wrap me all up (in your love)

by lilreinie

Summary:

“Anti-inflammatories?” Dazai asks, staring at Chuuya now.

“Yeah, my bones hate me.”

“Your . . . what?”

“Dazai,” Mori says, still looking like he’s watching a comedy show, “Chuuya has hypermobility.”

“Hyper-what?” Dazai and Chuuya both ask.

Sometimes Dazai and Chuuya wear matching bandages.

Chapter 1

Chuuya is in a fucking bad mood. Yesterday had been a shitty day — with a decent ending, yes, but shitty nonetheless. This morning was worse.

Yesterday, Dazai and Chuuya took out the remnants of an enemy organisation that the Port Mafia had been steadily dismantling for months. Chuuya knew already when the fight was over that he wasn’t going to fall asleep without the help of some pain pills, but still, when Dazai baited him into a trip to the arcade, Chuuya abandoned logical thought and followed. 

They’d spent most of the evening in the arcade and Chuuya passed out in his bed the moment he got home — somehow. He woke up in a bad mood, because he should’ve taken the damn pain pills before he slept and he should’ve put his goddamn wrist guards on and he didn’t and now he wants to chop both his arms off at the elbow. He wonders idly if Akutagawa would do it if he asked. Probably. 

Best not to complain about his pain in front of him. Or Gin. She’d cut his arms off with a saw. She’s a little too knife-happy. 

Chuuya grumbles colourful curses under his breath as he rubs a heat ointment over his wrist and wraps them up good and tight in the hopes that this time will only be a few days. 

He gets to the Port Mafia building and lets out a loud “Fuck!” when he remembers that he forgot to take the damn pain pills. Thank fuck for gloves, he supposes. 

People stare at him as he storms through the building and it’s probably the vicious glower on his face that has them turning their heads away as fast as they’d turned it to him. 

Then, as if Chuuya’s day could get any worse — 

“Chuuya!” Dazai sings, falling into step beside him. “Would you be a good dog and do my part of the report too? My wrists hurt.”

“Fuck you, they do not,” Chuuya seethes, because his do. 

“Chuuya!” Dazai gasps like he’s been slapped. “What’s gotten into you today?”

Chuuya glares at Dazai. “I am not in the mood for you.”

“Ane-san wouldn’t appreciate you being so rude to your partner, you know.”

“Oh, now I’m your partner? I thought I was your dog?”

Dazai scoffs. He glances over Chuuya once and hones in on the flash of white between the end of Chuuya’s glove and the hem of his sleeve. He grabs Chuuya’s arm and huffs an amused breath. “Aw, is my chibi puppy trying to look like me? Cute.”

Chuuya yanks his arm away — which hurts a little more than Dazai grabbing it but he’s not going to admit that. “Don’t fucking touch me.”

Dazai stops walking and Chuuya can feel him staring at the back of his head, but he’s really not up to dealing with Dazai today. He might try to punch Dazai and with Dazai’s ability cancelling out his own, that will only make his bones try to kill him even harder than they already are. Not ideal.

---

Chuuya’s mostly pissed at himself. He’s been handling this whole thing for the last eight years of his life and it only took six months with the Port Mafia for him to screw up his routine for when this happens. He cannot believe that all it took for him to forget to take care of himself was an evening at the arcade with Dazai. 

He knew his wrists were going to flare up after playing for three hours. Even before they left, he told himself he’d take care of himself before he went to bed. Yet, here he is, writing his stupid report of yesterday’s extermination project and cursing his lack of anti-inflammatory pills. He wonders for a moment if Mori would have some on hand. He should. Even for a doctor as twisted and weird as Mori is, it’s a pretty standard thing for him to have. Maybe he’ll ask. 

Kouyou finds him proofreading the report — his and Dazai’s — and absently rubbing and twisting his left wrist. 

“Hi, Chuuya. There’s a rumour floating around that you’re in an especially bad mood today. Tea?”

Chuuya raises his eyebrows. “What kind?”

Kouyou holds up two teacups. She must’ve known Chuuya would say yes even if he was in a horrible mood. “Chamomile for you and ginger for m-”

Chuuya drops his pen on the desk and sighs. “Oh my god, can I please have ginger tea?”

Kouyou raises her eyebrows. “You’ve never liked my ginger tea.”

“I need it,” Chuuya says, extending both hands for the teacup like a child who’s seen brightly coloured toys. 

Kouyou gives it to him with a slight frown. “Are you all right?”

Chuuya takes a sip of the tea and relaxes in his chair. “I will be in five minutes.”

“You’re being odd today.”

“My bones are trying to murder me.”

Kouyou smiles sympathetically. “I heard you did a fantastic job yesterday. Take some time off, hm?”

“I’ll be fine before I even go home today. It’s normal.”

Kouyou pats his shoulder and he tilts his head back to give her a droopy smile. 

“Thank you for tea, Ane-san.”

“You’re welcome, Chuuya.”

