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The worst type of Ability, Dazai has always thought, is mind control. Most Ability users – and he certainly includes himself – are at least a little off-centre, mentally speaking. Humans don't seem to have a natural frame of reference for the unnatural. Mind control powers, though, will twist even the most well-intentioned and morally upstanding users into monsters sooner or later. Certain formative experiences with Q had contributed strongly to this conclusion, though Dazai is prepared to concede that the boy had been twisted just as much by his environment as by his gift.
Of course, No Longer Human renders him fortunately immune to attempts to take over his own will. Unfortunately, this has the less welcome effect that every case or investigation relating to mind control Abilities falls naturally into Dazai's lap. The rare serious look in Ranpo's eyes yesterday, as they'd passed each other in the doorway of the Director's office, had been the first clue that another incident was bubbling under the surface of the city.
Today's case is extra annoying because it involves the Port Mafia. Not that they've been foolish enough to release Q again; this time it's a rival organisation trying to break out of the small time. Not something the Agency would usually get involved in, other than to shake their heads in pity for the upstarts, but this little gang that had been on no one's radar must have attracted a Gifted new recruit. Reports of ordinary citizens being recruited into illegal activities under the control of a powerful Ability user have been snowballing over the last week, and since Mori believes in striking first and hard, the window to avert major bloodshed is closing fast. So Dazai is on the hunt.
"Dazai-kun, I really think you made a wrong turn. We should be looking much closer to the docks." Ango's voice over the earpiece makes Dazai wonder, again, if he can get away with accidentally breaking it. There's no way around working with the Special Abilities Department on this one; there are too many people involved, and journalists are already milling around the story.
"That's mafia territory," Dazai murmurs into the mic. This new group may be over-eager to encroach on Mori's turf, but if they'd been stupid enough to site their headquarters there it would already be in ruins.
"Our information puts at least one of the lieutenants at the south container docks today for a deal," Ango insists into his ear. Dazai puts a finger up to scratch idly at it as he strolls past a pair of workmen smoking outside a run-down convenience store, surreptitiously turning the audio down to a less-annoying volume. At least he doesn't have to look at Ango on this operation. His eyes find and slip past an unobtrusive-looking salaryman talking into his phone at the intersection. It's the confirmation he needs; he pulls out his own phone as he walks by, frowning down at it in a play of concentration. Either Kouyou or Mori himself has updated the standard surveillance patterns a bit since Dazai's departure, but it's still easy to spot mafia.
Ango's voice buzzes unintelligibly in his ear. Dazai pays more attention to the lookouts, both the three he's seen and the others he knows will be hidden, and times his pace so that he can slip easily into the mouth of an alley once he's lost their attention. He's halfway through typing out a message to Kunikida when three things happen at once. First, his phone begins to vibrate in his hand with an incoming call, Atsushi's name blinking on the screen. Second, there's a sudden thunder of running feet out in the street as the lookouts dash past the mouth of his alleyway. And lastly, there's a rumble under his feet, a faint but familiar vibration that travels up the back of Dazai's spine and lodges itself directly in his hindbrain.
He turns on his heel, yanking out the earpiece entirely and bringing the phone to his ear as he flattens himself to the grimy side of the building. The street is empty, but the faint reports of gunfire from down the block are unmistakeable. He'd been close, then. "I'm on a case, Atsushi-kun," he says into the microphone, most of his attention on his surroundings, at least until an unexpected voice comes over the line.
"Dazai-san, it's me." Akutagawa's voice is tense with urgency. Dazai absently catalogues the sounds of struggling and muffled exclamations in the background, pictures Atsushi bound and gagged with Rashoumon. They're getting on so much better lately.
"Akutagawa-kun! You sound well." It's meaningless, automatic, as he runs through schedules and realises this must be an unplanned meeting for his students.
"They have Chuuya-san," Akutagawa informs him bluntly, and Dazai stops, breath stilled in his lungs as a deathly chill creeps down his throat.
It's a long beat before he can make himself say, "Who." He knows the answer before he's told it, is already rapidly calculating as Akutagawa runs headlong through the events that are about to put Yokohama in more peril than anyone yet realises.
"He took the Black Lizard to clean out the enemy's headquarters while Kouyou-sama met with their bosses." The mafia must have had the same information as Ango, then. How boringly predictable. "They never showed to the meeting," Akutagawa says urgently into his ear. "Hirotsu-san just called in the alert, they're pinned down. The Boss ordered a five-fifty."
"Every man for himself, then?" Dazai pulls the phone away from his ear for a minute, muting Akutagawa's meaningless words while he thinks. How things develop will depend very much on whether the enemy Ability user knows what he's got his hands on. Without bothering to wait for Akutagawa to pause, he orders, "Give Atsushi-kun his phone back so he can call the office and get an evacuation ordered. Three – no, five-block radius." It will likely be pointless, far too late. Dazai hangs up the call without another word and dials Ranpo's number.
"Round Glasses is throwing a fit," Ranpo informs him, without wasting words on niceties. "Which card got flipped?"
"My former partner." The words taste sour, like regret, but Dazai can accommodate Ranpo's eccentricities. "What do you have on the target?"
"Double Black? Worst-case scenarios, then." Ranpo makes a humming sound, and Dazai hears the faint click of his glasses unfolding. "This lady's power seems to be in her voice – singing is how she gets control of you. Well, not you. Forty of their own men, though they may not all be on site, and a maximum of twenty civilians under control. There's at least a fifty percent chance that Mr Fancy Hat will give her enough trouble that she'll drop the rest, but she won't need them, will she?"
"Does she know what Chuuya can do?" Dazai checks the street again, half his mind tracking the sporadic sound of gunfire. The back of his neck itches; it's never this quiet, when Chuuya's involved. The district is too empty for mid-afternoon.
"They have at least two spies in the mafia," is all Ranpo says to that. Dazai sighs. Maybe it's been long enough that the rumours have faded. He doubts he's earned that sort of luck.
