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Chuuya opens his eyes blearily and finds them too heavy, like they’ve been weighed down by the gravity that he controls. It’s an odd feeling, because it’s the first time that he’s ever been sick. One of the abilities granted to him is to have a strong physical constitution that won’t succumb to illness or hangovers. But now—he’s sufficiently sick. He shifts in his bed, hides under the covers as everything feels too heavy and painful.
-
When Chuuya opens his eyes again, it’s because his head feels like it’s been wrapped in cotton, warm and soft in equal measures. He sees a tinge of brown and yellow—urgh, no, it’s tan, and urgh, he knows only one person who’d happily parade around wearing such a color.
There’s a cool hand over his eyes and his eyelids flutter close automatically.
It’s only because he has a fever.
“Rest well, Chuuya.”
He hates being ordered around, especially by bastard assholes who break into Port Mafia territory just so he can sit by Chuuya’s bedside to place cool towels on his forehead. But because he has a fever… Chuuya sleeps.
-
There’s something refreshingly cold being dabbed on his dry-chapped lips. He parts his mouth and feels water trickle inside, it almost feels like something ought to steam, because he feels something really hot inside him, like his insides are being melted into goo.
“We’re going to find the Ability user soon,” Dazai’s voice floats around him, as though the words are being whispered directly to his sick-sluggish brain. “Then, I’ll be able to cancel his Ability’s effects on you.”
Chuuya makes a noise that he hopes conveys his question, then why the fuck are you staying here and not helping out in the search, you lazy bastard?, with all of the gravitas it needs. Dazai hums and then his wet fingers return to tapping at his mouth and guiding the stream of water inside.
Chuuya decides that he doesn’t really want to hear the answer, so he closes his eyes and sleeps some more.
-
Chuuya wakes up to the feeling of Dazai tracing his lifeline with careful finger-strokes. He wants to tell the other off – there’s no point in continuing to hold onto him, Dazai’s Ability won’t be able to cancel the Ability’s effects on him by touching him, Dazai needs to touch the source of the Ability. His throat feels too parched and that’s his reason for not continuing with his plan to bark at the other to let him go.
-
Chuuya’s insides are on fire, like he’s being ravaged by magma inside him. He thrashes about in bed, surely ruining his bedsheets in the process. He feels a heavy weight drape over him, a warm comforter that does manage to comfort him, that does manage to taper the destructive heat inside of him. It doesn’t make sense, that something warm can defeat something burning, but it feels safe, almost reassuring, in a way.
In some part of his mind, Chuuya remembers the Ability user that everyone in Yokohama is tracking down for being an international terrorist that has the Ability of spreading a plague near-indiscriminately. He’s actually not part of the team tapped to handle the pursuit of the terrorist – it’s been passed to the Black Lizard and Kouyou-anesan’s squads, mostly because Chuuya’s supposed to have some respite from back-to-back missions. But Chuuya’s drinking in a bar and he ends up meeting Dazai’s ugly mug and they end up being targeted by the Ability user and Chuuya’s stupidity has taken over, because he knows that it’s an Ability and therefore will probably not work on Dazai to begin with and Dazai’s an asshole traitor anyway—but he pushed Dazai out of the way anyway and the plague is apparently impervious to the effect of gravity because it affected Chuuya anyway.
…Ah.
So that’s why Dazai’s here, taking care of him.
Chuuya wants to tell him off, that he doesn’t need a shitty nurse especially if Dazai’s here because of some misguided playacting of guilt.
“Save your braincells for fighting off the sickness, chibikko.”
Chuuya scoffs at that, but even that takes too much effort so he succumbs to the call of sleep.
-
The plague-like Ability is potent enough to ensure death to its affected user within twelve hours, but (not-so-)surprisingly, Chuuya’s not worried about dying.
Dazai’s touch are a constant around him, surrounding him in that suffocating, addicting warmth.
-
Dazai’s a constant until he isn’t—doesn’t that suit him too well?
Chuuya wakes up and doesn’t find Dazai anywhere, so he closes his eyes again and retreats to his cocoon surrounded by his cooling bedsheets.
-
Chuuya wakes up again, feeling like death warmed over. He’s wearing something different from the clothes he collapsed on, his sheets are dry and cool and definitely not the next one in his bedsheet rotation. He’s tucked in under a fluffy comforter, the A/C set at just the right temperature that teeters between too-hot and too-cold, the perfect temperature to want to abandon thoughts about work and responsibilities.
There’s a sound of pans banging from beyond his bedroom, the door not completely shut. Chuuya’s throat feels too dry and he’s not sure if his yell about conserving electricity will be heard amidst the commotion in his kitchen. The destructive fire inside his veins has cooled down, but he feels heat spark inside him at the thought of Dazai ruining his kitchen by making chicken soup or other abominable sick-person concoctions.
Curtains drawn, Chuuya’s sight is guided by the bedside lamp’s warm glow. He just lays there, waits for Dazai to come back. He swears to himself that he’s going to send his electric bill to Dazai because of the waste in his A/C, but the thought catches and leaves his mind in fleeting wisps. He tests the curl of his fingers and toes, the flex of his muscles, finds himself more-or-less in working condition, save for his mind that’s still stuck inside the cotton wrap, save for his heart that’s still swooning inside his ribcage like an uncooperative idiot.
