“It’s mine!” Dazai yelled when Chuuya reached for the orange maple leaf with a ripped corner. The perfect place for it was finally ready, the bright puzzle piece calling to be added to the collection.
It was gorgeous. It was perfect. It was his.
He slapped Chuuya’s hand away and grabbed the leaf, giggling in triumph and making a face at Chuuya. Such a lo-
The mocking expression vanished from Dazai’s face in an instant when he met the eyes of the man sitting in front of him.
The azure blue matched the bright sky, the spark in Chuuya’s eyes momentarily blinding Dazai. The sun’s farewell light behind Chuuya gave him a halo as the flowing golden rays gently merged into his hair like a river of liquid gold. As a cherry on top, as if carefully picked from a palette of a million colours with an eyedropper tool, the colour of the leaf perfectly matched Chuuya’s fiery hair, the whole world suddenly tinted with a unique shade of red, making the sunny day even warmer.
bestie you can’t do this to me i will request all of them
THEY'RE ALL SUCH GOOD PROMPTS I AGREEEE
Hug prompts
Decided to go for 1- "Are you cold? You look like you're freezing."
Additionally, for @dazaibirthdayweek2024 Day 3: Good Intentions + Masks
Words: 3.3k. Hope you like it, Essie!! :D
Rings a Bell
You’d think being stuck with your former partner/enemy in a confined space is the worst thing that can happen to a person…
But no, it can get worse, when said confined space happens to be a fucking freezer room.
Yeah, Chuuya has no idea what led them to this. Well, he does, but thinking about it too hard might cause his fifth aneurism today, and, less importantly, dissipate his already fickle energy.
A snicker resounds from beside him, “Chuuya’s growling like a dog again!”
“Shut the fuck up before I hang you from that meat hook myself…” He tries to give his usual bite, but it falls short as his stomach lurches again, feeling awful in all sorts of places.
Great news: he can’t see shit. Mostly blurry shapes and wavering colors, but never past that. It doesn’t help that he has the fattest migraine of the century, accompanied by an urge to vomit he honestly doesn’t know how he managed to fight against this long. Arahabaki, the damn scoundrel, decides to stay standstill and let him handle this one on his own. Fucking fantastic.
He had been told what poison he’s been injected with, but he can’t for the life of him remember the name right now.
And who’s to blame for all of this? You guessed it.
“Chuuya!!” Dazai claps with a higher-than-normal-pitch, which successfully sends stronger-than-usual-ringing to his ears, “How did you know the new method I was planning to try out?! And you’re offering to help me?! My, you should get poisoned more often!”
“You’re lucky I currently am, piece of shit…” God, he wanted to sound harsher than that– perhaps come up with a more creative thing to retort with, but that all gets swept away by low groans and helpless eye rolls…
Chuuya doesn’t know why he even bothers with looking out for that bastard when all he does is become a pain in the ass afterwards. Every time he tells himself he would wholly ignore his former partner the next joint mission, something like this happens which throws all of his vows to the curb:
Dazai was probably distracted, probably not, but Chuuya grabbed him aside anyways, rendering him without an ability for just a second.
And right then a needle buried in his neck.
They got their asses handed to them immediately afterwards, because of course, and the fuckers decided to add onto their frozen meat collection today of all days– thus, their predicament.
Which consists of opposite organization members seated in a freezer room against an icy wall, the mafia member certainly looking more limp and uncoordinated than the other. Chuuya doesn’t know how Dazai’s seated, but he’s 90% sure he isn’t staying still for the life of him, so guessing that would be impossible.
“Think Koyou-san will send a search party after you?” The question comes out as slyly as you’d think a Dazai-question would come out.
“This fast? No… She knows I can handle myself…” Dazai should already know this, as nothing has changed much in the last four years. Chuuya groans out, breathing coming in difficult, “I’d have to be gone for an entire week before she gets worried.”
