Archive of Our Own ^beta

The fundamental, universe-altering, and frankly ridiculous problem began—as most of Dazai's problems did—with a poorly thought-out experiment.

"Simple energy transference," Dazai proclaimed, flopping onto the chaise lounge in Chuuya's impeccably clean apartment. He toed off his shoes with a practiced flick. Two dull thuds on polished floor. Chuuya's eye twitched. "My ability nullifies all gifts. But what if the effect delays? A temporal buffer. We could learn so much."

Chuuya was decanting a bottle of Pétrus that cost more than Dazai's entire wardrobe. He didn't look up. "The only thing I'll learn is new ways to murder you. Get your filthy boots off my furniture."

"They're off. See?" Dazai wiggled his bandaged toes. "Now hold my hand."

"I'd rather hold a live wire."

"It's for science, Chuuya. Don't you want to push boundaries?"

"My boundaries are fine where they are." But he was curious—a fatal flaw when it came to Dazai. He stalked over, grabbing Dazai's outstretched hand like a dead fish. "Fine. Now what?"

"Now you try to activate Upon the Tainted Sorrow. Just a trickle. I'll try to hold the nullification for a fraction of a second, let the energy pool before it cancels."

In Chuuya's professional opinion, it was the dumbest idea since the square wheel. He channeled a minuscule amount of gravity into his hand. Faint red glow from his fingertips.

Dazai concentrated. No Longer Human was usually automatic, instantaneous. Trying to stifle it was like trying to consciously stop his heartbeat. For a single quantum moment, he succeeded. He felt the foreign energy—Chuuya's energy, all contained violent potential—surge into his wrist. Then his ability kicked in with the finality of a guillotine.

Or so he thought.

"Well?" Chuuya dropped his hand. "Feel any smarter?"

"Disappointingly, no." Dazai examined his wrist. "Complete failure. What a letdown."

They went about their evening. Chuuya drank his wine. Dazai complained about the lack of crab in the pantry. The experiment was forgotten.

Until three days later.

𓍯𓂃𓍯𓂃𓍯𓂃𓍯𓂃𓍯𓂃

They were in the middle of a tedious stakeout. Dazai hummed an off-key tune about double suicide. Chuuya contemplated finding a way to use his gravity to launch his partner into Yokohama Bay.

"Could you please shut up?" Chuuya hissed, adjusting his binoculars. "Some of us are working."

"Oh, Chuuya is so diligent. Such a good little dog for the Port Mafia."

Chuuya's knuckles went white. He felt a familiar hot spike of irritation, a flash of pure unadulterated want to wipe that smug grin off Dazai's face. A feeling as common as rain.

In the passenger seat, Dazai gasped. Not his usual performative gasp. A sharp, choked, utterly genuine sound. His whole body jolted, back arching off the leather seat. Flush spreading from neck to cheeks, eyes wide with shock, glassing over.

Chuuya lowered the binoculars. "What? Did you see something?"

Dazai was breathing heavily, knuckles gripping the dashboard. He looked like he'd run a marathon. Or something else entirely. He slowly turned, expression a bizarre cocktail of horror, confusion, and dawning apocalyptic understanding.

"You," Dazai whispered, voice hoarse.

"Me what?"

"You felt something. Just now. Annoyed. Really, truly annoyed."

Chuuya's brow furrowed. "Yeah? And? You're annoying. It's my default state."

"No." Dazai's gaze turned inward, analytical. "This is different. The energy from the experiment didn't nullify. It latched on. A feedback loop. Sympathetic connection." He looked at Chuuya, eyes wide. "When you feel a strong emotion directed at me, I think I feel it. Physically."

Chuuya stared. Then burst out laughing. "That's the stupidest thing you've ever said, and that's a high bar. My emotions give you a tummy ache?"

"Not a tummy ache." Dazai's voice dropped dangerously low. "Test it. Feel something. Right now."

Skeptical but amused, Chuuya leaned back. He focused. Dazai's infuriating smirk. His lazy posture. His constant, soul-crushing need to be the smartest person in the room. He let the aggravation build, a hot familiar coal in his gut.

Beside him, Dazai shuddered. A full-body tremor that made his teeth chatter. He squeezed his eyes shut, breath hitching.

Chuuya's amusement vanished, replaced by slow, creeping, utterly diabolical realization. A grin spread across his face—pure predatory delight.

"Oh," Chuuya said, the word dripping venom-sweet. "Oh, this is beautiful."

𓍯𓂃𓍯𓂃𓍯𓂃𓍯𓂃𓍯𓂃

Dazai's plan was to lock himself in his shipping container and hope the connection faded. A coward's move. His default.

