Chapter Text
Chuuya gets out of his car, then walks over to the building that matches the address that Mori gave him. Dazai is standing outside, his hands tucked in his pockets.
“Hi, Chuuya.”
“Hey, what’s up?”
“Nothing much, nothing much. I got out of interrogation for this mission.”
“Yeah, I was off duty when Mori called. I was having tea with Kouyou. So, what’s this about? Mori said that we have to do some kind of pickup, but I can’t think of a single delivery that would be important enough to warrant us going. Especially since it’s my day off.”
“I’m not sure exactly who we’re picking it up from, but we’re supposed to get the monthly reports for the organization. That includes routes, expenses, employees, and everything else that you can think of. Whoever normally collects them, and drops them off to Mori isn’t available.”
“Oh, that is important. Well, I guess we should get going then. Do you have the addresses?”
“Yes, and I have a list of names, and who has which list. Can you drive?”
“Yep, that was the plan. I even brought my car.”
“Awesome.”
Dazai walks over, and climbs into the passenger seat. Chuuya gets in too, and Dazai starts up his GPS.
“Ok, turn left out of the parking lot.”
“Shut up, that would literally drive us directly into traffic. I am not doing that, so give the directions right.”
Dazai sticks his bottom lip out.
“Fine, but I still kinda wanna die right now.”
“Me too, but I’m still not driving the wrong way.”
They stay quiet for the most part through the first and second stops.
Then Dazai says, “Ok, we have two more stops, but I’m not sure about this last address. It’s not in an actual neighborhood, and it looks pretty far out of town, so we might want to ask Mori about that one before we actually go there.”
“Ok, you can call him while I run in to get the third set of papers.”
“I will.”
That one is just as slow as the other ones, and Dazai is getting off the phone when Chuuya comes back out. Chuuya waits to open his door till Dazai hangs up.
“What’d he say?”
“He said that the information is right, but that the guy himself is eccentric. Apparently he’s really good at his job, but we should try not to piss him off. He didn’t say what would happen if we did happen to piss the guys off, but we’re going to try not to figure that out.”
Chuuya nods, starting the car again. They drive out to the man’s house, which takes them almost two hours to get to. It’s getting late by then, almost time for people to start getting off of work.
“Geez, we’ve been working on this stupid task for almost seven hours. How did it take this long?”
“I guess it’s cause we’re new. Those people don’t know us, and didn’t recognize us, so they had to take a lot of extra precautions to make sure that they were giving the information to the right people. No one wants to be responsible for the fiasco that would cause.”
“I guess you’re right, but this is still ridiculous. Only because we’re going to be stuck here in the middle of nowhere for however long this guy takes to verify our identities, then we’re going to have to drive two and a half hours to get back to base. I live thirty minutes away from base.”
“Yeah, it is kind of ridiculous. I also haven’t eaten since breakfast.”
“I haven’t eaten since dinner last night.”
“Oof, that sucks. Why didn’t you eat breakfast?”
“I don’t know. I don’t normally section off time for breakfast on my days off, and I hadn’t gotten around to it. Normally if I don’t eat breakfast, I just eat lunch early.”
Dazai hums as they both get out of the car. Chuuya tucks the other papers into his backpack, and pulls out his wallet.
“Ok, I have my ID and driver’s license in case he wants to see it. Do you have yours?”
“I don’t have a driver’s license, but I have my ID.”
“Ok, that’s fine.”
Chuuya knocks on the door, and the door cracks open. An old man with bulging eyes pokes his head out. He looks them up and down, then steps out of the building. His stance is defensive so Chuuya attempts a placating smile.
“Mo-” Dazai doesn’t get any further than that before the man lunges forward, sinking a knife into Chuuya’s upper leg.
Chuuya punches the man back, smashing him through the door. His vision blurs, and his legs go out from underneath him. Dazai says something, but Chuuya can’t hear him well enough to tell what it is.
When Chuuya wakes up again, he’s tied up, restrained to the ceiling. Dazai is across from him, and he has some bruises, but looks otherwise unharmed. Chuuya can immediately tell that his ability isn’t working, but he has no idea why. Dazai picks up his head after a minute. His eyes look a little hazy, and he definitely has a concussion, but he immediately starts looking around. He gets more alert quickly, and locks eyes with Chuuya.
