Dazai—looking soft and curious, all his ruthless edges tucked away somewhere under that faint wondering expression he got when staring at friends who puzzled him, when staring death in the face, when staring at his partner doing something utterly inexplicable but somehow not annoying or disgusting.

This was Dazai and Chuuya didn’t care if it was weird or they had jerked their heads away from each other just moments ago in distaste for manners, habits, and their endless stream of insults. This was Dazai and he wasn’t fighting back (like he ever did) or pulling back (like he ever did) or pulling one of his stupid blocks or evasive maneuvers. He was letting Chuuya shove him against the wall, letting him bury one gloved hand in the soft messy hair, letting him pull Dazai’s head down to his own level so their mouths were at the same height, and letting himself be kissed by someone he’d never particularly cared for.

It was kiss him or kill him, and loath as Chuuya was to admit it, he’d need the waste of bandages later, so he kissed his startled partner and swallowed down the muffled noise Dazai made, kept kissing long enough to taste Dazai’s shift from startled to curious all over again, and then this was Dazai kissing Chuuya back.

It wasn’t Chuuya’s first kiss, and it probably wasn’t Dazai’s, but there was discovery in it all the same, as if they were both trying to feel each other out and figure out what the fuss was all about.

Then Dazai’s legs bent to accommodate their awkward angle and the height difference, and his knee rubbed at the inside of Chuuya’s leg, vaporizing what was left of his patience.

All the annoyance and frustration and tension at being left in the dark and manipulated and provoked endlessly over the last few hours—days, months—funneled into a different kind of tension, a more appropriate outlet for his need to slam Dazai into the wall again, hands digging into Dazai’s hips hard enough to bruise (he hoped they would), teeth bared to do more than kiss this time. The hitch in Dazai’s breath when he bit down on the top of his neck just under his jaw gratified some part of Chuuya he’d rather not imagine existed. He wanted to take Dazai apart, piece by piece, as thoroughly as he’d been manhandled emotionally over and over whenever Dazai felt like harassing him.

He pulled back one moment, still holding Dazai in place, but wanting to look at the expression on his partner’s face.

There was something there, wide-eyed in the way Dazai sometimes got when he played up his cuteness but with an edge of sincerity Chuuya didn’t think he’d ever seen. Not surprise, truly, now that it was clear exactly where they were headed, but staring as if he was waiting still to see just how far Chuuya would take it, what exactly he would do.

Willing enough, Chuuya decided, licking his lips as if he could still taste his partner on them, dry and soft and with a faint hint of whiskey still lingering. (They weren’t old enough to drink whiskey, but nobody was about to stop one of the teenage members of Double Black of the Port Mafia from drinking whatever they wanted.)

“Chuuya.” This was Dazai, voice too soft, too slow, too tender, and fuck that, Chuuya cut him off with his own mouth, unsurprised that Dazai seemed satisfied with this, as if he’d planned it. His own hand rose and hovered near Chuuya’s face, just stopping short then falling again to his side.

Dazai was letting him kiss him, but he wasn’t kissing back, and there was nothing real to hold onto.

Chuuya growled, moving back to Dazai’s jaw, and ground against him, frustrated by his partner’s unwillingness to touch in turn. Heat rose up like bile under his skin, feverish, intense. He pressed close enough to feel bone dig into flesh, his into Dazai’s, Dazai’s into his, and there was that soft gasp against his temple again, ruffling his hair ticklishly against his skin.

Chuuya shoved off of Dazai abruptly and stepped away.

Dazai blinked, eyes and expression hazy. His lips opened as if to speak, red and swollen already, and Chuuya turned his back in disgust, digging his hands into his pockets as he stood there.

“Chuuya.” The name sounded as hesitant and dazed as Dazai’s face had looked, but it didn’t stir any feelings of warmth in him. He could feel the weight of Dazai’s gaze making prickles up the back of his neck.

He thought back over the last few minutes. A gasp when Dazai’s body hit the wall hard enough to hurt him. A groan when he did it again. A sharp intake of breath when teeth bit into his flesh. Another gasp when their bones met painfully.