He's halfway down the street, approaching the warehouse warily, when it hits him – a pulse in the air, a sudden awareness that sinks its claws into his spine and screams. Dazai abandons all pretence of stealth, breaking into an outright run. "Worst case scenario it is," he says into the phone, knowing that Ranpo won't need the words but letting them tumble out anyway. "Don't let them try and come after us until it's over." He abandons the phone too, shoving it into his pocket without bothering to disconnect the call. Every bit of extra information will help Ranpo, and if Dazai makes it out of this he'll need an extraction. Silently, as he runs, he starts to count.
The wood and concrete walls of the warehouse are groaning with tension, barely containing the forces unleashed within. Fireworks of gunfire burst and fade, only too audible, and he hears a scream abruptly cut off as the ground shudders with a detonation. Another confirmation Dazai doesn't need. The roller door of the loading bay shakes violently as something – debris, bodies, it's all the same once Corruption gets a hold – crashes into it.
Dazai catches himself against the wall, panting, rapidly scanning the surroundings. There are lookouts on the roof that definitely aren't Mafia, and the leg of what was probably once a Black Lizard member sticking out of the alleyway that runs behind the building. The front door is on the street side, apparently unguarded.
If Hirotsu-san had been commanding this operation, the squads would have gone in from the back, but Chuuya can never resist making an entrance. The alleyway it is; Dazai glues himself to the side of the building, keeping his body in its shadow and his eyes turned skyward toward the lookouts' perch. The man in the mouth of the alley had been shot in the throat – unlucky – but he has a nice Beretta 9mm that Dazai appropriates. It comes in handy barely a minute later when he has the good fortune to step out right behind the man guarding the door.
"Whoops." One sharp smack to the back of the head and the enemy goes down silently. Dazai steps over his unconscious body, pressing his shoulder and ear against the door. All he hears is the distant sound of gunfire, and rising over it, chilling laughter. It's been just over three minutes since he'd felt Corruption activate; that's not a good sign.
The door slams open to his kick. Dazai walks gun-first into what looks like a hastily abandoned break room. No one comes to oppose him or block his path, and he understands why when he eases open the door opposite. It leads into what must have once been the warehouse space, now transformed into a maelstrom of whirling death. Dodging a chunk of flying metal the size of his head that embeds itself in the wall, Dazai scans the chaos, picking out the position the Black Lizard have taken up behind a barricade of upturned slabs ripped from the floor. They're firing on a group of enemy fighters above them, in the half-gutted upper levels, and Dazai immediately marks the leader, gesturing furiously with an assault rifle as he tries to rally his men.
Of far more concern is Chuuya. He stands on the air in the centre of the room, head thrown back in a silent scream and hands pulsing black and red with power. Blood spills from his nose and ears in constant rivulets, the markings of Corruption covering almost every centimetre of skin beneath. The count in the back of Dazai's mind ticks past five minutes. Part of the ceiling above Chuuya has ripped away, leaving a ragged hole that shows the deepening blue of the sky. A nice day to die on.
What Dazai hasn't worked out yet is what's kept Corruption penned here for this long. Chuuya can't tell friend from foe in this state, will attack anything that moves. This won't be the first time he's killed his own men while under. Gradually, though, as Dazai creeps around the perimeter of the warehouse, looking for an opening, he starts to hear it over the crackle of gunfire and the monster's cackling. Someone is singing.
It takes another minute of careful crawling between the ruins of crates and shelving for him to lay eyes on the mind controller, a pale and swaying foreigner who looks barely older than Atsushi. Her impractical pink blouse is soaked with the sweat that pours down her face, and her nose is bleeding almost as freely as Chuuya's as she stretches a shaking hand toward the vortex she's unleashed. Or no, Dazai realises, perhaps she's kept just enough of a rein on Chuuya that Corruption hasn't managed to obliterate the place yet. Which probably makes what Dazai's about to do ill-advised, but he's never been good at taking care of anything. Least of all himself.
Lifting the gun, he aims and pulls the trigger in one motion, without ever taking his eyes from Chuuya. The mind controller girl jerks as the bullet tears through her shoulder, her half-broken voice abruptly choked off, and Dazai feels the shudder that rolls through Chuuya in his own body. The floating debris that surrounds him drops for a fraction of a second before rising again with Chuuya's hand, drawn inexorably into the black sphere that grows in his palm.
"Oops," Dazai murmurs as the gunfire falls silent. He drops the gun, stepping out from cover as the mind controller starts up her song again, ragged. She doesn't get out more than a couple of words, not even enough to recognise the language, before the graviton bomb hits her. Chuuya throws his head back and screams out what might have been a laugh, already regathering power in his hands, and Dazai starts to run.
Somewhere distant, he hears the bark of renewed gunfire as the Black Lizard get back to business. All his attention is on the slowly closing distance between him and Chuuya. What's left of Chuuya. Blood bubbles from his mouth with every breath, drips from twisted fingers where his expensive gloves have burned away. His movements are jerky, a broken puppet, no longer inhumanly smooth. He's at his limit, if not past it; it's already been minutes longer than he's ever maintained Corruption. The odds that he'll survive this drop with every step.
Something hard and heavy slams into his right side and Dazai crashes to the uneven ground. Even after a lifetime of learning to shrug off pain, injury, torture, the surprise of it still steals his breath for precious seconds. It's instinct more than thought that has him staggering back to his knees, then his feet, heedless of the bright ache that pulses through his chest with every inhalation. Something impacts his thigh, and he barely dodges another graviton bomb that flies past his head. He'd once theorised to Chuuya that they'd disappear if he touched them, like Rashoumon's tendrils. Chuuya had got worked up about it, of course, even though he'd taken another gun away from Dazai only that morning. He wonders if Chuuya will shout at him for this, too, some day.
