Chapter Text
There was plenty to complain about when it came to Dazai Osamu . Chuuya hated the asshole the minute he waltzed into Suribachi City. It was so obvious he was constantly scheming, and yet people rarely spoke up about it. Everyone had to have known, had to have seen it. But…well, he played Shirase and Yuan well enough, and…
Ugh. Asshole.
Well, Chuuya would admit, it was nice to not be on the receiving end of his scheming- was usually quite funny, actually. Seeing the realisation in enemy eyes when they clocked they had been outsmarted. There was nothing more insulting than the skinny brunet being the one to grin so wickedly, Chuuya knew exactly the kind of hatred those people must’ve felt in those moments. He almost empathised…but he didn’t care for them too much, so whatever.
Enemies were enemies. They were Mori’s enemies, enemies of the organisation, therefore they needed to be stamped out. The quicker it happened, the quicker Mori would raise the Mafia from the shit it’d been plunged into during the last boss’s crusade against anything that moved . Dazai described him like an over-excitable cat, as if a blood-hungry man with a deadly organisation at his disposal ( if run correctly ) was nothing more short of normal.
Sure, Mori was off-putting. Had he earned Chuuya’s respect? Mostly. He didn’t keep himself from talking back, the born-rite of a teenager, and he was continuously warned against it. He could take care of himself, though. It’s not like he had to fight to survive or anything. The difference now was the disposable income.
Unfortunately, to keep that disposable income, he had to do some shit he didn’t like. Today, that included being called to Mori’s office and essentially being put on babysitting duty because of a recent attempt.
Was that what he told Dazai when he saw him? Saw being a generous word in this context. The brunet didn’t look up at all from his place laying face first on the couch.
No.
“This place fucking stinks like fish, mackerel. You can smell it in the corridor.” That’ll do.
“Are you sure it isn’t rat that you're smelling?” was the muffled reply that sent Chuuya’s temperature skyrocketing. “I was sure you’d be used to bad smells given how often you wouldn’t have had the opportunity to wash.”
“I had plenty of fucking opportunity, and I took it , unlike you, fucking ungrateful cretin.”
“That’s a new one.”
“Die.”
Dazai whined. “I’m trying, but chibi is interrupting me!”
“Wasting away on the couch isn’t exactly painless,” he mumbled, checking the cupboards for anything edible. Nothing. And the fridge was a fucking hazard zone, he wasn’t fucking touching that. Something might crawl out and bite him. “Kinda counterproductive, don’t you think?”
“I’m not going to be lectured on the art of suicide by a chibi hatrack.”
That earned him a smack square on the back, which made him arch and flop down with an even louder whine than earlier. Chuuya was tempted to hold a pillow over his face until he passed out. At least he’d be able to search the apartment for Dazai’s razors and knives and shit without the running commentary.
On top of that, he was notorious for shitty self-care skills.
“Brute.”
“I wasn’t kidding, this place stinks. Open a fucking window, would ya?” He stared at an empty table, fantasising about putting an air freshener on it. The place smelled of stale air and iron. It was also disturbingly empty.
This kid is such a freak.
“Go shower, disgusting brat.”
“But I’ll get cold so quickly! And my hair is a pain to dry and-!”
“You have the means to take care of yourself, you just don't,” he signalled towards the bathroom. “You’re a lazy bastard. Brush your teeth, at least.”
He didn’t move. It was really starting to annoy him.
“Suit yourself,” he hissed, stomping out and slamming the door behind him. He wasn’t about to be late to see Kouyou-san for that idiot. She’d probably get it, but he wasn’t risking getting on her bad side.
Turns out, it didn’t matter. In his defence, he had been a little on edge since Dazai’s last attempt. They were meant to have a mission, everything was planned and ready, then the day of, Dazai didn’t show and Chuuya was the one who wrestled him down from the chair. He’d been with Mori for hours after it, returning with this dead look in his eye that Chuuya had stifled a shiver at.
It looked so wrong. How was a human capable of making a face like that? Of pulling something so disturbing from within themselves? Boss, maybe , he had some pretty creepy expressions. But he hadn’t even caught sight of the dead mackerel eye earlier with the brat’s head buried in the pillow. Maybe something really was wrong.
It sat in his gut for hours. Kouyou-san had no problem scolding him for his lack of focus- each time, all he could say was sorry, and continued the task at hand. Dazai was meant to pop in, was meant to make fun of his writing, then dodge around the edge of the door when Chuuya sent something flying in his direction.