Chuuya slouches in his chair after Kouyou leaves, sipping at the tea. He’s not really a fan of ginger tea — the taste doesn’t appeal to him much — but it’s second best to his usual pain pills. Chamomile would just make him relax, but that’s a bit hard to do when every move of his wrist feels like his bones are grinding into one another like sandpaper. 

The next person to find him is Dazai, but he’s got tea and it’s hot in his hands and Dazai isn’t so irritating now that Chuuya’s hands are warm. 

Chuuya, who’s slouching in his chair with his head tilted over the backrest and his arms on the table, hands curled around the cup, cracks one eye open when Dazai doesn’t say anything. “What? Did you want to proofread your bit before I sent it off? You’re a bit late for that.”

“Chuuya was a little mean this morning,” Dazai says quietly. “I didn’t like it.”

“Dazai, I’m always mean to you.”

Dazai shuffles on his feet and Chuuya doesn’t like how uncertain he seems. It’s not right. Dazai is always a cocksure bastard. 

“Spit it out, mackerel.”

“Chuuya sounded like he wanted to hurt me.”

Chuuya sits upright and frowns. “I’m pretty sure you’re always at risk of being kicked or something.”

“That’s different. This morning was . . . not nice.”

Chuuya takes a sip of the tea and grimaces at the temperature. It’s warm enough to soothe his hands, but cool enough that it already tastes like shit. He’ll just hold on to it until it cools down and throw it out after. Kouyou never has to know. 

“I’ll be nicer to you if you go and ask the boss for some pain pills for me. The higher the grade, the better. Bonus points if they knock me out within an hour.”

“Why do you need pain pills?” Dazai asks, his gaze drifting from Chuuya’s face to his bandaged arms. 

“For my evil wrists, duh.”

Something ugly flickers in Dazai’s visible eye. He turns around and leaves. Chuuya sets the cup down haphazardly and gets up, not noticing the spill of the tea. He snatches his gloves off the table and follows after Dazai as he pulls them back on. 

“Dazai? Oi, Dazai, I wasn’t serious. Get back here. Dazai!”

Chuuya chases Dazai all the way to Mori’s office. He makes a grab for Dazai and catches his coat as Dazai opens the door without knocking. He continues on ahead, his coat in Chuuya’s grip. 

“Dazai!” Chuuya hisses, following after him anyway. He waves at the little blonde girl drawing on the walls with a crayon as he passes. 

Elise beams and waves back. 

“Dazai,” Mori trills over Chuuya, a tight smile on his face at the way Dazai barged in. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?”

Dazai points at Chuuya. “Something’s wrong with him. He bandaged his wrists.”

Mori turns to Chuuya, who feels his face flame. 

“Uh, I . . . I need anti-inflammatories?”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, uh, I forgot to take mine this morning and I thought I could make it through the day but if Akutagawa offered to chop my arms off right now, I’d probably let him.”

Mori looks somewhat amused as he opens a drawer on his desk. He tosses an unlabelled bottle at Chuuya, who fumbles to catch it for a second. 

“Anti-inflammatories?” Dazai asks, staring at Chuuya now. 

“Yeah, my bones hate me.”

“Your . . . what?” 

“Dazai,” Mori says, still looking like he’s watching a comedy show, “Chuuya has hypermobility.”

“Hyper-what?” Dazai and Chuuya both ask. 

“Hypermobility. Your bones don’t hate you, Chuuya. Your ligaments are weak. I read your report. You did a lot of heavy lifting yesterday and I assume you disappeared for the remainder of the day to the arcade with Dazai, here. You simply overexerted the joints in your wrists. It’s perfectly normal. You just need to take better care of them.”

“My . . . joints? I’m not old enough to have arthritis!”

Mori shakes his head. “I tested you for arthritis.”

Dazai tilts his head at Chuuya. “You did blood tests?”

“I most definitely did not.”

Mori smiles a guilty smile that doesn’t look very remorseful. 

“Boss stole my blood!”

“I didn’t steal it. I collected it. There’s a difference.”

“Gross.”

“Wait,” Dazai says, “so your wrists are just . . . sore?”

“Yeah. Why, what did you think?”

“Nothing!”

Chuuya narrows his eyes at Dazai. “Whatever.”

“Chuuya,” Mori says, “be careful with those. They’ll knock you out.”

Chuuya looks down at the bottle, then grins at Mori. “Thanks.”

“I’m serious. I can’t have my new hire doing a disappearing act. I’ll take them away from you if you abuse them.”

“No, they’re mine now.” Chuuya hugs the bottle to his chest and turns away from Mori. “I know how to take pain pills. I’m not an addict. This will last me months.”

“It better.”

“It will,” Chuuya insists.

“Good. You can go home early and stay home tomorrow. Next time they flare up, take the day off. I don’t think you want to do much when you’re in pain.”

“I can still work,” Chuuya snaps, a little offended that Mori thinks he’s too weak to do anything when his bones decide it’s time to attack him.

“I’m sure you can, but do you want to?”