Two more steps, one, leg and lungs screaming protest, and Dazai's luck really never does get any better. Chuuya swings around to face him just as Dazai tackles him out of the air. The half-formed black sphere in his hands dissipates the moment they touch, and the unholy light in his eyes fades back to cornflower blue, fixing desperately on his for a long weightless second before they roll back into his head. Somehow, Dazai manages to twist his body so that he takes the brunt of the impact with the ground, and he feels the snap of bone in his injured side like an old friend. The pain is a distant second to the way Chuuya sprawls lifelessly across him, the only sign of his breathing the blood that soaks steadily into Dazai's shirt with each exhalation.
Somewhere in the distance, sirens start to gather.
"Dazai. Dazai." Someone is shouting. Dazai tears his gaze from Chuuya's too-still form, registers that it's Kunikida calling his name, eyes grim behind his glasses. His hair is escaping from its severe tail, as though he's been scrubbing his hands through it in frustration again, and there are rusty smears on his waistcoat.
"Dazai," Kunikida says again, grabbing at his shoulder. "You need to get out of the way. He's no threat right now, you can let go." He shakes Dazai – gently, but it jars his ribs. Habit smooths his face to blankness as the pain flares, and he tightens his grip on Chuuya's wrist. His skin is cool, tacky with blood.
"Kunikida-kun," he says, surprised by the dry roughness of his own voice, "there's nothing you can do." Chuuya is dying; the truth of it has been growing inside of Dazai since Hirotsu-san had looked at him where he lay on the warehouse floor, red still bubbling from his lips and Dazai's hand locked around his wrist, and silently turned away. Yosano-sensei is in Tokyo, hours away, and taking a Port Mafia Executive to a hospital would mean a death sentence, whether he pulled through or not.
The first time Chuuya had slipped into Corruption, they'd still been children, really. He'd had to be put into a medically induced coma for three days, packed in ice with machines breathing for him until the bruising – external and internal – healed enough that Mori would let him wake up. It had taken less of a toll on him, as he'd grown, and grown accustomed to the full extent of his Ability.
It had never been this bad. Chuuya lies limp and still on the infirmary bed where Kenji and Atsushi had left him, blood still soaking into the sheets, and only the faint, fast beat of his pulse in the cage of Dazai's fingers shows that he still lives. Dazai can almost appreciate the irony of it. Even five years out of the mafia, he's never considered that he might outlive his former partner.
"We can at least clean him up, right?" Tanizaki says, though the look he gives Chuuya is distinctly nervous.
"You should probably lie down anyway, Dazai-san," Atsushi chips in nervously from the doorway where he's hovering. "You're injured too, I mean."
"What?" Kunikida pulls away from timing Chuuya's pulse, looking Dazai sharply up and down. "You useless waste of bandages, why didn't you say anything?! How bad is it?" He peers into Dazai's eyes one after the other, as though he expects him to be concussed. Dazai blinks slowly back at him, half his attention on the way Tanizaki slides around his chair to start wiping the blood from Chuuya's face.
"I may have some cracked ribs, Kunikida-kun." Dazai summons up a smile. It takes more effort than he's used to; he wonders why. "It's nothing that can't wait."
"He has a bullet in his leg," Atsushi says, because he's a terrible tattle-tale. "I wrapped it up, and I don't think he lost too much blood – most of that is Nakahara-san's."
Kunikida hisses between his teeth and grabs Dazai's arm again, hauling him up from the chair. His skin unpeels from Chuuya's with a crackle, the dried blood that had all but glued them together giving up its grip one flake at a time. Chuuya's hand drops like a stone, lax fingers hanging over the edge of the bed until Tanizaki gingerly repositions them. The bowl of water he's using is already a murky red.
Dazai, having determined that obedience will be the better part of valour, limps across the infirmary at Kunikida's demand, easing himself down into Yosano's chair. Atsushi, who may be a tattle-tale but is also too good to be associated with Dazai in any way, brings him a stool for his leg. Dazai watches Kunikida cutting away the fabric of his trousers, loosening the hasty pad of wadded bandages to examine the wound, and thinks about pointing out that this is hardly the first time he's been shot. He'd barely even noticed the bullet hole (left thigh, flesh wound, well clear of the artery) until he'd tried to push himself to his knees. It hadn't even bled much. Getting the bullet out again will be the worst part, and that too is nothing he hasn't dealt with before. Nothing he hasn't done to himself before, when he's had to.
Kunikida is muttering a stream of grumpy nonsense that Dazai doesn't care to listen to. He pulls out a bottle of antiseptic and a swab and starts cleaning the edges of the bullet wound, none too gently. "You should go to the hospital. I'm not certified for more than emergency first aid." There's worry underneath his irritated tone, only some of it for Dazai. He's uncomfortable having anything to do with the Port Mafia.
"Yosano-sensei can patch me up when she gets back," Dazai bargains, and Kunikida hisses through his teeth like a tea-kettle.
"She ought to put you in a whole-body cast," he grumbles, ripping a fresh dressing out of its package with fingers that don't, quite, shake. Dazai wants to take it from him, secure his wounds himself the way he's been doing since he was old enough to wrap a bandage, but his hands are still crusted with blood and filth. How nostalgic.
"I'm sure she'll take her pound of flesh, even if she can't use her Ability." Dazai watches Kunikida secure the dressing with quick, sure hands. "You'd make a good nurse, Kunikida-kun – ow!" He winces theatrically as Kunikida pulls the bandage tight.
"Sit still and be quiet," Kunikida orders him, pushing his glasses up his nose in that way that always reminds Dazai of Ango. "If that's even possible for you." He clicks his tongue when Dazai ignores him, pushing himself to his feet and limping back to Chuuya's bedside.
Now that Tanizaki has cleaned off the worst of the blood, the extent of Corruption's effects is fully visible. Bruises line his face and arms in fractal blooms of ugly blue and purple, starred with constellations of broken veins. His eyes are sunken, the tiniest hint of a frown between them, as though the pain of it has reached him even in whatever place he's retreated to. His chest barely rises as he breathes, but Dazai hears the faint rattle of it easily in the silent room. Not long, then.
