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Chuuya remembers the enemy getting the drop on him and drugging him to the gills, until he couldn't control gravity anymore.
He remembers how they forced him down to his knees, and made him watch as they hurt Dazai, until his partner was saturated with blood and covered in bruises and wounds and screaming.
Dazai did not scream.
It was when he heard Dazai make a foreign noise — an anguished sob — that something in Chuuya lurched.
The next thing he knows, he is waking up here in the hospital, with a migraine with the gross and dark feelings of Arahabaki and the soreness and internal pain that comes after Corruption.
They did not listen to Chuuya when he threatened them, thick and slurred as it was, get your fuckin' hands off my partner or I'll kill ya. I'll kill all of ya! and you bastards don't wanna piss me off, I'm telling ya-
They did not listen to him when he started to desperately plead.
Stop it, stop it, stop it!
Please... please stop hurting him.
They should have listened.
So it was on them, whatever must have happened to them when Chuuya went away.
The room is white and there are machines beeping, the smell of antiseptic leaving him nauseated and setting his nerves on edge in a visceral way. There are memories attached to the violent ripple of malaise through him, but he has seen his own body asleep in a laboratory, full of black liquid. He has killed that body himself. He can guess where such fear comes from.
He wants...
"My partner..." Chuuya croaks through a dry throat, and immediately breaks into a coughing fit.
The nurse who is checking his vitals immediately reaches for the glass of water and puts it to his lips. He drinks it down, slowly upon her soft instruction.
"My partner..." Chuuya rasps out again, his uncoordinated hand raising heavily to gesture at his eye, "pretty bandaged boy, kinda skinny. Where...?"
Only when the nurse blinks at what he said does he realize what he actually said.
He must be out of his fucking mind right now, calling that bastard pretty.
Well, he does feel damn heavy and foggy-minded. The drugs have to be strong as shit.
"Slimy fish..." he tries to compensate.
She doesn't understand that, but still smiles kindly and answers in a gentle voice, "Your friend's fine. Don't you worry about him, sweetheart. He's just a few rooms down sleeping, okay?"
What hospital is this? She clearly doesn't know him so it can't be Port Mafia affiliated. Either that, or she's new.
Chuuya can't explain the way he still finds himself weirdly flustered by the pet name.
She sounds... so motherly.
"M'not...worried... and he's not my frien'..." His voice is slurry, thick and slow. He hesitates, but then can't help himself, "What room?"
"Room 247, I think. Last I passed his room, he was asleep." Her voice is distracted, too busy finishing up the examination and checking his vitals. Once she finishes up, she steps back and smiles at him. "All good, sweetheart. Now I'll leave you alone to get some rest. I know you just woke up, but you do need all of it that you can get. Your doctor's not here right now, but expect a visit sometime today."
Chuuya hopes she doesn't think he's twelve or something, the way she keeps calling him sweetheart. He scowls at her back as she leaves, when this thought occurs to him. It's made worse by the fact that it's Dazai's voice in his head saying it. Ohh...I see. She thinks you're a kid because you're so tiny, fufufu.
When the nurse leaves, Chuuya climbs out of bed backward, lowering his bare feet to the floor carefully. He moves with much difficulty from the drowsiness in his limbs and body, and there would have been pain too but the drugs are doing a decent job staving that off so there is mostly unease, whether it's being unsettled by the medical setting or something being numbed. He drops to the floor with a slap of his bare feet and grabs the IV pole.
By now, he is somewhat habituated to being in a hospital gown open from the back, in only his boxers, so he is far less embarrassed by his bare legs and arms and the gown being open at the middle of his back. Whatever. At least he ain't ass-naked this time like the last time he ended up in one of these.
Chuuya drags the IV pole with him and walks to the door. Standing outside, he blearily squints and blinks up hard at the room number plate, but it looks blurry and everything is moving too much.
He pulls his IV pole along as he peeks the first half of his face into every room that follows, so only his eyes and redhaired head are poking past the edge of the doorframe, not wanting to be seen by someone and make them feel creeped out. He hopes he isn't goin' the wrong way because he can't see shit. He is just looking for some disgusting blob of brown and white.
...which shouldn't actually be helpful and specific in a hospital, he guesses, but it's still eliminating a lot of the not-his-shitty-piece-of-shit-partners so far. So far he has seen a black-haired woman, a little girl, an old man, and a funky purple-haired guy.
And he's damn sure he'll feel that bad, fluttery and swooping feeling in his stomach; the one he gets whenever he senses that annoying bastard being nearby. When he gets that, he'll know it's him for sure.