Chuuya hesitates. “Not really.”

“I thought so. Go home and knock yourself out. Literally, if you must.”

“Oh, I plan to.”

Hypermobility, Chuuya thinks as he leaves once dismissed. He didn’t know there was a name for it. It doesn’t sound as cool as ‘my bones want to die’ though, but it’s nice to know that it’s a real thing. 

Dazai follows Chuuya out of Mori’s office and he’s at the entrance to his apartment building when he realises Dazai is still following him. 

“What do you want?”

Dazai blinks. “Uh, my coat,” he blurts out.

Chuuya glances at Dazai, then at the black material he’s still holding. “Oh. You could’ve said something, like, four blocks ago. Here.”

Dazai takes the coat. 

And he continues following Chuuya. 

“Okay, what?” Chuuya asks, stopping at the doors.

“Why didn’t you tell me you get hurt like that? I wouldn’t have made you work so hard.”

“This better change nothing, do you hear me?” Chuuya glares at Dazai. “I don’t like being treated like I can’t do things because of a stupid bandage. You can still fight with that stupid thing covering half your face and your arms and God knows wherever the hell else. I can, too.”

“I’m not in any physical pain, though.”

“I don’t care. I’m a gravity manipulator. I don’t need strong bones to deal heavy blows. Don’t you dare treat me like a baby or I’ll kick you so hard you’ll forget tomorrow. My ankles are fine.”

Dazai suddenly smiles. “I like it when Chuuya fights with me like this.”

“Shut up.” Chuuya turns around and heads inside. “And stop following me!”

That, as expected, does not stop Dazai. Chuuya debates slamming his apartment door in Dazai’s face, but Dazai could just easily pick the lock. Though, it would be funny to slam the door in his face. 

But then again, Dazai had been very worried about Chuuya before Mori explained Chuuya’s evil bones to him. 

(See, evil bones sounds much better than hypermobility.)

And Chuuya feels a little bad about how uncertain and upset Dazai had seemed when he shuffled up to Chuuya after he’d submitted the report. 

“Chuuya’s place is nice,” Dazai says and Chuuya waits for the penny to drop, because Dazai doesn’t do decent compliments, “for a dog.”

There it is. But Chuuya can’t be bothered about Dazai, because he has a gift from Mori waiting for him and if he knows Mori, he knows it’ll be a fast-acting drug. The man’s good for taking care of his subordinates’ physical wellbeing. Jury’s still out on mental wellbeing. 

He only takes one, compared to the two he usually takes, because his usual bottle was stolen off a pharmacy shelf before he even joined the mafia and Chuuya is fully certain that over-the-counter medicines are of a far lower grade than whatever the hell Mori keeps stocked. 

And he makes sure to note the time, because there’s not a chance in hell he’s going to accidentally overdose and lose out on something that’ll make him sleep painlessly. 

“I’m going to pass out in about an hour,” Chuuya informs Dazai, “less if I’m lucky, so I hope you have something to occupy yourself with in a way that will not destroy my apartment because if I wake up to a mess, I will kill you. And you won’t be able to fight me off because my bones will be fine when I wake up.”

“I’ll leave when you go to sleep,” Dazai says. Then he holds his arms out to Chuuya. “But I need help first.”

Chuuya eyes Dazai’s arms. He knows that Dazai’s been swaddled in bandages for years. He also knows — from experience — that it’s not that hard to wrap his arms by himself. He’s been doing it for the last eight years. And if he can unwrap and rewrap both his arms in under forty-five seconds with no issues, then Dazai sure as hell can — probably in half the time. He doesn’t need any help at all. He wants it, though. 

But again, he feels a little bad about being so mean to Dazai that it genuinely upset him. So he sighs. 

“Fine, but then you have to rub my wrists for me.”

Dazai smiles so brightly, Chuuya thinks he’s been replaced with a different person. “Okay!”

“Wait here,” Chuuya says, because he does not need Dazai snooping around his bedroom. He returns with his ointment and a box of bandages. “I don’t know how far up yours go, so pick ones that are long enough.”

Dazai pokes around in the box curiously. “Chibi has a lot of bandages.”

Chuuya shrugs and pulls out two new ones — he’d normally reuse his bandages, but he spilled tea over the ones he’s wearing and he’s not going to wash them and wait for them to dry before reusing them. His wrists hurt now. “Sometimes I mess them up and I can’t reuse them, so I have to keep spares.”

“Are you sure? I use a lot.”

“I can see how used the ones you’re wearing are, Dazai. I’m not putting a bandage on you unless it’s a new one. You can just buy me more.”

“Oh.”

Dazai picks out his bandages and sets the box on the coffee table, sitting down when Chuuya does. He reaches for the ointment and frowns when Chuuya snatches it away. 

“Nuh uh. You first. I might fall asleep while you’re busy with mine.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Chuuya sighs when Dazai pulls at his tie to loosen it before pulling it over his head and works on his shirt buttons. “I always knew you were secretly a mummy.”