"Dazai-san," Atsushi ventures, after Tanizaki has retreated to report to the Director. Kunikida is bustling around Chuuya's bed, hooking him up to an oxygen monitor and undoing his shirt to press a stethoscope to his chest. "What, um. What actually... happened back there? Why is Nakahara-san here? I mean, the Port Mafia's boss is a doctor too, right?"
"Mm." Dazai watches the frown etch deeper into Kunikida's face. "Only a healing Ability can mend this, Atsushi-kun." The Mafia's only Gifted doctor had died not long after he'd joined the Agency, of old age by all accounts, though he'd certainly never seen eye to eye with Mori. "Besides, Chuuya might pull through after all just to beat me up for bringing him here!" He smiles, ignoring the warning twinge from his thigh as he settles himself back on the chair. The bullet's been in there for an hour already, and it'll be several more before Yosano-sensei gets back, even if they've alerted her to the situation here. He'd told them not to bother, but...
"You... know him, don't you?" Atsushi trundles the stool over again for Dazai to prop his leg up, casting a worried glance at the bed. "From when you were... um."
"They were partners, kid," Kunikida says without looking up. He's listening to Chuuya's stomach now. Chuuya would have kicked him clear across the room for the indignity if he were conscious; Dazai rather regrets that he won't get to see it. "I'd say he was being sentimental, if he wasn't Dazai."
"That's mean, Kunikida-kun," Dazai says blandly. "Chuuya's Ability is the greatest weapon the Port Mafia have." Alongside Mori's mind. "He's already destroyed enough today. I won't leave his side until he's neutralised – one way or another."
"What did I tell you," Kunikida says to Atsushi. Dazai watches Chuuya's chest rise, slow. The breath aches in his own lungs. He hasn't dealt with broken ribs for a while; he remembers them as annoying. "Dazai, he's catatonic and bleeding internally. He's not going anywhere."
"Mm, probably." The risk may be small, but this is unknown territory. Dazai's never been able to make up his mind whether Corruption is truly part of Chuuya's Ability, or something else that he'd had the misfortune to tap into. He's not sure it matters; they'd had an agreement, and he'll honour it, even if he'd never actually promised anything.
"Isn't there someone we should call?" Atsushi frets. Dazai hums, shaking his head. They'll all know already. He wonders, again, if Kouyou might show up to join the death watch, but it's probably unlikely. No one makes it to Executive without a thorough understanding that each day, each moment, could be the last. Dazai can almost see her kneeling on the verandah overlooking her garden, silent and dignified in mourning as she pours the sake to toast her former protegé.
"Kunikida-kun, Atsushi-kun, there's no need to keep watch here," he says, ignoring the twinge in his chest as he reaches for Chuuya's hand. It lies limp in his fingers, cool. "We're just..." Though Dazai means to feel for his pulse beneath the bruising, he stills, arrested, as Chuuya sinks visibly into the surface of the bed, tremors starting from his chest and radiating out through his limbs. A fresh rivulet of blood trickles from his nose, and Kunikida all but lunges across the bed to pull his arm free as Atsushi tugs Dazai back by the shoulders.
"Is that a s-seizure?" Atsushi asks, hushed, as Kunikida dithers over Chuuya's shaking form, audibly wondering whether it's safe to turn him to his side. The fit seems to subside as quickly as it had come on, and Dazai stares at Chuuya with new eyes, measuring the indentations his body leaves in the bloodied sheets. That Chuuya is heavier than he looks is something he knows intimately. That his Ability is as much a part of him as the blood in his veins and breath in his lungs is another. More than once, he's seen his former partner asleep in mid-air.
"How can he be using his Ability in this condition?" Kunikida is asking, scrubbing at his head. His hair-tie flutters slowly to the floor behind him; Chuuya breathes, just as ephemeral.
"It's a subconscious reflex," Dazai murmurs. Like a person's extremities shutting down to protect the core from hypothermia, Chuuya's Ability is lowering his gravity to ease the burden on his dying body. Is it the Tainted Sorrow, or Corruption itself that's responsible? He straightens, looking Kunikida calmly in the eye. "Leave me with him. It's what he'd want." It's a lie, of course, but one that Kunikida and Atsushi, who are good people, accept without question. They file out reluctantly. Dazai smiles to himself as he hears Kunikida instructing Atsushi to stand watch outside the door.
"You know," Dazai says, low enough that Chuuya probably couldn't have heard him had he been conscious. "I really hadn't planned for this at all. Honestly, hat rack, what were you thinking, getting yourself into such a mess? And after I went to all that trouble to put you in Poe-kun's book last year." Chuuya still hasn't forgiven him for that, although it had definitely been the rational decision.
Chuuya, of course, doesn't reply. Dazai's chest aches with every breath, now, though his lungs are clear. The bruising must be setting in. He thinks about asking for ice, discards the idea in favour of tracing the sallow lines of Chuuya's face with his eyes. Beneath the bruises his skin is starting to shade toward grey. His hair is matted with blood, and it occurs to Dazai, fleetingly, to wonder what had become of his hat. It's hard to tell that he's still breathing, until Dazai deliberately stills his own breath to hear the faint rasp of air in Chuuya's throat. The sounds of traffic outside are distant, the life of the city rolling on as ever.
"Well." Dazai rubs at his forehead where blood has dried and is starting to itch. He's already back in the routine of avoiding twisting his torso. He's going to be sore as hell tomorrow; he'll take the day off, or perhaps the week. There's enough liquor in his cabinets for it. "I wonder who'll get your wine collection? Probably Ane-san. I hope she burns the hats, though."
There's no response. Dazai smiles, wry. "Ah, I thought for sure Chuuya would leap up from his deathbed to punch me for that one. Maybe this really is it." The ache in his chest expands and contracts with every breath. "I never wanted to do this again, you know." When he closes his eyes he can see Odasaku's still face, the memory painfully clear despite the years. He wonders if the image of Chuuya's lifeless body will burn itself into his vision, follow him the same way until he's finally released from this life. Just another thing Dazai has lost along the way.
