The Land is Inhospitable and so are We (Chuuya x Reader)

i'm your man

Y/n hadn't been into the Agency in over a week. Everyone was worried but the only person she'd let through her front door was Dazai. 

He was watching her fade before him, each day there was a little bit less left. Each day he visited, she moved a bit less, said a bit less, it killed him to watch. He knew he had the letter from Chuuya, but his fear of making anything worse kept it locked in his pocket each and every day.

When they were kids, it was true that Dazai had seen a light in her but what he never told anyone was that he saw a great darkness there too. Since they had defected, much to his dismay, it was only the darkness that had seemed to grow. Now, as he entered Y/n's room, her eyes were almost black with it.

"Hello angel" Dazai said softly, taking a seat in the chair he had left next to Y/n's bed.

Slowly, she turned to face him, eyes wide and empty.

"I'm not an angel."

"If not an angel, then what could you possibly be?" Dazai responded, trying to keep his tone light and cheery for her sake. 

"I'm a dog." she answered.

Dazai smiled.

"Ah, I thought I was your dog."

"If your a dog, then I'm your man. You always were so loyal."

"Am I not still?"

Y/n didn't answer.

"How are you today?"

"Chuuya told me once that you talked about me like I was your god."

Dazai frowned in dismay.

"You should have found someone better to worship."

"We don't always get to pick our deities. Sometimes they choose us."

"And sometimes we are thrust upon them."

"Have you eaten yet today?"

Y/n left his question unanswered again as her gaze returned to the wall.

"Im just destroying you."

"Ah, but what a wonderful destruction it would be to die at your hands."

"No destruction is wonderful enough for it to be worth all this pain."

Something close to a smile made its way across Y/n's face. That same darkness only seemed to be growing at Dazai's words and he cursed himself. He knew he was trying to fill a space that couldn't be filled, but he also knew he had to try anyways.

"Ever since I first met you, I've been trying to figure you out." Dazai admitted, shaking his head, "I still haven't of course. I know I'm not who you want to be here, I know I'm not who you want, but please let me help you Y/n. I'm begging you, just tell me what's going on. I can tell it's more than just this... this thing with Chuuya. Tell me, please just let me help."

No matter how he pleaded with her, Y/n did not respond so he decided to change his tactics.

"Y/n, you will love again. I know that you don't think yourself capable, but trust me. You're an amazing and strong and kind person, someone would have to be completely foolish not to love you."

"I'm sorry I had to be the one you loved."

"Don't apologize for something like that. Neither of us had any control over the way I feel and, I don't regret it. I don't regret my love for you. I never will."

"No one will ever love me like you again."

"Y/n, that's just not true. You will find someone, I promise."

"The things they did to me... what I became... who I am... no one would dare come near."

"Your Dazai has stuck around, hasn't he?" Dazai teased. 

"Loyal to the core. A good dog." Y/n said, he tone still cold as a rock.

"Only to you."

"No one will ever love me like you again." she repeated, "I deserve death, don't I. After everything I've done, I deserve to face judgement."

It suddenly became very clear to Dazai that Y/n was no longer talking to him, but to Chuuya. Or rather, to the shape of Chuuya occupying her minds eye.

"It's me, Y/n. It's Dazai? Chuuya... He's not here right now, you know that, right?"

Y/n's dead stare was still fixed on the wall.

"Dazai always loved me but it wasn't the same. Blind devotion isn't proper love, you taught me that if nothing else."

He sighed, his words seeming to have gone right through her.

"That pressure on the back of my brain, the one I wrote to you about, it's getting stronger. I thought leaving would stop it, but I was wrong. It's going to find me soon. I can feel it. I can... it's coming for me."

This was the most Dazai had heard Y/n say in days and it was to a figment of her imagination. Her voice came out cracked and tired, but steady. He put a hand on Y/n's shoulder, and she didn't react. It was like she couldn't even feel it.

"What pressure Y/n?" he asked, shaking her slightly, "If you don't tell me what's going on, I can't help."

If Y/n could hear a word he said, she didn't show it as she continued to talk to the wall.

"He believes me like a god, and I betrayed you like a man was supposed to have betrayed me somewhere along the line."

"Y/n..." Dazai began, hopelessness seeping into his voice. 

"It would be an apt passage of judgment, wouldn't it?" she said suddenly, turning to look at Dazai. 

"What would be?" he pleaded.

No matter how much he pressed the rest of the night, Y/n wouldn't say another word. When she had finally fallen asleep, he quietly got to his feet. With a sad look at her body on the bed, Dazai left the room. Stopping by the kitchen table on his way out, he took the letter Chuuya had given him for Y/n out of his pocket and turned it over in his hands in contemplation.

"It couldn't make things any worse." he sighed at last.

Placing it gently down, he disappeared into the night.

——

Y/n awoke in the cold, clear dark of early morning. She'd had a dream that Dazai was with her but, when she turned to look saw only an empty chair.

"I deserve it, don't I?" she softly asked the dark, "I have been so cruel. I've been a knife and for a while I was in someone else's hands. Somewhere along the way, I began to wield myself. I cannot take that back, can I."

Before her flashed the faces of all those she had killed over her years as a Mafia executive. Through her head ran the insults Chuuya had thrown so haphazardly at her during their last encounter.

"I'll take judgement by the hand."

Nodding to herself, she stood on shaking legs. As soon as Y/n had caught her balance on the bed, she held her shaking arms out to the sides as if being crucified and shut her eyes tight.

"Bacchic Frenzy"

Edited: January 27th 2024