It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Dazai masked all his weird shit with a cheery persona. Chuuya wasn’t completely heartless. The younger was a certified Pain In The Ass, and he made sure everyone knew, and it made it everyone’s problem when he felt like it. He wondered if it was some weird cry for help, but Dazai responded kinda weirdly to anything you could perceive as nice, so maybe he was just an awkward, gangly teenager.
Yeah, as if. The Demon Prodigy, that dumb moniker he’d heard Mori use in private a few times, an awkward teenager? No way. He manipulated everyone around him.
Though…Chuuya, decidedly not heartless. There were lots of times where he held no sympathy for the guy, more than happy to drag him around and piss him off the same way he did others. Sometimes the inconvenience of having to deal with him was bearable knowing that he felt just as shitty and inconvenienced when dragged from whatever hole he was in.
Other times, seeing the mackerel laying down, or sitting down, or standing up, with that blank look on his face, it made him look unbelievably tired. It made Chuuya want to bat away any hands that came near them or wave away any command or any voice that carried to their ears, just so he could drag him away to get some rest. But Dazai just didn’t sleep , and he couldn’t exactly force him.
When he looks like that, he’s quiet, he looks smaller than he is. Chuuya hates it as much as he hates Dazai’s rotten personality.
And his whinging. Was there actually anything to worry about?
“Don’t wanna,” he whinged.
“Don’t want to? Or can’t?”
No response.
“Sit up,” he grumbled.
“Mori’s already handled it.”
Not well enough if he has to get me involved. “Obviously not.”
“I don’t need you to brush my teeth for me,” he spelled out, huffing and keeping his back turned as he sat up and hopped off the couch.
“Then do it. ”
“I already have!” He kicked the side of his couch and the action sent waves of frustration through the redhead.
“For someone who insists he’s never been a kid, you sure fucking act like one.”
“I’m sorry, have I missed something?” He harped on, the words enough to grab Chuuya’s attention, ignoring the sarcasm for a second in favour of reeling back at hearing those words come out of his mouth, even if they were passive aggressive. “Do normal fifteen year olds have hands dripping with blood? Do they clear away dead bodies? Do they even know what a corpse smells like? ”
“If they met you, they fucking would,” he shot back, ignoring the grunt that turned to a yell from the brunet, looking as though he was on the brink of pulling his hair out. “It’s never fucking bothered you before, not being like a normal fifteen year old. You get off on people fearing you, the fuck do you think you’re missing?”
“You don’t get it, ” Dazai started, but Chuuya had heard enough at this point. He’d spent almost the entirety of his day wasted on worrying when he was essentially fine-
( Was he? )
“I don't care! I don’t fucking care, Dazai! I don’t care how hard it is for you to take care of yourself, or to practise basic hygiene, or how much of a fucking inconvenience you think taking a break from your wallowing is to do something to keep yourself alive. I’m your fucking partner, I was literally put in charge of stopping you from killing yourself so the boss didn’t have to fucking deal with you all the time. You think I want to fucking deal with all of this? The only reason I’m doing it is to get Mori off my ass!”
The brunet opened his mouth but Chuuya held his hand up, and miraculously, Dazai did not interrupt as he continued.
Here’s to all the shit I swore I wouldn’t say out loud. “You might not value your life, but I value mine! And the only way to keep myself in any kind of position here is to deal with your stubborn ass. You parade around the fact that you won’t get killed here because you’re too valuable, and I am fully aware that you don’t give a fuck about anyone else trying to keep their life, but the least you can fucking do is go inflict yourself on someone else! Give me a fucking break!”
His chest was heaving at this point, and he barely regretted it. The single brown eye staring back at him was blown wide, and the open shock was enough to spur Chuuya on.
“If you’ve been waiting for some kind of confirmation that I hate your fucking guts, you’ve got it, you fucking asshole, as if everything else wasn’t enough,” he took a heavy breath in, only now realising how hard it was to breathe. “We’re only partners for missions, I don’t need to fucking ‘babysit you’ as you put it. Now you know- you’re using me? I don’t have a choice but to use you right back, and that doesn’t mean anything to a fucking husk like you because you have no comprehension of the meaning of a life, but you are only good to me for as long as I mean jackshit to the mafia. The minute I’m up there? You will never see me again, mark my fucking words.”