Chuuya's plan was significantly more proactive.

He found Dazai two days later, skulking near the docks, trying to look inconspicuous and failing miserably.

"Well, if it isn't my favorite puppet." Chuuya landed lightly in front of him, coat flaring. "How's the string-holding business?"

"Go away, Chuuya." Dazai's voice was flat. He looked tired. "This isn't funny."

"Disagree." Chuuya closed the distance, his presence a physical force. "I find it hilarious. A cosmic joke with you as the punchline. Now let's run more tests. For science."

He didn't need to touch him. Just to feel.

He thought about the time Dazai had 'accidentally' blown up his favorite motorcycle. The raw incandescent rage he'd felt then. He summoned it, polished it, aimed it at the man before him.

Dazai cried out, stumbling back against stacked crates. His knees buckled. Not pleasure—an overwhelming neurological overload, a storm of sensation with no focus. He panted, glaring with genuine hatred. "Stop it."

"Make me." Chuuya purred. Then shifted gears. He remembered, with startling clarity, the first and only time they'd properly fucked. A safehouse after a near-death experience. The frantic angry clash of limbs, a physical argument they'd never had with words. He remembered the heat of Dazai's skin, the shocking vulnerability in his eye for one unguarded moment. He let that memory, that specific targeted want, fill him.

The effect was instantaneous and catastrophic.

Dazai's entire body went rigid. A strangled moan tore from his throat. He clutched at the crates for support, face a mask of stunned helpless arousal. A direct hit. A laser-guided missile of sensation straight to his core.

"You—" Dazai gasped. "You're a monster."

"Takes one to know one." Chuuya's voice was low, pleased. He took another step forward, crowding Dazai against the crates. "Here's the new arrangement. You're going to be a very, very good boy. Or I will make your life a living, breathing, non-stop circuit of whatever the hell I feel like."

𓍯𓂃𓍯𓂃𓍯𓂃𓍯𓂃𓍯𓂃

The ensuing week was a masterclass in psychological warfare, underscored by dark absurdist comedy.

At the head of the meeting table, Mori droned on about logistical efficiency. Dazai, for once, was paying attention, or at least pretending to. Chuuya sat across the table, bored. He thought about how much he wanted a cigarette. A simple idle desire.

Dazai's pen slipped from his fingers. A faint pleasant shiver ran through him. He blinked, confused.

Chuuya noticed. His eyes lit up. He focused, imagining the first perfect drag of a cigarette, nicotine hitting his system. A deeper, more satisfying wave.

Dazai shifted in his seat, faint blush on his cheeks. He shot Chuuya a warning look.

Chuuya smiled. Then imagined the cigarette was done. Stubbing it out. The finality.

The pleasant warmth in Dazai's veins vanished, leaving a faint unsatisfying ache. Dazai's shoulders slumped almost imperceptibly. He looked disappointed.

Mori paused. "Dazai? Something to add?"

"No." Voice tight. "Nothing at all."

𓍯𓂃𓍯𓂃𓍯𓂃𓍯𓂃𓍯𓂃

Later, during a firefight with a minor smuggling ring, Chuuya was a whirlwind of controlled violence. He moved with dancer's grace, gravity manipulation turning goons into projectiles. He felt a surge of exhilaration—the pure uncomplicated joy of a fight well-fought.

Across the warehouse, Dazai, lazily disarming a smuggler, suddenly stumbled. A wave of dizzying almost-euphoric energy crashed into him, making his head spin. His opponent saw the opening and lunged.

"Dazai-sama, watch out!" One of his subordinates tackled the attacker.

From his perch on a floating crate, Chuuya laughed. "Distracted, mackerel?"

Dazai shot him a look that could curdle milk.

The commentary was almost too perfect. The universe had given Chuuya a remote control for the most infuriating man alive, and the primary button was, functionally, an orgasm switch. The sheer ridiculous poetry of it was not lost on him.

𓍯𓂃𓍯𓂃𓍯𓂃𓍯𓂃𓍯𓂃

At a Port Mafia gala—one of Mori's tedious networking events where they paraded around in expensive suits and pretended civility—Chuuya found new opportunities for experimentation.

Dazai was holding court with a group of executives, spinning some elaborate lie about intelligence gathered from a rival organization. His hands moved expressively, his smile charming and utterly fake.

Chuuya, across the ballroom with a champagne flute, let his gaze linger. He thought about the column of Dazai's throat, exposed above his collar. Imagined putting his mouth there. His teeth. Marking him where everyone could see.