Dazai gives Chuuya a look that makes it clear he doesn’t find Chuuya funny. It’s fine. Chuuya finds himself funny. 

“Wow,” Chuuya says when Dazai shrugs his shirt off. “I mean, I was expecting a lot of bandages, but this is insane.”

“I just need help with my arms.”

Chuuya scoffs. “Sure.”

He grabs his box and peers inside. “You’re buying me a ton of new bandages or I will break into your apartment and steal and rip up your clothes and use them.”

“You don’t have to use —”

“Shut up.”

And contrary to the usual banter that follows, Dazai shuts up. 

It doesn’t take long to unwrap and rewrap a bunch of bandages. Chuuya knows it well. But he’s careful with Dazai and he goes slower than he normally does. Dazai shivers when Chuuya’s hands brush his skin. 

“What are you, touch starved?”

“I actually don’t like people touching me.”

Chuuya pauses and glances up from Dazai’s arm. “Sorry.”

“Usually,” Dazai amends. “Your hands are warm.”

“Yeah? Sometimes they get really cold. The gloves help with that, then.” Chuuya dumps the mass of bandages behind him on the couch. “Don’t you use anything under the bandages? Doesn’t it itch?”

“I’m used to it.”

Chuuya hums for a moment. “Take the others off. I’ll be right back.”

Chuuya disappears into his room and when he returns, Dazai is waiting with his hands tucked under his legs, looking like a child waiting to be scolded. “You’re lucky I get a lot of things that are supposed to help my demon bones but don’t end up working and just get stored away,” Chuuya says, waving a little bottle at him. 

“What’s that?”

“I don’t know, some kind of scented oil. It’s supposed to help with muscle pains, but I stopped using it because the problem is in my bones and it was nice but it didn’t help much.”

“Why did you go get it, then?”

“It’s not for me, moron. It might be a load of shit, but the bandages don’t itch if I use it.”

“Oh.”

Okay, maybe Dazai does need a bit of help. 

“Have you seriously never used anything? God, how do you live? I’d claw them off within an hour. Less, probably.”

Dazai shrugs as Chuuya opens the bottle drizzles the oil on his hands before rubbing them together for a second. “I just got used to it.”

“Idiot.”

Dazai stays quiet as Chuuya rubs the oil into his skin and wraps a new bandage around his arm. He wordlessly holds out the clip when Chuuya gets to the end. 

Chuuya stands and nudges Dazai’s foot with his own, nodding for him to shift over so Chuuya can sit on the other side of him and wrap his other arm. 

“Why aren’t you saying anything?” Dazai asks when Chuuya pauses at his elbow to get more of the oil. 

Chuuya looks up at him. “Do you want me to?”

Dazai shrugs. “You’re being weirdly not insulting. At worst, I expected you’d make fun of me.”

“That would be far more horrible than being a little mean to you this morning. I’m not cruel, Dazai.”

“I know.”

“And at best?”

“Hm?”

“You said you expected I’d make fun of you at worst. What did you expect at best?”

Dazai shrugs again. “That you’d just be curious.”

“I’m curious about a lot of things when it comes to you,” Chuuya says with a shrug of his own. “But some things don’t need to be explained.”

“Your hands are warm,” Dazai says again, quietly, and this time, Chuuya pauses. “It feels nice.”

“Is this what you thought you’d find under my bandages?” Chuuya asks, rubbing his thumb over the thick lines on Dazai’s wrist. “Is that why you told the boss that there was something wrong with me?”

Dazai doesn’t answer immediately. “Yes.”

“There’s nothing wrong with you, Dazai. You’re human, just like the rest of us.”

“Stop it,” Dazai whispers. 

“Has no one ever helped you before?”

“No.”

Chuuya scoffs, but his mind races. Dazai trusts him this much? “No wonder you’re so prickly. It’s because your stupid bandages are always making you itch.”

“Chuuya’s very kind,” Dazai says as Chuuya puts the clip in place. It sounds earnest and not like Dazai at all. 

“Shut up,” Chuuya mumbles. 

By the time Chuuya is done with the remainder of Dazai’s bandages around his body, he has only one sealed bandage in his box with a few other things and his wrists ache. But it’s fine. He still needs to change the one over Dazai’s right eye and he can manage. It’ll be fine, because Dazai will rub his wrists with the heat gel in a moment and the medicine should kick in soon. Then he’ll go to sleep and he won’t remember how bad it hurts, only that it did. 

“Is that a makeup wipe?” Dazai asks, staring and the circular cotton pad Chuuya sets on his knee while he wipes his hands off with the mass of old bandages. 

“Yeah, for your eye.”

“For my . . . eye?”

Chuuya stares at Dazai. “I’m going to ask you a question and if I don’t like the answer, I’m going to hit you.”

Dazai nods. 

“What’s under the bandage on your face?”

Dazai doesn’t answer. 

“Dazai.”

“Nothing,” Dazai mumbles. 