Letting him kiss without kissing back. Always making Chuuya do all the work.

“Tch.” Chuuya blew out a sigh of disgust, but turned around to look at Dazai again.

Dazai had nearly regathered his composure, that faint questioning look beginning to form in the hint of a frown, in the tilt of his head, in the way he’d begun to straighten himself. But he stopped and just looked at Chuuya, almost as if he was wondering exactly what Chuuya would do.

It made up his mind. Chuuya whirled and slammed a knife into the wall at Dazai’s neck, just grazing his chin, blood caught for a moment on the edge of the blade with Dazai’s breath. There was that something sparking in Dazai’s eyes, intense and unnameable. Blood dripped down his chin, a rivulet running over the edge of his jaw.

Chuuya leaned forward, tasted it, bit down on the trail of salt and iron, and felt vicious satisfaction at the whimper in the back of Dazai’s throat. He moved the knife, but not his teeth worrying at Dazai’s chin, and slipped the tip of the blade under the edge of the bandages, lowering them just enough to keep going. He lowered his mouth further, bit at the sound beneath Dazai’s skin, and let his tongue follow the way Dazai swallowed. He was already close enough to feel the body heat thickening between them, but he pressed his hand against Dazai’s heart to feel the tension running through the other’s body.

“I thought you hated pain,” Chuuya murmured against that hot skin.

Dazai’s breath unfurled warmly against his scalp, tangible even through his hair. “This is different.”

It wasn’t something Chuuya was even remotely equipped to tease out the meaning of. He decided he didn’t care and dug his knee into the inside of Dazai’s thigh, pinning him between the hand around his throat and the weight of Chuuya’s body.

“I hate you.” He brought his head up as he muttered, glaring into Dazai’s wide brown eyes, wondering what it was he couldn’t quite read in them.

They usually said it at the end of exasperation, when insults ran out because nothing was intense enough to express their feelings, not with this intent heaviness that covered up whatever was really filling the space between them.

Dazai let his head hang forward, leaning into Chuuya’s punishing grip, his tone deceptively mellow. “I hate you too.”

It made anger coil in his belly, almost painful in its intensity. It made Dazai’s weirdly clinical scent, covered over in blood and gun oil, cover over everything else. It made him remember there was a knife in his hand and he’d kill Dazai if it wouldn’t just make him happy.

Dazai didn’t like pain. It buzzed through the back of his head, mingling with the loud hum of anger singing in his veins. Dazai never liked pain. But there was something in violence that seemed to strike the man as beautiful.

He wasn’t stupid. Chuuya knew Dazai, even if his partner liked to pretend he didn’t. Chuuya knew every little bothersome quirk Dazai had ever developed in the line of duty, and he could figure out how to unravel him if he just followed the thread patiently enough.

He started with the knife, turning and twisting it gently against Dazai’s throat, gratified at the sudden intake of breath. It ravaged the edges of his bandages, scraped the skin without causing any true harm. Chuuya studied Dazai’s eyes and saw something sick and unpleasant overwhelming the spark he’d seen earlier.

“Is that all, petite mafia?” Back to the nicknames. That dark smile curling the edges of Dazai’s lips. “I thought you wanted to make me bleed.”

Chuuya stared coldly, ignoring the heat under his skin in favor of cool consideration. He eyed the bandages hanging loosely around Dazai’s throat. He knew what was under them. He’d washed Dazai’s wounds and dragged him forcibly back from the brink of death before, much to Dazai’s displeasure. Just to spite him, he’d always claimed.

Dazai didn’t like pain.

He reached up, waiting with a raised eyebrow for Dazai to stop him, and thumbed off the last trickle of blood. His glove absorbed the stain as always.

Dazai gave him a curious look, interested maybe but not actively invested. “Are you going to keep teasing me?”

Chuuya hissed and abruptly gripped Dazai’s jaw hard enough to make the bone creak and Dazai wince. “Shut up.” Whatever this was, it wasn’t just teasing.

“Ch–”

He tightened his hold further and Dazai shut up. He also looked five seconds from throwing Chuuya off. They’d lost the balance between pleasure and pain, and Chuuya dropped his hand back to his side rather than try adjusting to regain it.

