Work Text:
"You look pretty" the mirth in his tone and the glint in his eyes was maddening.
If Chuuya could stand, he would have punched him right in his smiling face.
Dazai hovered over him silhouetted by the moonlight, and if Chuuya didn't know better he would have called him his saviour, coming to rescue him from the demon that raged using his own bones. But Chuuya did know better, the figure standing stark against the stars was Osamu Dazai and he was more curse than salvation.
"It's not funny" Chuuya ground the words out, barely moving his mouth as his stubborn jaw remained locked tight. In fact, every muscle in his body felt like a spring that had been pulled too far from its equilibrium, like irreversible damage had been done. Something told him he could not return to the state he inhabited before the gate was unlocked.
Yet again, Dazai had taken his sweet time on nullifying corruption and each use was taking more of a tole these days. He hated to think that his body was already giving up on him at just 23 but the aches that never fully went away and the ease with which new scars appeared was telling him that he wasn't healing like he used to.
It had reached the point after resealing the gate where he was starting to lose consciousness. It always followed the same four step pattern; first the soothing cool of No Longer Human seeped through his veins and, while his mind wasn't fully present, he distantly hoped that Dazai would stay with him while he recovered - hospitals had always put him on edge, but with Dazai there, he had something else to focus on.
Then searing pain hit.
Chuuya had heard mafia grunts threaten to tear someone 'limb from limb' before but he doubted that they really knew what that meant. He supposed tearing every appendage off of someone's body had to feel a lot like this and Chuuya knew his post-corruption state was a lot for people to handle. Even the most hardened criminals flinched away from Chuuya when he was like this. When he felt like his flesh had been ripped open and pulled inside out, forcing his muscles and veins to the surface, allowing his overly sensitive nerves to be exposed to the burning pain of even the slightest breeze. It was the kind of pain that placed an overlay of moving black dots in his vision and the buzz of static in his ears.
That was usually when he collapsed. Once he was on the floor he knew it wouldn't be long before his mind slipped away completely. Now that they weren't on the same side, he had to quickly tell Dazai where his people could pick him up to get the proper medical attention he needed but, as it was becoming increasingly clear, this time had hit him especially hard, when he tried to tell Dazai the location the words died on his tongue.
Consciousness slipped through his fingers as he struggled to keep his eyes open.
He had meant to say something, hadn't he?
He hardly even knew where he was, never mind what he was supposed to be doing. The only thing that remained when everything else became a hazy mist was Dazai's face, still smiling down at him. The smile had shifted, no longer the brilliant bright that simultaneously unnerved and lured people in, no, it was one of those small smiles that he only ever let show when he thought Chuuya couldn't see.
Why do you hide it? You're beautiful.
Was the last thing Chuuya thought before his mind went the way of his body and collapsed (that was step four).
When he awoke, Chuuya expected to hear the steady beep of a heart monitor, to smell the distinct aroma of antiseptic, and to generally feel the clinical cold of the hospital that sank deep into his bones and stirred unwanted memories of a different sterile environment. That was not what greeted him upon waking this time. Instead he heard the steady breathing of another form, he smelled the lingering stench of cheap alcohol, and he felt a distinct warmth encircling his wrist.
He hadn't woken like this in a long time.
He couldn't open his eyes, that would shatter the illusion, it always did. Dazai would stir the millisecond he sensed that Chuuya was no longer deep in his post-corruption slumber, he would say something about how sending Chuuya to the vet would be far more beneficial than the doctors, and then someone would come and pick Chuuya up within the hour to bring him to the closest Port Mafia-approved hospital. But those few precious moments, after Chuuya woke and before Dazai realised, were the ones he used to relish as a teen. The ones he would play over and over in his head every night when sleep failed to tame the monster thrashing against it's cage in his mind. It was in moments like these he could pretend that they weren't a god and a demon, but instead two best friends facing the world with no one else in their corner, that they were real people and not just the stuff of stories that you tell a child. Of course that wasn't the case, the realisation had always dawned on him in time and revulsion would burn in his throat like bile. They were not best friends, they could hardly stand each other, and they were certainly nothing close to humans, but Chuuya's mind was weak to sentimentality when it was still shaking the veil of sleep.
As Dazai's breathing switched pace ever so slightly, indicating that he was waking up, Chuuya realised that despite being physically tethered, they had never been further apart. This wasn't like those days in the mafia. When Chuuya was taken to hospital, Dazai would not follow in a day or two. Chuuya would lie awake, in pain and alone under the fluorescent lights with nothing to distract him.
His heart betrayed him as the weight of dread settled deep in his chest. He wanted rid of Dazai, he never wanted to see him again. But once Dazai was gone, he would be alone again, not just alone physically, but alone with his thoughts as well. Dazai had this way of seeing what was going on deep inside his head without him ever having to say it out loud, and while he was never particularly reassuring in quelling whatever storm raged inside Chuuya's mind, at least he knew the storm was happening. Others would visit, Kouyou, Mori, Hirotsu, but talking to them was like screaming over the storm that they didn't even know was happening. He could hardly hear what they were saying and his own voice sounded like it was coming from a different direction. All because they knew him, but they didn't know him. Not like Dazai did. Dazai would lead him to a safer spot, somewhere indoors where the howling wind and rain wasn't so loud, and yeah, when they spoke it was still to scream and argue and bicker, but at least they heard each other.