It took a minute, but the bandaged brunet left the room. His own room, mind you, but Chuuya was beyond caring. He barely caught himself before leaving the room, realising that he’d have to turn the place upside down for things the brunet could hurt himself with.
Now, he hadn’t thought about it when he returned to meet with the Flags until later in the evening. He’d adequately complained, as much as he could around reasonable new people in his life, but when he checked Dazai’s dorm and he was nowhere to be found, only thrown open cupboards in the bathroom and no bandages-
He kept bandages stocked in his own dorm for this exact reason. Not that he’d needed them before, but he was almost thankful-
He smashed the door.
“Oi! Stop fucking ignoring me!”
He rammed the door and it swung open, hitting the wall loudly.
“ GET THE FUCK OUT!”
His hands, his arms , were dripping with blood. He launched at his partner, cold terror gripping him as he fought to wrestle the razor out of his hand. He slammed the boy’s back into the vanity and wrapped his arms around his torso, pinning the boy’s red arms to his side. The hands grabbed at any part of him and tried to scratch him, but there wasn’t much he could do with bitten nails. Spindly fingers prodded, poked and squeezed at any part of Chuuya’s skin he could reach, and it still wasn’t enough.
The redhead wouldn’t let go, his expression set and regardless of how much jostling there was, he was dead set on keeping him still. When the brunet pushed them both towards the wall, the towel rack digging into Chuuya’s back, surprising him enough for his grip to loosen, he sprang and tried to run.
Chuuya was quicker, though. Figures , Dazai did what he needed to, trained hard enough, but Chuuya lived and breathed combat and brawn, unlike his admittedly strategic partner. His arms were tight around the struggling teenager and he squeezed as hard as he could. It only made him struggle more, but what the hell was he supposed to do?
Eventually they both calmed down, and were left sitting amongst the mess on the floor. Chuuya’s eyes zeroed in on the flecks of red, the streams, anywhere the red was, he was staring at it. He looked down at himself, or rather where his arms sat on Dazai’s back, all skin and bones, his chin tucked tightly over the brunet’s shoulder. His own arms tan against a white dress shirt that looked very different from the front. The body in his arms felt so… small. And it was shivering slightly.
In the quiet, Chuuya could only morbidly think, I didn’t check hard enough.
He was brought out of his thoughts by wobbly air pushed from wheezing lungs. Words probably. He grunted in confusion. Dazai raised his voice from inaudible to barely a whisper, but with their proximity, it was enough. “You did your job.”
“Yeah, right,” he scoffed, not bothering to curb the edge in his voice or the volume. “My job is never fucking done.”
“Why not go?”
“Mori,” he said simply. Am I lying?
They sat there a little longer, Chuuya realising he was slowly rocking them both back and forth. It was an embarrassing enough motion to be teased for, but there was no more communication from his partner.
Partner.
He made up his mind on what he was doing. He had no idea how bad the cuts were under the blood, but with that amount, it couldn’t be good. They needed to be taken care of. Dazai’s self care was dogshit…that’s what he was there for…wasn’t it?
“What…are you…?” His voice faded in and out, still limp in the corner like a puppet with its strings cut when Chuuya pulled away gently, still sitting very close, as if afraid to leave the little bubble that’d somehow formed around them.
He sighed loudly, frowning and reaching for the towel, at least there was a fucking towel in there. It was prickly and rough, and not at all suitable for delicate skin. He was buying new ones, he’d even asked Kouyou what brand was nice, he hated most of the shit in the mafia dorms. But you couldn’t be choosy when someone could bleed out in front of you.
“No,” he whispered, something very unlike Dazai coming out in his tone. Chuuya balanced the towel in his hands. It felt terrible.
“It needs to be cleaned, bastard,” he muttered, but didn’t reach out to pry his arms away from him. Dazai would fall and hit his head if he tried to stand, surely.
“I’ll do it. I will.”
He didn’t think he could frown any harder. Why does it sound like you’re convincing yourself of that? His eyes widened as he realised what he was picking up on. Desperation.
Fear.
Fear. Afraid. Of him.
“It’s not a punishment,” he tried slowly, leaning closer. Dazai only stared. “I’m…” what? Trying to help? After I went off on him?
Is this my fault?
He looked his partner over again. His partner.