They’d been bickering and angry and Dazai had been riling him up so hard, he’d almost lost it when he finally shoved Dazai against the wall and all that tension became sudden need for some kind of release. Experimentation had cooled the fire somewhat and this was too clinical. It wouldn’t work.

“Do you want me to?” he asked abruptly. At Dazai’s puzzled expression, he added, “Keep teasing you?”

Dazai went very still. He didn’t answer at first, and Chuuya almost thought he’d wait long enough for his fading desire to completely disappear, but then Dazai straightened and tucked his hands in his coat pockets, smiling agreeably. “Does the hatrack think he can handle me?”

Chuuya snorted. “As if you can handle me.”

“Chuuya.” That soft, drawn out, all too knowing condescension.

“I’m not one of your heartbroken women,” Chuuya cut him off. Dazai may have been considered the brain of their partnership, but it was Chuuya’s flesh and body on the line, in combat or anything else, and Dazai could never best him there. “Come on.”

---

Dazai was nothing but a series of expected surprises, but Chuuya honestly hadn’t been sure how this one would go. He trailed after Chuuya into Chuuya’s clean, but well-lived in apartment, paused with Chuuya when he briefly decided whether or not to introduce alcohol into this mix, then followed again when Chuuya opted to do this sober and led his partner to the bedroom.

This was where he faltered for a moment, considering what happened out there started in the heat of the moment, and right now, there wasn’t heat between them, only potential, anticipation. He removed his hat and slid out of his coat, putting each item away as he did because unlike certain people, he actually cared about his things and his space and keeping them nice.

Dazai watched without saying anything and without making any move to undress.

Chuuya kept going: gloves off, waistcoat, vest, pants. He reached for the buttons on his shirt when Dazai finally said something.

“Let me.”

He was closer than Chuuya had expected, close enough to put a hand to his request, fingers resting lightly against Chuuya’s chest, and he dropped his own to let Dazai unbutton the shirt slowly and slide it back over his shoulders and onto the floor.

Chuuya stared as he did it. Dazai was touching him, and he found himself holding his breath as Dazai’s gaze wandered over his bare upper body, inciting a fresh wave of heat under his skin. This felt heavy, pleasurable, without the underlying anger that had first set them seething.

“Do you still have your knife?” Dazai murmured, deceptively soft. He smiled, sharp and dangerous, thumb rubbing slowly back and forth over Chuuya’s skin.

“You looking to get hurt?” Chuuya asked, keeping his own voice pitched low and rough and threatening.

Dazai leaned in close, grin bordering on cheshire. “Don’t you want to hurt me?”

Chuuya suppressed the urge to snarl. He did want to hurt him. But this was Dazai, known for his death wish. Dazai who deliberately provoked his partner daily for a reason. Dazai who demanded trust he wasn’t worthy of and rarely, if ever, gave it back.

“Someday I’ll kill you,” Chuuya answered fervently. It came out so much rougher and softer than he’d like, meant something totally different. He reached forward to grip Dazai’s collar before Dazai could call him on it.

He hated the spark of life in Dazai’s eyes when Chuuya shoved him halfway across the room, the way heat coiled in his belly when he dragged him up again by his shirt, and the way this seemed to be what Dazai wanted, more than any kindness Chuuya had ever showed him.

Chuuya pinned Dazai onto the bed, viciously ripping at Dazai’s clothes to get them off him as fast as possible. He pressed his mouth to Dazai’s harshly, using enough teeth to draw out that breathless, startled moan Chuuya wanted to hear again and again. Kiss him or kill him, it hardly mattered which. He wanted to take Dazai to pieces, and he followed the clothing with his teeth, biting enough to bruise, leaving red marks behind each kiss. He left the bandages on Dazai’s arms, and ran rough hands over and past visible scars normally hidden beneath the clothes, like they weren’t even there.

This wasn’t suffering, wasn’t punishment, wasn’t absolution. Whatever it was, like Dazai said, it was different.

