of fixing them to the side in itself was too draining. Dazai quickly cups his cheeks, forcing them face-to-face.
“Eye contact.” Dazai demands, and at this point he is just replicating the same song and dance Chuuya performs during his dissociative episodes, less aggressively at that. Chuuya’s yet to find him, but the panting ebbs slightly. Progress. He latches onto it.
“Stupid Arahabaki did a number on you this time, huh? And over electricity of all things.” Dazai, still tipping Chuuya’s chin up, takes off the fedora and brushes his frizzled hair in an effort to smooth it out. It’s a futile process. “Who was it that was bragging about how shocks barely affect him three months ago? Even won against me when we had a contest over that and almost died? Yeah, right, I remember it being a certain miniscule mafioso-”
“Nn- shhh…” Chuuya shushes him in a feeble manner, tremors beginning to subside. Dazai gleams. The consonant was probably building up to a full ‘shut up’, but the redhead’s mouth gave up barely a syllable in.
“What? It’s not often that I remind you of your victories instead of your many, many failures. Would like at least a bit of appreciation for the horror I just went through for your sake.” Chuuya’s brows twitch, wanting to furrow. The porcelain is cracking slowly, slowly. Dazai wishes to shatter it completely, but resorts to the gentle approach, in order to preserve what’s underneath without damage. “Can you name five things you can see?”
Silence.
Dazai frowns slightly, “Chuuya? What do you see?”
His mouth hangs open for a second, eyes shifting, then in the quietest tone Dazai ever heard out of his partner, “Black…” Dazai, confused, follows his line of sight, to find him staring at Dazai’s folded knees, or rather his dark pants.
“Okay, what else?”
“Leaf…” Chuuya speaks as if each word is sucking all the energy out of him. His gloved hand twitches on the leaf under his palm, and before Dazai can ask him to name something else, his eyes trail upward, ever so slowly. Dazai’s patient, isn’t sure what possesses him to be. “T-Tie…”
“Good.” The praise feels sour on his tongue, foreign. Dazai fights back a grimace, “Anything else?”
Chuuya’s gaze lifts even further, “Mop…” Immediately aware that he’s talking about his hair, Dazai sticks his tongue out, to which Chuuya finally locks his eyes with him, the faintest hints of displeasure on his face, “Mackerel…”
“Slug.” Dazai doesn’t leave the jab unparried, and refrains from pinching the cheeks he’s holding, “What can you hear? Name four things.”
“You… Sh-shut up…” Chuuya mumbles, then focuses, “Wind… ringing…” He gives a shaky inhale, head lowering, unable to say more.
“Hm.” He hums tentatively. There is probably not much sound to name anyway, so he doesn’t push further, “What about smell?”
“Trees… Dirt… Blood…” He whispers, one word at a time.
“Feel?”
“L-Like shit…” Dazai’s eye darts to the red under Chuuya’s outstretched leg, coating the leaves. He makes a mental note to check on it once the problem is dealt with. “Awful. Burns.” Chuuya pauses, something akin to confusion cracking the porcelain further, “Hands…?”
“Mmhm.” Dazai confirms, brushing both thumbs across his cheekbones, stretching his skin and forming an uncanny smile on the redhead’s face. “Spreading my germs on Chuuya!”
“Eugh…” Chuuya tries to escape his hold, only getting so far with that, “‘l kill you…”
“Glad you’re back, hatrack!” Dazai chirps, and lies. Chuuya is far from fully aware, and the dull is persistent, boring into Dazai’s. Two voids staring at one another, black holes that were to collide, would ripple space and time itself, eat away everything in their path, merge into one. Dazai is the one to avert his eye in order to prevent that horrifying outcome.
He lets Chuuya’s head go, leaning further into the tree. The contact remains, back to holding the redhead’s wrist. Dazai is beginning to doubt Arahabaki’s involvement in this, seeing as the nullification didn’t help much– rather, at all.
Usually when Dazai nullifies Arahabaki, Chuuya is a little more conversational than that– indicating that a part of the issue is resolved. Now, however, Chuuya appears just as troubled as he had been since his episode started. None of the light is back.
This can’t be right.
“Are you able to tell me what caused this?” The question is quiet with the intrigue stifled. He truly has no clue to the answer, can’t even predict it. The feeling is as scary as it is thrilling.
A faint grimace pulls his partner’s expression, sour as he closes his eyes, “Stupid…”
So he does know. Dazai can tell the thrill is overpowering the fear now, challenging himself to reach the answer before Chuuya says it out loud.
Stupid. Chuuya called it stupid. Chuuya always calls a problem of his stupid as an excuse to not admit it to Dazai– even if most of the time he himself thinks it’s of major significance.
It’s an easy out. Dazai won’t let him have it, “If it acts as a hindrance to the mission, then it is not.”
Chuuya pulls from their point of contact, peeved, and Dazai lets him. He observes the way his partner’s lips thin and his eyelids blink, how his brows draw together and pull away once more– trying to re-establish lucidity in its truest form. Something like light flickers in his eyes as he seems to process what Dazai said, that he’d pressed.