“Hm, same with the Agency. But not that long. Just a day at most…” He hears shifting from beside him once again, overly wary of his surroundings since his sight is on hold, “So we’re stuck here until the poison symptoms wear off. Alone. Together. Great.” Dazai concludes like it wasn’t fucking obvious.
“At least you have the blessing of seeing in front of you.” Chuuya closes his eyes to stop his spinning vision, as perhaps that can help keep the migraine at bay, “Do you realize… how nerve-racking it is to stay this close to you while blind?! You might try anything…!”
“That’s right!” Dazai chirps, his enthusiasm successfully making Chuuya’s nerves prickle, “Chuuya better use his ultra-deduction-instincts if he wishes to stand a chance!”
He grimaces while thumping his head back, wanting to re-demand the other to shut up for how splitting his voice rings in his skull, but Dazai would probably take that as an opportunity to scream, so he resorts to: “God, I hate you…”
From (unfortunate) experience, and seeing how high on the awful-feeling scale this falls, Arahabaki will stay asleep for twenty more minutes -adding to the fifteen he already suffered through-, until he finally feels the need to fucking do something and starts kicking his freaky immune system to life.
His breath comes out as condensed clouds, each intake of breath colder than the last. The shitty smell of raw meat doesn’t help with the nausea, and he has half a mind to sleep all of this off, but leaving the suicidal freak alone with metal hooks all around is probably a wildly stupid idea. He’s still weighing his options-
“I’m booooored!!” Dazai suddenly whines, high pitched and grating. Chuuya jolts, opening his eyes in order to send the other a scowl out of habit.
Only various shades of brown meet his vision, swimming before him. The migraine remerges tenfold, “Wh-”
“Chuuya, entertain me!” Dazai leans onto him, shoulder to shoulder, so roughly that the clench of his stomach tightens. Chuuya barely has the energy to push the bastard back, said bastard surely aware of that, “Be my jester! Now, now!”
“How the fuck am I supposed to do that? Hey-”
Just as Dazai straightens on his own, Chuuya feels his fedora getting snatched, followed by low chuckles and murmurs of “Disgusting hat, I’mma burn you when we’re out of here…”
If Chuuya were to sound crazy, he’d have told you that Dazai is purposely being extra obnoxious right now– ridiculously so, but four years of separation might have granted him the blessing of forgetting how annoying Dazai could truly get, thus doesn’t humor that thought…
“You have two seconds before I start calling for grantors of dark disgrace and level this whole room over your head.” He warns, and doubts this is a good idea at all (Forcing Arahabaki awake is never a good idea). But he’s seriously getting tipped over the edge and the drug rushing in his veins isn’t helping in the slightest, “Give it, now.”
Dazai stays silent for a few seconds. A few seconds too long. Catching a glimpse of his face threatens to empty out the contents in his stomach, so Chuuya just decides to close his eyes again and relish this brief moment of piece, brushing the flicker of confusion aside.
Then the grating is back, “Fiiiine…”
It’s weird how Dazai takes his already outstretched hand and places the fedora on top of it, even lingering the hold on his gloved fingers for a second before letting go. Weird, but not concerning.
“Smart choice.” He plants his belonging back on his head, sighing lowly. The option of sleeping sounds like a dream right now– would save him the trouble of handling the two constant problems in his life at once. But nothing ever feels as good as it sounds in Chuuya’s case– sometimes his comfort comes with a heavy price, even.
Suffering through this it is, then.
“Ne, you really still can’t see?” Dazai leans onto him again– not as roughly, but certainly making Chuuya lose his balance all the same, “What about the headache? Is it getting any better? Is it? I’m bored- can you see yet? Can y-”
“No I fucking can’t, that’s why we’re still here!” Chuuya exclaims, successfully shoving him off, unable to handle Dazai’s toddler whining a second longer, “You think I wouldn’t have kicked the door down the second I regained my ability?!”
