Chapter Text
What would the chibi’s lips taste like?
Wait, did he really think that?
At the young age of fifteen, Dazai is nothing if not a man of a thousand faces, who can control and conceal his every thought and impulse, or fake a new one, at will. That’s why he doesn’t smack himself on the head in the middle of the mission debrief.
Although he does come very close.
Now, where did such a disgusting thought come from?
Boredom, for sure. That must be it. Mori’s been talking on and on for what feels like ten million years, and the summer heat trapped in his office makes it even harder to focus on the information being delivered. Yeah, lack of oxygen, that must be it. That’s why Dazai found himself staring at the undersized creature sitting next to him, for lack of anything better to do.
Desperate conditions, truly.
That’s why his gaze goes right back to Chuuya’s mouth. Yep.
Ok, he must admit it to himself.
He wouldn’t say it out loud even if he was being tortured, but his thick-skulled partner is... interesting.
Interesting in the way that very few things are. Interesting in the way that, despite his disgust, Dazai can’t look away. Maybe it’s because of the disgust – honestly, he doesn’t particularly care to tell the difference. Captivating in the way that a struggling bug trapped under a glass is – if a bug could manipulate gravity and stare right into the depths of his empty self and spit a thousand swears a minute, that is.
Either way, for some reason, Dazai finds himself staring. Has been doing so for quite a while now, over the last few days - weeks - whatever, time has no meaning.
Those lips are full. Full of bullshit, he mentally corrects himself. No, but seriously. Full, looking so soft around those harsh words they always speak, like overripe fruit that still tastes bitter.
Dazai doesn’t really know how they taste, but right now, he can imagine. He wonders what it would be like to bite at them, to make them bleed. As inhuman as he thinks himself, the chibi bleeds red.
Dazai wants to see him bleed red. He wants to know what that mouth feels like. He wants, needs to push his idiot partner past his breaking point – and then further still.
He wants to see those lips curled around words like-
“Oi, shithead, are ya even listening?”
He suddenly blinks, fog lifting off his one free eye.
This time, it’s Chuuya who’s staring at him – one could call it staring him down, if it wasn’t for the enormous height difference between them.
Well, he’s got to give it to him. Chuuya’s trying anyway.
It takes Dazai a fraction of a second to wipe whatever look he was wearing off his face and replace it with his usual smirk.
“I’m listening, but all I can hear is barking...”
Thanks to whatever god Dazai doesn’t even believe in, Chuuya takes the bait and starts growling threats at him like usual, his voice closer to the noise of a broken motorcycle than a human. But all it takes is a word from Mori to silence him.
“Am I understood?”
The boss’s tone is as cold and sharp as a scalpel. There’s some kind of warning in his voice and his eyes that has the redhead lunatic scrambling to apologize, while Dazai simply shrugs.
Once a dog, always a dog. No matter who the master is, apparently.
Whatever, Dazai thinks. As long as Chuuya didn’t notice his scrutiny, it’s all good. He must be just that stupid.
***
The mission is a piece of cake. As much as it still infuriates them both to admit, they work well together.
And if Chuuya gets to beat a couple people up, he doesn’t mind it.
Dazai doesn’t mind it, either. He doesn’t mind it as his violent dog finally remains the last man standing on the cracked concrete of the forgotten factory complex they’re in, cracks his knuckles like the showoff he is, and wipes blood off his grinning mouth.
Then he turns.
He turns to look at Dazai as if he wants to be congratulated for his job – or rather, as if he wants to rub it in his face, brag about it and show him just what he could do to him, too, no gravity manipulation needed.
A tiny red droplet still stains the left corner of his mouth.
His eyes are ablaze, his breathing fast, his grin savage.
Dazai’s own mouth is suddenly dry.
The blood on the wild chibi’s mouth would be enough to quench his thirst.
Until those lips move and someone is shouting at him.
“Aren’t ya gonna say anything, bastard? You’re weirder than usual today”.
Luckily, once again, Dazai’s quick to pull his mask on.
“Aww”, he drawls, tilting his head to the side and looking down on the slug walking towards him, “does my dog want to be pet on the head and told he’s done a good job?”
Dazai’s smile is shiny and fake as plastic.
Chuuya stops right in front of him, just a few inches closer than what he usually does, and gives him an unimpressed look, or at least, his best version of an unimpressed look. Dog jokes are the best way to get under his skin, which is saying something. And yet, when he speaks again, it’s not to protest that.
“Bullshit. You were doing that again”. His blue eyes search Dazai’s face. It’s as if they don’t know what to look for, but do know that they need to look for something.
“What, breathing?”, Dazai simpers, a hundred more quips already forming in his mind, but gets cut off.
“Besides that, you psycho fish. You always have that… that weird-ass look on your face, like a dead mackerel, but today it’s even weirder. It’s… Nevermind. I don’t even wanna know what’s going on with you”.
“Didn’t know you’d been watching me so closely”. The banter slides off Dazai’s tongue like they’ve known each other for years.
(Sometimes it feels like they have. He should be more worried about that. He doesn’t feel like it).
