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“I won’t make it to him,” Dazai realises, rather suddenly, staring down the blockade keeping him and Chuuya from getting past the doors to an old factory building currently being used as the base of operations for a new organisation that’s been causing the Mafia some trouble.
They’ve got a whole lot of ability users, grouped up of people forced out of their jobs because their employers weren’t licensed for ability users and they didn’t want to risk any of their workers using them on the job and then having to deal with sanctions from the Special Abilities Division.
It wouldn’t be an issue if this group weren’t so dead-set on playing vigilante as some antithesis to the Mafia, positing themselves as the better option for ability users with nowhere else to go. It’s mostly involved their getting into clashes with lower down subordinates, but there’ve been enough deaths to cause interest to someone.
Ango wanted names, information about the dead to report back to their families. Except this organisation hasn’t been turning back the bodies once they’re done. Dazai imagines they’re being melted down. Mori agrees. Not worth the effort of retrieving that data if it’s going to get more people killed. Ango, predictably, was unsatisfied. Decided to go on a retrieval mission on his own like an idiot. And now he’s been gone days. Dazai tracked him to here after a lot of rolling across the ground and having Chuuya tell him to calm the fuck down.
Numbers, weapons, abilities. Usually none of that means anything at all to Dazai. Especially not with Chuuya beside him. But this time- There’s a man shooting concentrated plumes of fire straight out of his hands. Not exactly the kind of thing Dazai can talk his way around or get close enough to nullify before the guy realises what’s coming and sets the whole place ablaze. And Chuuya’s gravity can’t do a whole lot against heat. Not without- He won’t be the one to suggest that .
Fuck. He should have figured out where Ango was earlier, before the Gifted had time to set up defence. He’s been too slow. He forces a smile onto his lips as the pounding weight of guilt raps against his head. “I guess it’s time to give up and die! How exciting.”
“You’ll get to him,” Chuuya interrupts, voice casual, eyes lazily tracking the blades of hot heat surging across the already scorched tarmac in front of the factory’s entrance.
Dazai, rarely enough, is wound up enough to bite at that. Snapping at Chuuya makes him feel fifteen again, out of his depth after feeling so little so long. “Do you see a fucking way in?”
“Don’t blow my fuckin’ head off,” Chuuya comments, finally dragging his eyes from their targets to meet Dazai head on. Let him see the sincerity there, sincerity and something else. Something more like devotion. “I’ll get you a way in.”
The ground grinds at Dazai’s knees through his slacks as he shifts, instinctual denial of Chuuya ever over-extending himself. “I’m not asking you-”
“You need something, I’ll do it,” Chuuya says simply. Like it is simple. Exchanged favours are common between them, and they both know that, but they’re usually veiled. A bet, a taunt, a challenge. This is none of those. This is duty, fidelity, faith. Dazai’s silence must be heavy enough for even Chuuya to feel its force. Countering Chuuya's control of weight without so much as a finger on him.
He opens his mouth, closes it, runs his tongue over his top teeth. Finally comes up with something to soften the blow he just landed, “Consider it payback for that shit you pulled two months back getting my subordinates out of the Snakepit.”
Dazai blinks, still lost in Chuuya’s earlier unanticipated honesty. Doesn’t think before he pokes holes in the shield Chuuya put up for them both. “But I only did that as payback to you for-”
“Damn it, Dazai, are you gonna argue with me all night, or are you gonna go get your friend?”
That word hits him something frigid, cold bites making their way across his spine. It’s not right. Nobody calls him that, and he returns the favour.
“Are you a child? He’s not my friend.”
“Don’t piss me off, just hurry your ass up about it,” Chuuya tells him, already stripping his gloves off. Dazai watches the motions, the quick tugging to loosen the fabric encasing each finger one by one before he pulls them off from the middle and drops them to the ground beside where they’re kneeling.
Dazai’s still off-centre. He doesn’t know how long he’ll take to get Ango and whenever Chuuya decides on this, he needs to know how much time he has. The slug’s being reckless and it’s leaving Dazai scrambling. It’s fine. When it’s the two of them, they’ll make it fine. “If my dog is so desperate to please me, how can I refuse?”
Chuuya doesn’t grant that a response. The only words that come out of his mouth are that damned phrase, opening his gateway before he loses control of his body. And then he’s flying at their enemy, blackholes emerging from his fists as shields. Absorbing everything that comes his way, even the blazing light of that concentrated flame. It’s not long before they’re pulling back, drawing Chuuya after them. Leaves the blockade keeping Dazai out diminished, and his way in immediately available.
Dazai picks Chuuya’s gloves up off the ground, tucks them safely away into his pocket. He can collect the rest of Chuuya’s abandoned items later, but not these. These he wants with him.
He has minutes, but letting Chuuya leave his eye-line for more than a second when he’s under this makes him antsy.
Still, Ango will be somewhere within and Dazai needs to find him before all of this is a waste of time.
The fire starts up pretty soon after Chuuya’s out of sight, that Gifted trying to delay his inevitable demise no doubt, and the smoke follows Dazai like a cloak.
