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Dazai never claimed to be a fast runner.
He could run fast when necessary – when push came to shove, his feet hit the ground with haste rivalling prey escaping predator. This wasn’t something he doubted. Running was somewhat of a trademark, if one asked any item from his past.
There were three deadly forces whose enemies fled if they knew what was good for them.
Mori wasn’t a fast runner. He was a strategic one, observing the pace of his opponents and reading their movements for the best course of action to overtake, cut them off or remove them from the race entirely.
Kouyou wasn’t either. If she was, maybe she and her lover would’ve escaped that day.
Hirotsu was quicker than he looked, better known as a somewhat silent achiever, doing what was required with class and poise. The man could move, as expected from the squad leader of the Black Lizard.
In Dazai’s youth, they were his examples. Three deadly forces whose enemies fled if they knew what was good for them. They had nothing on how Chuuya made him run.
Fifteen with a stolen tacky hat in hand; sixteen on the battlefield in a fight that ended with a foreign weight in his lap; seventeen on Double Black’s deadliest missions, more often than not chasing the blur of flame obliterating the enemy; and eighteen with a lump in his throat, imagining the embers rising from a getaway car, and for a moment, his partner’s face when he realised exactly what had happened.
Thump.
One foot hit the ground, then his other.
Thump.
Heat surged under his skin with every pulse of the ugly thing in his chest, pumping blood he’d rather see spilling out of him.
Thump.
His lungs ached. His legs burned.
Thump.
It would end like it always did – Dazai suppressing the wave of emotion that arrived with the acknowledgement of how many times he’d put himself in life-threatening situations for Chuuya to pull him out of; Dazai leaving Chuuya’s apartment after doing the bare minimum, keeping the arms-length distance that didn’t exist during the sweet spot of their partnership.
Thump.
This was excessive, though.
Thump.
Just excessive.
Thump.
It wasn’t Corruption, but the brunette didn’t like how quickly the flash of red darted out of sight. The Black Lizard was just around the corner for support, but–
Thump.
It wasn’t their job to look after Chuuya. Not really.
Thump, thump, thump, thump.
There. Crouched low behind a shipping container like a damn gremlin, signature scowl pulling at his lips, clutching his… his–?
“Piss off,” the redhead spat at the approaching figure.
“You’re sloppy today,” Dazai mocked, tone falling flat. It was enough for recognition to spark in the other’s eyes, but not enough to comment. Good. The last thing he needed was for Chuuya to bring up how quickly he’d have to run to get to him in such a short time from a distance.
“Make yourself useful and get out of here. We can handle our own fucking territory.”
Whoever thought it was a good idea to challenge the Mafia here? He mused to himself while eyeing their surroundings. It was a decent fight with numbers on both sides. “There must’ve been a hole in your intel somewhere. The bomb is on the other side of the port.”
Chuuya swore, shifting but not standing. Alert to his surroundings, the mafioso missed the detective’s eyes raking over him, eyes drawn to the hand pressed beneath his left ribs. “The new shipment of ammunition just arrived.”
He shrugged, meeting manic eyes. Still in the habit of giving away crumbs of information without meaning to. That, or the slug could just admit Dazai’s presence was some small relief when things went to shit. “I could just disarm it.”
“You do that, maybe you’d get there in time to be blown up if you ran as fast as you just did.”
The brunette huffed. Chuuya knew how painful getting stuck near explosions was – he was there. “How painful…”
“Just get the fuck out of here, I don’t have time for you.”
As tempting as the shot at death was, Dazai found himself accepting the dismissal. If the explosion didn’t get him first, the heat would kill him before the ball of fire could. It did not make for the painless death he was looking for. Nor would it be productive while his mind was fixated on the protective hand over his old partner’s stomach.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
His vision blurred at the edges but he couldn’t afford to blink. Not when that end – that end – of the port exploded. The rumble came first, devastatingly loud, and the ground was still vibrating beneath his feet as he set off.
Dazai did not like running. He never did. Just like he never liked the idea of going to the gym, but carrying a 5'2 comatose lump of muscle to the extraction point after using Corruption necessitated that.