“The…” Chuuya swallows, the hand that was burned twitching before fully curling in a feeble grasp. He makes the effort of averting his face before mumbling, “The electricity…”
Dazai refrains from exclaiming a Duh. Of course that’s the reason. He is only interested in why it would be, and is annoyed at his inability to figure the answer out yet. “What about it? I’ve seen you get shocked before. It never prompted this pathetic reaction.”
Chuuya bristles minutely, trying to grit his teeth and failing, “Sh-Shut up…”
The shaking is back. Dazai thinks he’d pushed too far.
“Fine, I won’t nag any further.” He pulls away, sensing Chuuya’s surprise as he does so. He’ll figure it out, one way or another. Rushing it is unwise and illogical. “Though It would help if you tell Mori-san to add this to your portfolio later. Just so we avoid this from happening again.” He begins to move in order to inspect the leg wound, ready to take the pin off of the gauze swathing his neck, before-
“It felt like… like when…”
Dazai pauses right before his hand finds the pin, eying Chuuya once more, except the other is covering his eyes with one hand, so he doesn’t reciprocate. Dazai’s hands lower, fixated, patient. Chuuya’s limb trembles, his Adam’s apple bobbing too frequently, dangerously.
“When N…” The fact that Dazai’d lost his self-imposed challenge flies out of the window once he hears those words. No- that initial. And suddenly a bundle of acknowledgement settles heavy in his chest, the weight a physical thing, causing him to sink to the ground. “Fuckin…”
Chuuya can’t continue, lips and breaths too shaky to rasp further. But Dazai knows what he meant to say all the same: ‘Electrocuted me, tortured me, scarred me.’
Something in him shifts once he processes that thought, and Dazai feels himself blank. The sort of emptiness that eats away at him whenever he’s talking to his subordinates, or in a meeting with Mori, or alone in his container. It’s something akin to boredom, but that can’t be the right word to be used here, because devastation also accompanies it, hollowness he’s used to and intimately familiar with…
His eyes trail towards the ashy leaves, decomposing, as is the beating organ within him, “Oh…”
It comes out laced with disappointment. Dazai isn’t sure if he meant for it to be that way.
Chuuya stops, turning back to him in a confused but mostly disbelieving demeanor, “Oh?”
“Yeah. Oh.” He is no longer afraid to bore his void into the redhead’s, as Chuuya’s has glistened, the spark of real anger flickering to life. A heavy price to pay, but it’s working. “I… may have underestimated how much that would take a toll on you…” He admits, truthful, “furthermore, how it would affect you in the long run…”
Dazai is distantly aware of how he’s talking right now: like Chuuya’s but an acquaintance, nothing more. Presenting his clinical front at the worst time imaginable, just in hopes to sound sincere. He’s also aware that this isn’t at all what Chuuya wanted to hear.
Because the other shakes his head repeatedly, appalled. The panting remerges, and it’s then that something glints in Chuuya’s eyes- no, wells. He quickly turns away, draws his legs close, and leans forward till his eyes are covered by the arm that has rested on his knees.
“Fuck you. Fuck you.” Chuuya whispers with a croak, breathy, genuine. His hand shakes as it balls into a fist, while the other clutches his abdomen in a white-knuckle grip. The tremors are back, this time for a different reason. Dazai sinks further. “I hate you so much… Fuck…”
The brunet provides space, physical and mental, for both their sakes, blocking out the noises Chuuya is trying his best to stifle. This problem is proving too difficult for him to deal with, though, also proves that he is indeed the only one who can attempt to fix it.
Seeing as he’s the one who caused it.
Knowing Chuuya would be tortured when he gave N’s info to Verlaine was admittedly not on his top list of concerns to dwell on. He was only thinking of two things at the time: Protect the boss. Kill Verlaine. That came with sacrifices he isn’t proud of: death count of hundreds, losing precious ability users and allies, relentless damage to the city, the list goes on…
Dazai never found the need to contemplate the effect part of his cause. Sacrifices should only be mourned and remembered if they were fruitless. If it was all over an attempt to reach a red herring.
But they were victorious, so each sacrifice was worth it, a core key to their success. It’s something to take pride in -what they contributed to help- and either take that pride at heart or move on from it. They won, so anything else didn’t matter.
Except… they did.
Chuuya clearly doesn’t share the sentiment. And perhaps Dazai has no right to determine his feelings, either, since nothing about the Verlaine incident was personal to him. Nothing ever feels personal to him. Which is the reason Dazai is currently chewing on his cheeks, trying to find the best way to approach a matter beyond his depth. One he can’t even comprehend.
Dazai doesn’t do empathy.
Dazai doesn’t do emotions.
He only does deals and compromises. Schemes and strategies. It’s how he goes about in this meaningless life, never hung up on anything it throws his way because otherwise that would prove it had meaning.
But Chuuya… matters to him. He’s one of the few people that wormed his way into Dazai’s withering heart without permission. That unfortunate verity always buzzed in the back of his head throughout their year of partnership: That he’d go great lengths just to keep that dumb hatrack alive and in good spirit– only because there would be no one else to annoy and thus Dazai’s life would be boring. No other reason.