Dazai's words stuttered. His hand went to his throat unconsciously. He recovered quickly—he always did—but his eyes found Chuuya's across the room. The look was pure murder.

Chuuya raised his glass in a mock toast.

Ten minutes later, Dazai cornered him on a balcony.

"You can't do this during work functions."

"Can't I?" Chuuya leaned against the railing. "Seems I can do it whenever I want. That's kind of the point."

"This is a professional environment—"

"So professional." Chuuya let his gaze rake over Dazai deliberately. "Tell me, does it count as a work hazard if I make you come in your expensive suit in front of the entire executive board?"

Dazai's jaw clenched. "You wouldn't."

"Wouldn't I?" But Chuuya's grin softened slightly. "Relax. I'm not that cruel. Humiliating you is only fun when you're aware enough to hate it."

"How comforting."

They stood in silence. The party sounds drifted through the glass doors behind them.

"This has to stop," Dazai said finally. "The connection. We need to find a way to sever it."

"Do we?" Chuuya turned to face him fully. "Because from where I'm standing, this is the most honest our relationship has ever been. You can't lie to me anymore, Dazai. I can feel when you're actually angry versus when you're performing. I know when you're scared, which you hide so fucking well. I know—" He stopped himself.

"You know what?"

Chuuya looked away. "Nothing. Forget it."

But through the connection, Dazai felt it anyway. The thing Chuuya wouldn't say. The realization that beneath all the irritation and rage and violent want, there was something else. Something that felt almost like relief. Like finally, after all these years, Chuuya could prove his feelings were real because Dazai could feel them himself.

Dazai's expression shifted. Something complicated passing over his features. "Chuuya—"

"Don't." Chuuya pushed off the railing. "I'm going back inside. Try not to spontaneously orgasm during Mori's speech."

He left Dazai on the balcony, alone with thoughts he couldn't nullify and feelings he couldn't strategize away.

𓍯𓂃𓍯𓂃𓍯𓂃𓍯𓂃𓍯𓂃

The climax of Chuuya's experiment came one quiet evening. He'd invited himself over to Dazai's container—a place he usually treated with the reverence of a biohazard site. He sat in Dazai's one relatively clean chair, swirling a glass of wine he'd brought. Dazai sat on his futon, looking like a condemned man.

"You know," Chuuya mused, "this is a profound metaphor for our entire relationship. You, the brilliant strategist who outthinks everyone, rendered utterly helpless by something as primitive as emotion. My emotion. It's almost philosophical."

"Please spare me the dime-store Nietzsche."

"But that's the thing." Chuuya leaned forward. "It's not just any emotion. It has to be about you. My rage at you. My frustration with you. My..." He let the word hang. "...desire for you. It's the ultimate narcissist's prison, Dazai. You're trapped by the very fact that you occupy my thoughts."

Dazai said nothing. Just watched with dark unreadable eyes.

Chuuya decided to make his point. He didn't summon a single emotion. He conducted a symphony.

He started with a low thrum of simple ownership. Mine, the thought echoed, primal and possessive.

Dazai's breath hitched. His fingers curled into the futon fabric.

Chuuya layered it with sharp metallic anger from a hundred past betrayals. The memory of being used.

Dazai flinched as if struck, a pained sound escaping. His body caught between recoiling and leaning into the sensation.

Then Chuuya poured thick honeyed warmth of pure undiluted want. Not just sexual, but a deep terrifyingly specific craving for Dazai—his mind, his chaos, his unbearable constant presence.

It was too much. The conflicting signals, the sheer intensity, overloaded every circuit in Dazai's body. He cried out, a raw unfiltered sound, as his body convulsed. He came untouched, shaking apart under the sheer force of Chuuya's focused feeling, his release a brutal involuntary surrender.

For a long moment, only Dazai's ragged breathing. He lay boneless on the futon, flushed and trembling, face buried in the mattress.

Chuuya took a slow sip of wine. "See? Philosophy in action."

Dazai slowly pushed himself up. He didn't look humiliated as Chuuya expected. He looked calm. Resolved. His eyes, when they met Chuuya's, were clear and frighteningly intelligent.

"You're right, Chuuya." Voice quiet but steady. "It is a prison. But you've made one fatal mistake."

"Oh? What's that?"

"You've moved into the cell with me."

Dazai stood, movements fluid and sure. He walked toward Chuuya, who, for the first time, felt a prickle of uncertainty.

"This connection is a feedback loop. Sympathetic. You project, and I feel. But energy, especially the kind you command, Chuuya, is never a one-way street." He reached out, fingers not touching Chuuya but hovering just inches from his chest. "You've been so focused on sending. You never stopped to think about what happens when I send something back."

