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Akutagawa hasn’t seen Dazai in this state much. Almost not at all. He can remember two times and he remembers them well.
The first time, Mori-san had been there and had quickly shooed Akutagawa away. The second and last time, he’s not sure if it was a suicide attempt or not. Akutagawa wasn’t and still isn’t (never will be) qualified to say, but if he were to admit it to himself, he knows Dazai could have dodged that attack. Dazai had chosen not to.
He’d had to patch Dazai up. Of course, he’d been more than enthusiastic to, in his own stoic way, but Dazai had only allowed it when it became obvious the blood loss was making him too out of it to walk away. He’d accepted the painkillers a little less hesitantly, not that that says much, staring at the pills like it was any other mind game. Some kind of trap to outthink.
When he’d taken them finally, Akutagawa’s hand had tingled where Dazai’s fingertips brushed it.
There’s a third time now though. The new last time. There’s no Mori and there’s no wound to patch up. He has to claw his fingers down into Dazai’s throat until Dazai throws up whatever concoction he’d overdosed on and then some more.
Even Dazai isn’t strong enough to push Akutagawa off after all of that. And that’s where the first problem comes. Something in Akutagawa’s veins sings. The pressure of Dazai’s skin against his. The pressure of it and then it giving under his hands. No resistance. He ignores it. Has ignored far worse. It’s easy to ignore when he’s trying to make sure his mentor isn’t going to die.
There’s no wounds to patch up though. None that Akutagawa can patch up anyway. And he doesn’t call Mori-san either. It’s not that he’s not planning to. He’s about to actually, ignoring how his chest aches with that as well.
Then Dazai’s hand sluggishly lifts, moving with more purpose than Akutagawa has seen in the last few days. It falls limply against Akutagawa’s, the one holding the phone, and quickly slips off and back down to the bed with a soft thud.
“Don’t you dare.” Dazai’s voice is rough. Tired. There’s nothing of the usually intimidating executive Akutagawa’s used to in it. Akutagawa locks the phone.
It doesn’t take long for Dazai to pass out, and it’s the most human Akutagawa’s ever seen him. The ache in Akutagawa’s chest sparks and burns.
It’s a simple escalation from there, really. There’ll never be another chance. It’s only natural. Natural for someone like him who’s only survived by living the life of an opportunist. It’s a hard habit to break, even now that he has an actually stable source of food and shelter for both him and Gin. He tells himself that when he reaches out to touch Dazai’s face, it’s to prove the demon prodigy is just as human as himself.
As if that even means anything.
Dazai’s cheek is warm, flustered even. Akutagawa’s almost worried that a fever is on the way, but that’s something he can worry about later. Because it’s so warm and so soft too. It’s not as if Dazai’s dodged much worse and impending threats than a fever anyway.
He only lets his fingers glance over Dazai’s parted lips before he moves on, brushing through Dazai’s brown hair. That’s soft too. Soft and thick. Akutagawa’s fingers catch on a tangle but Dazai gives nothing more than a scrunch of his nose as Akutagawa works through it.
It’s startlingly cute. It reminds Akutagawa of a rabbit. It shouldn’t have Akutagawa’s gut twisting in warmth.
He finds that Dazai’s legs are just as warm, hair thin and fair despite how dark it is on his head. It’s all even warmer when Akutagawa takes the trousers off. The clothing’s soiled from vomit and spilt sake. He needed to take them off.
And Akutagawa doesn’t do anything more than pull his cock from his own trousers anyway.
His hands already burn with a life of eagerness where he’s fondling Dazai — too much for them combined, nevermind Akutagawa by himself. He can’t go any further. He wouldn’t survive something that intimate. That unfamiliar. That impossible to reach for someone like him.
Dazai’s legs are almost as thin of his own, nothing much to hold onto. But when Akutagawa pulls them together to fuck between, it takes his breath away. He tries not to inconvenience Dazai. He really does. Dazai’s recovering after all. But every now and then, his cock brushes Dazai’s clothed one and slowly but surely, a small tent forms under the briefs.
It’s harder to avoid after that.
And unlike the ache from before — the pain — it’s harder to ignore how Dazai reacts. Every other brush of Akutagawa’s cock against his has Dazai sighing out.
It sounds like heaven. It sounds like approval. Akutagawa barely holds himself together as he comes, a hand catching his seed so he doesn’t get Dazai any dirtier.
He almost goes to get Dazai off too. But that feels wrong. Like a line. He’s never been allowed to touch Dazai, not outside of training. He’s avoided it here too, as much as he could. He shouldn’t break such an unspoken rule. It feels like, in this world, the more unspoken a rule is, the worse the consequence.
Dazai awakens a few hours later. More than enough time for Akutagawa to clean the older boy up, sponging him down gently as he avoids as much skin to skin contact as possible, and then collect new clothes. They’re a bit too small on Dazai but Dazai’s too tired to admonish him. Somewhere in Akutagawa (that fire, now dwindling to tiny, pinprick embers, but embers that could catch and run ablaze regardless), he wonders if it’s something else. A sudden humility, maybe.
Impossible, though. Dazai knows everything, but he can’t know this.
Dazai knows everything.
The hard part now is for Akutagawa to calm his own racing heart. His cheeks feel like they’re on fire despite how they’re as pale as always. He hides his palms in his long sleeves, sweaty and sticky against the material. As if he hasn’t cleaned up everything.
But Dazai wakes up, and he says nothing.
In fact, he doesn’t say anything to Akutagawa for a week. Akutagawa doesn’t say anything either. Doesn’t seek Dazai out. It’s not his place. Not his right. It ends after a week, when Mori-san clears Dazai to continue on with training. Dazai’s punishing (deserving) punches still hurt.
But they burn now too. Like Dazai’s cheek and thighs. Dazai’s sweet sighs. They feel like heaven, like approval—
Akutagawa finally manages to use rashoumon to stop a quickfired set of bullets, fired by none other than Dazai and right at him.
“See?” he tells Akutagawa. “You’ve more use than just mindless attacking.”
Akutagawa likes to think that’s the closest he’s ever had to genuinely smiling.