That’s what makes Chuuya snap and take the bait. Finally.
“I have been watching you? What the hell? You’ve been staring at me all goddamn day! No, matter of fact, it’s been goin’ on for a lot more than that! What do you want, a picture? It’s fuckin’ creepy!”
“First off, get out of my face”, Dazai replies. He wants to add something, but it’s hard not to be distracted by how close Chuuya is to him – all up in his face, the clingy pet.
Since when can a pair of eyes look like twin blue flames, so scalding they can burn you just from looking at them?
Dazai doesn’t know if he wants Chuuya to stop staring right now or to never look away from him again.
Dazai wants to get burnt.
Since when can a mouth look like something he needs to bite?
Dazai doesn’t know if he wants to bite that mouth or be bitten by it.
He needs the bite.
He needs to look away.
He needs to keep his mouth occupied – to keep both of their mouths occupied. He doesn’t know what would happen otherwise. He just knows that he’s scared to death like he’s never been; he just knows that he feels more alive than he ever has.
Chuuya is still yapping something, but Dazai can’t make out the words. He wants to put a finger on those lips and shush him.
Revolting.
He can’t be infecting himself with slug germs.
So he takes a step back and that step feels more like a jump.
“What now?”, Chuuya exclaims, and if he didn’t know him any better Dazai would say he almost sounds offended.
“You were standing so close to me, I was suffocating!”
“Wish you’d done that”.
“Don’t make me regret my decision to keep living”, Dazai replies, dramatically, bringing a hand to his chest. “Now. I’ve had an idea. Silly chibi looks way too irritable today! He needs something to soothe his nerves – to take the edge off, if you will”.
“And that is?”. Chuuya eyes him, unimpressed, arms crossed.
“Never mind. It’s a grown-up activity. Not suitable for creatures under five feet of heig-”
One moment Chuuya’s over there, and the next he’s kicking his shins.
“Ow, ow, you brute! You’re so violent for being such a small- ow! A smoke! I was suggesting a smoke!”, Dazai says indignantly. Yes, indignantly. This is a serious matter.
Chuuya finally stops trying to kick him and looks up at him. “You smoke?”
“I kill people for a living”. Dazai’s tone is flat. “What do you think?”
At that, the chibi shrugs. “Whatever. You just didn’t seem like the type, y’know”.
“Every single cig takes me one step closer to the grave”, Dazai specifies, eliciting a disgruntled sigh from Chuuya.
“Fair point. Just don’t throw up on me.” (Dazai makes a gagging sound). “Got any smokes on you?”
Dazai doesn’t.
“I’ve run out. If Chuuya could be so gentlemanly as to volunteer his own money-”
“Oh, fuck off!”
Then, a sudden glint lights up Chuuya’s eyes. It’s over in a second, but Dazai noticed. Oh, he always notices.
“Know what? Let’s make a deal. I’ll buy them, but if I can outsmoke you, you’ll give me my money back”.
The corners of his mouth lift up into a smirk – the same smirk he wears into battle – and right then, Dazai knows that, whatever deal his partner offered him, he’d shake his hand and take it.
That mouth. That mouth curled up around a cigarette.
Dazai’s going to make him pay.
***
Dazai’s going to throw up.
They’ve been smoking for what feels like ages, but is probably closer to half an hour, leaning back against a wall in some sketchy street in the same zone their favorite arcade is in.
Hell, Dazai wishes they’d gone to the arcade instead.
They must look cool, leaning back and blowing puffs of smoke into the air – girls have been shooting looks at them as they pass by. Shooting looks at him, at least: he refuses to think any of them could be remotely interested in a guy the size of a chihuahua.
(It has happened a couple times before, actually. Dazai pointedly avoids thinking about it).
They must look cool, but he feels anything but that. At his first cig, he had to hold in his cough until it burst out of him like a dragon trapped in his lungs, and Chuuya laughed. That fucker laughed at him and even dared to question whether he’d ever smoked before.
It’s not like Dazai hasn’t. He wasn’t lying about cigs making him die faster and all that, even if wasting away consumed by lung disease, though poetic, sounds way too long and painful.
The thing is, he’s never liked it. Not for lack of trying, but every single time he just ends up choking and coughing until he’s sure he’s going to spit out an organ.
That’s why he’s never smoked more than one cigarette in a row.
He’s currently on his fourth.
Fuck.
The heat does nothing to help him. He’s sure he’s choking, which is another slow, unnecessarily boring and painful way to die.
Chuuya, on the other hand, seems to be doing great. He takes a pensive drag out of his long, fat cig, holds it like a lover, looks up at the small cloud of lingering smoke as if he can see something in it.
Absolutely no one gave him permission to look this cool.
For a moment, Dazai forgets about his nausea.
Chuuya’s lips look even plumper wrapped around the small stick. The paper must be slightly wet, right where it meets his mouth. His breath must be hot. Scalding.
Suddenly, those lips are moving around the cig. Lazily, languidly.
“You ok?”
