Archive of Our Own ^beta

The door to the shipping container rattled before it slammed open with a crash that made the rusted hinges screech in protest.

“Shitty Dazai!” Chuuya’s voice cut through the stagnant air like a gunshot. “You better have a damn good reason for making me hunt your sorry ass down on Boss's orders, you little—”

He froze mid-sentence. The stagnant smell hit him first—stale air, sweat, something ill. Then his eyes adjusted to the dim light seeping through the warped metal. Dazai was there, exactly where he shouldn’t be: curled against the far wall on a thin futon, half-dressed and pale, skin sheened with fever sweat. His hair stuck damply to his forehead. He didn’t even lift his head at the intrusion.

“…the hell,” Chuuya muttered, stepping inside. “You look like shit.”

Dazai’s eyes cracked open just enough to show dull brown beneath his lashes. “Leave,” he rasped. “Chuuya is too ugly to look at.”

“Yeah, you look real fine yourself,” Chuuya shot back, slamming the door behind him. The clang reverberated. “You disappeared for three days, asshole. Boss sent me because no one else could find you.”

“I wasn’t hiding,” Dazai said flatly, turning his face toward the wall. “Just… didn’t feel like moving.”

Chuuya stalked closer. He’d seen Dazai after missions blood-spattered and smirking, Dazai strung out on whatever pills he could scavenge, Dazai bored and cruel and half a step from getting himself killed—but he’d never seen him quite like this. His lips were cracked. His breathing was too shallow. There was an untouched cup of water near the door, long gone lukewarm.

“Have you even eaten?” Chuuya demanded.

“Mm.”

“That’s not an answer, brat.”

Dazai didn’t bother responding.

Chuuya cursed under his breath. “For fuck’s sake. You’ve got a fever, idiot.”

“No, I don’t.”

“You’re burning up.”

Dazai flinched when Chuuya crouched down and pressed a hand to his forehead, weakly swatting him away. His skin was hot, damp, and clammy. Chuuya’s scowl deepened.

“Jesus. Do you even know how bad this is? You’re a walking infection. How long have you been like this?”

“Dunno,” Dazai muttered. “Time’s boring.”

Chuuya scrubbed a hand down his face. He hadn’t signed up for this. He was supposed to drag the bastard back to headquarters or at least confirm he wasn’t dead in a ditch somewhere. He was not supposed to play nursemaid.

But Dazai looked… small, suddenly. He wasn’t acting small—he was still being a bandage-wasting pain in the ass—but the fever had stripped some of the sharpness off him. The sight twisted something unpleasant in Chuuya’s gut.

“Alright,” Chuuya said, standing with a decisive snap. “Up.”

“No.”

“Up, shitty Dazai. You’re gonna drink some water, and you’re gonna take something for that fever, and then—”

“Leave me alone.”

“Not happening.”

Dazai cracked one eye again, giving him the laziest glare imaginable. “I don’t want help from a slug.”

“Well, too fucking bad,” Chuuya snapped, choosing to ignore the unveiled insult. “Because you’re not getting anyone else’s.”

For a moment, they stared one another down—Dazai sunk in feverish stubbornness, Chuuya bristling like a kicked dog. Then Chuuya huffed through his nose, crossed to the water, and shoved the cup toward Dazai’s hands.

Dazai didn’t take it.

“Oh my god,” Chuuya muttered, sitting down with a thump. “You’re like a feral cat. Drink the damn water.”

Silence. Dazai turned his head stubbornly toward the wall.

Chuuya ground his teeth, then shifted tactics. He caught Dazai’s wrist—not hard, just enough to make him look—and pressed the cup to his mouth. “Drink,” he ordered.

Dazai made a low noise of protest but didn’t actually pull away. The first few sips went down awkwardly. Then he drank a little more, throat working, eyes unfocused. Chuuya exhaled slowly through his nose, forcing himself not to comment.

“Good. Jesus,” he muttered when the cup was empty. “You really are helpless when left alone.”

“Go away,” Dazai whispered.