“Eh, you’re right. The air smells so bad when a dog is sharing it with me.” Dazai taunts, and must be leaning back onto the wall now, legs overly outstretched before him (probably rocking his heels back and forth) because God forbid he ever sit normally, “Too bad the door is too sturdy to budge with my kicks.”
“Cuz you’re a wuss.”
“Cuz it’s sturdy.” The other stresses, then it’s silent for a few minutes. The moment the headache begins to dissipate into a buzzing sting, rather than pounding ache, Dazai decides he should resume the torture session,
“Chuuya should cut his hair.”
That’s… so random. Even by Dazai standards. “What the he- Are you touching it?!”
Fingers tug on the longer end of his hair, brushing it, “Need scissors.”
Chuuya wishes he could recoil back in disgust, he really does, “Keep your grubby fingers to yourself, piece of shit! You know how much product I use?!” He tries to smack the hand away, never lands on it, “They’re worth your damn hands.”
Dazai blows a raspberry, and the fingers meekly abort, “My bad for trying to make a slug look a hundred times better.”
“This is neither the time nor place for it, freak.”
“Oh, so you agree to cutting it later? Consent granted!”
Chuuya springs up from the wall, “THAT’T NOT WHAT I-” At the violent lurch he receives in his abdomen, he gags mid-sentence, but thankfully doesn’t fully throw up. Or unthankfully. He isn’t sure what’s better for him at the moment. He tries to breathe through the acid in his throat, “Fuck…”
He hears shifting from beside him, peeking to deduce Dazai hugging his knees now– rocking back and forth? He closes his eyes again, wishing time wasn’t a slow bitch at the moment. One arm presses to his abdomen, right where it’s angry and upset, the other stays numb on the floor beside him. Several clouds form in front of his lips, with him somehow sweating midst the freezing room, the water cooling on his burning skin terrifyingly fast. Perhaps a minute more and they’d turn solid.
“Can your trusty dusty chaos God wake up any faster?” Oh, right. Dazai isn’t dead yet, so peace for him isn’t an option, “Does turning him off and on again works?”
Chuuya rigids once something that feels like ice pokes his cheek,
“Fucking hell, when did you find an ice cube?” He uncoordinatedly smacks the thing away, which turns out to be a hand. Huh. “You already know the answer to that, bastard. Why are you even trying?”
“Worth it…” He giggles, something breathy about it, off. Chuuya pauses, sharpening his hearing instantly, because anything off regarding Dazai is always a bad sign, and his sense about this never lies. Call it a sixth sense, if you will. “Besides, pestering Chuuya when he’s weak is fun! You think I won’t take my chances? You really don’t know me at all!”
At that his concentrated frown dissipates, immediately replaced by one of assessment.
“Wait a second…” He keeps his head hanged and eyes closed, but his tone rumbles all the same, “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“Whatever you mean, sluggy poo?”
Chuuya doesn’t fall for the bait, sharpening his hearing even more, “I thought you were being annoying just for the sake of it, but now you’re outright telling me you’re being annoying?” He lifts his head to look at the direction of the other, sending a glare with closed eyes, “You’re trying to hide something. Out with it.”
“Pfff, paranoid much, aren’t we?”
And just like that, Chuuya catches it.
The shivers in the other’s breathing, that automatically translate to shudders in his speech, are so subdued, desperately trying to stay hidden from him, trying to get concealed behind loud pitches and provoking fronts.
It’s a testament to how far gone his mind is in order for that to escape him.
“You’re-” Without asking for verbal confirmation that he wouldn’t get, Chuuya hurriedly takes off his gloves, “Gimme that- where is it?” He blindly wanders till he finds a bandaged wrist and grasps it. The stiffen of the other gets ignored as his hands travel to the only bare parts in Dazai’s body– his fingers and face. The fingers are frigid to the point where he can’t hold them for more than a few seconds, while the moment he clumsily smacks the face in order to cup it with both hands, it’s like all his body heat rushes to it– the skin cold, hungry and craving any kind of warmth, “What the hell- you’re fucking freezing!”