He kissed Dazai’s mouth again, deliberately soft enough to lick and taste the iron tang of the blood he’d drawn from Dazai’s lips. He pressed hands down to stop Dazai’s hips from moving too fast, trying to find some kind of purchase or rhythm. It felt good to sink his weight down and frustrate Dazai while raising his own arousal at the increased contact.

Skin on skin, the shape of Dazai’s limbs more pleasant than he’d expected. Somewhere in the last year, Dazai had finally grown into his body, filling out into something lean and strong instead of the lanky, even gangly, teenager he’d started out as. Chuuya rubbed over the hollows of his partner’s hips, gripped his thighs, let their cocks slide against each other as he swallowed down every greedy little noise Dazai made, until there wasn’t enough air in his lungs and he clawed at Chuuya’s face with his hand.

Touching him. Finally.

Chuuya growled, let up enough to hear him gasp, then kissed him harder, deeper. Dazai’s fingers were tight enough on his jaw to leave a mark, and it almost made him laugh to think the shape would look like someone had slapped him.

He knocked Dazai’s hand away as he pulled up and focused on the way their bodies met at the hips and thighs.

“Chuuya.” Dazai tried to follow, breathless, panting, mouth red and wet and beautiful. Chuuya yanked back on his hair, pushing his head back into the pillow before he could reach him. It was a good look on him.

“You look good in my bed,” Chuuya said bluntly.

“Hatrack…” Out came the distinctive whine. “You’re taking too long.”

“If you’re getting off on something other than your own hand, then so am I.” Chuuya glared at him. “Open the drawer over there.”

Dazai was shockingly obedient. He didn’t seem surprised at the lube he was handing over into Chuuya’s impatient fingers.

This really wasn’t the first time Chuuya had experimented with sex.

“Knife too,” he ordered impatiently. Chuuya hadn’t wanted to bother with rummaging through his clothes for the one he’d had on him, and there was always another in the drawer.

Dazai was slower to obey, fingers hesitant as he held the knife, drawing out the motion as he rubbed along the handle, grip tight enough Chuuya wouldn’t just snatch it from him.

But this was Dazai’s idea, and Chuuya was running out of what little patience he had. “Dazai,” he said again, a low growl that drew Dazai’s gaze to his.

His partner blinked, some expression Chuuya couldn’t read flickering in his eyes. He handed over the knife.

Chuuya made quick work of the rest of the bandages wound around Dazai’s limbs, shredding them with efficient slices of the knife, just barely letting the blade scrape across skin without causing actual damage, before brushing away the gauze with his fingers. Dazai’s breath seemed timed to each cut, a hasty inhale before the knife touched skin, an exhale as Chuuya cleaned behind it.

He twirled the knife in his fingers, then set it down at his side on the bed, smirking at the way Dazai’s eyes followed the motion. He wasn’t done with the knife, and there was no way his partner would miss that it was still close and available.

Chuuya reached for the lube instead, opening it up and slicking his fingers. The weight of Dazai’s gaze was like a tangible thing, heavy and intense as it followed every motion of Chuuya’s hands. Chuuya didn’t bother to make the angle easier for Dazai to watch when he started working his fingers slowly inward, a startled hiss between Dazai’s teeth. Chuuya didn’t look up as he worked, rubbing his thumb slowly around and around the rim, pressing inward, switching it up to feel inside Dazai with two fingers and feel a soft shiver in reaction.

Dazai had always been good at hiding his reactions, when they weren’t so off kilter from the norm that hiding them was entirely unnecessary. Chuuya wasn’t surprised that more fingering garnered no strong show of pleasure or pain, but he didn’t feel like asking if Dazai was ready, so he didn’t.

He pulled his fingers free and stroked his palm once, appreciatively, over Dazai’s body, relishing the double blink, the soft pouty look that always looked so good on him, no matter it was an act. Chuuya stretched over Dazai to rummage in the drawer himself for a condom.

He took it slow, watching Dazai’s face for the first sign of hissing discomfort. It shouldn’t have bothered him, but he had his own standards for how he liked sex, and bloody tearing wasn’t something he enjoyed. “Does it hurt?”