“Can’t. Orders.” Chuuya rose to his feet, pacing. “Boss wants you alive, unfortunately. And apparently that means I have to keep your dumb bandaged ass from dying of not drinking water.”

“Mean. I wasn’t dying,” Dazai said. His voice was hoarse.

“Could’ve fooled me.”

Chuuya rifled through the small first aid kit tucked in the corner—typical Dazai, a few scattered pills, a mostly empty bottle of rubbing alcohol, and a cracked thermometer. But rolls and rolls of gauze, of course. He stuck the thermometer in Dazai’s mouth before the other could protest. When it beeped, he swore loudly.

“Over a hundred,” he said. “No wonder you look like shit.”

Dazai’s smile was faint and crooked. “I always look like shit, Chibi.”

“Yeah, well, now you’re sweaty too,” Chuuya shot back, grabbing a damp cloth from the dumb water bucket Dazai kept in the corner and wringing it out. He sat down beside the brat and pressed it to his forehead before Dazai could twist away. “Hold still.”

“This is pathetic,” Dazai muttered.

“Yeah. You’re pathetic.”

“Rude.”

Chuuya rolled his eyes. “You’re lucky Boss didn’t send someone else. They’d have hauled you back in chains.”

“I’d rather that,” Dazai said, eyes closing.

The cloth slipped a little as his head lolled. Chuuya adjusted it silently, watching Dazai’s breathing even out—not healthy, exactly, but slower. The room was still too warm; the metal walls trapped heat like an oven. He stood and cracked the door to let some air in.

He told himself it was just to get the job done. Boss would skin him alive if Dazai croaked from something as stupid as a fever. That was all.

“Gonna get you some real food,” Chuuya muttered. “And medicine.”

“Don’t bother, ugly slug.”

“Shut up.”

Chuuya grabbed his hat and stomped toward the door. “If you move, I’ll kill you.”

Dazai hummed faintly in response, which Chuuya decided to interpret as agreement.

When he came back, arms full of supplies from the nearest pharmacy, Dazai hadn’t moved an inch. He looked worse, if anything—sweatier, strands of hair plastered to his neck. Chuuya set the food down, popped a blister pack of fever reducers, and knelt.

“Open up.”

“No.”

“Dazai.”

“No.”

Chuuya pinched the bridge of his nose. “Do I have to shove this down your throat?”

“Chuuya can try,” Dazai said, a weak flash of teeth.

It would have been funny if he didn’t look half-dead. Chuuya grabbed his chin and forced his mouth open long enough to slip the pills in and shove the water cup against his lips again. Dazai swallowed with a grimace.

“See? Was that so hard?”

“Yes.”

Chuuya let out a disbelieving laugh. “You’re unbelievable.”

“Mm.”

Dazai was already sinking back against the futon. The cloth on his forehead was lukewarm; Chuuya swapped it for a fresh one without comment. For a while, neither of them spoke. The only sounds were the distant hum of the port and Dazai’s uneven breathing.

“You should’ve told someone,” Chuuya said finally.

“Why?”

“So you don’t end up like this.”

Dazai’s eyes slid open, slow and lazy. “Would it matter?”

“Yeah,” Chuuya snapped before he could stop himself. “It fucking would.”

Silence again. Dazai looked at him for a long moment—long enough for something unspoken to pass between them, heavy and brittle—then closed his eyes.

Chuuya sighed, sitting back on his heels. “You’re a pain in my ass,” he muttered.

“The slug loves it,” Dazai murmured.

Chuuya glared. But he didn’t leave.

By the time the sun slipped lower, turning the thin slats of light into molten gold, Dazai's breathing had evened out. He looked half-dead still, but quieter. Chuuya leaned back against the container wall, arms crossed, hat tipped low to hide the way his eyes lingered, the heat in his cheeks.

“Idiot,” he muttered under his breath.

Dazai didn’t respond—already drifting somewhere between fever and sleep. For once, he stayed put. And for once, Chuuya didn’t walk away.