Chapter Text
Sleep comes to him like diving headfirst into pitch blackness, blindly reaching for something in that darkness that can't be reached fast enough and shouldn't even be obtained.
Dazai had been evading sleep for far too long, he knew it wasn't by any means a long-term solution. It would come to him regardless of whether he desired it or not, quite similar to other things in his life in that regard. There was scarcely anything he could do to withstand the sleep deprivation for longer than what he could manage, that much he knew from many sleepless nights with the same purpose during a bleaker moment of his unfortunate life.
Falling asleep was unavoidable, he did what he could do to keep himself awake and, unsurprisingly, it didn't last. Losing consciousness was as seamless as slowly submerging himself in warm bathwater. One moment he had been trying to force himself to stay awake by giving his brain constant stimuli with a particularly good novel. A murder mystery, something to exercise the brain and what he had hoped to be what he needed to stay alert.
He feels as though he sinks to the bottom of a river, heavy and immobile as a rock and more than willing to remain as such. The relief of actual sleep rather than resting his eyes for a moment and nothing more, as he couldn't allow himself more than that out of fear that it would leave him accessible in his vulnerable state. Dazai feels light as a feather and might as well be back in the womb, floating aimlessly in a protected environment that surrounds him with the comfort of a loving embrace.
Enclosed in this tranquility, Dazai feels not unlike a fairy tale princess in a glass coffin, waiting for her prince charming to come with his magical true love's kiss. A frown forms on his face when he has the thought that his prince is too far away to come rescue him but in his current world of peaceful rest, there is no room for such negative thoughts and therefore he has no qualms about banishing it. It doesn't belong in his temporary paradise, not when he knows he'll need to wake up soon and not nearly as late as he would prefer.
Thoughts seem to swim above him as he floats in his restful state, too abstract, too vague to plague his mind the way they usually do when it's active and running. It isn't a common occurrence for him, to have time to rest his brilliant yet overworked mind. The bliss he feels comes from more than just relief at being able to finally get some semblance of sleep after depriving himself of it for so long. Dazai is momentarily immersed into heaven.
It doesn't take long for hell to creep in, a looming hand casting a shadow over his peaceful features and coming closer and closer to reach him. The metaphorical hand pulls him as his ears remain blissfully unaware of the ugly noise one could hear outside his river of slumber. Brought on to the surface as if he's being fished, Dazai attempts to free himself from this encompassing grip and fall back into comfortable nothingness but that unseen hand is unrelenting.
The devil is in the details and it comes in the form of a hand palming at him, fingers digging into his collarbones. Moving down his body, long nails gently scraping at the skin of his stomach and lower. A hand grabs his forearm, coils around it like a snake and of course, the devil himself came as a talking serpent. Dazai blinks his eyes open and sees a flash of dark violet eyes, feels something squeezing his arm as if attempting to leave marks in the shape of its fingers on his skin.
The eyes pull a familiar distaste from him. He closes his eyes in an act of silent rebellion and scowls, thinks of a doctor's office and a man he could never respect as a guardian. Mori. But then the mood shifts. Hands pet his hair affectionately and touch all over his smooth skin, all soft touches and loving squeezes. Dry, terribly cold lips press at his shoulder and then up, up until a tongue darts out to lick at his neck. Intimate kisses are peppered all over his neck. Dazai hums.
“Chuuya,” he breathes out.
A sharp pain in his neck from a deliberate bite, a punishment for uttering his partner's name. Childish. Dazai tells himself to ignore the urge to roll his eyes at it, knowing how easily it could take offense to that. As petty as seeking retribution for him calling out his own husband's name, as though it has any right to reprimand him for such. Often, Dazai finds himself tracing the scars it would have left on him when he's awake.
The term lucid dreaming comes to mind but he doesn't believe there's a word in any language that can describe what it feels like, this overwhelming connection that has the effect of him baring his soul for this creature of darkness. Each time it pulls him in with the promise of a grand demise, painless and quick as he has always wished it to be. Death grips him in a possessive hold, impossible to evade as his mind drifts far from his room, far from the realm of dreams.
He calls it Death because it is all it ever offered him and late at night, when it's only his mind and the thoughts that refuse to begone from it, it's all he can associate with his nighttime visitor. The ancient hands digging nails into his skin, the stench of rot encompassing the figure, everything works to remind him at all times that this is Death he has taken for a lover. Without ever meaning to, through no will of his. Even so, he cannot deny he ever longed for Death in the first place.
“Think of a number,” a voice says and it echoes through his mind.
Dazai shakes his head, “I've grown tired of that game, I'll have you know.”
Sharing one's thoughts with another being is an otherworldly experience Dazai never imagined would become dull. But even Death can be a one trick pony, even if saying so doesn't seem like the smartest of choices. It isn't by far the biggest concern in his mind, whether his words offend this thing or not. There are lives at stake, there is a life that should never be jeopardized and Dazai has no intention to make him a part of his and Death's numerous games.