It doesn’t take him long to locate his target. Even with his head split in two directions, Ango’s easy to find. He’s been locked in a storage cupboard in exactly the part of the building Dazai would expect a hostage to be kept: close enough to keep an ear out for but far enough from the exit that he’d have a hard time finding his way out without running into anyone. At least he doesn’t have to worry about that now.
Dazai knocks on the door twice in quick succession as substitute for a warning, shoots through the lock and swings it open to reveal Ango’s rather dishevelled form sat up against the back wall.
He looks offended. Rather rude really, after Dazai’s done him the rare courtesy of playing saviour. “You could have shot my head off.”
“Ah, but here it is,” Dazai gestures at Ango’s not-shot-off head, eyes flicking quickly over the rest of him for injuries, “perfectly intact.”
“I wouldn’t say ‘perfectly’.”
Dazai grins at him, a little more teeth than he means to. Distraction’s got him worse than usual. “Please, that’s nothing. You play damsel in distress better than I do.”
“Can you save that,” Ango starts, flat face only interrupted by a slight twitch in his brows as he strains to stand up, “for when we’re not trapped in a burning building?”
“No," Dazai answers, chirpy, "You’d better get going if you want to avoid choking on the smoke though. I called a car for you. If you don’t mind, I’ve got a dog to round up.”
Ango doesn’t have much of a reaction to that. Too busy getting himself out of this mess, or aware enough from his records of the deaths left in the wake of Double Black to know getting in their way won’t do him any favours.
Whatever it is gets him gone fast and Dazai is left to pick up the pieces Chuuya’s cut himself into to bring himself to the sharp point of Corruption.
Their enemies are long dead when Dazai makes it to him, and Chuuya’s voice has already been stretched into that high pitched cackling that marks Dazai’s time limit. There are crimson stains dripping over his lips, smeared beneath his nose and at his hairline, circling scarlet runes vibrant against his skin, irises shrunk down so much his eyes look blank.
There’s a kind of invulnerability to Chuuya an awful lot of the time. That strength of his rendering him immune to injury when most others would be hospitalised. But like this, at his most dangerous, he bleeds.
Dazai has never thought of Chuuya as anything less, but with the evidence that his body can break, he’s helplessly, hopelessly, hypnotizingly human. It isn’t the golden ichor of godhood gurgling in his throat and seeping from his skin. It’s the red of man. And Dazai wants to drink from it, anoint himself in it, collect the steady drip feed of that proof before it can be wasted on undeserving ground, polluted by all the rest of the violence Chuuya is surrounded with when he’s like this.
He makes it to his partner just as he reaches that peak, right before he begins to break down, and brings his fingers to slide against Chuuya’s skin. A hand to his wrist, stemming the flow of calamity until only Chuuya remains, unencumbered by all that weight. The second it’s off his shoulders though, his knees shudder and Dazai follows him to the ground when they give out. Situates himself in front of his partner so Chuuya’s heavy head can find rest on Dazai’s shoulder.
“You found your friend?” is the first question out of Chuuya’s mouth, muffled into the side of Dazai’s neck. Leaves the imprints of his warm breaths searing onto Dazai’s cool skin. Enough to offset the cold discomfort Dazai always feels with that unfamiliar word Chuuya spills at him.
“I did. He’s making his own way out.”
Chuuya nods slowly, head raising slowly up again to look Dazai in the eye. “Y’know, for a second there, I didn’t think you’d come back for me.”
Dazai ignores the stab that leaves; the split second of Chuuya’s doubt feels a lot more like a knife to the gut than a reasonable passing thought. Chuuya rarely seems to think Dazai capable of breaking his trust over this, however much Dazai irritates him with everything else. That’s just not something he would do. Not something he’d even consider.
“That’s unkind of you,” Dazai says, as he slides a finger under the leather of the collar circling Chuuya’s neck, “I could hardly leave my dog behind. I take my duties as owner very seriously.”
“You’re an ass,” Chuuya tells him, but it’s through twitching lips. Too tired to temper his smile.
“Yeah.”
It’s Dazai that brings Chuuya back from the abyss his own ability throws him into, and even as Chuuya discards those pieces of him that make him him, his coat, his gloves, that damned hat. The choker stays in place. Dazai’s piece of him remains steady against his skin. Bought a long time ago now, mostly as a joke. A little bit as a better alternative for the blue band he’d grown used to shackling his wrist. Great deal more mutual than that band had ever been.
A tether, a leash even the throes of corruption can’t fray. And Chuuya, feral as he is beneath that godlike power, pulls and pulls, and all Dazai does is hold on. Hold on, keep holding, wait for the lull as the ability tires itself right before it self-destructs. Just enough time to get his hand against sweating blood-stained skin, and find familiarity within that beautiful chaos, take his own turn to pull. Bring his partner right back from deep darkness and up to the surface.
It’s something indescribable to see Chuuya’s eyes blossom with returned recognition, burning blue irises igniting again, pupils more than infinitesimal slits. To see him swallow down that first gulp of air once he’s himself again. Once Dazai has made him himself again.