Chuuya frowned. "What are you talking about? Your ability nullifies. It doesn't project."

"My ability doesn't," Dazai agreed. "But this isn't my ability. This is our mess. Our combined energy. You feel something for me, and I receive it. But what if..." A slow terrifying smile spread. "What if the receiver decides to broadcast?"

Dazai closed his eyes. He wasn't feeling an emotion. He was projecting one. Not his own, but a refined amplified echo of what Chuuya had just poured into him. He took the maelstrom of possession, anger, and desire, purified it into a single concentrated beam, and fired it back along the connection.

It hit Chuuya like a physical blow.

He gasped, glass slipping from his fingers and shattering on the floor. The emotion wasn't foreign—it was his own, but reflected back with the intensity of a supernova. His want, his rage, his desperate furious claim on Dazai, utterly completely overwhelming. His knees went weak. A hot shocking jolt of pure undiluted pleasure shot through him, so intense it was almost painful.

He stumbled back, catching himself on the wall, breathing ragged. He stared at Dazai, eyes wide with new horrifying understanding.

Dazai watched, head tilted. The puppet had just yanked his own strings, and the puppeteer had felt it. The cage door, it turned out, swung both ways.

"See?" Dazai whispered, smile all the more chilling for its softness. "Now it's a partnership."

The balance of power, that ever-shifting tide between them, had not just leveled. It had become a feedback loop of catastrophic potential. They stood there in the dim light of the shipping container, two forces of nature trapped in a circuit of their own making, a dark endless dance where the only thing more dangerous than the next move was the terrifying possibility of a stalemate.

The game was far from over. It had just become infinitely more complicated. And both of them secretly had to admit, infinitely more interesting.

The shards of wine glass glittered on the floor like fallen stars, a perfect shattered constellation marking the moment the paradigm shifted. The air in the container was thick, charged with ozone-scent of spent power and something far more primal.

Chuuya was braced against corrugated metal, chest heaving. The echo of his own desire, weaponized and fired back into his nervous system, was still short-circuiting his higher brain functions. Conducting the orchestra of Dazai's pleasure was one thing. Being strapped into the front row of the symphony, feeling every note vibrate in his own bones—that was another.

Dazai watched, expression unnervingly serene. The tremor was gone from his hands, the flush of helpless arousal replaced by cool calculating calm. He'd turned Chuuya's weapon against him, and the victory was sweeter than any he'd known.

"A partnership," Chuuya rasped, the word tasting foreign. He pushed off the wall, movements regaining their predatory grace, though his pulse still hammered. The uncertainty was gone, burned away by a new sharper kind of fury—one laced with respect. "You think this changes anything?"

"It changes everything." Dazai's voice was soft. "You can't just play with me anymore, Chuuya. Now you have to play with me. It's a duet. And if you play too rough..." He let the threat hang, smirk playing on his lips. "You might just break your own fingers."

Chuuya was on him in two swift steps. He didn't use his ability. This was purely physical. He grabbed a fistful of Dazai's shirt, yanking him forward until their faces were inches apart. "Fine. Let's play."

He didn't bother with finesse. He shoved Dazai back onto the futon. The thin mattress did little to cushion the impact. Dazai's breath left him in a huff, but his eyes never left Chuuya's, gleaming with a challenge that was an aphrodisiac in itself.

This was different. Before, it had been a demonstration of power, a one-sided assault. Now it was a negotiation. A battle fought with skin and breath and the terrifying invisible tether that bound their nervous systems together.

Chuuya stripped them both with brutal efficiency, hands rough on Dazai's bandages, tearing them away to expose pale scarred skin. He was mapping familiar territory with new heightened awareness. Every touch, every bite, every possessive grip was now a potential broadcast.

He pinned Dazai's wrists above his head, leaning down to growl in his ear. "Let's see how good you are at multitasking, genius."

He focused. Not on a single blunt emotion, but on a complex layered cocktail. The slick hot slide of anticipation. The sharp metallic bite of ownership. The low throbbing beat of pure undiluted need.

The effect on Dazai was immediate and devastating. He arched off the futon, a choked cry tearing from his throat. His body was no longer just his own—it was a resonator for Chuuya's intent. But this time his eyes stayed open, locked on Chuuya's. He wasn't just receiving. He was analyzing. Processing.

"Is that all you have?" Dazai gasped, voice strained.

Chuuya's answer was to enter him in one sharp unforgiving thrust.

The sensory feedback was instantaneous and catastrophic for both of them.

