Archive of Our Own

Dazai wakes up, abrupt and immediately aware, in a way that he hasn't in years. There's nothing but the sounds of a peaceful life around him. Birds at his window. Quiet chatter through the floorboards. The smell of eggs wafting through the dormitory.

None of it matches with the tension he can feel beginning to build in his chest.

He sits up, and the phone rings.

Dazai stares at it. He recognizes the number. He's had the number memorized for the better part of a decade. He's never blocked it. He should have, out of spite or anger, but a part of him always assumed that this exact day would come. He thought it would be a lot further away than this. He'd made plans; had intentions.

Now that it's happening, he realizes that so much of it was pretty lies.

He waits, watching the phone ring. The display dims. The phone starts to ring again. No voice mail left; no message to convey.

Dazai answers it in the middle of the second ring and says nothing.

"The next twelve hours," Mori says, his voice completely detached from the situation, no hints of the boss of the Port Mafia or a father figure or a doting doctor, everything carefully excised until only the cadence of an army surgeon is left, "will determine whether or not he pulls through."

"What," Dazai says, sounding like he's a thousand miles away, "are his chances?"

Mori doesn't say anything.

Dazai hangs up.

His heartbeat is in his ears; his mind is somewhere else. Everything, for a moment, is a series of automatic response to stimuli: he gets dressed, he plugs his phone back into the charger and intentionally leaves it behind, he exits his room and leaves the door unlocked, just in case.

"Dazai?" Kunikida says.

Automatic response, Dazai thinks. It's seven in the morning; Dazai is never awake this morning, and especially not dressed and ready to leave. Dazai doesn't hesitate; he whips around, fixes his best smile at Kunikida and holds up a finger with an explanation ready on his tongue.

"Kunikida-kun! Make my excuses for me," Dazai chirps, cheerful and bright. A painting of a man; an imitation that can confuse long enough to be effective, even if it isn't entirely convincing. "I have to see a man about a gastropod."

Kunikida's brows knit, but it buys Dazai enough time that he can shove both hands into his pockets and tamp down the stairs, the rhythm a quick match to the heart he can still hear beating.

"--Dazai!" Kunikida says, but Dazai doesn't stop; he half-jogs three blocks away before he turns the corner, mapping out the most efficient way to get where he's going.

There's a nondescript black car parked on the street, one tire up on the curb. Dazai approaches it with as much nonchalant lack of energy as he can pack into himself without crossing into Demon Prodigy territory. No one pays him much mind.

Dazai knocks on the window of the car, and there's a yelp that echoes simultaneously with the car horn, before the window starts rolling down in tandem with the door opening.

Higuchi's eyes are red, and she nearly trips when she tries to stand up, expecting to find flat ground and instead hitting the raised curb. Dazai doesn't move. She catches herself on the door.

"--I'm," Higuchi says. "--Sorry, I'm–"

Several things flit through Dazai's mind in rapid succession. He wonders, briefly, about Akutagawa; wonders if this is just sheer unprecedented popularity. How high is the body count overall? How much does he need to worry about the city being destabilized?

Dazai opens the door to the backseat and slides in. He thinks he should have said something, but nothing comes to mind. Higuchi hovers for a minute, fingers gripping the car door, and then slides back into the driver's seat.

The car ride is silent, from there. The engine is quiet enough to be background noise; Higuchi makes no effort for conversation. Periodically, she takes in a shaky breath, clearly trying to steady herself. Dazai can practically hear the internal mantra she must be saying, don't cry don't cry don't cry. He wonders what it's like to have to tell yourself not to cry. He wonders what it's like to cry.

Higuchi doesn't exit the car when Dazai does. He can't see her once he's closed the door, the tint of the windows too deep to show her, but he knows she's still sitting there, car off, hands braced perfectly at two and ten on the wheel, staring into the windshield and telling herself to get it together.

She doesn't get it together quick enough for Dazai, so he enters the Port Mafia building alone.