“Are you kidding me?” Chuuya cries, whacking Dazai’s shoulder as hard as he can. Pain flares up in his wrist and shoots straight to his elbow, but he smacks Dazai again. “What do you mean, nothing?!”

“Stop hitting me! It’s just a bandage!”

“Are you fucking serious?!” Chuuya uses his other hand to backhand Dazai’s shoulder. “First you just deal with the itch and now you don’t use anything to protect your eye from the bandage? Are you fucking stupid?!”

“Ow, stop it! I didn’t know you were supposed to!”

Chuuya screeches something incoherent to even himself. 

“Sorry!”

It’s only when he registers how bewildered Dazai looks that Chuuya stops. He huffs and glares at Dazai. “You’re making me wish I took two pills.”

“Sorry,” Dazai says again. 

“Jesus, fucking — you need lessons on bandages. If I see a pink eye, I will kick your head clean off your neck.”

Dazai remains still as Chuuya unwraps the bandage, probably deathly afraid of getting beaten again. Chuuya peels the last layer off slowly, giving Dazai time to blink and get used to the light. 

“Your skin is slightly red,” Chuuya murmurs. “When was the last time you changed this one?”

“Uh . . . the night before, I think. No, in the morning, day before yesterday.”

Chuuya rolls his eyes. “Your face is sensitive, Dazai. You can’t treat it like the rest of your body. If you insist on it, you have to change it every day. Or at least take it off at night.”

“How do you know all this?”

Chuuya huffs. “I had to learn. I was taking care of myself and a bunch of kids. They didn’t know anything, so I had to.”

“Will you take care of me, now?” Dazai asks, and it’s not like every other time he asks Chuuya to do something because of that stupid dog thing he has going on. This sounds different. He sounds like one of the younger kids Chuuya used to look out for. Scared kids. Lonely kids. 

“Yeah,” Chuuya says. He runs his thumb under Dazai’s eye lightly and it’s almost pitiful how Dazai leans into the gesture like no one’s ever been gentle with him before. “Yeah, I’ll take care of you.”

Chuuya knows that his wrists are still hurt, but the pain is numb. Mori’s medicines are already kicking in. He yawns involuntarily. 

“I can do this one myself later,” Dazai says and Chuuya rolls his eyes because Dazai could’ve done all of it by himself. “We should do yours before you fall asleep.”

“I’m going fall asleep on you either way,” Chuuya says. 

“I promise to lock your door when I leave.” 

Chuuya waits for him to tack on something about how he can’t have anyone waltzing in on his sleeping dog, but Dazai reaches for the ointment and pushes Chuuya’s right sleeve up without a word. 

It’s kind of odd to see Dazai focus on something with both eyes in view.

Dazai has pretty eyes. 

“Does it hurt?” Dazai asks. 

“Only when you speak.”

“Oh, ha ha. I meant your wrists. You can deal with your headache yourself.”

Chuuya tilts his head. “How’d you know I have a headache?”

Dazai pokes Chuuya’s forehead between his eyebrows with the hand that doesn’t have a bit of the heat ointment in his palm. “You just look like you do.”

“Moron.”

Any annoyance Chuuya feels towards Dazai disappates without a trace when Dazai slowly rubs his wrist. 

“Good?” Dazai asks when Chuuya sighs and leans against the backrest of the couch, eyes closed. 

Chuuya hums. 

Dazai’s hands are bigger than his own. They circle his wrist entirely, seeping warmth into his bones and providing a kind of relief Chuuya hadn’t even known of before. Dazai drags his hand up to the middle of Chuuya’s forearm slowly before going back down to his wrist. 

Chuuya could cry. 

“Warm,” he mumbles.

“It’s not too tight?” Dazai asks.

“Not tight enough.”

He didn’t know it would feel so soothing to have someone else take care of his hands for him. He’d gladly spend hours on Dazai’s bandages every single day if he had to, if Dazai only promised to rub his wrists whenever they hurt too much. 

“Are you asleep?” Dazai whispers a moment later — or maybe it’s been several minutes. Chuuya wouldn’t know. He’s high on the instant relief he gets from Dazai’s tight grip on his wrist, warm and heavy to the point where Chuuya thinks about throwing out his compression wrist guards and begging Dazai to just hold on to his wrists for a few hours. 

“‘M awake,” he mumbles, vaguely aware that Dazai has wrapped his right arm and is rubbing his left arm already. 

“You can sleep,” Dazai says. “I can take care of you, too.”

Chuuya hums. He thinks he’ll do just that. 

The next thing Chuuya knows, he’s being carried through his apartment and he’d usually throw a fit about it, but his wrists feel so nice and the oil he’d used on Dazai smells more soothing than any tea Kouyou could’ve made for him and he thinks he’ll kill Dazai if Dazai leaves and takes the scent of black seed oil away. 

“You stay right here,” Chuuya grumbles, a hand fisted in Dazai’s clothes. “You smell nice.”

“It’s just the oil. It’s on your hands, too.”

“Stay. Here. I’ll roundhouse you in the face if you don’t.”