The smear of blood from Chuuya's nose has dried across his cheek. Dazai frowns at it, wishing he could wipe it away. "Honestly." He'd been trained out of questioning his own decisions at an early age, but today... "Troublesome to the end." He shifts in his seat, trying to ease the pain in his chest. "Ah, Odasaku would probably scold me for teasing you when you can't even hear me." He wonders, often, what Oda would say of the man he is now. A mess of scars and learned cruelty papered over with good intentions.
He doesn't need to wonder what Chuuya thinks.
It's odd, this ache in his throat. Odasaku had been his friend – first, only. Chuuya had been... anything but. Frustrating, in ways Dazai hadn't had words for at the time. The most fun to play with, for the inevitable explosions and the equally inevitable thrill of a blade at his throat. Trusted, beyond the usual easy knowledge of how to manipulate him into serving Dazai's ends. The thought of the mafia, of Yokohama, without its tiny whirlwind of terrible taste and gleeful violence...
"Chuuya would probably laugh for days if he could see me now." Dazai pulls his good knee up to his chest, propping his chin on his hand. "Since you can't, I won't get punched if I say I'm sorry, right? I wish..." Well, a lot of things. All pointless, really. He presses his hand tentatively against his side, feeling the pain that spiders out from even the least pressure. The ache behind his sternum, behind his eyes, that doesn't fade when he drops his hand to the bed. His fingers twitch toward Chuuya's; Dazai forcibly stills them, millimetres from his skin. Leans forward, careless of the bursts of pain radiating through his ribcage, to rest his forehead on the sheets.
"Chuuya," he murmurs into the rumpled, bloodied linens, the way he can't into Chuuya's hair. As though he's heard him, Chuuya's next inhale rattles in his throat, sharper than before. Dazai snaps his head up, eyes flying to check that he hasn't accidentally made contact. There's nothing, just the inevitable. Dazai pushes himself to his feet, leaning over the bed, his eyes on Chuuya's ruined face as he listens for the next gasp. It takes a long time to come. Outside the window, a helicopter thrums overhead. The silence between Chuuya's slowing breaths is fragile yet inviolate. Dazai feels as if he, too, can't get enough air, his body strung taut between pain and yearning.
"You know..." The words come without thought. Dazai rests his head on the pillow, whispering them into Chuuya's ear. "I lied, that time. It was so good, Chuuya. And it didn't mean nothing. It's almost a pity to deny you the satisfaction of killing me for that..."
The bed shakes as Chuuya's body strains for breath, truly seizing now, bloody fluid trickling from his lips. Dazai clenches his fingers in the sheets to keep them from grasping for him, tries to swallow away the ache in his throat. There are voices in the hallway now, raised and urgent, nothing but meaningless noise as Chuuya gives one more gurgling rasp of a breath, body falling lax. Dazai holds his own breath, waiting – at least until the door slams open and hands snatch him by the shoulders, yanking him back. Agony blooms through his ribcage and he can't keep himself from choking on it. A flash of violet light stings tears to his eyes.
When he blinks them free, Yosano is leaning against the infirmary bed, head down as she breathes hard. And Chuuya...
"That was almost too close." Yosano starts to laugh, low. Gleeful "Ozaki's going to owe me so many favours."
"The fact that you and Ane-san talk doesn't fill me with confidence," Dazai manages, pulling free of Kunikida's hold and limping back over to stare down at Chuuya. He's still unconscious, of course, but his skin is clear and unbruised, his chest rising and falling evenly as he snores softly. Only the dirt and blood, the messy ruins of his usual immaculate get-up, remain of the day's near-disaster. "I was really beginning to wonder if you were going to show up, sensei."
"You really should go to the hospital," Yosano says as she ties off the last stitch and wipes away the blood with more stinging alcohol. "I can't feel any displacement, and your lungs sound fine, but I'd prefer to get an x-ray of those ribs." She rips tape off the roll to secure the dressing, and Dazai makes a face at the pull of it, but lifts his knee obligingly enough so she can wrap the bandage around.
"You know they'll ask questions," he says. She sighs, and his eyes drift from her face to Chuuya's, turned into the pillow in the other bed. He hasn't woken up yet, of course. Dazai wonders if that will finally settle the restlessness twisting in his own chest. It's remarkably reminiscent of the aftermath of a crash, the lingering sensation that his mind has yet to catch up to his body.
"It can wait until tomorrow," Yosano says, "but I'm still referring you. Don't make me have the Director order you, Dazai, we need to know how much recuperation time to allow." She doesn't wait for him to rearrange the yukata he's wearing, pulling the sheet briskly up to his waist and plopping herself down on the edge of the bed to take him by the chin, turning his face into the light. It puts Chuuya out of his line of sight, and Dazai has to force himself still as Yosano examines his eyes.
"As you like," he acquiesces, barely moving his lips, and she narrows her eyes as though trying to work out how he plans to get out of it.
"I don't think this one needs stitches," she decides, "but it might scar. Your hair will probably hide it, though." Dazai blinks, automatically putting a hand up to feel at his brow, only to have it slapped down again. "You didn't even notice, did you?" Yosano shakes her head, but there's a grin tugging at the corner of her lips. "Hold still." She sets about wiping dried blood from his temple with a rough hand, cursing under her breath as a fresh trickle spills hot down his face. "You already owe me at least three drinks, you know. Maybe a whole bottle. I should make you pay me back for Nakahara, too."
"When I was almost rid of an annoyance?" Dazai keeps his voice light as he takes the roll of gauze from her, wrapping it around his head with quick motions as she holds the dressing in place. His skin crawls with the familiarity of it, and he blinks slowly, reminding himself that his right eye is still unobstructed.
"Right," is all Yosano says, rising. She strips off her gloves, tossing them into the trash, and vanishes into the storeroom, heels tapping on the tile. There's still blood on the floor from when they dragged Chuuya in here. Yosano had let him wash his hands in the bathroom before she sewed him up, but the smell of it is still burned into his nostrils, sour sweat and copper, the sting of ozone Dazai has always associated with Corruption. He leans back against the raised head of the bed, lolling his head to the side to watch Chuuya. He's sleeping, body relaxed now. No doubt that will change when he wakes to find himself surrounded by his enemies. Dazai is rather looking forward to the temper tantrum.