“Wow, what an astute observation, Chuuya.” He hears the roll of the other’s eyes, as Dazai’s quivering fingers hold onto both of Chuuya’s wrists, trying to push them away from his face but not putting that much effort into it, “It’s not like we’re literally in a freezer room.”
“No- this isn’t normal.” Chuuya declares, squeezing the cheeks in. How come cold skin can burn so much? “We’ve only been here for like…”
“Twenty minutes?”
“Exactly. Doesn’t it take about… way longer for hypothermia to kick in?”
“That’s you! You’re the abnormal one!” Dazai exclaims, sounding more genuine than he has been since they’ve been thrown in here. Scratch that– since he’d known him, “You think all people come with a built-in heater? I thought you realized that that’s not the case during your mission in Siberia. And you call me a fish.”
Chuuya pauses promptly. Oh, right. Sometimes he forgets that he isn’t the only one who occasionally wakes up to screams coming from within, or feels unprecedented urge to unleash chaos in stressful situations, or even runs way warmer than others. These are constants in his life. Constants he has to remind himself that no other person experiences…
And even if Arahabaki is asleep, the remnants of his abnormally high temperature is still very much intact. Chuuya doesn’t feel much past the chills of the poison itself, other than that? Coolness at best at his extremists. He’d need to stay here thirty minutes longer for the real frigidness to kick in…
Though Chuuya is equally aware that while his core temperature is abnormally high, Dazai’s core temperature is, funnily enough, abnormally low. Leave him out in the snow for a few minutes and you’d get a hypothermic mackerel popsicle in no time.
Chuuya grimaces. Stupid, stupid.
How could he forget that? His mind defends him, tells him it must have been the poison, that it must have played a part in brushing that fact aside. Chuuya wants to curse it out. He’s retained many random facts about Dazai by heart– so, so many, some even entirely useless; but when it comes to important stuff he somehow has to be reminded of them the hard way. What is wrong with him?
Well, time to make up for that. Harshly, because the bastard deserves it.
“I’m perfectly normal, thank you very much.” He lies through his teeth, but his voice is almost soft, fingers still intact with the skin cosplaying an ice wall, “You’re the one with a terrible immune system that is eager to kill you at the first given chance.”
Dazai chuckles, breathily once again. Shakily, the accurate word for it. “Dying by hypothermia i-isn’t too bad, actually!”
“Just- fucking drop it, will you? You don’t need to do that shit.” Once again he grits out softer than intended, finally cutting the contact. If he had his eyes working, he’d have seen the way Dazai chases the hands for a second before collecting himself and drawing back, “Come closer before I snatch you by the hair.”
“Chuuya wouldn’t have the energy to, anyway…” Dazai finally sounds as slurred and exhausted as he should, and Chuuya’s thankful he can even move– numbness probably there but hasn’t fully settled in.
“You remember our code?”
“Code white? O-Of course I do. Have many fond memories with it.” He hears the rustle of fabric, which means that Dazai is taking off his coat. Chuuya does the same, if a little slower.
“Stage?”
“Mild.”
Chuuya exhales, “Thank fuck, I wasn’t looking forward to sharing body heat with you properly.”
There is a pause, then, “…Severe, then.” He sees the smirk in the Dazai’s face without the need to see at all.
“That so? I’ll bash your head against that metal wall, then.” He knocks behind him twice, just as he senses Dazai drawing near, “Seems like it would do the trick nicely.”
“No thanks, I-I change my mind. I’d like the mild-stage treatment.”
“Just as I thought.”
Chuuya suddenly feels a weight on his lap, and acts. He takes both of their coats and wraps them with it as make-shift blankets, just as Dazai gets comfortably seated, ear over Chuuya’s heart, knees tucked close. The redhead presses his lips on the hair beneath him before he can help it, feeling the frost that has settled there. One arm supports the taller’s shoulder and back, while the other wraps around Dazai’s midsection, keeping him caged in.
