Work Text:
“Dazai, get off the couch,” Chuuya insisted, pushing the sleepy brunette aside with little patience. “You need to get some work done too.”
“But it’s comfortable, Chuuya-kun,” Dazai whined. He stubbornly refused to move, clinging to the couch like it was the last safe harbor in a storm.
The Port Mafia’s surveillance room looked just like any other, though this one had clearly been neglected longer than most. Dust clung to the corners and the air carried that stale, forgotten smell of old electronics. Only three lights hung from the ceiling besides the glow of the monitors, and two of them had long since burned out. The last surviving bulb flickered weakly, forced to carry the weight of three. Rows of surveillance screens lined the wall, their casings scratched and their glass webbed with thin cracks from years of use. They were old, painfully outdated even by the Mafia’s standards, but they still did their one job well enough: every camera feed flickered across them faithfully, grainy yet accurate.
Exasperated, Chuuya let out a sharp sigh and flopped down onto the couch beside him, the cushions dipping under his weight. “Seriously,” he grumbled, running a hand through his hair, “they’re acting like we’re broke or something. It can’t cost that much just to repair one room.”
“Well, you’ll have to report it to Mori-san,” Dazai muttered lazily, half-buried in the couch. He nudged Chuuya with his foot, attempting to kick him away without even opening his eyes. “Then he’ll have to order someone to fix everything.”
His voice drifted into a quieter mumble as he shifted deeper into the cushions.
“And it’s just one day,” he added, sounding far too content for someone who was supposed to be on duty. “Now just let me sleep.”
“Sleep?” Chuuya snapped. With a flick of irritation, he used For the Tainted Sorrow to launch a pillow straight at Dazai’s face. The cushion shot across the room like a meteor, only to lose all momentum the instant it touched him, stilled by No Longer Human before it could do any real damage. It simply dropped into his lap.
“I’ve been awake for ages already,” Chuuya continued, glaring. “And you? You’ve done absolutely nothing.”
“Mm. Then you should just let me sleep,” Dazai replied lazily.
Without warning, he sat upright, the sudden movement sharp enough to catch Chuuya slightly off guard. Dazai stretched his arms over his head, smiling mischievously.
“It makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?” he went on. “If I’m asleep, you won’t be bothered by me. That’s what we call a win-win strategy.”
Chuuya crossed his arms, unimpressed. “Win-win my ass, more like an excuse to dump all the work on me.”
“Fine, fine!” Dazai groaned dramatically, throwing his hands up in mock surrender. “I’ll watch the monitors for an hour or something.” He slumped back against the couch, already sounding tired again. “Then I’m sleeping.”
A satisfied look came across Chuuya’s face. “Now that’s what I want to hear. Make room for me to sit properly too.”
With a grunt, Dazai shifted just slightly, giving the ginger enough space to sit but not enough to be exactly comfortable. Of course, he ended up getting shoved to the side.
After a while of Dazai’s ‘hard work’, Chuuya pointed out, “Your eyes aren’t even on the screens. What are you looking at? Me?”
“You’re the last person I would ever look at,” Dazai said, turning his face away from the other man. “And I need to concentrate, not hear your constant complaints.”
“You haven’t even concentrated once since you promised to work.”
“Shut up. You’re disrupting my thinking process.”
Chuuya side-eyed Dazai with disgust, but he pushed those feelings aside, knowing that arguing with the brunette would end in nothing but trouble (and probably defeat, though he wouldn’t ever admit that). He pulled out his phone and started scrolling through whatever he could find, only to have an alarm clock he never installed to ring and play the absolute worst music ever.
He shut his phone, slammed it down onto the table, and leaned back against the couch cushions. When Dazai tried to put his legs on Chuuya’s chest, he was hit square in the face with an oreo that had likely expired a few years ago (Chuuya found it on the table when he slammed the phone).
The brunette ate it.
“That was probably poisonous!” Chuuya exclaimed, backing away to the couch arm instead.