Already injured. Already pissed. Already manic. Chuuya was not at his best for this. He must’ve been fresh off another mission. He must’ve slept badly. Something must’ve happened. Something always happened. The redhead was the strongest ability user in Japan for fuck’s sake, not including the fact that he had a sadistic boss.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
Searching the angry cloud of smoke surging into the atmosphere, Dazai couldn’t find a sign of Chuuya. No floating mafioso, nothing manipulated by gravity in the general vicinity. That used to happen a lot. There was a fine line between overusing Upon the Tainted Sorrow and it was one they learned to tread together.
Case in point, sometimes asserting control over his ability while extremely fatigued yielded less than ideal results. It was those times that Dazai used his ability for the same reason he offered it after Corruption. It was kinder than watching the other struggle and lose to himself.
Thump.
Thump.
Nothing of the sort was happening, which wasn’t any relief, much to the brunette’s chagrin. At least if there were random things floating, he knew for sure Chuuya was alive. Which he would be, obviously, because Nakahara Chuuya wouldn’t be taken out by something as pathetic as an explosion.
Thump–
The world was silent bar Dazai’s panting. His chest spasmed in protest to the wheezing from his lungs. The sight of smoke curled in thick, suffocating ribbons through the wreckage was almost enough to slow the detective down. The acrid stench of fire and dust clung to the air, stinging his nose and eyes.
Shattered concrete lay strewn across the ground, twisted metal groaning under the weight of its own collapse somewhere close by and somewhere further away. The blast had torn through everything — jagged edges of destruction stretching outward like a scar, a wound in the heart of Mafia territory.
Dazai moved through it, numb to the debris shifting beneath his feet and deaf to the distant wail of sirens and panicked shouts. His coat billowed with each step, dirt-streaked and torn, but he barely noticed. He was searching.
And then—
A flash of red. Barely visible through the rubble, half-buried beneath the wreckage. A body, too still, too quiet.
Dazai’s breath hitched, his stomach lurching. His legs carried him forward before he could think, before he could prepare himself for what he might find. His shoes scraped against concrete as he dropped to his knees, hands trembling as they reached out – hesitated – before finally grasping fabric.
Chuuya.
Face turned to the side, blood smeared across his cheek, tangled hair clinging to torn skin. His hat was gone, lost somewhere in the chaos. His coat was shredded, his arms limp, fingers slack. Dust settled over him in a cruel mockery of stillness, as if he had been left here for too long already.
The detective exhaled sharply, forcing air into his lungs as he shifted debris away from his body with frantic hands. His fingers ghosted over the injuries – burns crawling up exposed forearms, one side of the mafioso’s neck blistering pink and yellow already, like he’d been boiled. The opportunity to check Chuuya’s previous wound presented itself rather urgently.
Dark red bloomed – bloomed? Drenched – across what was a crisp white dress-shirt. Dazai ignored the slick blood on his fingers as he peeled back the fabric to reveal… shit, that was deep. The redhead had to have taken some kind of blade. Dazai’s skin screamed like his own had been pierced and torn open.
One hand bunched the ruined fabric and jacket and pressed it against the wound while the other busied itself with the streaks of blood along the mafioso’s hairline. A quick check revealed a gash along his temple and other bruises forming beneath layers of grime.
Too much blood.
Dazai pressed his lips together, tilting his head slightly, searching for any sign of breath, the faintest rise and fall of a chest. Seconds stretched into eternity.
.
.
.
A shallow inhale. So faint it almost wasn’t there.
Dazai’s fingers curled painfully. His head dipped, eyes squeezing shut for half a second before he forced them open again. His fingers tightened their grip on fabric bordering on the colour of Chuuya’s favourite wine, and with one steadying breath, he made his decision.
He obviously wasn’t leaving him here.
The weight of Chuuya’s body could be a positive thing, the familiarity of it enough to remind Dazai that he was trusted with the gravity manipulator’s most vulnerable state most days. It kept the otherwise overwhelming sense of urgency and the voice repeating no-nononono– to a manageable level.
Not tonight. The brunette hoisted him up from the dusty ground, an arm supporting his back and the other under his knees. The redhead’s limbs hung limply, his head lolling against Dazai’s shoulder, streaking his already tainted coat with fresh crimson.
So close. Even with a face marred with dirt and blood and grime– Dazai couldn’t kid himself, not even at a time like this. A wave of possessiveness crashed over him, fingers momentarily tightening and pressing into strained muscles. Strong muscles.