And then, when Chuuya sinks from exhaustion right into Dazai, weight uncontrolled but knowing he’ll be caught, Dazai gets to see him at his weakest. It’s rare for Chuuya. Rare for someone so committed to destroying himself for everyone he cares about while refusing to admit that’s what he’s doing. But here, in the aftermath of giving himself up to an ability so deeply destructive it turns internal just as much as it does external, Dazai gets to see him the closest to unchecked he ever is.
Makes him greedy for it. Chuuya’s pain leaves him easier to see. He’s deceptively good at putting up a front, but not here, not like this. And it’s Dazai’s exclusive privilege to see it.
“You gonna get us back to the safehouse, yeah?” Chuuya asks, breaking the silence, and bringing Dazai’s focus back to his face.
“Mm, I’ve got you.”
And he does. Chuuya’s passed out safely in his arms as Dazai carries him back, picking up his discarded hat and coat along the way.
No Longer Human hums around him all the while, so different to its usual state. By nature, it’s an ever-unsatiated beast, stealing power from its wielder and leaving them isolated, missing a piece of themselves that so many rely on as heavily as they would a limb. It’s never felt that way with Chuuya. He takes the come down with both hands, sinking into the very skin that’s stealing from him. Finding company in Dazai instead of the power Dazai deprives him of.
And power, Dazai knows, is an odd thing for the slug. He likes it, he’s good with it. But it leaves him lonely. That’s what happens when you’re ungrounded. Able to go up and up and up, unbound by gravity. But above, where no one else can follow, all you’ll find is solitude. How ironic for Dazai’s isolating ability to bring him down, away from that, and back to him.
The fact that Dazai can bring him back down, when no one else can get anywhere close, hits him something dizzying straight to the gut. No one can follow him up where he goes, but Dazai will go after him anyway, and nothing can stop him from getting to him.
Chuuya comes to slowly, awareness telling him of the soft touch against his hand and the cool balm of No Longer Human still in effect. Keeping his body still and opening his eyes slowly enough to catch Dazai in the act is easier than it should be. Bastard’s unusually distracted.
He’s got a chair drawn up to the shitty bed in this safehouse, coat slung over the back of it and waistcoat out of sight. Looks a little dishevelled in just his creased shirt. Not that he ever looks put together, but it's starker like this.
His face is open, mouth slightly parted, and eye staring with single-minded focus at the movement of his own finger. The one currently circling Chuuya’s open palm. Dazai’s tracing the shape of the quickly fading marks corruption had left, winding down and following the barely-there red down to Chuuya’s wrist where he pushes lightly against Chuuya’s pulse point. Pauses there a second, and then he brings his index back up and repeats the motion. It’s mindless, and so repetitive Chuuya could believe he’s been doing it for hours. His eye remains trained completely on his own movements across Chuuya’s skin.
It feels invasive, seeing Dazai like this, but Chuuya still drinks more than his fill before he alerts him. He could overindulge in Dazai when he’s unmasked like this enough to vomit on it, and keep on drinking him down even still. But that would be wasteful, and Dazai’d get stingy with what he lets Chuuya get away with.
“Isn’t this too fuckin' soft for you, bastard?” Chuuya gets out to cut off his own overconsumption. Comes out soft even through his ripped up throat.
“Chuuya?” Dazai’s face says he’s caught, but he doesn’t drop the delicate hold of Chuuya’s still limp hand. Chuuya doesn’t clench that hand either, leaves it open despite the ticking discomfort of his too-loose muscles.
“Don’t sound so fuckin’ shocked, what, you thought I died or something? Underwhelming reaction.”
“No I didn’t think that,” he snipes.
“Then what’s with all,” Chuuya gestures vaguely, “this.”
“You’re up earlier than usual,” Dazai says. It’s a clumsy redirection, especially when it points Chuuya in exactly the direction Dazai attempted to divert them from. Of course, there’s a half chance that’s on purpose, too.
Chuuya frowns, just a second to compute everything behind Dazai’s words. “This isn’t new for you, then.”
There’s an almost impressed light to his eye at that. Freak never can figure out if he wants to make Chuuya think he’s won a test or crossed a line. Whatever the fuck he’s thinking, his words are just as annoying as ever, “Ugh, you’re ruining my routine! Go back to snoring, you ugly slug, and hope the rest can help your stupid face.”
“Fuck no,” Chuuya grates out, too tired to be playing along with Dazai’s game of mental hide and seek, “we’re not doing that. Why were you-”
Dazai blows out a breath, needlessly puffing out his cheeks like an overstuffed squirrel as he does. “You’re so nosy. I was just bored. Needed something to do.”
“And your solution was stroking my fucking hands?”
Dazai tilts his head, faux confusion widening his eye, “Dog fur is supposed to be relaxing, don’t you know?”
“Fuck off.”
Dazai rolls his eyes, and with a disparaging, “If Chuuya insists,” begins to withdraw.
Chuuya shoots out a hand to stop him, and Dazai freezes up instantly. It’s kinda funny, like the nullifying piece of shit has been hit with an ability that he can’t stop. Chuuya gets a little lost staring at it, at what he’s done to him. “When do you ever do anything I tell you, huh?”
The words jolt him back to reality, and an insufferable smirk takes the place of the frozen stare. “Just when I know you don’t want me to.”
“That so?”