Dazai laughs softly. “What, you want me to just stand here the whole night?”

Chuuya pats the mattress in front of him. “There’s space. I’ll just kick you off you thrash.”

“Chuuya. . .”

“Please.”

“Okay. All right. But I have to lock the door first. I left it open because I was supposed to leave, remember?”

Chuuya grumbles under his breath, but he releases Dazai. He hears the lock of his door but Dazai doesn’t return. Chuuya sighs and hopes the medicine knocks him properly out soon.

When he wakes up in the morning, it’s to something tickling his nose. He gives his head a small shake and tries to move back, only to find his arm trapped. Reluctantly, he braves the morning sun and opens his eyes — to the back of Dazai’s head. 

Dazai stayed. 

And — oh, god, he’s never going to live this down — and Chuuya latched on to him like a koala. Granted, Dazai smelled like black seed oil and while the oil never actually did anything for Chuuya’s aching bones, it did always have a knack for putting him to sleep, but that is so not the point. 

To be fair, though, Chuuya is not without ammunition of his own. Because, while Chuuya did indeed wrap his arms around Dazai like a goddamn koala, Dazai is also holding on to Chuuya’s hands in his sleep. Very tightly.

Yeah, he’s definitely touch-starved. 

Chuuya recalls Mori telling him to take the day off and tightens his arms around Dazai, nuzzling his face into soft locks and going right back to sleep. 

Dazai waking up and discovering this is a problem for future Chuuya.

Notes:

I needed anti-inflammatories myself by the end of this but it was totally worth it to write :>>

Chapter 2

Chuuya is not paying attention to Kunikida at all. The detective is saying something about how grateful he is to Chuuya for ensuring that Dazai actually submitted the report for the last Port Mafia and Armed Detective Agency endeavour and how he hopes Chuuya will ensure it happens this time again, while Chuuya is rubbing his wrist and wondering how, even when they’re no long working for the same organisation, is he still doing Dazai’s reports for him. 

The shitty bastard could at least repay him. 

He spots Dazai talking to Yosano and puts his hand on Kunikida’s shoulder to shut him up. 

“Just write his reports for him. He never does them. Trust me.”

Kunikida sputters for a second and then blurts out his first thought. “I didn’t know you could reach my shoulders.”

“Hah?!”

“Sorry! Sorry, I didn’t mean that!”

Well, at least now he’s justified in storming away from Kunikida. 

He wanted to go home immediately after and get away from the detectives, but Dazai insisted that he tag along to the agency to accept Kunikida’s thanks. He can’t fathom how Akutagawa puts up with this whenever Dazai pulls his silly little strings and orchestrates a mission that requires Akutagawa and Atsushi to work together. He’s done listening to Kunikida now, but the pain is starting to set in and he could drive all the way home or he could get instant relief another way. 

Yosano falters with her sentence when Chuuya marches up to Dazai and grabs his wrist, planting his hand on his own wrist. Dazai continues as if Chuuya isn’t even there, absently wrapping his hand around Chuuya’s wrist and squeezing gently. Chuuya’s sullen frown melts away and he sighs as warmth floods his wrist and stops the pain from spreading. 

“Uh,” Yosano says intelligently, her gaze flickering to Chuuya, who really couldn’t care less about his happy little hums as Dazai loosens and tightens his grip repeatedly, like a pulse. He closes his eyes and leans against Dazai.

“We’ll have to arrange for capture,” Dazai continues, rubbing circles over Chuuya’s pulse point with his thumb, just there where his glove ends. “An ability user like that is too dangerous to leave on the loose.”

“R-right,” Yosano says. 

“I was thinking we could pass it off to Kyoka and Atsushi. Atsushi is great with combat, not so much with tracking. Kyoka is good, though, and I think she could teach Atsushi a few things that are best learned on the job. Plus he’ll be able to help her control her strength in combat, since we want to capture and not kill.”

Yosano nods, now fully watching Chuuya blindly reach out with his other hand, slapping Dazai in the process. She watches Dazai catch Chuuya’s hand without looking, giving his wrist a small squeeze and it pulls out a very strange sound from Chuuya. Something between a sigh and a squeal. He sounds like a happy cat. 

“Better?” Dazai asks and Yosano blinks before she realises Dazai is talking Chuuya. 

Chuuya hums. “Warm.”

“Uh, is he okay?”

“My bones are fighting with each other,” Chuuya says. 

“He has hypermobility,” Dazai translates.

“Ah, and . . . this helps?”

“Heat and pressure,” Dazai says with a shrug. 

Chuuya rolls his left wrist in Dazai’s grip and Yosano watches Dazai open his hand. Chuuya curls his hand into a fist and the noise it makes silences everyone within earshot. Chuuya just sighs as Dazai closes his hand around his wrist again. 

“Okay, whose bones just broke?” Kenji asks. 

“Mine,” Chuuya calls, raising his arm. Dazai’s of course, follows. “It’s fine, though.”