"How likely is he to wake up and stab me if I try to check him over?" Yosano asks, reappearing with an armful of equipment. Dazai hums, thinking.
"Probably minimally. He usually passes out for the better part of a day after... this type of thing."
"Oh?" She regards him coolly over her glasses. "Exactly how common is 'this type of thing' for you to know that?"
"Heh." Dazai smiles, flicking his eyes back to Chuuya. "Today is definitely a first, sensei."
"Helpful as always, Dazai." She dumps her armful of supplies on the chair and yanks the curtain around Chuuya's bed closed with a rattle. Dazai sighs silently, trying to get comfortable. "Hey," Yosano says from behind the curtain, over the shuffle of fabric. "Answer something for me. Did you really know Ozaki sent for me?" There's a soft grunt of effort that Dazai thinks must be her trying to move Chuuya. She wouldn't appreciate his remarking on it, or offering assistance.
"Hm." He tips his head back, looking up at the ceiling. There's a suspicious stain in the plaster beside the air conditioning outlet that could be water or blood; it's shaped a little like a crab. Ah, now his stomach has remembered it's empty. "It was a possibility," Dazai decides on, as cloth lands on the tile with a series of muffled thumps and chimes of metal fastenings. "Either way, you would have returned eventually. Whether you'd have found Chuuya alive or dead when you did... was probably up to him, don't you think?"
"I think if you'd ever truly wanted him dead, he would be," Yosano says. Dazai smiles at the ceiling.
"Really? I think it's lucky for him he's so stubborn." He laughs, so soft even he barely hears it. "Ah, but don't tell him I said that, I'd never hear the end of it."
"Keep me out of your weird masochistic flirting games," Yosano snorts. "His blood sugar is ridiculous; what the hell did he do to himself?"
"It's the energy drain," Dazai says. He's not surprised she's figured out this much, though he's never mentioned anything beyond For the Tainted Sorrow to anyone but the Director. "He'll eat half his weight in rice for the next week, not that that's difficult since he's half-sized anyway." Insulting Chuuya really isn't as fun when he isn't awake to bristle over it.
"Huh." There's a squeaky sound of wheels, and a drawer opens and shuts. Something beeps, softly. Dazai rolls his head to the side as she pulls the curtain briskly back to the foot of the bed, his eyes settling immediately on Chuuya. His hair is still a wreck, but he's been redressed in the same plain blue-grey yukata Dazai is wearing, the blanket folded over his chest and an IV tube trailing from the crook of his left arm. The crisp new sheets make him look even smaller, old memories settling over the present like a veil. How many times did they run this routine, back then?
"Your turn," Yosano declares, catching hold of Dazai's arm before he can pull away. She drags another IV stand over with her foot, unravelling his bandages with a single quick tug.
"Ah, sensei –" Dazai starts, but she's already swabbing at his elbow, stabbing a needle none-too-gently into the vein and taping it down.
"You're dehydrated as hell and you've been rolling around in who knows what filth with an open wound and a bullet in situ," she says, hooking him up to the pump. Dazai watches the tubes uncurl with distaste. "Fluids and antibiotics, Dazai, or the hospital." She makes no mention of the ropes and ladders of scarring that run up his arm, but she hardly needs to. Dazai rubs the side of his head with his free hand.
"As you wish," he concedes. She's courteous enough to show him the labels on the bags before she turns on the drip. Dazai's stomach still twists, bitter, as the familiar chill of it starts to spread beneath his skin. He distracts himself with watching Chuuya sleep in the other bed. Definitely a situation he hadn't anticipated finding himself in, but...
"Can you sleep, or do you need painkillers?" Yosano asks. Her mouth quirks as she follows his gaze, and she pushes the IV stand back to the head of the bed, out of Dazai's line of sight. Dazai summons up a smile.
"I won't sleep while we're harbouring a Port Mafia Executive, sensei. And besides," he touches his hand to his right side, wincing internally at the feel of the needle pulling on his arm. "You already know what doesn't work on me –" He jerks to a halt, staring up at her, as she jabs another needle into his upper arm. "Really, it's useless..." His level of tolerance for both analgesia and sedatives is better than it had been, but still an excellent incentive to avoid injury. Not an accident, though doubtless not the entirety of his mentor's intention.
"Oh?" Yosano smirks down at him, raising one immaculate eyebrow. "Even you need a tetanus booster, Dazai. Now be a good patient and rest quietly, won't you?"
"Do I have a choice?" Dazai smiles, wry, tipping his head back on the pillow. It feels heavier already, things like pain and planning starting to drift from his grasp. No matter how well he knows that he can trust his Agency colleagues, he'll always hate this feeling. He blinks slowly, vision sliding out of focus as Yosano starts to pull the curtain around him – then stops, looking at him. It takes Dazai a fuzzy moment to realise he'd made a sound of protest. Really, there's no hope for him. He thinks Yosano laughs, but it's easier, somehow, to focus in on the gentle sound of Chuuya's snores as it all slips away.
Awareness returns like the tide, washing over him until Dazai snaps his eyes open to the dim infirmary ceiling. Nausea rolls up, settles slowly as time and place re-establishes itself. Ah, this is really too familiar.
When he breathes in, his ribs ache, but it's not as immediate as it had been; whatever Yosano had given him is at least moderately effective. Dazai's going to blame it for the fact that it takes him a fuzzy few moments to realise that the heat down his side is another body, the tickling warmth at his shoulder, breath. He cranes his neck, blinking down at Chuuya curled between his body and the edge of the bed, atop the blanket and using Dazai as a pillow. Definitely the drugs. He doesn't remember anything since Yosano stabbed him with them.
"Chuuya," he murmurs, watching the way Chuuya's nose crinkles at the sound. He's more on the side of sleep than unconsciousness now, though how on earth he'd managed to crawl into Dazai's bed without waking him is a mystery for the ages, drugs or no drugs. Not to mention why.