“You do want me here, Chuuya,” Dazai grins, far too fucking happy with himself, “you’ve given that much up yourself. Might as well ask what you’re going to ask.”
Yeah, because asking Dazai simple questions is bound to lead him to anything but a fucking headache. “That mean you’ll give me an answer?”
“If I choose to.”
Predictable piece of shit. “Bastard. You’ve done your bit bringing me back already.”
“That isn’t a question,” Dazai points out.
Chuuya glares instead of growling at him, takes a second grinding his teeth before he can get his question out. “So, why’d ya stay after? Could’ve got a car back and sent one to collect me in a couple hours.”
“I’ve made it enough of a habit already, haven’t I? Why are you only asking now?”
“Replying to a question with two questions, fuck. That’s why I hate you. If my arms were cooperating, I’d strangle you.”
Dazai quirks his lips, eyeing Chuuya’s apparently defective limbs. Fuck knows that face means Chuuya’s about to be proven wrong, but he’s hardly gonna withdraw it now. Dazai runs a cold finger up Chuuya’s exposed forearm, along the vein. Makes him shiver and tense up a little. Certainly not the signs of limp and uncontrolled. “Not cooperating, hm?”
“That’s what I said.”
Dazai just rolls his eyes, letting Chuuya get away with the obvious lie probably only because it was such a shit defence. That’s not Chuuya’s business. You take whatever wins you can with this bastard.
“You did something for me,” Dazai says simply. As if anything’s ever fucking simple with him. “Do you really expect my repayment to be leaving you here to sleep off the aftermath by yourself?”
“Would I be wrong to?”
“You wound me! I do so much for Chuuya, and still he speaks so horribly of me!”
Chuuya shifts his arm back, dropping out of Dazai’s touch and the delicate iciness of his ability. And with it, Dazai’s hands twitch like a damn addict. Tiny movements, and Chuuya’s pretty sure it’s only the unfortunate amount of time he’s spent attuning himself to his partner that lets him see it. But Dazai’s antsy.
“You really do this every time?” He means for it to sound casual, even a little mocking, light observance of Dazai’s need to confirm Chuuya’s still with him. The pressing to his pulse, the skin on skin because as long as Dazai’s ability soothes over him, Chuuya must be alive to need to be countered. Instead, those words come out awed, slightly shaky.
Dazai’s face remains empty. Chuuya’s just glad there are times he can return the prickly feeling of being watched, seen, known.
Maybe it’s that, the high getting Dazai back always brings him, that makes him act without thinking.
Dazai’s wrist is too thin in Chuuya’s grip. He’s not been eating properly these last few months. Something eating at him instead. He ignores that and focuses instead on Dazai’s eye when Chuuya brings his hand to rest against his neck. Deathlike cold skin softly pressed to Chuuya’s carotid, just beneath the leather of the choker. He can feel his own heartbeat pulsing against Dazai’s fingers.
There’s no sign of the dead pit staring at him. Instead, Dazai’s gaze is heavy pressure and Chuuya lets its weight settle over him.
“Chuuya’s being awfully strange. Perhaps we’ve missed a side effect and overuse is going to fry your brain!”
“Can you ever shut the fuck up, bastard.”
Apparently not. Talking too much because he’s out of his depth. He could at least try to be fucking subtle about it. “Not when I have serious concerns for your health. With your hat already eating your brain, we really need to act quickly before it shuts down!”
“Wonder if anything’s capable of shutting your fucking brain down. Would do us all a favour.”
For all Dazai’s words, he’s still distracted. It’s obvious in the part of his lips, the half-second too fast breaths, the too-perfect stillness of his body. When Chuuya swallows, Dazai’s eye immediately tracks the bobbing of his throat, cutting off the beginnings of a retort. Well, that’s certainly one method worth testing.
Chuuya brings his free hand to the buttons of his waistcoat.
“What on Earth is Chuuya doing now,” Dazai hisses.
Chuuya raises his eyebrows, finishing up the buttons of his waistcoat and starting work on his shirt, “Don’t y’already know, insufferable freak?”
Dazai’s weird about Death, seeks it like a lover, and then gets almost jealous when its skeletal fingers glide anywhere close to the skin of the people he considers his own something. Not friends, apparently, since he’s allergic to that word. Fuck knows what you’d call it. Care seems too dramatic. But that’s as close to what it is as language allows Chuuya to get. Care wrapped into muted possession. It’s a rare thing to find yourself among his belongings. There’s challenge in rarity, and Chuuya’s always liked challenge. Wanted it, almost as much as he wants the one that poses so damn many of them.
So, he’s just giving Dazai the opportunity to restake his claim, the easiest way he can. And getting exactly what he wants at the same time.
Dazai blinks, and something dangerous curls in Chuuya’s stomach and settles down with a purr of satisfaction. “But you’ve already done something for me tonight,” Dazai hums, “there’s no debt to cancel.”
“Oh,” he breathes, open mouth sinking into a tilted smile, left side showing teeth and right side still covered, “that’s- You don’t. You don’t know shit, do ya?”