This is my fucking fault.
“I’m not a cornered animal.” The voice sounded unimpressed enough that it could’ve been said when they hadn't been tangled in each other minutes prior, and instead while they were bickering in front of the Boss, but it was still a notch lower in volume than usual.
“Let me clean it.”
“Why?”
“I was…fucking mad, okay?” He felt his body sag in defeat. Sure, he’d thought those things, what he’d said before, but not all of it was true. Not always. “But we aren’t the same. I... do care that things are hard for you. It…” feels like it’s my fault. So he said that.
Dazai’s expression finally left indifference, morphed to confusion. “How?”
“I don’t know, I don’t,” he rubbed his face with the part of his hand without blood on it. It’s true, they were kinda past blood bothering them at this point, but this was different to that. “I just-” why isn’t someone trying to help enough to make you want to try? “I’m not doing this just because of Mori. I don’t- I didn’t mean the…the, uh, conditional partners thing.”
Dazai cocked his head further. Usually the movement would be annoying, but it seemed to be how he was showing he was engaged in what was going on. Chuuya was begrudgingly thankful for it.
“So…I’ll clean it,” he finished lamely, sighing. “But…not in here, I have paper towels, we’ll just-”
“Mori goes through the trash.”
“Huh?”
The younger boy shook his head.
“Why would a mafia boss want to go through trash?” I knew the answer the second he finished asking, but Dazai didn’t even tease him for it, and there was no mocking when he responded.
“To make sure I haven’t been, y’know,” he tsked, sounding slightly more like himself. The stark differences, the casual air while they sat on the floor speckled red, it would usually make Chuuya dizzy. It didn’t this time, and he mourned it, in a way.
“I’ll just take the trash out with me or something,” he shrugged. “I’ll handle it.”
The brunet hummed quietly, hopefully he would feel a little… lighter. Chuuya was thankful for some calm, and yet…
“I should probably have a shower.”
His mind raced. Good , that was an effort to try and take care of himself- but damnit, it could be a ploy to be alone and try again. He nodded slowly.
The eye rolling that’d usually earn him a slap or a punch was simply left to pass. “You took my razor.”
Admit that I breached his privacy while searching his dorm? “Still,” he said slowly. “You’ve lost a lot of blood, huh…?”
“That desperate to see me naked?”
The whiplash had Chuuya’s wide eyes pinned on a smug face with that twinkle in his eye when he was being a little prick. He should really be thankful for the normalcy. “Eh?! Fucking creeper!”
“Ah, but Chuuya is the creeper! Wanting to watch me bathe, how disgraceful~!”
“Dumbass!” He groaned. Watching means no bandages, means- “That’s such a breach of privacy.” Says you. Hypocrite.
“Relax, chibi. I know you looked through my dorm for things I could hurt myself with,” he waved his hand. Chuuya’s ears went pink. “You took all my utensils, idiot.”
“Well-!” He really couldn’t say anything to that.
“I’m used to that kind of thing, it doesn’t bother me too much.”
Chuuya’s eyebrows furrowed. “What do you mean you’re used to it?”
“Mori,” he said simply, and it was enough to make Chuuya’s face crinkle in disgust. He didn’t want to know , but the nonchalance was a bit difficult to ignore. Obviously he’d noticed, because Dazai started teasing again. “Not doubting dear ol’ boss, are we, doggy?”
“ Ugh . Just shower.”
“Are you successfully convinced? You sure you don’t want to see what’s under the-?” He was cut off by a shirt pelted at his face. He brought it down, pouting, watching Chuuya’s retreating figure. “That was mean.”
“ Go. ”
“Fine, fine,” he sulked. “The cuts aren’t even deep, just FYI. I’m not going to faint because of the heat or fall over from blood loss. Chibi is so~ dramatic!”
Chuuya was on high alert the minute the water turned on, and pretty much until he and Dazai were settled on the dorm couch with gameboys in their hands. Inviting me to tease me. Inviting me…because he trusts me?
Dazai blinked at the plastic bags, Chuuya smiling triumphantly, and it was obvious he was seconds away from tipping Dazai’s world on its head again. Whatever was in those bags, little Chuuya bought for one purpose only, to encourage self-care. It was kind of…cute- no. Ew, no, it wasn’t. Wasn’t endearing at all, the silly puppy thinking he was…eh, doggies did take care of their owners, huh?