There's a quiet hush, even on the first floor. Several people look in when he enters; no one moves in the slightest, not to hinder nor to help. If he's familiar to any of them, he can't tell. None of them know him well enough to have pity in their eyes, which he's grateful for; the grief written on their own faces is more than enough. If he's recognizable as the Demon Prodigy instead of simply a thorn in the side of the Port Mafia, he can't tell.

He wonders if Mori has circulated his picture. He wonders if it matters.

The private intensive care area hasn't changed. He doubts it will ever change, unless the buildings get leveled and someone decides not to rebuild. Mori would always rebuild. Mori likes the familiar, the routine. Something about it comforting to his military trauma, probably.

Routines make Dazai feel claustrophobic, but sometimes feeling claustrophobic makes Dazai feel like maybe he's already buried alive, and there's a sharp time limit on how much longer he has before he doesn't have to worry about things ever again.

The elevator feels a little like his coffin as he traverses the floors. The doors open. The hallway is sterile and cold and brightly lit and still manages to smell like blood underneath all the bleach and antiseptic.

Mori and Yosano are standing at the end of the hallway, outside of the room Dazai knows is occupied. Yosano looks at Dazai when he steps towards them. Mori doesn't. Mori is staring through the open door.

Dazai doesn't look.

"You're here," Dazai says. It's not what he meant – no, that's not right. It is what he meant, it just isn't what he meant to say. He meant to make a joke about Yosano showing up despite everything; he meant to make light of the seriousness of the situation; he meant to do something, anything, to prove that he's still in control of at least part of the situation.

"For all the good it's doing," Yosano says, with an edge sharp enough that Dazai thinks it could bring him to the edge of death.

"What happened?" Dazai says, looking at Mori, and this time he means: how could you let this happen?

Mori looks at Dazai, finally, and there's nothing there. He doesn't even look tired. He barely looks human. Dazai recognizes that emptiness, and he knows the death toll must be much higher, but when has he ever cared about that?

"Something went wrong," Mori says.

For a second, Dazai feels anger flare into him, and his brain stutters over itself as it tries to decide exactly how he wants to attack Mori, with words and with the scalpels he knows Mori has in his lab coat and with everything else he can possibly use as a weapon – Yosano would let him get away with it, Dazai's pretty sure – but then Mori hands him a tablet. Dazai looks at it silently for a minute, and then accepts it, flicking through Chuuya's current medical records and then pulling up the documents describing exactly how all of this could have happened.

Exactly how Mori could have let all this happen.

Dazai's lips press tight together, because he knows that he would have made all the same decisions Mori did, under these circumstances, working with what Mori had available.

Dazai also knows, with clarity that makes him feel like throwing himself onto Mori's scalpels himself, that if Mori had more things available – if Mori had Dazai available –

He offers the tablet out without looking and steps into the room.

Fukuzawa is leaning against the wall, his arms crossed. That makes sense; he wouldn't let Yosano come alone, no matter how dire the situation. Dazai doesn't know what favors Mori has called in, but they must run deeper than anyone else is aware of.

Dazai looks down at Chuuya and wonders when Chuuya got so small. He reaches out; touches Chuuya just once, a quick brush of fingertips over Chuuya's wrist. Nothing happens.

Nothing happens at all.

Dazai doesn't move for a long time, after that.

Eventually, Fukuzawa leaves. There's soft discussion outside the room; Dazai can hear most of it, but he doesn't retain it.

Someone enters the room behind Dazai; he doesn't move. He can't. It's not real. It's not real because it can't be, and if he moves, it'll be too real. He has to wait and wait and wait until reality makes an error that proves it isn't real.

Verlaine steps over to Chuuya, and the grief in his expression makes Dazai feel like he's being smothered. He brushes some of Chuuya's hair to the side. There are still marks from Corruption there; deep, heavy bruises.

"A machine is breathing for him," Verlaine says. "More code, in the end."

"It's not code," Dazai says, without thinking about it. "Not all machines need to be programmed."

"That's true, isn't it?" Verlaine says, with a voice that sounds too tender for a man who once killed almost everyone Chuuya loved. Loved.

Loved.

Already past tense. Chuuya isn't dead yet. Chuuya is going to die.