Always seeing every fucking thing as a move on the board. He’s too paranoid these days, more even than he used to be. Too distracted looking for where things are going to go wrong to notice Chuuya’s dedication is something far simpler than contractual mutual benefit. He knows Dazai’s got him, that the equal exchange is guaranteed, is half-desperate for the way that balance makes him feel. But Chuuya would give even if it wasn’t, even when the doubt creeps in and he waits for the balance to shift out of his favour, because Dazai’s earned it. Because partner means a hell of a lot more than debt and repayment.
Dazai’s hand on his neck moves from pressing to grasping, getting a hold back on things, or setting one of his stupid fucking tests. He leans down too, faces so close they’re breathing each other’s air. Easier for him to log Chuuya’s reactions this close, takes away any chance to hide.
A low sound makes its way out of Chuuya’s throat, his eyes falling shut as it does. That, apparently, is enough of an answer for Dazai to find his feet again. Would be annoying, how fleeting having one over on Dazai is, if Chuuya wasn’t so desperate for the challenge it poses. The time limit on gained ground makes it all the more consecrated.
And maybe he’s letting his impulsivity drag him too far across a line he won’t be able to get back to, but it’s addictive, and rewarding, and Dazai’s going with him. Step for step.
And it's just that, the balance, the going and following and never really being sure who’s leading. Their mouths are together and Chuuya knows every inch they’ve crossed to get here, but can’t for the life of him tell who made the final reach. Dazai’s clambouring from his stupid chair into his place atop Chuuya, knees bracketing Chuuya’s thighs, and Chuuya wants to fucking eat him.
It takes a lot to keep anything more in his brain than the glide of Dazai’s tongue against his bottom lip, the caress of his thumb burrowing under leather to get at the soft flesh hidden beneath his choker
But Chuuya’s grip on Dazai’s wrist remains, and he uses it to bring Dazai’s hand away from its addictive ministrations against his neck, to take it lower. His partner’s fingers trace down his neck, under Chuuya’s careful direction, towards where Dazai wants them. Over his collarbone, parting his undone shirt, and then, finally, coming to rest pressed flat against his chest, over his heart.
No Longer Human’s effect runs gently through his skin and down to his bones. Reaching deep inside Chuuya, humming in his blood, following his veins to the centre and wrapping around an organ he so often doubts he even has. There’s no way to doubt it like this, with the cool caress of Dazai’s ability reminding him it’s there.
Nullification is tender for something built to take. It’s the point of call to their partnership. It’s touch, it’s closeness, it’s digging through the aching loneliness Chuuya finds under Corruption to remind him that despite how it often feels, he’s not been emptied out. Lighting shadows on all the realest pieces of himself. Ones he hasn’t lost, just forgotten, and ones that he knows are his own, entirely, and not echoes of a power that’s left him far more problems that it has ever solved.
Dazai sucks at his tongue and Chuuya’s responding noises are safely contained by his mouth. The hand at his heart is pushing, seeking, wanting.
Before Dazai, Chuuya never had a chance to know what anyone thought of him outside of his ability. Chuuya knows he’s powerful. Knows he can be useful and terrifying and he can rip life apart with the strength of long collapsed stars. But he isn’t separate from it; there is the weapon and then there is the boy. It’s easy to overlook the second after too long mesmerised by the first.
Some of them, he can’t even blame for it. The Sheep had needed the protection of offence, and they had, at least originally, saved the boy. It left him indebted, and he paid with himself, tipping the scales sharply in the direction of weapon. It had been enough until it wasn’t. Until someone had turned up and fascinated himself with the imbalance, added some weight to the long-unweighted half of the scale. And those grown used to weapon have no need for boy to go off and act for himself.
His ability has made people grasp for him, yet when he tries to maintain anything of himself alongside it, it makes him easy to throw away.
Here, entirely without it, there is only himself. And that, apparently, is worth keeping. Dazai takes him at both. Easy proximity to Chuuya at his sharpest without concern for slicing skin. And the same quiet appreciation for Chuuya devoid of it all, when his only weapons are his own teeth.
With Dazai over him like this, Chuuya keeping his hand against his heart, it’s hard to ignore the desire evident on his tongue, in the teeth pulling at Chuuya’s bottom lip, in the careful way Dazai keeps his hips raised just enough to avoid the contact, as if that’s capable of hiding anything at all.
Chuuya removes the hand holding Dazai’s splayed fingers to his chest and walks it up over his partner, settling in his hair a second, tugging at the strands, and then moving away. Stops at the small of his back, rests, and then pushes down.
Dazai downright keens as they’re pressed flush together. Chuuya’s caught him off guard a lot tonight. He supposes they’ve never done this after Corruption before. Usually, Chuuya takes a few days to do very little, and Dazai, after remaining somewhere closeby in the immediate aftermath, will leave him be after the first twenty four hours or so.
So what? He thinks he needs to be gentle? That’s downright disturbing coming from him. Sure, Chuuya’s a little tired, aches in his worn muscles protesting what Chuuya’s brain has decided on without their agreement, but that hardly requires Dazai to treat him like he’ll break. Doesn’t fucking suit the mackerel bastard.
If Chuuya tells him that, Dazai will be irritating. He’s just gotta set things to his own pace, and let Dazai figure out for himself that they can do things the way they normally do.