“Haven't I told you to leave your world out of our mind when we meet? Leave anything beyond us out. That includes him.”
The audacity to ask this of him isn't baffling because it is as predictable as everything else about it.
“We may share a mind but don't think for a second you can decide what I think or do not think about.”
It isn't the first time he's had this conversation. It is far from the first time because for as long as he can remember, the mention of his marriage has been a catalyst to some version of the same discussion. As if Dazai has betrayed Death by merely daring to speak of someone he cares for. Of course he is aware that it is a betrayal in its mind. Nothing would convince it that he's done nothing wrong and that is why Death decided to bring him into this.
A memory is hammered into his mind with the subtlety of a freight train, iron brand marking him as he's reminded of the night he gave himself to Death for the first time. The promise he made is spit right back at him, a bitter reminder of something Dazai has a hard time recalling for his state of mind at the time was dissolved. There is little he would not do to finally disappear, it is no wonder he vowed to belong to the world of the dead.
Air leaves his lungs, his head rings with the white noise of a time he would much rather forget but the memory is vivid as it is scathing. Driven into his brain until he has to stop himself from digging his nails into his head, prying himself an opening to silence the screams that plague his mind. The soft voice of someone who no longer exists in the same world as him, a promise he never understood but absorbed nonetheless. It became part of his will.
A name he hasn't heard in ages echoes through his mind and Dazai thinks back to how he was that night, the night that started everything and failed to end him how he hoped it would. His thoughts are sent into a proper spiral that progresses naturally, well-known conclusions that stem from the familiar pain. All that he failed to do and all that resulted from it, guilt churning in his gut as he chokes on his own demons. It's like being sent back in time to his mindset when it happened all those years ago, it feels like dying all over again.
While regret rises like bile at his throat, he has the lingering thought that this is a much more befitting punishment. He ought to be punished for this, for ever forgetting how despicable this world can be, how little everything we do in this life matters when something like this can happen to someone so good. To someone that should matter more than anything else. He mattered to him but who's to say the universe felt the same? It certainly didn't lift a finger to stop it from happening.
What hope is there in prolonging one's existence in this wretched world? Dazai can scarcely remember why he's failed to put an end to this misery he all but predicted a lifetime ago, it won't ever be anything worth more than what he always imagined it would be. Nothing can be achieved by continuing to do this, that's the truth that occupies his head in an overwhelming degree, the heavy truth that's almost too big to fit inside his brain. It remains lodged in his throat like a heavy lump he can't find a way to swallow.
There's a sound like the creaking of rusty metal and a wave of flowing wind against his face.
— • † • —
Dazai wakes to a hushed discussion happening somewhere near him. The voice of a young woman rising before abruptly interrupting herself, as if she momentarily let it slip her mind that she's meant to speak quietly. Remnants of drowsiness linger behind his eyes alongside a terribly sharp headache, rendering him in a rapidly souring mood. A familiar voice urges him to sit up, rubbing the sleep off his eyes as he looks at his unprecedented visitor.
Immediately, there's a shift in the air that Dazai easily attributes to what this is: the painfully familiar feeling of being the unseen, unheard topic of others' conversations. A role he dreads to have to reprise as it demands acceptance of a fact he struggles with, that he isn't trusted by those around him when it comes to his own life. Unavoidable due to his past and even present actions, the worst thing about being treated like a child who can't be trusted is that he has no way of rebuking what they say.
Countless conversations happened exactly like the one he's witnessing before Dazai could do or say anything to contribute to the discussion. People speaking of him as though he isn't there is part of a different time of his life, the mere thought of that returning has him on edge. The young woman he heard is none other than Lucy and her presence in the house implies something he hopes isn't what happened. If she's seen him like that, he won't be able to remedy this.
“Dazai-san,” Atsushi says, startled as he and Lucy look away from each other and at him.
It's unsalvageable, Dazai realizes as soon as he sees the sheen of pitying concern in Atsushi's eyes. There is little he can do if he did what he assumes he did, there's no way out of this that doesn't end with him needing to be supervised like a toddler prone to dangerous activities. Lucy carries herself with an expected level of discomfort and, most damning evidence of all, cracks a fraudulent smile as though she's been told to be mindful of his reaction.
“To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?”
Atsushi winces, “You don't remember?”
What he does remember is bad enough that he cannot think of a way to deceive Atsushi into believing he can be allowed to be left to his own devices. Based on the fresh panic in Lucy's eyes and the tension on hers and Atsushi's shoulders, this won't be an easily forgotten incident and the magnitude of it has yet to be revealed although Dazai can guess. He has always been perceptive to a fault and his experiences have taught him to read a room fairly well.
“Enlighten me, would you?” he asks with the finality of a terminally ill patient asking how long he has left.
Lucy is the one to do so.
“You were screaming. I came in to see if everything was okay and you... Well, the window was open,” she adds the last part as though the sentence explains itself.