Yes, Chuuya was strong, but not invincible. It seemed in all his questioning of his own humanity, the redhead forgot the obvious fucking answer – that he was, therefore he could be hurt like one.
Dazai barely registered the ache in his own arms, the sting of cuts on his palms as he cradled his partner against his chest. His grip was firm, too firm now, fingers digging into fabric and flesh alike, anchoring Chuuya to him as though it would be enough to stop the life from draining out of every wound.
The wider port was chaos. Flickering embers danced in the air, small fires still licking at the remnants of the explosion, sending up plumes of smoke that stung Dazai’s eyes. Somewhere in the distance, there were voices. Muffled shouts and the rush of footsteps on concrete – Are you looking for your executive? – but they felt distant and unimportant.
Right now, the only thing that mattered was the faint, ragged sound of Chuuya’s heaved breaths.
Dazai paused his stride, shifting Chuuya with careful movements. Selfish, yes, to pause in his endeavour purely to press the other man closer. All he needed was to feel the stutter of the mafioso’s chest against his.
… No, no, wait–
Dropping to one knee with less care than deserved for the man in his arms, he withdrew the arm from under his knees and placed it against Chuuya’s ribs again, feeling for the uneven rise and fall of his chest beneath torn fabric. Not allowing himself to think about why he was doing it, Dazai thumbed at his partner’s lips, pulling them apart to hear him better. Every breath sounded like a struggle, shallow, strained and wrong.
Lung damage? Collapsed lung?
Chuuya had survived worse. Much worse. This was pathetic. Internal bleeding. Hemorrhages. Mori had plenty of theories for why the redhead survived such things. So did he.
Dazai’s jaw clenched, drawing his thumb across dry, cracked lips. This wasn’t the end of the world. This was fine.
A lock of red hair clung to Chuuya’s forehead, damp with sweat and blood. His eyelashes fluttered slightly – just the barest hint of movement – but his eyes remained closed. The movement was enough to seize the heart in Dazai’s chest painfully.
Chuuya looked so fragile in his arms. Not words he’d often use to describe the Port Mafia executive, and no-one else would if they valued their skeletal integrity, but this vulnerable state always came with a price. After Corruption, it was neuropathy that made the redhead scream in pain. Similar to that, there was no reducing Chuuya’s pain when he woke up.
The piercing injury was bad enough. The burns were what worried Dazai. Similar scars marred his own torso, after all. Even when they were kids, the brunette didn’t want something like that to happen. N getting his hands on Chuuya that day was a miscalculation that he made a mission of not repeating.
The gnawing sense of unease settled like ice in his chest. He wasn’t panicking. He refused to panic. Chuuya would wake up. He would . He just needed time.
The ground looked awfully like tiles, and–
Valuable seconds were slipping by as he realised that stopping was a mistake. He had to get the mafioso out of there. Chuuya’s bodily warmth was enough to confirm again that the man was reachable and okay, and the world outside the ringing in his ears was faraway and hazy. Surreal, dizziness ripping the ground from beneath his feet.
Or maybe his shaking legs were just failing him.
Pressing harshly over the largest injury again, Dazai could feel the sluggish pulse beneath his palm, weak and fading, and something deep in his chest twisted violently. It would slow, but not enough to kill Chuuya. The latter was a force of nature, after all, sharp edges and fire, unbreakable to the naked eye.
Yet he was still bleeding out in the detective’s arms.
Hands that shot with surgical precision, steady even in the worst of moments, were shaking now. Dazai couldn’t think. His mind, usually so quick, so sharp, so capable was coming up empty, grasping at nothing but white noise and panic.
Was it because he’d been trying to distance himself from his own partner? Was it because he realised, knew, that he’d already wasted so much of their time?
The redhead needed help. Now. But every second that passed felt like another piece of him slipping away, another moment closer to—
No.
Dazai forced himself to move. He adjusted his grip, one arm slipping beneath Chuuya’s knees, the other bracing against his back as he lifted him again. Dazai swallowed down the choking feeling clawing at his throat at what he thought was the minute scrunch of Chuuya’s stupidly cute nose.
He just had to keep moving forward. That’s all they ever had to do.