Chuuya takes another drag and stares right back at Dazai, as if waiting for an answer.
Oh, right. He’s talking to him.
“Amazin’”, Dazai says, with all the calm he can muster. “What makes you think otherwise?”, he smiles around his cig, which almost falls out of his mouth. Almost. Damn, he wishes it had fallen out. He’s sure his lungs and stomach are going to be the next thing falling out of his mouth.
“Don’t know”, Chuuya raises his eyebrows, and slowly slides the cig out of his own mouth, “maybe the fact that I’ve asked you three times over”, he takes an unhurried breath, “and you didn’t answer”. He stops and thinks for a moment, cig still burning away between his slender fingers. “Also, you’re still doin’ that weird staring thing, but whatever. Guess that’s just you and your assholery. Oh, look, your cig has burnt out”.
Dazai hadn’t noticed. He doesn’t think he could take another puff, anyway.
“’m fine. Gimme yours”, he gestures at the still lit stick in the other’s hand, glowing red the same red as his hair, as his lips.
Dazai can’t lose. He can’t lose to him.
Chuuya scoffs. “You sure?”. His tone doesn’t sound pissed or mocking. One could almost call it worried, which is grosser than the taste of nicotine.
“C’mon, don’t be stingy”, Dazai insists, letting the dead stump join the previous ones on the sidewalk, “I gotta get my money back. Can’t let a tiny dog-”
“Yeah, yeah”, Chuuya cuts him off, and hands him the cigarette.
For a moment, the scene makes Dazai think of a ceremony – of a god and a lone worshipper – of incense.
Their fingers brush for an instant longer than necessary – Chuuya’s are warm, so warm – and something inside Dazai tells him to be slow, slow and purposeful as he brings the cig to his lips, to make a show of it as his lips touch what Chuuya’s lips have already so intimately touched.
That mouth is the last thing he sees before he takes a deep, deep drag.
His throat feels like sandpaper.
Then, without warning, bile’s crawling up his throat and he’s bent over, throwing up.
***
“You’re still gonna have to pay me back for my shoes, got it?”, Chuuya says as he hands him a water bottle.
“So cruel”, Dazai mutters.
They’re sitting on the curb in a different street, away from crowds and from the crime scene of their chainsmoking. He has, indeed, ruined Chuuya’s shoes. And lost their bet, although Chuuya has avoided reminding him of that until now and instead concerned himself with helping him clean himself up and feel a little better.
A little.
The water feels like saving grace on his still dry throat. It’s like it’s been scratched from the inside out.
His voice must sound so hot right now.
“Hey, Chuuya”, he says, after taking another sip, and clears his throat.
A few cars pass them by.
“What?”
Dazai takes on a pensive air.
“Think I could pick up girls with my sexy rasp?”
“Oh, piss off”, Chuuya rolls his eyes. “Be serious for a second. Are you feeling any better?”
“Aw, chibi’s worried about me! That’s cute!”
(Dazai does not feel any type of way about the way Chuuya’s almost taking care of him.
They do not take care of each other.
That’s just how it is. Dazai’s not even sure he could take care of someone, much less want to, much less Chuuya. So no, he doesn’t feel anything).
“Just makin’ sure you won’t puke all over me again”. That’s more like Chuuya. That’s more like their normal.
“Nah, for now at least”. Dazai takes a deep breath, and then another. A cough still escapes him, but at least the nausea is gone. The taste of tar, though, is not going to leave his taste buds anytime soon.
“Wait. Stay here”, Chuuya suddenly interjects after another minute of silence. He eyes him up and down as if he’s not sure Dazai’s going to stay put – which is a fair doubt. “I’ll be a minute”.
“Whatever”, Dazai replies and lets his head drop onto his knees. He does not think about the serious look in his stupid partner’s eyes.
Chuuya does come back a couple minutes later – with a pack of sweet gummies from a nearby grocery store.
“Here”, he says, throwing it in Dazai’s general direction. (Dazai catches it, of course). “Leave one or two for me. Figured you’d need something to get the taste off”, Chuuya continues, then shuts his mouth as if he’s revealed too much.
“The slug’s being so sweet today”. Dazai’s not even looking at him, focused on tearing the packet open. Lychee flavor – perfect. How did the chibi even remember?
“Nevermind. Choke on them”, Chuuya rebuts, sitting down next to him again.
(Dazai can’t help but notice he’s just an inch or two closer this time. Neither of them acknowledges it.
Their knees almost brush against each other. Almost).
“Gimme one, bastard”.
Dazai’s about to refuse Chuuya’s extended hand until he has an idea.
He picks out exactly one gummy – slightly fatter than the others – and places it in his partner’s palm. The warmth is oddly pleasant despite the summer heat.
Chuuya looks at him, surprised, and studies him for a second. Then he gives up and brings the candy to his mouth.
His breath is a mix of smoke and lychee, the movement of his lips almost hypnotic as he chews and sucks, trying to extract every ounce of flavor and cheap sugar.
Dazai’s brain feels drunk on cheap sugar.
But that’s probably just the gummies.