And it does. Dazai and the two people in this room know exactly what he was attempting to do. Coupled with his dejected attitude at work due to his neglected rest and his history of lack of general care towards his own life, it paints a picture that doesn't leave him with any hope for being left alone for the foreseeable future. Worst of all, he understands what needs to happen as soon as he has all the facts. He knows this isn't something he can fight or it'll be even worse.
He can see the numerous questions in Atsushi's piercing gaze, those eyes shining with unshed tears and full of uncertainty. Atsushi wants to ask, he wants to know why Dazai does these things but he can't bring himself to outright ask when he isn't sure the answer is something he can stomach. There is nothing to be said, they're left with sharing an uncomfortable amount of eye contact as they try to come to a silent agreement.
Oftentimes, Dazai wishes he were a different man. It's in the back of his mind but it always comes to the front when he's faced with the hopeful glint in Atsushi's eyes whenever he thinks so much more of Dazai than he actually is, whenever he sees the way Akutagawa shrinks into himself when he fails to get an ounce of his attention. It should come as no surprise to anyone that Dazai isn't proud of who he is, even if he can't bring himself to feel the guilt that should be gnawing at him.
Granted, most of the time he feels an everlasting emptiness that has been present through most if not all of his life. There are moments in which he barely recalls the existence of the hollowness that lives in his chest but those are not nearly as common as he would prefer. Dazai can act human but he has no misgivings about what he actually is, numbness isn't by any means new to him. But again, he can act. He has always been exceptionally good at maintaining a facade.
Death once told him, years ago, “You are not for the living.”
He hasn't been able to stop thinking about it ever since he heard it.
“Dazai-san,” Atsushi starts, nervously wringing his hands together. “I think it would be better for you to stay with me and Kyouka-chan for some time. A-At least until Nakahara-san returns.”
It's graceful of him to phrase it as a question when they both know it's Dazai's only option. Otherwise, his well-meaning mentee will have no choice but to talk to Fukuzawa. And once his boss knows, he will ensure someone will keep Dazai company regardless of whether he may want that or not. It wouldn't have been like this in the past but Dazai messed up once, got far too close to achieving his usual goal. The incident demanded a change to be made.
“I do apologize for the imposition but if you and Kyouka-chan will have me...”
“It's no trouble!” Atsushi reassures, ever the polite young man. “It'll be a pleasure to have you, really.”
There isn't much to say after that so an awkward silence fills the room. Lucy is staring at Dazai with an expression he has difficulty reading, something akin to fear in her eyes but not quite. It occurs to him that she's probably still shaken from having to watch him attempt to throw himself off of a window, which he's certain she has had to stop him from doing. The embarrassment he feels is genuine, as much as he tends to come off as entirely shameless to most of his co-workers. Kunikida would surely love to see him sincerely apologize for troubling someone.
“I hope you don't think too badly of me, Montgomery-san,” Dazai says with his most charming smile. “Truly, I never meant to give you such a scare.”
Lucy avoids eye contact when she says, “It's alright.”
But Dazai has no trouble looking her in the eyes and they're still as haunted as they've been since he first laid eyes on her. He wonders if she had to wrestle him away from the open window, if he fought to discard his own life as fiercely as he's been known to fight in the past. Akutagawa would know all about it, as he was the one who had to hold him back from harming himself back in that place. Tragically, there's no salvaging Lucy's opinion of him after this. This won't be something she will ever forget.
Chuuya's absence feels like a severed limb, a missing leg that leaves him with no way to regain his balance and steady himself. A frankly shameful development when Dazai has always been able to keep it together on his own. Yet routine has turned Chuuya into an anchor to still his boat when the sea of tumultuous thoughts is too turbulent. Distance from him isn't something he's as accustomed to as he should or would rather be, if only to not feel this pathetic for missing him so intensely.
Of course Dazai is aware that the notion that Chuuya's presence is connected to peaceful times for him is a false one, he only attributes his partner to calmer days because he wasn't present for the worst of his life. The way Dazai fears he may not be present during a time in Chuuya's life that may very well be the equivalent. There is nothing he can do for Chuuya here and therefore nothing Chuuya can do for him in his position. The distance breeds resentment from him that Chuuya didn't listen to his warnings.
In his experience, the night terrors will only worsen with time. Atsushi may be helpful company but there isn't much he can do about something no one but Dazai has the means to understand. Death shall come to him once again, steal him away when his mind is far, when sleep finally catches up to him once there's nothing he can do to combat it anymore. These are all facts, Dazai knows it more than anyone else and he's helpless to do anything about it.
He can only hope that Chuuya will be safe, that he will even get to see him again. He can only wish that Death's will won't win in the end, that his soul can remain in the world of the living with his husband.
Anything beyond that is beyond his capacities now and the powerlessness that that instills upon him is dreadful.
Still, all he can do in the meantime is keep his head straight and attempt to fend off the worst of what's to come.