Dazai turns hard on his heels and leaves the room. Mori isn't there, but Akutagawa is; he straightens when Dazai enters the hallway. Akutagawa looks like shit, like he's been put through a blender and hastily put back together, but he isn't dying while on life support, so Dazai doesn't really give a shit.

"How much has been handled?" Dazai asks.

Akutagawa doesn't hesitate. "We prioritized the survivors over carrying out the plan, once the danger was realized. We–"

"They're still alive?" Dazai asks. Careful. Clarifying.

Akutagawa hesitates this time before he nods.

"Great," Dazai says, and means it.

By the time he's at Mori's office, he's taken off his coat and bolo tie, wrapped them up neatly over his arm with any remaining hope for a different life. Was this part of Mori's plan? Dazai doesn't think Mori would be willing to sacrifice Chuuya like this, but Dazai can't tell. Not really. Not now.

Dazai doesn't knock, but Mori's security tries to stop him when he's half a step into the room. Dazai has one of them disarmed before the other one realizes what's happening, and the only reason no one starts shooting is because Mori immediately says "Dazai-kun" and everyone stops moving for a minute.

The security leaves when Mori waves a hand. Dazai keeps the gun.

He throws his coat onto one of the chairs and looks at Mori. Kouyou is there, too; she looks tired and surprised in equal amounts, with grief overwhelming both of them. Her body is half turned to face Dazai, and little else; she watches him, mutely.

"Who's left from your strike teams?" Dazai asks.

"Little over half of them are in fighting condition," Mori says.

Dazai wonders how many more there are if he doesn't need them in fighting condition, but he assumes that Mori is hedging on the side of not treating them as expendable when he's already lost so many. Mori has to worry about things like morale.

Dazai doesn't.

"Tell them to get ready," Dazai says.

Mori looks at Dazai. His hands aren't laced together; he isn't wearing his normal coat. The ponytail his hair is pulled into is low and messy, and Elise is nowhere to be seen. He looks like he hasn't slept since this all started. (2:34 in the morning, according to the records Dazai had read.)

"And let me borrow a coat," Dazai continues.

Mori closes his eyes, briefly, and any idea that Mori might have been planning this, might have done it intentionally, is erased from Dazai's mind. The burden seems almost like it's more than Mori can bear.

"Half an hour," Mori says. "You can use my room to change."

Dazai turns to leave.

"Dazai-kun–" Mori starts, and Dazai pauses without looking back. "I would prefer if you didn't make this a suicide mission."

There's a lot of things Dazai would prefer.

"I'm afraid I don't take orders from you anymore," Dazai says, instead, and his tone is as lifeless as it was four or six or ten years ago.

Mori doesn't say anything else.

Dazai changes in Mori's rooms, the ones Mori keeps for when he needs to work overtime. Mori's clothes still don't fit him, but there's enough of the standard mafia blacks in the supply rooms that it only takes a few minutes for every trace of color imprinted on Dazai over the last few years to vanish completely, replaced by the same monochrome that made up his life for so long.

Dazai's phone rings. Kunikida.

He doesn't answer.

It rings again. It flickers through multiple members of the Agency before it's finally Ranpo, and Dazai pauses at that, in the middle of making sure that he's armed well enough to take down most of Yokohama, if he wanted.

He picks up, this time.

"Don't try to talk me out of it," Dazai says, bluntly, by way of greeting.

Ranpo huffs through his nose, an offended cat who refuses to relent. "I was going to give you intel so you could come back afterwards."

Dazai looks in the mirror and sees a ghost from his past looking back. "Ranpo-san."

"I know you're not planning to! I know that! But that's stupid! Come back anyway! If you don't, I'll figure out a way to save that guy and you so he can kick your ass, but there'll be a line, because I'll be ahead of him," Ranpo says, his voice all in a rush, a little too high pitched. Worried, Dazai thinks. A few hours ago, that might have made him back down a touch.

He doesn't feel it now.

"You're still Kunikida's partner," Ranpo says. "You're still a member of the Agency."

"Please consider this my letter of resignation," Dazai says, all polite keigo, all words he'd never say under normal circumstances. "Don't let this reflect poorly on the Agency."