The curtain is pulled around, hiding both beds from view of the door, but the room is still and empty aside from them. Light filters in past the blinds, more from the hallway, just enough to distinguish the colour of Chuuya's hair. It feels around three or four in the morning, but he could be wildly wrong; anaesthetics have always muddled Dazai's sense of time. He wonders if any of the other Agency staff have lingered in the office to keep watch against a sudden influx of mafia. Not that Mori would bother, with no advantage to be gained. Kouyou, having played her hand, will favour waiting for matters to resolve themselves.
"Since you had the energy to haul yourself over here," he says, not quite a whisper, "I'm surprised you didn't try to storm out, hat rack." He hums to himself, eyes following the steady rise and fall of Chuuya's shoulders. His left arm is folded around himself, the IV line draped over his side. "You're heavy, you know. And you smell." Not that Dazai is any better – and washing himself with broken ribs is going to be a bother. Maybe he should just die and save himself the trouble.
Chuuya's nose wrinkles again, and he sighs out an incoherent wash of syllables that makes Dazai shiver despite himself. He lets his head fall back to the pillow, smiling at the ceiling.
"What was that, petit mafia?"
Chuuya huffs, shifting sluggishly. "Shut up, mackerel bastard," he mumbles, apparently intent on sleep.
"How can I, when Chuuya is clearly suffering from amnesia?" Dazai pokes him in the cheek with a finger, grinning when Chuuya swats it away with a growl. "My fetching new head bandage may have more than a hint of deja vu about it, but I really expected you to have tried to kill me by now."
"It's too early for your bullshit," Chuuya groans, pushing his face into Dazai's shoulder. The damp heat of his words seeps through the thin cotton of the yukata. There's more intimacy to this simple sharing of space than anything that's come before. Dazai closes his eyes and waits for the moment to crack. Everything always does, after all.
It takes longer than he expects, but eventually Chuuya freezes against him, then shoves himself away with a sudden jerk, almost toppling off the edge of the bed. "What the fuck?" It's a hiss, not a shout. "What are you – why are you in my bed?!"
Dazai lolls his head sideways on the pillow, blinking his eyes open. Chuuya's indignant face really is lovely. "You're in my bed, hat rack," he points out, and Chuuya stares at him for a long moment before sitting up, looking around the dim infirmary.
"Fuck," he observes. Dazai hums agreement, letting a hint of a smirk curl at the edges of his mouth. "What did I – ugh." Chuuya flops back down on his side, burying his face in Dazai's pillow. "I'm too tired for this shit."
Dazai has to crane his neck to look down at him; it's uncomfortable, so he starts trying to shift sideways to make more room. The movement makes the ache in his side flare to life, hot and warning, and the breath hisses out of his throat before he can halt it. Chuuya picks his head up at the sound, one eye slitting open. "How much do you remember?" Dazai asks, low, when the pain has retreated.
Chuuya closes his eyes, settling back on the pillow with something that might be a sigh. "Enough."
"Mm." He can feel the warmth of Chuuya's body down his side, though they aren't touching now.
"Where's your phone?" Chuuya says, after a while. "I should check in with Ane-san, and the boss."
"It's the middle of the night." Dazai summons up a yawn. It occurs to him to wonder where his phone actually is; Yosano had taken his ruined clothes away, muttering something about fire. "Use your own, if you really must."
"It's toast, idiot." Chuuya kicks him in the knee. "Ugh, I guess it'll have to wait. Your doctor probably talked to her, anyway, right?"
"Don't remind me." Dazai stares up at the ceiling as Chuuya coughs out a half-laugh. Whether it's the late hour and the dim lighting, or the effects of the day still catching up with them both, there's no discomfort here. Something painful twists in Dazai's chest; he thinks it's resignation.
"How long?" Chuuya asks him eventually, barely more than a whisper. Dazai breathes out through his nose.
"Too long." Chuuya nudges his side, and he amends, "at least seven minutes." It had felt longer.
"Shit." Chuuya twists sideways, shoulder pressing against Dazai's as he, too, stares up at the ceiling.
"Chuuya should count himself lucky that Yosano-sensei didn't have to maul him before she could heal him," Dazai says. It doesn't come out as lightly as he means it to, bitter threads sliding around his voice. The burning behind his eyes is back; he blinks them slowly. Really, these sorts of personal epiphanies are bothersome. Last year's mess aside, he's been comfortable with the life he's built at the Agency. And yet even in the midst of that, the feeling of Chuuya's avid gaze cutting through him after four years, hand and knife at his throat...
When he turns his head, meeting Chuuya's eyes across the breath's distance of the pillow, it feels like a revelation.
"It was that bad?" Chuuya asks, so quietly that Dazai can imagine they're in their own world, here. A space of secrets. It takes him a long, poised moment to let the words out.
"I watched you die." He wonders if he'll ever stop seeing it when he closes his eyes.
It's Chuuya who turns away, breaking the odd tension of the moment. "Huh. I'd have thought you'd be sorry I didn't, then."
"The only thing I'm sorry for," Dazai shifts his body despite the pain that flares, stifling breath that already aches in his throat, "is not getting to you sooner."
Chuuya goes still at that, his own breath frozen in the silence of the room. Dazai waits, wondering whether he's given away too much. Whether he cares, if he has. Finally, Chuuya whispers, raspy as a secret unwillingly dragged from his mouth, "You kept your promise, mackerel, shut up about it already."
"I never promised you anything," Dazai tells his closed eyes. He'd been the one to demand Chuuya's word, after all, an order given long before he'd been raised to Executive. Don't do it when I'm not here.
"Right." If there's amusement hiding beneath his tone, Dazai can't hear it. Chuuya doesn't say anything more, but he feels neither need nor desire to look away. The light that filters in from the hallway falls soft across his face, painting him in blurred, desaturated shades. Dazai can almost convince himself that he looks the way he had in a hotel bed, years and miles and two lifetimes away from here.
