"Write that self-indulgent thing," they said. So. Here's some 1.4k words on ghostzai possessing Chuuya.
AU notes: Chuuya is helping investigate Dazai's post-canon death. Ghostzai is haunting Chuuya's choker, and while he does, Chuuya doesn't have access to Upon the Tainted Sorrow (since No Longer Human is a quality of Dazai's... spirit?).
Warnings for ghosts, possession, and loss of agency. Also I guess Dazai kills a few people but it's not graphic.
“Now what, genius?” Straining against the handcuffs does jack shit; Chuuya doesn't need to see them to know they are reinforced steel, or he would have snapped the chain connecting them already. Stupid things; he can pick a lock just fine, but doing so blindly and behind his back is just not a skill he's needed to cultivate.
“If you'd like me to get you out,” Dazai's icy breath brushes past his ear, gentle as the morning breeze, “you could let me in.”
An involuntary shiver runs down Chuuya's spine.
“Or you can die when Hydra is done torturing you for information~ Your call!” To illustrate his point, Dazai rattles through the knives, pliers, and needles lined up on the rack at the wall.
“Like I really have a choice when you phrase it like that.” He's not gonna die here. Not in this ditch, and not for Dazai, of all people. “How long?”
“Five minutes.”
That's not too much time for Dazai to get him into further trouble. “Alright, fine. You better keep your end of the bargain, or-”
“Or you won't be alive to find that exorcist you like to threaten me with.” Hollow laughter fills his ears, rings in his head, and he feels Dazai curl around him, prodding at his defenses. “Now, if you would be so kind? You don't have all day.”
It's difficult to relax with Dazai’s frosted breath ghosting across his nape. Goosebumps run down his arms; all Chuuya wants to do is bolt. But after straining against the handcuffs one last - unsuccessful - time, he forces himself to go slack in Dazai's embrace.
The intrusion won't be quite as unpleasant if he doesn't fight it.
“Just get it over with, Dazai,” he says, and allows himself to be taken.
It's like plunging into a frozen lake - the border of his self cracks and splinters, and through the gaps, Dazai slips into him, beckoned by permission. Despite knowing it was coming, the frost buries into Chuuya's guts, seizes his lungs, and stops his heart, cold. Chuuya's consciousness is dragged down into the depths, drowning in Dazai’s presence.
Control over his body is snatched from him as Dazai spreads and makes himself at home beneath his skin.
It's an unexpected comfort to be at once held still and moved by Dazai. To know his heart beats because Dazai wills it, for Dazai to breathe, deep and slow, fighting the onset of shock, just for him. To be filled beyond what his body can handle; and yet held together by Dazai's control.
Unable to do anything but observe, Chuuya bears witness as muscles twitch beneath his skin, his body twisting in unfamiliar ways to accommodate Dazai's demands. Hands deft with borrowed skill pry the concealed hairpin from behind his belt, making short work of the handcuffs. The angle they bend at to pick the lock behind his back would most definitely hurt, if Chuuya wasn't disconnected from all sensation.
With a snap of their fingers, the handcuffs fall away, and Chuuya is left to wonder: just what else could Dazai push his body to do, if given the opportunity?
That's a dangerous train of thought to entertain. Chuuya counts down the seconds until Dazai is supposed to release him more loudly in his head, instead.
Not that Dazai makes it easy for him; as soon as the handcuffs are off, Dazai starts moving; stretching, bouncing on the balls of his toes, and, worst of all, humming to himself in a distractingly pleasant fashion as he grabs a knife from the rack, and saunters out of the grimy cellar.
Dazai wields Chuuya's body as if it was his own; that is to say, the knife that was supposed to pierce the hapless guard's eye is off-target by a good twenty centimeters. Even still, the throat is a good enough resting place to kill. Dazai retrieves the knife, ignoring the guard's gun. ‘Work smarter, not harder’, has always been Dazai's motto when he could be persuaded to work, and it doesn't take a genius to see that raising the alarm for their little prison break with a gun shot would be more trouble than it was worth.
Watching Dazai work really is like seeing a ghost. His partner, who was supposed to be dead and gone, purified by the light, melds back into the darkness seamlessly, as if he's coming home. No kindness, no mercy; just Death, trailing in Dazai's wake, walking a red carpet of his partner's making.
Dazai takes down three more guards on the way out - they never hear him coming, ethereal grace and cultivated skill carrying their body as if it was floating through the air. In contrast to their weightlessness, the guards sink to the floor, collapsing under gravity.
His partner seems to know the way out - probably was scouting when the enemy jumped Chuuya - and it feels like no time at all has passed when Dazai casually unlocks a security door with the key he swiped off one of the guards. With that last obstacle gone, he dashes out into the night, winding through the maze of containers.
Uncertainty sinks its claws into Chuuya at this point. Once allowed to come inside, it's all but impossible to push Dazai back out of his body, unless the ghost is willing to give up control. All Chuuya has is his word that he'll leave after five minutes have elapsed; and how much good is the word of a traitor, when he's all but made his home beneath Chuuya's skin?
“I can hear you, you know~” The voice sounds off, faux chipper, but Chuuya has heard enough recordings of his own voice to recognise it.
Shit. For how long? Can Dazai always do that? Fuck. First he takes Chuuya's body, and now even his mind isn't safe?
“Only while I am inside you, I think.” Their voice remains remarkably steady, despite the physical exertion of running through the harbour.
Did the bastard have to phrase it like that? Urgh.
“And you only thought it worthwhile to bring that up now?” Chuuya tries in vain not to remember all of his irrational feelings; but the attempt only brings them to the forefront. Stupid voyeuristic ghost, listening in on his thoughts.
“You weren't doubting me before. And I was preoccupied.” Dazai abruptly stops, hidden between two container towers tall enough to swallow the sun. “Don't worry. I will keep my word, this time.”
Chuuya bristles. Who said anything about him being worried-
Dazai pays his objections no mind; just checks their surroundings once, twice. His voice is quiet, barely more than a sigh, when he adds: “Being cooped up with you would just drive me insane.”
At least that feeling is mutual. It's bad enough when Dazai is frostbite around his neck; to give Dazai more has never once worked out well for Chuuya.
He tries to not to think about the countless lives they owe one another, and focus on the most important thought:
297. 298. 299.
300 seconds. Get. Out-
Dazai must have been counting too; precisely as Chuuya thinks that, he feels the shift in balance as Dazai lets go of his finely tuned control.
No longer is Chuuya floating at the bottom of nothingness, disconnected from sensation; Dazai yanks him up through icy waters, holds their head high until Chuuya breaks through the surface and gasps for air. The world burns around them - in their lungs, from exertion; against their skin, from the cold.
For a single moment, they are one - in their trembling heartbeat, in their shuddering breaths.
Then, the symbiosis collapses, Chuuya's body not strong enough to support the both of them at once. Dazai leaks out of him, the dizzying fullness bleeding into the void with every pulse. It leaves Chuuya aching, gaping, unpleasantly exposed - the space that Dazai occupied mere moments ago now thoroughly hollowed out.
The only thing he's left with is the freezing cold within his bones, and the choker settled heavily around his neck.
For once, Dazai is blessedly quiet.
Chuuya drags himself up and out of the container graveyard. He might have made it out of Hydra’s grasp this time, thanks to Dazai, but he'll need to find a safe house to soak up warmth into his frozen core - by whatever means possible, be it the sun, a hot bath, or the warmth of another human body.
And then, he'll need to look through the USB drive, and hope this brush with death was worth it.