Now without the need to hide anything, Dazai’s shivers turn to trembles, rocking him to his core and rocking Chuuya along with it. The brunette wraps the coats tighter around himself, pulse audibly rapid and panicking, trying to compensate the body for the heat it lost apace.
Chuuya’s migraine begins dissipating a little, and he dares open his eyes, to find the variety of colors taking the form of actual shapes, now. He relaxes, just as he feels Dazai do the same– their positioning, strange as it may come for them, somehow feeling utterly natural…
“Gosh, I almost forgot your stupid tendency to never speak up in situations like this.” The mafioso chastises midst the curls, “What? Were you trying to make up for the fact that I got drugged cuz of you?” Chuuya is sure there might be a number of other reasons, like the fact that Dazai could have simply been waiting to die like that– to pass out from the cold and never feel it when Chuuya tries to wake him up again.
But Dazai’s silence grants him an abundance of answers, one of them that confirms his verbal question, and he tskes in displeasure.
“Goody-two-shoes act that makes me sick...” He rasps, his upset stomach comforted with the added pressure to it.
Dazai huffs, finding the energy to nuzzle his cheek to Chuuya’s chest exactly like a freaking cat, “My personal heater…”
At how weirdly endearing that sounds, Chuuya bristles, “I’m not your fucking-”
“Along with being my dog? Too many jobs for your brain to handle, Chibi…!” Dazai’s slurred speech sounds funny, but the words themselves cause the shorter to growl, “You’ll overwork yourself!”
“Your neck is in a perfect position to get snapped. Watch your words.”
“Hm…” Dazai takes the threat in stride, one of his hands that was lost under the blanket coming up to hold onto Chuuya’s shoulder, “The air still smells bad, by the way.”
“Then I’ll keep you trapped in it for longer.” Chuuya counters, sharing his former partner’s frigidness without mind or care. He meekly feels the forehead concealed under brown bangs, to find it minutely warmer than before. Good, great.
“How much longer are we staying here again…?” Dazai asks.
Chuuya blinks, cozy, “Not much. I can see better now.”
“Mm, then all your strength will be back in ten minutes at most…”
“Of course you still memorize the exact cooldown duration of my ability.” Chuuya would have rolled his eyes if it weren’t for his splitting headache, “Why am I not surprised?”
Dazai keeps quiet, head hanging as he mumbles, “Chuuya’s the one with a bad memory…”
The redhead pauses, unable to deny the present truth before him, “Maybe…” He mumbles back, then huffs, “But at least you’re a thorn in my side that annoyingly reminds me of the kind of stuff I eagerly want forgotten…”
“If it’ll make Chuuya miserable,” Dazai tilts his head up. Chuuya sees the smile so clear, bright and giddy. Blurry at the edges but real. “I’ll always be a thorn in his side that will always keep annoyingly reminding him…”
Something leaps in his heart at the connotation embedded in these words, of his former partner vowing to never leave again, to forever be a part of the mafioso’s life despite what life has done them, despite the circumstances. And Chuuya himself vows to never forget how such a simple word almost sent him in a haze of emotions so deep and human. The word always.
His hold tightens, and he hides his face before mumbling, “Of course it will make me miserable, bastard…”
~~~~
Hc for context:
I’m a ‘Chuuya has amnesia as a trauma response’ believer. Like yeah he remembers some details regarding missions but otherwise blocks out anything his mind deems too stressful to deal with. “Your mission in Siberia” Actually had most of his subordinates die because they stayed for the cold too long. :’) Obviously, some missions with Dazai are in that chunk as well, along with the entirety of Stormbringer cuz I said so jnrgjrn.
HOPE YOU ENJOYED!! This wasn’t my best work so forgive me, Essie! I’ll try my best to edit and tweak some things in here when I have the energy. <33