"Why are you still in my bed, chibi?" he asks, to distract himself. Those memories are a box he thinks he doesn't want to open, not in this strange space they've built, where all the old certainties – the tension between manipulation and partnership, rivalry and enmity – are draining away.
"Do you really want me to move?" Chuuya asks him, opening his eyes to watch him. Dazai reaches for the truth, fumbles it as he realises it's anything but. Chuuya's mouth twitches into a smirk. "Thought not. Shut up and let me sleep, bastard, or I'll break your other leg."
"It's my ribs that are broken," Dazai tells the ceiling. "Chuuya should be nicer to me, since I took a bullet for him."
"Wouldn't be the first time," is all Chuuya says, comfortable. Dazai stares sightlessly into the shadows, wondering when the ground beneath him had started to fall away. He catches himself when Chuuya stirs, pushing himself upright to look down at Dazai. "Wait, you actually got shot?" He prods at Dazai's chest experimentally, eyes widening when he doesn't suppress the wince in time. "Shit." He drops his head down onto Dazai's shoulder. "You fucking idiot. I swear, Dazai..."
"I don't know what else you think I should have done," Dazai says mildly. Chuuya blows out an irritated breath that raises sudden and annoying goosebumps along his collarbone.
"Never mind," he mutters, and Dazai feels the words imprinted against his skin though gauze and fabric.
"Chuuya," he murmurs, and whether it's the pain or the drugs or the strange intimacy of the moment, there's far too much of him in the whisper. It tastes like a prayer in his mouth.
"I hate you," Chuuya tells him, pained, frustrated. An admission. Dazai smiles, wry, turns his head to look at him.
"It's mutual." Chuuya knows him well enough, he thinks, to hear it in his voice. Maybe just this once, he can let himself.
"Liar." Chuuya pushes himself up again, lifting his hand to touch Dazai's face. Sleep-warm and a little rough. "Are you really going to make me do all the work here?" Dazai smiles, letting the warmth of him start to bleed away the lingering chill of death that still hovers too close, and doesn't say anything. The decisions he's made today he would make again and again, in every lifetime he was given, but this choice has to be Chuuya's.
"Ugh." Chuuya rolls his eyes, but Dazai sees the smile lurking helpless at the corner of his mouth. "Damn you." It's a whisper breathed against Dazai's lips, and he swallows the words greedily, letting Chuuya fit their mouths together. It's not the first time, but it feels far more than five years away from the aggressive, demanding way he'd kissed Dazai that night in Kyoto. Soft and tentative, lips sliding slowly against his. Dazai presses back into it, lets his eyes slide shut as Chuuya's fingers slip into his hair.
"You taste like a hospital," Chuuya says when he pulls away. He looks, Dazai thinks, blinking lazily, more than a little smug. He wonders what his own face looks like; he feels more drugged than Yosano's medications can entirely account for.
"Chuuya isn't exactly fresh as a daisy right now," he says in return, catching Chuuya's hand in his when he tries to lift it away. "And I think something might have died in your hair."
"Don't think I won't punch you," Chuuya tells him, but he laughs as Dazai tugs him back down, meets his lips with a hot sigh that makes Dazai's spine arch as he tries to press closer. The pain is very far away; he thinks he could lie here for hours and be satisfied just to feel Chuuya breathe against him. He closes his mouth gently on Chuuya's lower lip, flicks out his tongue to taste, and is rewarded with a quickly-stifled gasp and Chuuya twisting to lie half across him, a welcome weight against Dazai's left side as he licks into his mouth.
Dazai loses time, caught up in the slide of Chuuya's lips on his, the shift of his back beneath his hands, the languid stroke of his tongue. It isn't until Chuuya shifts further on top of him, knee pushing between his thighs and stinging an entirely different sort of gasp from him, that reality intrudes again. Dazai is forced to recall that he still has a bullet wound.
"Fuck," Chuuya tries to pull away entirely, frowning down at him. Dazai sighs, wriggling gingerly closer, and contents himself with smoothing his palm down Chuuya's back. Maybe groping his ass just a little bit, but who could blame him.
Chuuya swats his hand away, of course, but pushes his face into Dazai's neck all the same. That's new; the last time had been all messy, hurried sex, as though Chuuya hadn't wanted to give himself the chance to rethink his acquiescence to Dazai's provocation. Dazai remembers kisses like fighting and hands that left bruises; the way Chuuya's eyelashes flutter against his throat, now, feels more real than anything had, back then.
"Dazai," he warns, when Dazai teases the pads of his fingers along the crook of his neck, where his collar meets his skin. "I'm not gonna fuck you with broken ribs, you ass. Or in a hospital bed."
"They'll take weeks to heal," Dazai complains, as though Chuuya isn't intimately familiar with the limits and breaking points of the human body.
"Shut the fuck up." Chuuya pokes him pointedly in the ribs, right over what must be the worst of the bruise. Laughs as Dazai mumbles a protest. "Don't act like I don't know you can take it or leave it."
Dazai cracks his eyes open, staring up at the ceiling. That alone, really, is proof of how far under his skin Chuuya is. He imagines himself flayed, wonders if it would burn this way, if he'd beg for more just to keep Chuuya's eyes on him as he bled out all this want. The words escape from his mouth like a confession, no more capable of being held back than the tide. "Not with you."
Chuuya doesn't say anything, but Dazai can feel him smile against his skin all the same. Surprised and hidden and real. He closes his eyes, breathing him in. "Are you going to get under the blanket, or would you prefer to avoid giving Yosano-sensei the blackmail material?"
"I'll get out in a bit." Chuuya shifts around without letting go of Dazai until he can pull the covers haphazardly over himself, settling against Dazai's shoulder. "I already owe her a life debt, anyway, and I'm not the one who has to work with her."
"Maybe so." Dazai wriggles his arm until the blanket isn't pulling on the IV line so much, and turns his face into Chuuya's filthy hair, smiling. He thinks Chuuya's not the only one who's going to be paying back today's debts for a while.
Beneath the blanket, silent as a secret, Chuuya's fingers curl around his.