Smoke swirled around him as he stepped over broken glass and fractured concrete, navigating through the wreckage with single-minded purpose. He wasn’t sure where his legs were carrying him, only that stopping wasn’t an option. The Black Lizard were on the other end of the port – gunfire told him there was still a fight happening close by.
… There was also a safehouse reasonably close.
The place was dim, literally and metaphorically, and the lighting in the bathroom was atrocious. Dazai worked in worse conditions, but it wasn’t ideal by any means. At least the first-aid kit was easy to find. While the brunette spent the conversation figuring out the location of this particular safehouse telling Chuuya to stop yapping, he was grateful to have known it was one fitted for his partner’s needs specifically.
Not every safehouse was well-kitted. It was comforting to know that in the event of something going wrong, at least Dazai had access to more than basic equipment because his head wouldn’t shut the fuck up about it.
The mafioso really had looked tired. The detective could learn more about that later.
The living room light cast jagged shadows over the floor, over the tarped couch where he laid his partner.
His own coat had been discarded somewhere near the door, fingers now stiff with half-dried blood. It stuck to his skin, soaked into the fabric of his sleeves, clinging to his wrists like a reminder he couldn't shake. The scent of iron filled the room, thick and suffocating, mixing with the acrid burn of antiseptic as he went to work where he could.
Chuuya lay sprawled on the couch, chest half-bared where Dazai peeled his ruined shirt away. The gash across his torso was deep, a cruel incision around 5cm just below his ribs with split skin at the edges. The blood had slowed to sluggish trickles now, drying in uneven patches where the fabric drew over his skin. Dazai had managed to stitch most of it closed, taking care not to leave the man another scar on his littered torso. The detective himself didn’t care so much about precision, he only cared that it held.
It would, of course.
The process was slow enough to frustrate him and quick enough to leave him with enough adrenaline to deal with the rest of the mafioso’s physical ailments. The wound had been slick, wet, his fingers slipping every time he tried to pull the needle through flesh. Blood had beaded along the stitches as he worked, seeping between his fingers, making his hands shake even though he told himself they wouldn’t.
He was good at this. He had done it before. Why had it felt like it was the first time? Why did it always feel that way with Chuuya?
Dazai’s breath came sharp and shallow as he finally sat back, staring down at his work. The edges of the wound were red and inflamed, angry against Chuuya’s too-pale skin. The tension in his chest didn’t ease.
The worst part wasn’t even the stitches. It was the burns.
They stretched across Chuuya’s arms, angry reminders of how close the flames had come to consuming him entirely. Some areas were raw, the skin bright red and swollen, while others had darkened into deeper shades of blistered crimson and scorched black, far too remnant of corruption for anyone’s liking.
The next nightmare started at Chuuya’s hands, usually hidden and protected from the elements. The gloves were scorched at the edges, stiff with soot and heat damage. There was no question of what lay beneath. Contrary to popular belief, the brunette didn’t mind being wrong in some scenarios. He wished he was.
He wasn’t.
Dazai was careful to manoeuvre the gloves off his hands. Rather than peeling back as he’d hoped, there was resistance. He could only grit his teeth and try again, slower this time, achingly so, peeling the leather back inch by inch.
The gloves hadn’t just covered the burns, they fused to them. In some places, the leather had melded with Chuuya’s skin, the heat warping it into a grotesque second layer. When Dazai pulled, strands of melted fabric and flesh came away together, exposing raw, blistered tissue underneath.
The burns stretched across the mafioso’s palms and fingers, red and swollen skin where they hadn’t blackened completely. Some fingers bore angry welts, swollen with liquid trapped beneath the surface, the skin fragile and thin, threatening to rupture at the slightest movement. His fingers were curled slightly inward, locked in some unconscious tension even in sleep, as if still caught in the moment the fire seared through him.
The brunette dreaded to think that the man tried to use his hands to shield himself. Gravity couldn’t control flame, leaving him as vulnerable as anyone else. Dazai swallowed against the lump in his throat, itching to grasp any part of the mafioso despite the injuries.
How pathetic to want to do so for his own stability?
Further up Chuuya’s arms, the damage worsened. The evidence of fire crept along his forearms, leaving behind more mottled patterns where flesh had blistered and split. Patches of skin were peeling away thin, exposing the raw pink beneath. In some places, the burns had gone deeper, blackened edges where the fire had lingered too long — where the damage had reached past the skin into flesh that would more than likely scar from the abuse.