Dazai comes inside his bedroom, mitten-covered hands bearing a pot of steaming soup that actually smells appetizing, despite Chuuya’s misgivings about the other’s poisonous cooking skills. Dazai doesn’t look that surprised to see him awake, bumping his hip against the door to close it behind him. Dazai places the pot on top of a coaster on his bedside table, takes off his mittens in a way that attracts Chuuya’s gaze.
“Good morning,” Dazai greets with the type of softness that he’s only been capable of when he hasn’t slept for an entire night, the fatigue and sleepiness softening the edges of sharp mind and tongue. “You look like shit.”
“It’s because I have a shitty nurse,” Chuuya allows, which says a lot because he didn’t even need a nurse at all, especially not someone supposedly on the other end of the morality compass.
“It’s because I was working pro-bono,” Dazai counters, his hands gentle as he helps prop Chuuya up so that he’s seated and leaning his back against the headboard, like they both don’t know that Chuuya’s regained strength to the point that he doesn’t need such assistance.
Chuuya raises an eyebrow as Dazai sits beside him on bed, angles his body so that the lines of their bodies are against each other. Chuuya’s left knee is pressed against Dazai’s ass, while Dazai’s left knee pokes at Chuuya’s upper thigh. It’s not as uncomfortable as it should be, and Dazai’s blowing at a spoonful of soup before he raises his left hand so he can coax Chuuya’s mouth open by running a thumb against his lips. It’s completely unnecessary, but Chuuya allows it anyway, reasons that he can spit the soup directly at Dazai’s face in case it ends up poisoned. It’s not poisoned, at least it doesn’t taste like one—not like the traditional sort of poison anyway.
Of course, Chuuya would like to argue that Dazai has poisoned him so long ago anyway – sharp smirks slicing at Chuuya’s skin until his insides are exposed for the taking, an all-out assault that Chuuya’s been helpless to stop, a different sort of gravity that Chuuya can’t repel, because they’re so different, the same sort of natural attraction, because they’re fundamentally the same. Dazai’s poison is transmittable via the air they breathe, via the touches they share, via the lives they lead.
Inevitable, inescapable, incurable.
“I’ll pay you back,” Chuuya murmurs after he swallows five more spoonfuls of the soup that’s surprisingly well-made, given that Dazai considers the height of cooking as reheating convenience store bentos and canned food.
Dazai sets the spoon back on the pot and Chuuya feels the spark of lightning ignite inside of him, the magnetic force binding their bodies together coming to life. Dazai climbs on his lap gracefully, setting both of his knees on both sides of Chuuya’s hips, caging him in a cocoon of warmth. Dazai’s fingers are rubbing at the junction of his shoulder and neck, rubs it upwards as though to trace the things that connect Chuuya’s heart and mind to each other. Dazai’s gaze is heated as he follows the path of his hands, going up until he’s tracing Chuuya’s lips, his cheeks, his nose, his eyes, his temples.
Chuuya’s hands are on his lap, slack—not because of the lack of desire, but because the desire to see Dazai’s next move is more compelling. Dazai’s hands slide down, taking both of Chuuya’s hands from his lap, raises them both to Dazai’s lips, pulls them close for butterfly kisses to be dropped over each knuckle, opens his hands to expose his palms so Dazai can place nipping kisses to trace a vibrant red along his lifelines.
“My payment is pretty expensive,” Dazai murmurs against his palm. “Are you sure you can pay it?”
Chuuya shivers at the way Dazai’s pupils are dilated in lust and longing as they stare at each other.
“I can pay.”
“Your payment is…” Dazai leans forward, murmurs the rest of his conditions against the corner of Chuuya’s lips. “…You have to stay alive as long as I’m around.”
That teases out a laugh from Chuuya, because—he’s been expecting something like a request for a kiss, or maybe even sex, or even some unnamed future favor that he can’t refuse. Yet what he gets is—a strange double-suicide request, a marriage proposal, a life contract, a promise of love. Fused together and that’s what Dazai is and it’s such a Dazai thing to ask of him that Chuuya’s laugh continues, even as Dazai keeps on drinking his chuckles directly from his lips. Dazai drops kisses around his throat when his chuckling tapers off, as though he’ll be able to coax more of those sounds.
“You’re such an expensive nurse,” Chuuya murmurs into the warmth between them, dips his head so he can press kisses around Dazai’s hairline, the fire inside of him like the breath of sun-warmed fresh air in the dawn of a new day. “Better make this worth it, got it?”
Dazai puts a hand over Chuuya’s heart and smiles.
“I do. And I will.”
Chuuya laughs again, his throat itchy from the previous sickness, but not itchy enough that he can’t express his happiness freely. “You’re not supposed to say ‘I do’ yet.”
Because he’s a little shit, Dazai kisses him again, murmurs ‘I do’ in-between kisses, the warmth melting their words and actions together until even Chuuya is repeating the words back.
-
When Chuuya wakes up again, body warm and boneless and crushed underneath the sprawl of Dazai’s limbs, his phone ringing nonstop because he’s supposed to be in the headquarters two hours ago for the debriefing regarding the plague ability—it’s to a warmth that he will not trade for anything else.
(He does smack Dazai’s head though, because he’s pretty sure he set the alarm before they fell asleep.)