Chuuya finds him by the fifth room. It's hard to see with how everything is spinning so much but he can see the blob of fluffy brown hair and white across the upper corner of a face. He half-runs across the distance and climbs up into the space already left on one side of the hospital bed, as if the asshole already expected this.
Ugh.
***
Dazai keeps his eyes closed and feigns sleep, waiting.
As he expected, here comes the pattering of bare feet on the hospital floor, slowing to a pause at the door, before picking up speed as it nears him.
The bed creaks, and the mattress dips, and he feels a tiny little dog slip under the covers beside him and cuddle up against the side of his ribs. His arms wrap around Dazai, and he grabs at one of Dazai's bandaged wrists to draw it against the small of a back and press his palm there, forcing Dazai to hold him against his will.
Arahabaki must be leaving all its lingering feelings right now.
Dazai begins to massage the small of Chuuya's back gently, breaking his pretense of sleep.
"Did chibi miss me?" Dazai asks with a little laugh. His droopy eyes are now open half-mast, looking at Chuuya's drowsy blue glare. The drugs are heavy on both their bodies, it seems.
All he can hear is the sound of Chuuya's breathing and his own, mingling together in the absolute quiet, and the warmth of Chuuya's body against his thaws the cold of winter away; his back and waist against his arm, and his breaths on his own face. Dazai is smiling at him, unaware of the softness of his own face.
All of a sudden Chuuya smacks him on the shoulder with the side of a fist, "Ugly piece of shit."
"Ow, Chuuya!" Dazai stares at him with a doleful frown. The hit is thankfully feeble but everything in his body hurts; gashes, bone-deep bruises, a few cracked ribs and the toes of one foot dislocated. "I'm really hurt right now, you know."
Where did that even come from?
Why is Chuuya's face so red?
"M'more injured than you...and I still had to come..."
Dazai eyes him in disbelief. "I got fractured toes and ribs."
Chuuya glares at him. Dazai glares back. Neither of them can really hold much heat from how droopy they are.
Chuuya then scoots in closer and presses his hair to his, snuffing and closing his eyes. He reaches behind him and presses Dazai's hand to his back. Dazai rolls his eyes and continues his ministrations, scratching lightly at his skin there so he can feel the shivers up his spine. When the dog demands back rubs...
"How'd ya get to me?"
Dazai doesn't remember much, really, beyond that he was in the worst kind of agony he has ever been. Nothing he'd ever tried out of his suicide book compared to it.
He remembers crawling, furious and frantic and through grinded teeth, fueled by something; one image, really, of bloodied red hair and blackened limbs and dead blue eyes staring at nothing, and the vague implication of a deeper, bleaker emptiness in Dazai's own already grey future.
"Oh, it was easy, really! I just whistled a few times and waved some dog treats, and you came running right for—"
Chuuya smacks him again, noticeably lighter. Dazai still yelps and whines and makes a big show about it, of course. "Should've let them beat ya up even more. Maybe that would've set your head a bit straight."
Dazai is sort of very distracted by the thrum under his skin, the hunger being fed and calmed, like feasting on his favorite food after a long time of being starved. Chuuya's body is so warm and fitting, the planes of his lean and lithe bone structure that settles perfectly into his grasp. His fingers rub back and forth at the skin of his tailbone. It's so smooth. All those weird and fancy products Chuuya keeps in his bathroom really do seem to work.
Dazai presses his nose into the underside of his jaw and breathes him in.
"Fucking creep," Chuuya mumbles, but it doesn't hold much heat or meaning when he shifts and angles his head to give him better access.
"You smell so bad. My dog needs a seriously good wash."
Chuuya scowls, hands coming up between them and shoulders hitching up to try and shove him away. Dazai, stubbornly, does not budge and tightens his grip.
Chuuya smells like a hospital right now, sweat and illness, but he also smells like Chuuya. It's so familiar and comforting at this point that, even if Dazai doesn't know what home means or feels like, he thinks this may be the closest thing he can have to feeling it; Chuuya like this, in his arms.
"You smell like shit too, stinky-ass mackerel."
Chuuya is mumbling the words, is asleep seconds after.
Only then does Dazai do something as saccharine and embarrassing as stroke Chuuya's soft hair, brushing his hand through red curls. Something about the way Chuuya melts with absolute trust against him...
Why me?
Why do you feel so safe with me, of all people?
Demon Prodigy and master torturer, the one everyone fears. Even Mori seemed to fear him at times. But never Chuuya.
Dazai takes a lock of Chuuya's red curl at his temple and pulls it back behind his ear, looking at him with a smile. Chuuya looks so dumb when he is asleep, drooling with his mouth slightly agape.
He really does have the cutest dog ever, doesn't he?
I have the most beautiful partner in the world.