His right elbow was stiff even in unconsciousness, swollen where the tendons had likely suffered under the heat. The skin there was cracked, broken in places where the tissue had been too damaged to hold together. Dazai had been careful when wrapping it, but even the lightest touch had made Chuuya twitch in his sleep, his breathing hitching in some barely-conscious response to the pain.
Then there was his neck.
Dazai forced himself to stare at it, to really see the damage. The fire had licked its way up from his collarbone, searing the delicate skin along the curve of his throat. The burns there were different – the worst section sat just above his collarbone, a strip of blackened, peeling flesh where the heat had been at its most intense and sickeningly close to his face. Even touching it with the cloth made Chuuya flinch, his head twitching slightly to the side, his breath coming in a ragged, unsteady exhale.
His left shoulder wasn’t as severe as the burns on his arms and neck. The brunette would guess his clothes caught quickly, probably searing away as the mafioso lay unconscious in the aftermath. The sight of it all made Dazai’s stomach twist. Such ugly things didn’t deserve Chuuya’s skin.
Burns were cruel wounds. They clung, festered and lingered long after the initial pain faded. The redhead already dealt with a few, raised skin often covered where possible, drawing up his arms and legs. Corruption left its mark on his partner in every way.
These ones might take weeks to heal, if they healed properly at all. It was the same shit. Some areas might scar, some might remain overly sensitive for months, and some… some might never fully recover.
Chuuya hated the burns he already had.
Dazai exhaled slowly, his fingers brushing absently over his own bandaged wrist before he forced himself to move. He reached for another clean strip of gauze, knowing that all he could do now was clean and cover the worst of it and wait.
Once the redhead’s neck was wrapped, they’d be matching.
The first touch to Chuuya’s neck made the smaller man's body flinch harder than before, a breathy, broken sound slipping past his lips. His fingers twitched against the ruined tarp on the couch, his brow furrowing just slightly, but he didn’t wake.
The detective worked methodically, wiping away the dust and flecks of dried blood clinging to ruined skin. Every time Chuuya so much as twitched, Dazai paused, his breath caught in his throat, waiting to see his partner’s eyes pry open, but the gravity manipulator never stirred fully, never opened his eyes.
It was reminiscent of times he foolishly thought were passed, cleaning away the evidence of violence, smearing cooling ointment over burns, wrapping the other in bandages that were too clean against the rawness of it all. Bandages that would still itch as the wound healed beneath.
As pitiful as hearing those strained, quiet noises from Chuuya, Dazai preferred it to silence. It was a reminder that he hadn’t superiorly fucked up and killed his partner.
See?! This is why Dazai had to keep him on a tight leash – nothing to do with his trigger-happy partner on this occasion, everything to do with the cruelty of others.
Humans were truly sick to those they considered animals.
Dazai’s fingers lingered for a moment against the pulse point at Chuuya’s throat, feeling the rhythm beneath his skin. He didn’t bother keeping track of the time.
A part of him was willing to acknowledge that he missed the routine, although, his heart pumped poison through his body, stinging under the skin at the reminder that it should be his blood outside of his body, not Chuuya’s.
His phone buzzed after what could’ve been seconds, minutes or hours, breaking the monotony. He glanced at the message from Hirotsu:
Location.
Once his head cleared, the detective suspected that knowing of Chuuya’s injuries, Mori would want them taken care of swiftly. If Chuuya was so tired, it could only mean there was lots of work to do. That’s the only reason why he told Hirotsu of his executive’s state — sometime between arranging the mafioso gently on the couch and now —, kindly reminding the old man that the Mafia could very well request Yosano’s assistance as per the truce agreement.
Which it appeared he had. It was already a silent agreement that the detective wasn’t involved. Hirotsu’s loyalty was to the Mafia, but the brunette wondered if his care for Chuuya and even himself might be enough for him to step between Mori and Soukoku should they be pitted against each other properly.
Thump.
Thump.
Dazai rearranged himself off his aching knees, sitting sideways against Chuuya’s couch with his face pressed into it, staring at the still form and twitching face of the love of his life. He did so until the door to the safehouse opened for the second time that night.