Ranpo doesn't say anything for a long moment. "We're just going to do the same thing. You know that, right? You're still one of ours. If you die in this–"

"There won't be any of them left," Dazai says, the words almost casual.

"Right, but you'd better be," Ranpo says, again.

I'm sorry, Dazai thinks, but he doesn't feel it. He hangs up, instead. He breaks his phone clearly in half and drops it in the trash. Whoever cleans Mori's personal rooms will make sure it's fully destroyed.

Higuchi is the one driving, when Dazai gets to the car. Her eyes are still red, but she seems much more determined. Akutagawa is there, too. He shouldn't be, he's too wounded, but Dazai isn't going to tell him not to come.

"What were you told?" Dazai asks. He doubts Mori would have gone as far as to say Dazai was back. He is, in a manner of speaking, but there's nothing there to last; he doesn't intend to last much longer than Chuuya's 12 hours, if that.

"Just," Akutagawa says, "that you'd take them down, and that they'd suffer for it." There's a pause, and then: "Most of us didn't expect to make it back this morning."

There's an implication there, heavy and monstrous, that this is a suicide mission for more than just Dazai. It isn't like it's something the Port Mafia can't handle, but it would be a longer timeline; Mori would chase everyone down in a long game of chess that Dazai has no patience for, because Dazai wants to shoot someone so much that they resemble a particularly revolting block of cheese.

Under normal circumstances, this would all have been one thing, but everyone is only just getting back on their feet, after Dostoyevsky. They were only just starting to fix things. After all of that, of course Chuuya wouldn't have let people under him die.

Of course he would have activated Corruption, knowing it might kill him.

Of course Chuuya wouldn't want to lose anyone else, again and again and again.

"Did they give you any updates on him?" Dazai asks, and then wonders why he's done so. He realizes, as Akutagawa looks down, silently, that a part of him was hoping it was worth coming back. That he could go and do all of this and dirty his hands, and still have something to come back to.

"The Boss s-said," Higuchi says, stuttering on something that's too suspicious to be anything but a sob and breaking off for a moment. She inhales; clears her throat. "Said that he's –"

"His brain is swelling," Akutagawa says, flatly. "He won't survive surgery."

Dazai expected it, but it still makes his ears ring like he's already started shooting. He stares at the headrest in front of him and feels nothing.

"Dazai-san," Akutagawa says, and there's a note of desperation in his voice. "If you were going to come back–"

"I'm not back," Dazai says.

"--if you were going to come back for him, why did you leave?"

Dazai closes his eyes. He left the book of matches in Mori's trash can with the remnants of his cell phone. He would apologize to Oda, if there was time. He might even apologize to Ango and mean it.

Dazai thought that Oda dying was the worst thing that could happen. He realizes, now, that it was because of a childish belief, formed at fifteen and never interrogated, that Chuuya simply couldn't die. That Chuuya was somehow more than life and death.

He's a god, after all. He shouldn't be lying in a hospital bed with a machine breathing for him.

"He wasn't supposed to die," Dazai says, finally. Chuuya was meant to live; to outlive Dazai by a good margin, almost certainly.

It doesn't matter now.

When the car parks and they're walking, Dazai starts giving orders without really thinking, and people fall in line immediately. He doesn't know them. Four years between the last time he'd done this, and nothing has changed.

Nothing has changed, except that Dazai is down one more relationship, but Chuuya never tried to hope for better for Dazai.

Dazai would be surprised when he turns to go into place and finds Kunikida there with Tanizaki.

"I'll cover you," Tanizaki says.

"You shouldn't," Dazai says.

"Someone needs to drag you out," Kunikida says, quiet and firm, and Dazai notes that Kunikida didn't say anything about dragging him out alive. Kunikida always did understand, when things came down to it. Dazai has been living on borrowed time for too long.

"Thank you," Dazai says, instead, because that's the right thing to say, even if he doesn't feel thankful at all. He doesn't feel anything.

