Molly's Fics Cause she Refuses to Read Them on Ao3

You Get Me Closer

Ta/Tags: Fluff and Smut, Post-Corruption Ability Use
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Chuuya’s eyes open, and he feels a warm presence pressed against his back. Slender hands are clasped in front of his ribs and a forehead rests against the back of his neck. He frowns, trying to regain his bearings, feeling the mattress under him and realising that it’s his own. The last thing he remembers is passing out, exhausted, against a dingy wall in an alley behind the destination of their mission. Whatever had happened between then and now, it had caused him to be transported from that dingy wall on the outskirts of the city to his bed in the apartment that he shares with his partner.

This isn’t new, but it’s unusual.

Usually, if Chuuya’s not gravely injured, he wakes up the same way he passed out—on cold floors, covered in blood and entrails he’s ripped away with his bare hands as the red fire seared through his veins. Usually, his partner is nowhere to be seen, opting to have left Chuuya alone at the scene, disappearing into the night to do whatever he does, leaving his partner to wake up with nothing but aches all over his body and a hungry emptiness that sets in slowly and then gnaws at his gut—all that’s left after Arahabaki bleeds out of his system and returns to the recesses of his mind.

But sometimes—more often of late—bandaged hands guide him to his feet. They help him to his apartment and get him out of the blood soaked clothes. They find a wet rag and sponge him down gently, almost impossibly so. These hands give him the comfort he needs after those long, bloody nights when the fires of chaos tear his body to shreds and then reassemble him repeatedly. These nights—these rare nights, filled with warmth and unlikely comfort, Dazai stays by Chuuya’s side after it’s all over, rubbing his back and letting his ability flow through Chuuya until he drifts from dazed, feverish semi-consciousness to deep sleep. 

As he lays awake in Dazai's arms, it all returns to Chuuya—how the god that lived within him called to him, how it filled his veins and pushed him so far back that he was hanging on to himself by the teeth, and how it made him feel whole, powerful, like he could destroy existence itself, like he wanted to. It's always like this when he goes under. He's a hair's breadth away from becoming a very force of nature, never sane, never safe. And he will be again, as many times as it takes.

But the chill, the lead that fills his limbs when the fire’s receded is almost too much for him to bear. It comes on slowly, silently, but when it reaches him, it feels like a cavern, a gaping hollow in his chest. He turns towards Dazai reflexively, his partner’s grounding ability drawing him closer as he tucks his head under the taller man’s chin. He turns and wraps himself around Dazai, bare skin seeking the gaps in Dazai’s bandages where No Longer Human flows freely.

Arms tighten around him, a hand pressing flat against the small of his back. Chuuya looks up and a dark red eye meets his. In the back of Chuuya’s mind, he realises the implications of Dazai curling up in bed with him like this, wrapped around him entirely of his own volition. It’s a gesture so unlikely it might as well have not happened, but Dazai’s breath stirs a lock of hair that falls over Chuuya’s face, and Chuuya can only think of Dazai’s skin against his own.

“Mm, Chuuya’s awake,” Dazai murmurs, impossibly close. The hand on Chuuya’s back slides up to tangle itself in his hair. Chuuya leans into the touch, his need for contact preceding his irritation at Dazai’s chuckle. He wraps his legs around Dazai’s, drawing them closer still. Dazai raises his eyebrows briefly.

Chuuya rolls his eyes, but it doesn’t have the desired effect because their lips are centimetres apart and he knows that he only wants to get closer. “You’ve been awake for a while,” he murmurs. “Do you ever sleep, Mackerel bastard?”