Ah~ it's those pesky brain chemicals again; oxytocin, dopamine, serotonin, blah blah. Maybe they don't mix well with drugs? Make them too overactive or something.
"What do you do to me, Chuuya?" he whispers.
Stupid slug.
He squishes Chuuya's small body to himself a little, pressing his forehead and nose to Chuuya's with a smile and closed eyes. He wants to squeeze him as tight and hard as he can with his arms until he dies.
Ah, that's right! If he kills Chuuya, he won't have to look at him all the time and feel all these silly, nauseating feelings. He won't have this overwhelming and jittery urge to do something to Chuuya without any specific idea in mind, just that he is adorable and gorgeous and tiny and Dazai wants to pick him up and spin him around and rattle him in his arms and bother him until he screams and chases after him and kiss him until neither of them can breathe.
Dazai grimaces and cringes at his own overflowing emotions and the imagery of his thoughts. How terrible and disgusting. Ugh.
Definitely the drugs.
He really should kill Chuuya for all this.
***
When Hana enters the room, she finds the bed empty.
She frowns, bemused. The IV pole is missing as well.
Hana wonders if that adorable redhaired boy signed himself out AMA, but that wouldn't explain the missing IV pole. Surely he didn't take that medical equipment home with him?
Then she remembers him asking about his friend; the handsome one that came covered in bandages.
My partner, the redhead boy called him, pretty bandaged boy, kinda skinny?
In what sense are they partners, she wonders? They were too young to be working, certainly.
She was there when they uncovered the tall boy. The scars all over his body broke her heart in two. She couldn't fathom what he both must have gone through, what they both must have to come back with so many wounds and in so much blood.
Hana turns and makes her way down the rooms until she comes upon Room 247.
Sure enough, the redhaired boy was there, but the sight that met her was so unexpectedly precious she could have cried.
They were cuddling together like bunnies under the covers of the hospital bed, asleep, with the pretty bandaged boy's forehead and nose pressed to the smaller one's, their limbs entwined together. The small redhead boy was holding the bandaged boy by his underarms, and the other's hand was around the small of the redhead's back, cradling him close. She can see the vague outline of their legs, the jut of a knee, tangled between each other's.
Hana is tempted to take a picture of the sweet scene, but knows that is highly unprofessional and intrusive.
(Maybe just one? She'll delete it right after she shows it to Akira-chan, promise!)
"Akira-chan! I saw the cutest thing ever just now. Remember those two boys that came in very bad shape?"
Akira blinks, "Yes?"
"I went into the room and didn't see the small and cute redhaired boy and I got worried and thought maybe he signed out AMA, but then I remembered! He was asking about his friend...although he seemed so strangely adamant that they weren't friends..." Hana frowns in bemusement. If they aren't close, then why... she'll wonder later. Hana shows Akira the picture on her phone. "Before you say anything about how creepy I'm being, I'll delete it after I show you, I swear! Oh, look how sweet they are." Hana smiles fondly down at the picture.
As a nurse, there's a lot of insider things she gets to see about other people, their relationships and their lives. This isn't the first time she fell in love with people without knowing them; darling old couples, brothers, sisters, siblings, newly married couples, lovers, parents and children, best friends.
Her and Akira-chan tell each other all about such things. It's fascinating and beautiful.
This is the first time she has ever seen Akira-chan look at her like that; trying to smile, but sort of drained of color and a sweat dropping at her temple.
"It's," Akira says, "They are very cute, yes."
Hana blinks. "Why do you look like that?"
"Well, it's just, ah..." Akira chuckles nervously, "You do know they're mafia boys, right?"
Hana stares at her.
Don't you worry about him, sweetheart.
The redhaired boy's bewildered and almost offended(?) blue eyes on her.
Her phone slips out of her pocket, her jaw agape and eyes wide.
"Hana...what did you do?"
"They're not going to kill me, right?" Hana asks, looking constipated with terror.
"What did you do?"
"I...I may have...I called the small one a pet name..."
"Oh," Akira says, deflating with a breath of relief, "You scared me. Well... either way, if he wanted to kill you, he could have right then and there. I've seen him move things around..." She then pauses to consider something. "Although...don't ever call him 'the small one' to his face. Okay?"
Hana does find it all very hard to believe the next day, when the handsome one - Dazai - is flirting shamelessly with her (as if she can't see the way his hand is coming around the redhead - Chuuya's - back to rest at his hip) and Chuuya bongs him on the head hard with his fist and tells him, stop fucking playing around with all these poor women, it's bad enough they have to look at ya!
She does get the feeling some part of that is jealousy.
And yes, Hana does let them stay together. They're too endearing for her to not let them do whatever they want.