He rocks up into Dazai a few times, and that gets the bastard moving. Grinding down desperately into Chuuya, finally taking what he wants. And Chuuya responds in kind, halfway writhing at the friction even through their clothes.
It’s good, but Chuuya’s not interested in taking his time tonight. He brings a hand to Dazai’s waist and flips them. Gives himself a second to breathe through the heady feeling of being above his partner before he’s fumbling with the buttons of Dazai’s shirt, pushing the material away to make room for his tongue to find the bare flesh beneath it.
Rare skin not armoured with gauze, and Chuuya makes the most of the vulnerability. Lets his teeth scrape lightly against Dazai’s nipples, brings his tongue right up to the boundary between skin and bandages at the base of his neck. Lets Dazai push his clothed dick up against Chuuya’s stomach as he whimpers. Fuck, he makes such pretty noises when he’s not fucking talking.
Chuuya presses Dazai’s crotch down, unsurprised when it earns him a long whine, and unzips Dazai’s slacks. Tries to avoid ripping them in his desperation to get them out of his way.
“Fuck, you’re really-” Dazai’s words come out breathless, hitching, as Chuuya cups a hand against his underwear. He swallows and manages a little more control over the rest, “Not holding back at all, huh. You’re sure you’re not injured?”
Chuuya rolls his eyes at him. He’s dealt with a great deal more than a little post-corruption aches. “You got lube on you?”
“Why would I have brought lube to a rescue?”
The question is so stupid Chuuya stops before his mouth can seal over the damp spot in the cloth covering Dazai’s erection. He looks up at his partner disbelieving, “Dazai. You always have lube when I have to rescue your ass.”
“Well,” Dazai tries, gasp killing his words when Chuuya’s mouth latches onto him. When Chuuya looks up for his reaction, he’s met with the lewd sight of Dazai’s eye squeezed shut and his bottom lip white from the hold his teeth have on it. As with all of Dazai’s more uncontrolled expressions though, it doesn’t last. He breathes steadily, and pops his head up to continue speaking like nothing fucking happened, “those are better planned.”
Chuuya withdraws his mouth, removes Dazai’s underwear, and slides a thumb against the head of his naked cock. “You’re fucking perverted.”
Dazai raises an eyebrow, glancing pointedly down at the sinful movement of Chuuya’s hand against him. “Oh, sorry slug, how many times have you turned me down in those situations?”
Chuuya stops for a second, brain scraping any possible example to offset that he very much does sink into Dazai’s bullshit every damn time. “Lisbon. End of last year.”
They were doing some negotiation in Portugal, the kind of job that bores Chuuya half to death, and Dazai apparently got tired of the talks going nowhere and got himself kidnapped. Only ended up a hell of a lot more roughed up than usual.
“That doesn’t count,” Dazai complains, thrusting up into Chuuya’s unmoving fist. “That was a medical emergency.”
“You still suggested-”
“I’ve no recollection of such a thing.”
“That’s because you passed out from blood loss,” Chuuya deadpans.
Dazai smiles and Chuuya restrains the urge to squeeze his stupid dick til it explodes. “And who knows what you could have done to me while I was so vulnerable!”
“You’re not fucking funny.”
“Is Chuuya frustrated?”
“No,” he responds, frustrated. “I’ll just suck you off, then. Move your ass-”
“You asked if I brought any, hat-for-brains, not if there’s any available.”
“The hell are you talking riddles for,” Chuuya grates out, exasperation and not enough blood in his head to keep his patience.
Dazai flops a long arm over to pull open a drawer beside the bed, muscle on his forearm flexing as his outstretched fingers look for something within. He retrieves an unopened bottle and waves it triumphantly. “You didn’t know half the Port’s safehouses keep stashes of the stuff?”
“Why the fuck would I know that? Why do we do that?”
“Old habit of Mori’s, not anything I want to know about. Still, works out, doesn’t it?”
Chuuya grimaces, briefly wishing Dazai kept more information to himself, and snatches the damn thing.
Moving off of Dazai, and feeling a little of the irritation melt when immediately Dazai follows. Getting himself up to sit on his knees while Chuuya shucks off his slacks and underwear.
He settles back into place, sitting in front of his partner, and Dazai takes the opportunity to circle his hand around both of their dicks. His motions are lazy, but still enough to make Chuuya’s hands unsteady when he uncaps the bottle and pours thick liquid out into his palm. Doesn’t bother to warm it up between his fingers before he brings them to Dazai’s rim.
The angle’s a little awkward, reaching his hand around to avoid interrupting Dazai’s ministrations. He’s quick about it, only circles the flesh twice in warning, and then sinks the first digit down to his knuckle.
Dazai lets out a long whine, half cut off and muffled into Chuuya’s shoulder when he drops his head onto it. Mouthing biting kisses over the coiled muscle there, softens to kitten licks against the base of Chuuya’s neck when Chuuya leans to rest his own head against Dazai’s hair.
He smells good, which is fucking annoying. Natural sweat mixed with the fading scent of very familiar shampoo. Dazai’s been stealing his shit again.