Dazai's not a frontline fighter, but he is, this time. Tanizaki covers him, as promised, and Dazai goes in and gets his hands dirty so quickly that Kunikida nearly pulls up short in surprise. Kunikida recovers; Higuchi gets hurt so quickly that Kunikida is immediately otherwise occupied by taking her to safety.

Good, Dazai thinks, because this was never Kunikida's fight.

The enemy combatants haven't had time to properly regroup, but they have had reinforcements come in. Chuuya is well known, after all, and the condition he must have been evacuated in would quickly signal that there may be an abrupt opening in the Port Mafia executive lineup. Factions uninterested in the fight normally have joined, and it's exactly as chaotic as Dazai expected. He thinks a few of the Port Mafia members have defected, but a flurry of black notices each of them a second before Dazai. By the time Dazai notes who they might have been, they're dead at Gin's feet.

When they've routed the enemy fully back into their hideout, Dazai looks at Akutagawa.

"Stand guard," Dazai says.

"Dazai-san–" Akutagawa says, lurching forward in protest. Rashoumon is bandaging up all of his wounds. It's probably the only thing keeping him upright.

"Stand guard, Akutagawa-kun," Dazai says, and goes inside.

It should feel good to kill someone at close range, he thinks, when they're responsible for Chuuya's condition, but it feels as curiously like nothing as it ever has. The nothing might even be stronger, for the fact that Chuuya's life is an hourglass running out before Dazai can finish this. Dazai still moves through, like if he can kill them all fast enough then somehow reality will right itself. Somehow, Chuuya will get better.

Maybe he will. Dazai won't be there to see it.

Dazai gets knocked over halfway to the leader of their organization; he takes a couple gunshots and a fair few kicks before he's brought face to face with the man who looks like a nobody. He looks so insignificant Dazai barely sees his face. Dazai barely sees anything.

"Call off your men," the man says, but he's terrified and that terror is making him sloppy. They hadn't even frisked Dazai properly, once they'd taken his gun. As if that was all he'd have.

"Sure," Dazai says. "Give me your phone."

One of the men hits him, and when Dazai straightens back up again, a few more of them have their guns pointed at him.

"Okay," Dazai says. "Then I'll use mine."

He grabs the phone in his pocket and one of the men opens fire, aim sloppy. It hits his collarbone and another lands in his lung; he won't survive it, but it isn't an immediate fatality. He flips open the phone – brand new from Mori's supply of burners – and hits send before anyone can get it away from him.

He doesn't bother to track how many other bullets hit him, because the explosions start and everyone starts running, like a single one of them is going to make it out alive.

The ceiling caves in, and Dazai closes his eyes.

"This isn't how it happens," Oda says.

"I thought things would be brighter," Dazai replies, because the music in Lupin is the same as ever and the midnight haze of smoke renders a soft blur over everything.

"Nah," Oda says. "Even if this was how it happened, we're not the bright light kind of people."

"It already happened," Dazai points out, delicately, because he is almost certainly dead. Then, carefully, because Oda is shockingly less mad than he should be: "I'm sorry."

Oda laughs, the sound the same as ever. "You don't need to apologize. You're not done yet. I told you, this isn't how it happens."

Dazai looks at Oda. Oda looks the same as he did then, stubble on his chin and eyes too kind for his line of work.

"Am I having my pre-death hallucination?" Dazai asks. "Is this meant to be my life flashing before my eyes?"

"If it was, there'd be a lot more of him," Oda says, and jerks a thumb backwards. Chuuya's at one of the booths in the bar, arguing with Kunikida about something. They both look like they're willing to come to blows to defend their points, but Chuuya is smiling. Dazai thinks he might be laughing. He can't hear either of them. They're not really there.

Maybe Dazai isn't really there.

"Then what is this, Odasaku?" Dazai asks.

"A singularity," Oda says, and then pauses. "Probably. I don't really understand the science side of all of it."

That – more than anything – sends a jolt through Dazai. His chest aches. It's been aching since he woke up, when all of this started.

Something about that feels strange, now that Dazai has the time to think about it.

"This," Dazai says, slowly, "isn't how it happens."