Dazai shrugged. “Tastes the same to me.”
The ginger shut his eyes, as if darkness itself might muffle the lingering echo of Dazai’s presence in his thoughts. He tried to anchor himself in something steadier, something real; the faint flicker of surveillance screens cycling through grainy footage, the slow, uneven drip of water threading its way through rusted underground pipes, the low mechanical hum that filled the space like a tired heartbeat.
But focus slipped through his fingers.
Maybe it was the Port Mafia’s relentless work hours, stacked one atop another until exhaustion blurred the edges of everything. Or maybe it was simply Dazai; his voice, his presence, his literal existence, gnawing at the edges of Chuuya’s patience even in silence. Either way, Chuuya felt it creeping in, the slow, inevitable heaviness settling over his eyelids, dragging them down despite his resistance.
Fighting it was pointless. And honestly… sleep meant not having to deal with Dazai.
Before long, the battle was lost, and Chuuya drifted off.
~~~
When he woke again, it wasn’t to peace.
It was to a problem.
A very specific, very irritating problem.
Dazai.
There he was, sprawled across him like he belonged there, arms loosely wrapped around Chuuya’s waist, his head resting against his chest as if it were the most natural place in the world. His breathing was slow and even, his expression uncharacteristically calm, almost… gentle.
Chuuya’s eyes twitched.
There was an obvious issue: if he moved, even slightly, this idiot would wake up. And then the quiet would shatter, replaced by whatever nonsense Dazai decided to unleash upon society next.
Carefully, as if even the act of looking might disturb him, Chuuya flicked his gaze toward the surveillance monitors. The screens showed nothing out of the ordinary, no threats, no movement, nothing requiring immediate action.
Letting out the quietest, most resigned breath he could manage, Chuuya settled back without shifting an inch. If staying still meant preserving this rare, fragile silence, then so be it. Anything for the stupid mackerel to shut up, right?
He’d endure it.
For now.
~~~
Seconds turned into minutes, minutes then turned into hours.
At some point, Chuuya’s arm had found its way onto Dazai’s back. Not out of affection, absolutely not, but out of necessity. Any other position would’ve left it trapped, crushed beneath dead weight until it went numb and useless. This, at least, was tolerable. Barely.
He couldn’t sleep either, as the worst possible scenario to happen would be Dazai waking before him and drawing on his face.
Five hours later, Dazai finally stirred.
“Ah, Chuuya…” he mumbled, voice soft with sleep as he rubbed at his eyes. “That nap was so nice…”
“Get off me before I kick your ass out of this building,” Chuuya snapped immediately, already trying to shove him off.
Dazai blinked, processing, then brightened with infuriating delight. “Wait… did Chuuya let me sleep on him? I never knew my dog was this nice. Was it because of my charm?”
“Shut up!” Chuuya barked, the last thread of his patience snapping clean in two. In one fluid motion, he stood, lifting the entire couch along with Dazai still on it, and hurled it across the room.
Dazai, of course, slipped off midair like it was part of a rehearsed act, landing neatly on his feet while the couch met its fate with a violent crash.
“The slug won’t admit that he likes me!” Dazai complained, voice pitching into something theatrically wounded, like a child denied a toy.
Chuuya’s expression twisted. “Why would I ever like a suicidal waste of bandages like you?”
“How cruel,” Dazai sighed, placing a hand over his heart as if personally betrayed by the universe. Then, almost absently, he continued, “I thought I did so much for you, didn’t I? Let you into the Mafia, give you a pretty little collar so everyone would know…”
His gaze dipped for a moment, something quieter flickering beneath the usual mockery, before lifting again to meet Chuuya’s.
“Thanks, I guess.”
The words were light. Casual. Almost careless.
Chuuya scoffed, turning away as if they hadn’t reached him at all.
He most definitely heard them.
“Oh also, I’d like to cuddle you next time too!”
“Get out of here!”