“That sounded very painful,” Yosano says, still wincing from the frankly horrifying cracks that echoed in the office. 

“It’s not,” Dazai says. “It hurts if he doesn’t do that often enough. It’s not always that loud, though. He usually doesn’t do it in company but I guess it hurts a bit more than normal after today.”

“Yeah, I don’t think that’s supposed to happen.”

Dazai shrugs. “You try telling him that. He’s been like this for over fifteen years.”

“I want my drugs,” Chuuya grumbles. 

“Anti-inflammatories,” Dazai clarifies to Yosano. 

She rolls her eyes. “Yeah, I figured.”

“Chuuya, you can’t take one now. You had one before we got here and it hasn’t even been an hour.”

“Dazai,” Chuuya whines. “It hurts.”

“I know, chibi,” Dazai says gently. “I know. Do you think you can drive?”

Chuuya opens his eyes to glare at Dazai. “Do I look like I want to drive right now, fish face?”

“Sorry, sorry.”

“Do you need anything?” Yosano asks. “Wrist wraps? Heat pads?” She glances at Chuuya, who’s trying to pull Dazai away with Dazai’s grip on his wrists. “A sedative?”

“Nah, chibi keeps good stock of everything he needs.”

“Da- zai!”

Yosano gestures to the door. “I’ll work on the brief for Atsushi and Kyoka.”

“Thank you!” Dazai sings. 

“Fucking finally,” Chuuya grumbles when Dazai moves.

---

“Stinky mackerel bastard,” Chuuya grumbles, lightly pressing down on the bandaid he applies above Dazai’s eyebrow. 

“Look at you, taking such good care of me.”

Chuuya rolls his eyes. “It’s only because you rubbed my wrists for me. And I guess a little because you drove me home.”

Dazai hums. “You made quite the spectacle of yourself back there.”

“I don’t care. It hurt.”

Dazai keeps one arm around Chuuya’s waist and brings the other between them so he can lift Chuuya’s bandaged arm to his face and kiss his wrist. “My strong little slug. Mm, you smell like wintergreen.”

“That’s the ointment, dipshit. And don’t call me little. I could drop kick you.”

“Yeah, and so can Kenji. You’re not special for that.”

Chuuya slaps the back of Dazai’s head, then winces. “Ow.”

“Ow,” Dazai echoes. “I’m injured.”

“And I’m currently disabled. Get over yourself.”

Dazai huffs in amusement and returns his hand to Chuuya’s waist. “You and I both know you could still punch your way through an army if necessary.”

“If necessary,” Chuuya states. “Which it isn’t.”

“Mm, I suppose not.”

Chuuya leans back slightly and rubs his fingers over the slightly red skin that had been beneath the bandage around Dazai’s neck. “How old were these?”

“A day and a half.”

“Stupid. I told you to change them every day if you weren’t going to use the oil.”

“I do! Mostly.”

Chuuya scoffs. “You just want me to do it for you.”

“It feels nice when you do it.”

“Yeah, right. You just want my hands all over you.”

“Can’t say I’m opposed to that.”

Dazai leans forward and Chuuya shoves him back. 

“You’re going to aggravate your wrists if you keep manhandling me.”

“Worth it. Stubborn brat.”

“Needy dog.”

“Stinky fish.”

Dazai grins. “Pretty boy.”

“Shut up!”

“Look at you, flushing like a schoolgirl.”

Chuuya covers Dazai’s face with his hand. “Shut! Up!”

Dazai shakes his head and tilts it back as far as it can go without straining his neck too much. “As much as I like the scent of your ointment, pipsqueak, I cannot breathe if you shove it in my face like that.”

“Suffocate and die, then.” But Chuuya does drop his hand. He plays with the loose neckline of the terribly worn T-shirt Dazai out on after Chuuya unwrapped all his bandages. “Really?” he asks when Dazai tugs his shirt up. “You just wrapped my hands for me.”

Dazai snakes his hands up under Chuuya’s shirt and Chuuya is still glaring at him until Dazai puts just a little more pressure on Chuuya’s spine. Chuuya inhales sharply and sits up rigid for a second before going boneless and collapsing against Dazai with a happy sigh, who huffs out an amused breath. 

“Better?” Dazai asks. 

Chuuya hums an affirmation. 

“Thought so. You’re not so frown-y anymore.”

“You had to have made some kind of deal with the devil,” Chuuya mutters. “No one just has such magic hands.”

Dazai laughs under Chuuya. “Do you want me to rub your back?”

“No, this is fine. It’s not that sore.”

“Shoulders?”

Chuuya thinks about it. “‘M fine.”

“All right.” 

Dazai runs his hand down Chuuya’s spine once more, this time applying more pressure than before. It pulls a very obscene sound from Chuuya that makes Dazai cackle. 

“Shut the fuck up!”

“That nice, huh?” Dazai asks, still laughing. 

Chuuya yanks at Dazai’s hair. “Shut up! Shut up! Just — shut up!”