“Hey, are you ok?” Dazai asks, sounding breathless.
“Yeah, did he drug you?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No, nothing more than a few bruises. You, on the other hand, look awful,” Dazai replies, looking Chuuya over with a critical eye.
“Thanks, I feel awful too. Do you know what happened?”
“I have to assume that this man is even more paranoid than Mori made him out to be, and Mori didn’t tell him we were coming. I tried telling him who we were when he came down here earlier, but he called me a liar, and drugged me.”
“Oh, that sucks.”
Chuuya feels his head start to tip forward again. It knocks against his chest, and suddenly pulling his eyes open again after blinking feels like the hardest thing in the world.
“Chuuya?”
He can’t get his eyes to open again.
Dazai finally manages to get his hands free, and drops to the ground. They’ve been in this room for an undisclosed amount of time. Normally his internal clock is good enough that he can figure it out, but he’s been drugged for most of the time. Chuuya has been disturbingly still for a while.
As soon as he can get the feeling back into his legs and wrists, Dazai shakily walks to Chuuya. He unties Chuuya with uncooperative fingers, barely able to catch him before he hits the ground. Dazai lowers Chuuya down, not liking how hot he feels. He puts one hand against Chuuya’s throat, and the other against his forehead.
“Ok, so your pulse is really fast, and you’re definitely running a fever. Maybe you got an infection, so we’re going to check that stab wound he gave you,” Dazai narrates for himself as he pulls Chuuya’s hoodie off all together.
He gently pulls Chuuya’s shirt up and the waistband of his jeans down, his breath catching in his throat.
“Shit.”
Chuuya cracks his eyes open, his focus drifting to Dazai. Dazai barely even notices, his eyes focused on the wound. The area directly surrounding it is blue and black while the redness extends even farther than that. His hip and side are red with blister-like spots dotting the area. Dazai looks around, getting light headed.
When was the last time I drank water?
As if on cue, he spots a few water bottles at the bottom of the stairs on the other side of the room.
He must have just been throwing them down here, but how did he expect us to get them? I think this guy might be crazy. When I said I wanted to die, this was not what I meant.
Dazai stands, getting dizzy again. He manages to get the water, and come back though. Chuuya’s staring at the ceiling by then, unconcerned with what Dazai is doing.
“Hey, Chuuya, how are you feeling?”
“Hot.”
“How’s your stab wound?” Dazai asks as he starts trying to rinse it out.
I have no idea if this is going to help at this point. What do I even do? Why is his skin black? I didn’t pay enough attention to Mori if he even told me about this kind of injury. Is it some kind of infection?
“Stab wound? Oh, that, I can’t really feel it. Isn’t that weird?” Chuuya asks, sounding slightly concerned now.
Dazai bites his lip.
“Yeah, no shit.”
“Hm?”
“Nothing, I didn’t say anything. So you can’t feel anything going on with your leg?”
“No, why? Are you doing something?”
Dazai doesn’t respond, choosing to focus on what he’s doing.
“Shit, what do I do?” Dazai whispers, more to himself than anyone else.
Chuuya closes his eyes again, and Dazai shoots to his feet. He tips over this time, barely able to get his hands out in enough time to stop himself from slamming face first into the ground. Dazai scrambles to get back up. He opens another one of the bottles, and drinks some. Then he heads up the stairs, and tries to get the door open. He ends up trying to get the door open for at least half an hour before it clicks.
Did I do that?
The door swings right into Dazai’s face, sending him back down the stairs the hard way.
I did not do that.
The man from before steps down the stairs, glaring at Dazai. He walks over to Chuuya, and tips Chuuya’s face towards him. He frowns, and then starts to head back up the stairs. Dazai can’t even say anything, because his mouth is full of blood. He watches with dread as the door shuts and locks again. His vision is starting to fade out again, and he glances at Chuuya one last time, wondering if they’re going to make it out of this.
Man, after the reputation we’ve built up, this is a stupid way to die. Someone that wasn’t even supposed to be our enemy taking us by surprise. Dying in someone’s basement for any reason is a stupid way to die.