There was something different about the tightness in his chest this time though, it was not the pressure of a punctured lung or a broken rib, it was simply sadness and dread. Upon further examination, he couldn't feel the distinct crust of blood layering his skin anymore and these did not feel like his clothes-
His eyes flew open and he shot up (with surprising ease) into a sitting position. That was definitely going to wake Dazai, but for the first time since his life had been cursed by Dazai, that was the least of his worries. The warmth of Dazai's fingers encircling his wrist fell away as his hands began to roam his body over what were definitely not his clothes. He couldn't remember exactly where his wounds had been but he knew there had been a lot of them. Certainly more than the zero he was able to find upon checking himself. On top of that he was wearing a soft cotton t-shirt that was far too big, and boxers he was horrified to realise, were not the ones that he put on before he set off on that mission.
"Yosano healed you," Chuuya's heart lurched into his throat at the familiar, sleep-infused grumble that came from the pillow beside him. He hadn't heard Dazai fresh from sleep in years, and there was something dangerously intimate about it. Whenever he was younger and he slept next to Dazai on a mission he knew he wasn't in any danger - except maybe the danger of waking up with a moustache drawn on his face in permanent marker. Sleeping with Dazai had always been easier, it quelled the pure energy of Arahabaki thrumming beneath the surface of his skin and quieted the voices in his head that screamed that something as monstrous as him did not deserve the life he had. When Dazai's long limbs tangled around him at night he found himself wondering if a demon and a god could be human after all. Dazai was human when he slept. When a dream played through his restless mind and the vines of his body that had been wound around Chuuya squeezed tighter, Chuuya thought about how heartbreakingly human he was in the middle of the night, when his mind was unguarded and his masks had slipped off in sleep. It made Chuuya wonder if he could ever be thought of like that. Did Dazai ever peer at him in the dark and think about how wrong they all were to call him a monster?
While Chuuya had been lost in his thoughts Dazai rose beside him. Chuuya didn't notice until he felt Dazai's feather-light touches tracing his arm. Chuuya forgot to flinch.
"Yosano's ability can't get rid of scars," Dazai paused to let his words sink in.
His scars
He immediately turned over his wrist to check for the pencil scar. It still sat there, innocent looking among the spiralling remnants of corruption and the various wounds that had healed just slightly wrong leaving his body a tapestry of pale, raised scar tissue. There it remained, Chuuya's tether to the human world, the promise of a life he couldn't quite remember but one he was unable to fully let go of nonetheless.
Another moment passed in the darkness and quiet. Dazai's nimble finger remained tracing the rough lines of Chuuya's corruption scars.
"Why am I here, Dazai?" The moment seemed too fragile for yelling even thought it was usually Chuuya's first tactic.
"I've done this before, I don't see why this time is different." Dazai reply was barley a whisper, it was so unlike him, so unlike him to be quiet, so unlike him to say something so obviously untrue. Dazai was a liar to his core, but he was a good one. Lies fell from his silver tongue easier than truths did. That was how Chuuya learnt to decipher the reality from the illusion; truth was hard for Dazai. When his breathe came slightly heavier or a pause lasted a fraction of a millisecond too long, that was when Dazai's brilliant mind hit the smallest of obstacles; a simple truth.
Was he telling the truth now then?
Chuuya turned to face him in the dark. Dazai sat on his left, the light of the moon that shone through the window creating a halo around his head. His face, usually a labyrinth of lies stitched together to form an expression was rendered incomprehensible in the dark. Not because Chuuya could not see him, the celestial glow created by the traitorous moon ensured he saw everything, every crease in his usually carefree brow, every twitch of his uncharacteristic frown, every single detail that looked out of place on Dazai's oh-so-familiar face.
"You know that's not true. It's different now, you made sure of that." He couldn't help but add the last part, he couldn't help but rub salt in his own wounds. Dazai left him, he upended Chuuya's life that he had so carefully constructed around himself for three years, and he never looked back. He left Chuuya there to reckon with the shattered remains of his life, to reshape it into something that resembled anything close to that which could belong to a person. Chuuya's formative years may have been lost to the lab, but his first years in the mafia were lost to Dazai.
The touch of Dazai's fingers grew heavier, as if to make sure Chuuya was still solid.
"Can't we pretend that it wasn't different?" a familiar glimmer of humour coated his words, a familiar escape route was set in place in case Chuuya said no. He could claim it was only a joke, this conversation would dissipate into the air as if it had never happened, like so many they'd had before. Chuuya would return to the mafia, Dazai to the agency and they would never speak of it again. Just as they never spoke of the incidents in their youth. Scandalous moments where they may have looked like friends or something else. Touches that were too deliberate to ever disguise; wiping unwanted tears from the others face, a hug after a mission that was a little too close, a kiss that might as well have not been real had it not happened more than once.
Chuuya hated to admit it, but he missed being touched like that. He missed being touched like he wasn't a bomb about to go off, like he wasn't dangerous, like he was a real person and not some poor imitation.
He wished he could have said it was pure instinct, but he had thought about it. He had thought about going back to headquarters where Kouyou would chastise him for pushing himself too hard and place a gentle hand on his shoulder, about Mori looking at him like he knew something more about Dazai that he didn't, about letting the feeling of Dazai's soothing touch fade into his memories once again.
So he kissed him.
It was a gentle, yet firm touch of their lips. As if he was pressing the imprint of it into his mind. As if he could convey how angry he was, how lonely he was.
Dazai kissed him back as if nothing had changed, just as he promised. They never forgot how to work together in battle and this was no different. Heads titled at the right angles, hands cradled the right spots, and their souls yet again tangled around each other like the poison vines they had learnt to be.
However, to the outside eye, they kissed like any other lovers would, like any other humans would. In this moment they weren't a demon and a god, they were two people with feelings too big to be expressed - or perhaps too simple to be spoken.
Of course, this would never be mentioned either.