Chuuya sinks the finger in deeper, makes a few lazy circles, withdraws and adds another. Dazai’s hand gives up keeping any sort of consistency, practically just petting the heads of their dicks. It’s still more distraction than Chuuya is typically used to at this stage.
The breaths against his skin get shallower as Chuuya continues his work, and with one final bite, Dazai draws his head back. Chuuya has to shake his own a little to keep it from lolling down without the support. Can’t do shit unnoticed though, and Dazai brings an index to Chuuya’s chin. His eye is calculating, head cocked. Chuuya needs to shoot himself for thinking it’s almost cute.
He adds another finger just to break up Dazai’s expression. Watch him gasp, his brow twitch, his eye get hazy.
“You’re a horrible distraction,” Dazai complains.
“I’ve been told it’s charming.”
“By who-” he starts, because he’s fucking ridiculous. Chuuya cuts him off with a press to his prostate to remind him he’s an idiot. Is rewarded with a long groan as Dazai scrambles for Chuuya’s free hand, bringing it feverishly up to his neck, in a mirror of Chuuya’s action earlier. Instead of bringing it to his pulse though, Dazai places Chuuya’s fingers at the intersection between gauze and bare skin. The bandages right where Dazai has guided him are just slightly thicker than the rest, overlapping where he’s carelessly tucked the end in.
Dazai looks at him expectantly and Chuuya feels about as undone as if he’s the one about to be unwrapped like a fucking mummy.
He slips his index under the carefully tucked gauze and pulls, keeping up the careful scissoring of his fingers with his other hand. The bandage comes loose, and he circles the hand around to pull it around from the back. It’s a little difficult one-handed, and Dazai has decided to offer absolutely no help - too busy circling his hips on Chuuya’s other hand, but he gets it done.
Slowly, carefully. Exposing a fading rope burn scar, a few purplish red nicks too close to the veins for comfort. Most Chuuya is familiar with, but only because he’s been there to patch them up. He doesn’t see Dazai unarmoured unless he’s dealing directly with the wounds.
Yet here, he’s being let in.
There are moments, with Dazai, where he’s sure he’s found the limit. Some quiet whining part of him waiting, always waiting, for the day he does something wrong, or is found to be something wrong. And he’ll be tossed out again. Standards built up so high he can’t reach them even with gravity on his side.
He thinks he’s always been something to be discarded. There’s a sick kind of similarity between test subject and dog, and Chuuya has served as both. His time in the lab spent under the careful eyes of a doctor seeking perfection, his maker searching for the ideal vessel to suit his own interests. A test subject that fails to ascend to that unattainable thing, to the level of perfection envisioned by someone who has lost sight of science and has found themself instead in the position of ‘creator’, is just a record in a book. A step on the path to progress. Something to be thrown away with minor disappointment and notes of what to fix with its successor. Chuuya was too volatile. Progress would require containment.
And then, under the Sheep- Dazai’s never been wrong to call it what it was. Sheep dog. How long has man spent trying to attain the perfect beast? A loyal animal with something man needed and did not have. Those teeth, those claws, a perfect defence. The very same traits that so often lead the dog to failure. But it wants not to fail, seeks love instead, approval of whatever ‘good’ man defines for it. Looks for company in man when it can’t find its own kind. Finds an unequal kind of love, but enough. It has to be enough.
A dog is bred for malleability, bring it from wolf to weapon, tool, and pet. Unshaking obedience and always in servitude of man’s own ends. When it succumbs to its natural instincts over its taught ones, it should be culled. A pet that bites isn’t loving enough, a tool that dulls isn’t efficient enough, a weapon that seeks its own interests is a threat, and an animal bearing threat to man is always going to find itself at the end of a gun. A step on the path to progress. Breed the next with something more docile, more efficient, less self. He’d looked for something he hadn’t been ordered to look for. That had been threat enough, and Shirase had replied as any owner of a failed hound would.
Both test subject and dog must be something impossible. Humanity is allowed fault and mistake and error because to be human is to create, and to create is something worthy. Deserving worship and not just forgiveness. But to be made under those hands, to be creation, is to be perfect or to have failed. And Chuuya could only ever be perfect for people for so long.
But here, under Dazai’s hands, he isn’t something built up and not quite enough, he isn’t a dog seeking company from something other. Dazai can talk all the shit he likes, but he throws himself into just as much danger getting Chuuya back from the weapon he turns himself into as Chuuya does into putting himself there in the first place. They work on a constant turnover of favours. Give and take. Equal exchange. Chuuya, here, is not something other, something below, something to be perfected or thrown away. He’s something equal, given as much room to bite as Dazai has over him.
And he can prove that here and now, with his teeth to Dazai’s neck. His partner responds by craning it. Bared flesh where the bandages have been removed by Chuuya’s own ungloved hands.
Free room to leave his mark, leave something that’ll last even after Dazai is under his armour again. And if Chuuya lets his teeth sink a little deeper, knowing that’ll stay a little longer, Dazai doesn’t pull away. If anything, he pushes further into it, shaky breaths spilling out against Chuuya’s flesh.
It’s a long while before Chuuya pulls away, and only because their bodies pressed together like this are reminding Chuuya of the literally pressing problem of his dick.