“Chuuya! I didn’t know you cared!” The last word broken off in a gasp as Chuuya pushed in hard.

This was Dazai, master of finding exactly the most infuriating thing to say.

Normally, Chuuya would retaliate with an insult. Instead he let the irritation burn and drive a pace that made pleasure spark and punched a sharp noise then whine out of Dazai.

Another moment, then Dazai winced, eyes shut in anything but pleasure. “Stop. That hurts.”

Maybe it wasn’t pain at all but violence that painted that flush across his partner’s face.

“Fuck, I have no idea what you’re kinking on, you bastard,” Chuuya muttered, adjusting slightly.

Dazai whimpered without answering.

Chuuya stared at Dazai’s face, waited for his eyes to open, trying to decide whether to try again or withdraw altogether.

Experimentally, he leaned forward and brushed lightly over Dazai’s cock, gratified at the sudden shudder and Dazai’s eyes flying open, dark and wide and yes. Chuuya leaned forward further, drinking in the look in Dazai’s eyes, taking his partner’s cock firmly in hand as he shifted his hips just enough to barely stimulate Dazai’s hole. He stroked and pressed, watching the flashes of emotion on Dazai’s face: flickers of distress, muffled whimpers of pleasure almost entirely contained, but he was rocking into Chuuya’s touch now and the soft swirl of Chuuya’s thumb over the head of his erection.

A sharp, wet gasp, and Dazai’s hips arched up under the stimulation, sending a shock of pleasure through Chuuya’s body at the motion. He growled and pushed in harder, and this time Dazai met the motion, reaching for Chuuya with something like desire burning in his face.

Too fast, too much, panting and wanting and needing, and Chuuya had never planned on letting Dazai control the pace.

The faint surprise on Dazai’s face wasn’t unexpected, especially how affected it likely was, the look Dazai gave when Chuuya did something life threatening that Dazai had already predicted. Even so, it was satisfying to see that look on Dazai’s face as he grasped Dazai by the hair and held the knife to his throat.

He thrust in a few more times, letting Dazai’s hips meet his hectically before he dragged the knife down, forcibly slowing Dazai if he didn’t want to flay himself open on the blade. Flecks of blood speckled his skin where it scraped.

“That’s hardly playing fair,” Dazai whined dramatically.

Chuuya fended off Dazai’s octopus arms by caging both wrists with one hand and pressing them against the headboard. Chuuya grinned fiercely, pressing the knife harder against Dazai’s stomach, making him suck in a breath. “Like you ever play fair.”

He pulled out, dragging his cock slowly, then punched in hard enough to make Dazai squirm. More drops of blood from tiny cuts. Chuuya leaned down to lick them off Dazai’s stomach, hot pleasure pooling in his own.

Slow out, then fast hard thrusts, angled for the prostate. Finding a rhythm until it felt good, warmth and pleasure dancing up his spine, Dazai leaning back and letting him have this moment. That was worth something, and Chuuya leaned down again to bury one hand in Dazai’s hair and kiss him, hot and deep and messy. He fucked Dazai hard then, chasing orgasm together and falling into blinding heat.

Dazai’s ragged breathing after somehow didn’t take away from the fact that he looked entirely too collected for someone as wrecked as he was, covered in bruises, come, and sweat.

Chuuya buried his face in Dazai’s neck, sated and exhausted. “Shitty Dazai,” he muttered.

He didn’t want to move until morning, even knowing this wouldn’t change anything between them, wouldn’t break the tension for more than the night, and like as not, it’d turn into one more thing Dazai could hang over his head when he wanted to infuriate him, but for tonight, he allowed himself to breathe in against Dazai’s skin and it smelled human, like heat and sweat and sex and breath instead of bandages and blood. The emptiness receded and the taint of Corruption didn’t thrum beneath Chuuya’s skin.

This was Dazai, hovering on the edge of revelation and something utterly familiar, as if he should have always known it’d be like this.

Neither broke the ceasefire before they’d made a halfhearted pass at cleaning themselves up and settled back together without comment. Chuuya let himself go to the weight of sleep.

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