"Right," Oda says. He raises a glass, and Dazai raises his, automatically. "This was just a reminder."

"I've never forgotten you," Dazai says, a little desperately, because Oda is one of the things he wants to hold onto so desperately.

"Not me. I'm not the only one important," Oda says. "There's him."

Dazai looks back again, and Chuuya is still there, bright and alive and taking shots with Higuchi. An entire world between them.

"And him," Oda says, and Kunikida is chiding Atsushi for something in the Agency office. "And her, and him, and…"

It's not Dazai's life flashing before his eyes. It's everyone else's. Yosano and Tanizaki and Akutagawa and Gin and Mori and everyone else, everyone alive.

"But not you," Dazai says, quietly.

"No," Oda says. "It was nice to see you again, though."

"Odasaku–"

"Don't worry," Oda says, with a smile. "You'll keep your promise. Just make sure this isn't how it happens."

Dazai opens his mouth again, but his heart spasms in his chest, and he can't manage to make any words come out.

Dazai opens his eyes.

"--heartbeat! Get him stabilized," Yosano is snapping. It sounds like she's speaking from a million miles away. Dazai can't move his fingers. Dazai can't feel his toes.

"--sending backup–" Kenji is saying, and Dazai realizes they've been talking and he hasn't heard any of it. His chest hurts. Why does his chest hurt? A ceiling fell on him. Why would his chest hurt?

"Squish," Dazai says, but it comes out as him spitting up blood.

"Fuck, Dazai," Chuuya says, and wipes his mouth.

"Oh," Dazai says, and passes back out.

When Dazai next opens his eyes, he could swear it was only a few minutes later, but it was clearly much longer than that, because he's in the Agency infirmary and he feels considerably more lucid. He can also feel – and he does test them extensively – all the parts of his body.

"Welcome back," Yosano says, dryly. "Don't sit up. You're mostly stitches right now."

"Did a roof fall on me?" Dazai asks.

"No," Yosano says. "You don't remember?"

"I'll get there," Dazai says.

Yosano eyes him warily, and then before any explanations are given she's going through the entire concussion checklist and traumatic brain injury care and Dazai is almost too exhausted by the end of it to ask anything at all, but she doesn't seem mad at him.

"Chuuya," Dazai says, after a minute.

"What about him?" Yosano asks, like it's completely normal. Like he's fine.

"Need to see him," Dazai says.

Yosano raises an eyebrow. "You're definitely concussed," she says, and turns up one of his IV drips.

This time when he dreams, it's the typical kind of incredibly bizarre but vivid dreams he associates with morphine, and he spends what feels like an entire week bartering with a waitress about exactly how many items he can get for free off their Double Suicide Special Menu, but the waitress keeps shifting between various people and Odasaku keeps laughing at him, except then Oda is Chuuya, and then Dazai is trying to convince Chuuya that a Double Suicide Ice Cream Special is the answer to all their problems.

"...absolute moron," Chuuya says, and it sounds weird, and so Dazai challenges him to say that again, but he doesn't, which Dazai realizes is because Dazai is dreaming, and Chuuya had been talking in real actual life.

Dazai blinks at Chuuya, who is next to his bed and chatting animatedly with Yosano. Chuuya's gloves are off and his sleeves are rolled up and there's a band-aid on his cheek.

"My theory is that if you're too smart, you become incredibly stupid," Yosano says. "My evidence is coworker based."

"I'd buy it," Chuuya says. "This guy is – oh, you're awake. Hey, explain why your boss was calling mine because you needed to see me. You've never needed to see me in your life unless you're planting a bomb."

"No bombs," Dazai says. "Bad squish."

"Uh-huh," Chuuya says. "So?"

"I," Dazai starts, and then realizes he can't say that he just wanted to make sure Chuuya was alive, so he decides not to say anything. He reaches out and drops his hand onto Chuuya's head. Chuuya stares at him.

"Call me when you're done," Yosano says.

"What the fuck," Chuuya says.

"If I died," Dazai says, abruptly, letting his hand drift down until it's on Chuuya's shoulders, the ends of Chuuya's hair scratching across his knuckles. "What would you do?"