He withdraws his fingers to Dazai’s long whine, and huffs out a quiet laugh at the bastard.
Dazai does the work of repositioning himself for once, so all Chuuya has to do is use his still slick hand to run over his dick a few times, and then line himself up.
He sinks in easily, slowly rocking forward, stills for a moment to give Dazai time to adjust. Not much time, because Dazai is digging uneven nails into Chuuya’s thighs, and muttering a litany of slightly slurred encouragements to hurry up.
Chuuya runs a thumb over the bite marks he’d left across Dazai’s neck and over his collarbones. It’s doing things to his head, that sight.
He should be focusing more, keeping a controlled pace at whichever rhythm he can tell Dazai needs. But he’s tired, and Dazai’s warm, and inviting, and Chuuya’s fucking desperate for him. Corruption takes a lot out of him, and Dazai gives it right back. He’s allowed to take this, isn’t he? Dazai lets him.
The noises he’s bringing from his partner aren’t doing shit to keep his thoughts in order.
Chuuya’s pace is getting slightly erratic, and Dazai’s satisfied groaning cuts off as he slaps a hand against Chuuya’s thigh. His words are distinguishable, but his voice still sounds wrecked when he starts complaining again. “You should slow down, Chuuya.”
“Too much for you, is it?” Chuuya pants, dropping low to bite at Dazai’s chin while his fingers flick over the sensitive flesh of his nipples.
“Not quite,” Dazai says, teeth leaving marks in his own lips from how hard he’s biting down over his stuttered whimpers. “But you’re not making a great case for yourself when-” He cuts himself off as Chuuya lifts his hips to better the angle, “mmf fuck,” and then glares as he visibly pulls his annoying thoughts back together, “when you’re insisting on fucking me like a dog in heat.”
“Fuck you,”
“Yes,” he points out, “you’re doing that. You won’t be for very long at this pace.”
Damn Dazai’s fucking mouth. Chuuya slows, enough that his brain tells him he had been embarrassingly close to finishing already. Well, damn Dazai’s fucking good points, too.
He keeps himself to sluggish thrusts followed by grinding circles. Trying to keep himself sane by lapping up the salt of Dazai’s sweat, muffling his keening into Dazai’s collarbones.
A rough hand snakes into his hair, pulling Chuuya up from Dazai’s neck once he’s drank almost up to his fill, and bringing their mouths back together. Dazai bites into the kiss while he keeps their pace at something torturous, clenching in just the right way to make Chuuya’s head spin. Worsens that when he pulls away from Chuuya’s lips to mouth at his earlobe, pant every affirming word directly into Chuuya’s skull.
And in this moment, that doubt from earlier, the idea that there will ever come a time where Dazai doesn’t come when Chuuya needs him, seems nonsensical.
Dazai has known him weak, and he’s practically salivating for it. He takes Chuuya apart looking for the flaws, not to note them down and fix them in a later version, not to write them off as justifications for putting him to the knife- He looks simply because he wants to see. Pushes curious fingers past skin, through blood and over muscle, finds the infection site, the disease and rot hiding within, the virus ticking his heartbeat to the wrong rhythm, and then holds.
Chuuya’s eyes feel wet so he squeezes them shut. Feels a curious thumb against his lashes, pressing soft to the dark skin of his undereyes for a second before it retracts.
“You’ve done so much for me today,” Dazai purrs, and it comes out practically silken, “you can take whatever you want. I’ve got you, partner.” He bites down on the shell of Chuuya’s ear, and Chuuya’s vision blurs. He gives up keeping to Dazai’s pace, pounding into him uncontrolled.
The rhythm probably sucks, but Dazai doesn’t try anything, just lets Chuuya tip himself over the edge.
And he does, knows with distinct familiarity that he’ll be caught when he does. By skin against skin and the cool hum of No Longer Human to tether Chuuya to humanity.
When he’s recovered enough to open his eyes, he’s met with Dazai’s slightly stunned silence. There’s a soft kind of self satisfaction on his face, which considering his still very much prevalent erection, doesn’t make much sense.
Chuuya blinks a couple times, shock leaving his open mouth in his still slightly heaving breaths. They’ve fucked quite a few times in the last year or so, but Chuuya never, never, comes first. He’s an unselfish lover, prefers to get Dazai’s whiny ass off than focus on himself. Except, it seems, for now. He’s got no idea what the fuck happened.
“Shit, sorry, I’ll-”
“Oh, I know you will,” Dazai interrupts, shifting against Chuuya pointedly, “But not right now, limp dick. I got you tired enough to sleep it off, didn’t I? You can fuck me properly when you’re not half asleep from ripping yourself apart for me.”
The for me is particularly pointed and particularly smug. This wasn’t a mission, a job, an order from the top. Dazai needed help. Dazai called, and Chuuya came.
“Fucking hate you, bastard.”
“So it would seem,” Dazai smiles, making a mockery of it that Chuuya knows is deserved.
They’re on the same page. They don’t need to say shit to know it; they never do. Chuuya hears it in the sweat on Dazai’s skin, the glistening of his eyes, and the rush of his blood.
They’re bound to each other, and there’s not a thing in the world capable of stopping them from following where the other leads them.