Though another verity strikes him square in his chest, causing him to pale slightly as a result: that the fact that he’s the cause of what Chuuya’s going through, horrifically… also matters to him.
He wants to show Chuuya as much. But… he can’t find it in himself to convey what just dawned on him. Saying it outright solidifies it in the physical world, makes it unquestionably true. And there’d be no plausible way to deny it when the time comes.
So he does what he does best: Deals, Compromises.
“The Mafia world doesn’t permit weaknesses.” He speaks after a long, long while, tone subdued and just as clinical. Chuuya’s silent hiccups have lessened, and is now gritting his teeth, maybe in an effort to hear their creaking instead of Dazai’s voice, “Perhaps I owe it to you that I help out with the one I indirectly induced…”
Dazai isn’t referring to the dissociation alone– no, he is promising to assist with the problem as a whole, to help Chuuya move on from it, even if Chuuya isn’t in a space to read the underlying meaning behind his words right now. That’s fine. Dazai did not vow to Chuuya, he vowed to himself.
“I don’t want your goddamn help,” Chuuya’s voice is raspy from overuse, burrowing further into the crook of his arm, shoulder-blades stiff, “Leave me the fuck alone.”
“You seem like you are in pretty dire need of help- or rather comfort.” Dazai blurts, a mere conclusion reached by the evidence presented before him. Chuuya snarls, but does nothing more. The brunet cocks his head, thinks of things normal people might provide to comfort others, and offers the first one that comes to mind, “How does physical touch sound right now?”
Dazai and Chuuya getting tactile goes as well as you’d expect a cactus trying to hug a balloon– who fulfills which role differing depending on circumstance. There are exceptions sometimes, when the two of them have their spikes trimmed, are safe to approach. The younger is interested to see if now might be one of them.
“With you? Sickening. The worst thing you can offer.” Chuuya’s voice is muffled by fabric, and if Dazai deflates slightly, no one is there to tell, “I don’t even wanna see your face right now...”
Dazai’s mind spirals in an effort to find another thing he can provide– one that wouldn’t tarnish his reputation or act as blackmail Chuuya can hold over him till the end of time, preferably. He blinks, then deadpans, “A… shoulder to cry on?”
He glosses over how that’s the same thing disguised by different wording, and watches as Chuuya’s shoulders tense even further, which is admittedly incredible, since Dazai was convinced that any more rigidness would tear his muscles from the strain, “I’m not crying- I’ll seriously wring your neck if you keep talking…”
But he is, what’s the use of lying about something so evident?
There is a beat of silence, then, “That wasn’t a no…”
Chuuya’s breath stutters, and it looks like he was about to bark something, but clasps his mouth at the last second, closing in on himself further. By now all Dazai can see of him is his fedora and the bits of his hair shown, entire face hidden in a bundle of limbs, from Dazai, from the world.
And… that wasn’t a direct refusal, either. Dazai takes his chance, scooting closer once, twice. He unsheathes his coat that would fall off anyway, protecting it from a mess it has never been victim of, and lets it drop beside him on the ground, bits of dirt whitening it. He pays no mind to that.
Eye piercing with the intent to catch each miniscule reaction the other makes, Dazai’s hand hovers next, hesitant for a second before landing on the shoulder farthest from him. Chuuya chokes, then instantly elbows him in the ribs, trying to push him away, but Dazai takes it because for once he is determined about something, and roughly pulls Chuuya closer. He counts the blessing of his partner being weakened due to the mental strain he went through, and dares to maneuver him till his head is literally on his shoulder, inviting him to cry on it.
“Fuck you- I’ll fucking kill you-” Chuuya growls, panting, still elbowing him, but Dazai keeps him as still as possible, sending the message that it’s futile.
And Chuuya gets it eventually, because he gives in after four minutes, Dazai feeling him sink his cheek to his shoulder, white shirt stained in clear instead of crimson for what might be the first time.
“I hate you- I hate you…” Chuuya grits, rasps, hiccups, his shaking rocking them both, “I hate you so fucking much…”
It echoes like a mantra, to the trees, the wind. Each one is accompanied by a weaker jab than the last, ribs sore but insignificant compared to the ache of him unable see anything of his partner but the fedora tucked under his chin, deliberate as to grant Chuuya what little dignity he can maintain.
Dazai selfishly wishes to see his face, to see proof that the porcelain has finally shattered rather than hear it. But appeasing himself right now is the least he deserves, thus he stares ahead, listening to each spiteful claim like one would listen to their favorite song playing on the radio, not blocking a word out. He stares ahead, to the red coating the leaves, wondering if the withering organ within him is the source, wondering if it had finally granted him mercy and given out. He stares ahead, to the moon behind lanky branches, mocking with its blues, serene in a way it has no right to be, and he wishes to coat his fingers in the crimson, to bring them up ahead and smear the moon with it, his favorite color…
He stares ahead, till his eye is dried out, till it has no choice but to lachrymate itself much more than necessary…
And keeps on staring…