Dazai’s laughter decreases in volume, but his shoulders still shake with suppressed laughter and Chuuya can feel him laughing. 

“Ass,” Chuuya mutters.

“Shall I do that again?”

“I’ll fucking kill you if you ever do that without warning again.”

Dazai hums. “I should’ve done it back at the office.”

Chuuya — somehow — drives his knee into Dazai’s ribs. “I will throw you out of my apartment right now.”

“I’m kidding, chibi. I wouldn’t do that to poor Kenji. Kunikida, on the other hand, well, I would pay good money to see the look on his face.”

“You’re broke, bandage whore.”

“Okay, that one actually hurts my feelings.”

Chuuya huffs in amusement. “Good. It was supposed to.”

“Tired?” Dazai asks after a moment. 

“How many hours has it been?”

“Only three and a half.”

Chuuya grumbles under his breath. 

“Sorry. Come on, you’ll feel better under a blanket.”

Which is true, but Chuuya is very comfortable right now. He’d much rather fall asleep here on the couch in Dazai’s lap and wake up tomorrow in his room than get up and walk there himself. 

Plus, if he gets up, Dazai’s hands won’t be on his back anymore and Dazai’s hands are like heat pads right now. He whines when they disappear from his skin and frowns when he feels Dazai’s hands beneath his thighs. 

And then Dazai stands. 

“Wh- Dazai!” Chuuya wraps both arms around Dazai’s head. He’s not keen on falling from so high up. Now he’s really wrapped around Dazai like a koala. 

“Chuuya, darling, I cannot see with your hand in my face. Also, my eyes are starting to burn.”

Chuuya lowers one of his arms, wrapping it around Dazai’s neck and keeping the other wrapped around the top of Dazai’s head. “Drop me and I will skin you alive before I hand you over to Yosano and then I will break every bone in your body and then I will give you back to Yosano and then I will —”

“Yes, yes, I get it. It’s not like you weigh much anyway. Some of us are capable of holding our weight without the help of an ability.”

Chuuya digs his heel into Dazai’s spine. “I can pick you up, for the record. I’m just not supposed to.”

“That sounds like it would be very awkward,” Dazai says, walking through the doorways carefully so he doesn’t smack Chuuya’s against any of them. 

“I think it would look funny.”

Dazai hums. “Maybe. You can try one day when your wrists aren’t trying to kill you — but only if you wear your compression gloves.”

“Shut up, you don’t know anything.”

“Untrue. I learned a lot about taking care of you.”

“Yeah, and then after three years of taking care of me every single time this happened, you just up and left me to deal with it myself.”

Dazai lays Chuuya down but Chuuya doesn’t let go. He brushes Chuuya’s hair back and kisses his forehead. “I’m sorry.”

“I know. Now, make up for it.”

“I already wrapped your hands.”

Chuuya tugs on Dazai’s neck. “Down.”

“You always complain that I’m heavy.”

“You are. Gin borrowed my weighted blanket last week and never gave it back. Be my weighted blanket.”

“But —”

“Weighted blankets don’t talk.”

Dazai huffs before giving in and collapsing on top of Chuuya. 

“That’s better. You’re warm.”

Dazai relaxes after a moment. 

“You can talk, you know,” Chuuya murmurs. 

“I like the way wintergreen smells on you,” Dazai says immediately, burying his face in Chuuya’s neck to the point where his hair tickles Chuuya’s cheek. 

Chuuya runs his hand over one of Dazai’s arms, feeling the way Dazai twitches at the contact. “When was the last time you slept without your bandages?”

“Last time I stayed over.”

“You should stay over more often, then. I can feel the imprints. You’re tying them too tight.”

“Tighter feels better.”

“You’re going to cut off your circulation one day.”

Dazai huffs and it tickles Chuuya’s ear. “You make me tie yours tight.”

“Moron. Only when I use the compression bandages and I only keep those on for a few hours at a time. I’d have to amputate my arms if I kept it up for a full day.”

“Go to sleep,” Dazai says instead of arguing. “Or I’ll get up.”

“No, don’t do that,” Chuuya whines, wrapping his other arm around Dazai’s neck in something of a weak headlock. “My bones will start crying.”

“You’re so weird,” Dazai says, twisting his arm out of Chuuya’s hold to grab his wrist and squeeze gently. 

Chuuya sighs and offers Dazai his other hand too. “I like your hands. They’re warm.”

“I know. Now, sleep. Or I won’t make breakfast for you.”

Chuuya huffs but before long, he’s dozing off. He knows Dazai will get off him before he falls asleep too, but not until Chuuya is too far asleep to notice. It’s sweet. 

“I missed this,” Chuuya mumbles without meaning to. 

“I know,” Dazai whispers and the ‘so did I’ goes unsaid. 

Notes:

I’m on Tellonym and Curious Cat now!

Notes:

sincerely,
a bandaged bitch who took 8 years to discover the concept of hypermobility 💕

(P.S. like 98% of Chuuya’s dialogue is all Things I Have Said Before)