"Break open my best bottle of wine in celebration," Chuuya says, immediately.

"No," Dazai says. "What would you really do?"

Chuuya looks at Dazai. His gaze is clear and blue and unflinching, and Chuuya delivers the truth with a measure of calmness and sincerity that Dazai has always found particularly devastating. "I'd kill everyone responsible, and then I'd figure out a way to bring you back. Maybe reverse that order, depending on how time sensitive things were. Might get that really uptight partner of yours to help."

"I'd go back," Dazai says, and Chuuya blinks. "If you died. I'd go back, so I could kill them."

"That's stupid," Chuuya says, immediately. "They wouldn't want you back. None of us want you back. Besides, your doctor is scary. I bet she'd be real excited to help carve her way through a bunch of shitheads if you needed to avenge my death." There's a pause, and then: "I'm not dying anytime soon, though. Probably."

"Murano's ability," Dazai says, because his memory of what happened has come back in bits and pieces and he's managed to put it all together.

"The nightmare one?" Chuuya says. "What about it? Higuchi's got a week off after he hit her with it, but it wouldn't do anything to you."

"It hit," Dazai says, "after the gunshot."

Chuuya processes this for a minute. "You died long enough for her ability to bring you back," Chuuya says, slowly, "which was also long enough for his ability to hit you?"

"Yeah," Dazai says. "Probably."

"...huh," Chuuya says. "What'd you see? Didn't figure you were much for nightmares."

"You," Dazai says. "Dying."

Chuuya squints at Dazai for a long moment. "You really went back to the Mafia to go avenge me?"

Dazai makes a face and refuses to answer.

"That's stupid and weirdly sentimental of you. You hate me," Chuuya says.

"I hate you," Dazai agrees. Then he hesitates.

That can't be how it happens, Dazai thinks to himself. Thinks of Odasaku. Thinks of his coat, discarded in Mori's office; thinks of Tanizaki in the line of fire for Dazai; thinks of Mori calling in all his favors and still coming up short.

"...it's a very complicated hate," Dazai says.

Chuuya raises an eyebrow.

"A complicated kind of hate where I would murder a lot of people if you were killed," Dazai says.

"Okay," Chuuya says.

"So," Dazai says, after a long minute, "when I'm cleared to go home, can I go to your place?"

Chuuya leans back, like the words have surprised him that much. "Seriously?"

Dazai nods, very carefully.

"You're going to be such a pain in my ass," Chuuya grouses. Dazai nods again, less carefully. "Fine, fine. Whatever. It'll probably be a day or two before you can leave, so that gives me time to Dazai-proof the place…"

Chuuya leaves, presumably to go tell Yosano this.

Dazai wonders how to tell Kunikida that he actually intends to never move back out of Chuuya's place.

Dazai wakes up a lot after that, and sometimes he has to snap instantly into awareness and sometimes he doesn't. He wakes up still tired, he wakes up fully rested; he wakes up hungry and full and a million other things.

He thinks, though, that his favorite way of waking up – which is thankfully the most common way – is slowly, with the first that that gets through his hazy awareness being the sound of Chuuya's breathing next to him. Sometimes the morning light filters through Chuuya's apartment windows, and sometimes it's the middle of the night; sometimes Dazai is so thoroughly wrapped up in Chuuya's arms that he can't disentangle himself, and sometimes Chuuya is sprawled with all four limbs out taking up the entire bed. (Which is fair, because it's Chuuya's bed, though Dazai will never admit it.)

He wakes up a million different ways with Chuuya.

Eventually, he tells Oda: "This is how it happens."

Oda doesn't reply, but Dazai thinks he will, one day.

It'll be a lot longer away than Dazai thought, but that's fine.

His chest still hurts, sometimes, but these days, Chuuya always texts back. On days when one of them is worried about the other and refusing to admit it, their text exchanges are just hourly exchanges of snail and fish emoticons, call and answer, I'm okay and I'm not dead over and over until eventually one of them says when they'll be home for dinner.

Neither of them die for a long time, but that's a different set of dreams.