For Dazai, it was physical invasion compounded by psychic invasion. The stretch, the burn, the overwhelming fullness layered with Chuuya's triumphant savage joy at being inside him. Too much. His vision whited out, his entire world narrowing to the point where their bodies joined and their minds bled together.

For Chuuya, it was like touching a live wire. The physical sensation of Dazai's tight heat around him was one thing. But through the loop, he felt the echo of his own thrust—the shocking overwhelming pleasure-pain—from Dazai's perspective. A hall of mirrors of sensation, each reflection intensifying the last. He groaned, forehead dropping to Dazai's shoulder, hips stuttering.

"Fuck," Chuuya breathed, the curse ripped from him.

Beneath him, Dazai was trembling, but a broken laugh escaped. "S-see? Not so easy, is it?"

Chuuya began to move, setting a punishing rhythmic pace. It was no longer just about fucking Dazai. It was about navigating the storm. Each thrust was a message sent, and the resulting tremor, the gasp, the clench of Dazai's body was the reply, amplified and bounced back.

He focused on the raw animalistic rightness of it, the feeling of their bodies fitting together in this most primitive of dances.

Dazai cried out, legs wrapping tighter around Chuuya's waist, pulling him deeper. The sensation echoed back—a dizzying possessive pull that made Chuuya's head spin.

It was Dazai's turn to experiment. He let go of his mental shields, stopped trying to block the onslaught. Instead, he focused on the specific searing friction, the building unbearable pressure low in his gut. He didn't just feel it—he grabbed the feeling and shoved it back down the connection, a raw unfiltered feed of his own impending climax.

Chuuya's rhythm broke. He swore, thrusts becoming erratic. "You bastard—"

"What's the matter?" Dazai panted, voice a taunting singsong even as tears of overstimulation gathered in his eyes. "Can't handle the feedback?"

They were caught in a vicious exquisite cycle. Chuuya would project a wave of dominant consuming want, and Dazai would amplify it, sending back desperate pleading need that was entirely manufactured and utterly convincing. Chuuya would feel the echo of Dazai's pleasure, which would spike his own, which would push Dazai higher, and on and on—a closed circuit of escalating sensation.

No more words. Just gasps and moans and the slick frantic sound of skin against skin. The container felt like it was spinning, the world outside ceasing to exist. There was only the loop. The endless recursive loop of feeling and being felt.

Chuuya was losing his grip. The distinction between his pleasure and Dazai's was blurring into a single screaming frequency. He could feel his own orgasm building, a tidal wave fed from two separate sources—his own body and the mirrored amplified version from Dazai's.

He looked down at Dazai. His face was a mess of sweat and tears, expression one of shattered overwhelming ecstasy. And in that moment, Chuuya felt a surge of something that wasn't anger or possession or even simple want. Something darker, more profound, infinitely more dangerous. A feeling of completion. Of inevitability. This is where we were always going to end up.

He let that feeling flow through him unchecked. Not a weapon, not a tool. Just a truth.

Dazai's eyes flew open, wide with shock. He felt it. Not as an assault, but as an admission. The final critical piece of data. The one variable he hadn't accounted for. The one that broke him.

His carefully constructed control shattered.

He came with a raw broken scream, body convulsing violently, the force of it so intense it was almost a seizure. And because the loop was wide open, because he was broadcasting everything, the full cataclysmic force of his release slammed into Chuuya.

It was like being struck by lightning. Chuuya's world dissolved into pure white-hot sensation. His own climax was ripped from him, a helpless roaring thing that felt less like pleasure and more like annihilation. He collapsed onto Dazai, body spent, mind a blank staticky slate.

For a long time, only silence, broken by their ragged synced-up breathing. The feedback loop had quieted to a low humming thrum, a persistent awareness of the other's physical and emotional state that was as intimate as it was terrifying.

Chuuya eventually found the strength to roll onto his back, staring up at the rust-stained ceiling. The metaphor was almost too heavy-handed. A cage of their own making.

He felt Dazai shift beside him.

"Well," Dazai said, voice hoarse but already regaining its sly melodic edge. "That was efficient."

Chuuya let out a breath that was half laugh, half sob. "Go to hell."

"We're already there, partner." Dazai turned his head on the thin pillow, dark eyes meeting Chuuya's. No victory in them now. Just weary shared understanding. "It seems we've successfully weaponized co-dependency."

Chuuya closed his eyes. The problem wasn't solved. It was eternal. Two black holes locked in mutual orbit, destined to consume each other for energy until the end of time. And the most terrifying, absurd, and fucking irritating part was that he wouldn't have it any other way.

"Shut up," Chuuya muttered, words lacking any real heat. "Just shut up."

And for once, Dazai did.