Thread by @Blind_Blossom, What if Mori attempts to strike a deal with Christie? Of course [...]

What if Mori attempts to strike a deal with Christie?

Of course Dazai and Ranpo would notice, but even the great detectives might need more intel than a simple hunch and some word-of-mouth.

Luckily enough, Dazai knows exactly how to spill info from a certain someone.

Or: the fake dating AU where Chuuya doesn’t know it’s fake

TW: blood, occasional violence and Dazai is a total asshole, don’t @ me I warned lol//

It’s really not that hard to break into Chuuya’s penthouse.
For being a top executive, the chibikko really has a pitiful security system — or he simply gave up on trying to keep Dazai out of his apartment, which would really be no fun at all.

Long story short, all it takes are

a bobby pin and a bouquet of fresh roses to bribe the receptionist, and Dazai is making himself at home on Chuuya’s couch, sipping Ane-san’s vintage Yamazaki straight from the bottle.
He already switched Chuuya’s wine with vinegar, splashed pink paint on his imported silk

bedsheets and wrote variations of “chibi is a very bad dog” on every floor-to-ceiling window of the penthouse, so now he has to /wait/.

Waiting for Chuuya has always been boring, but it’s all the more difficult when Dazai needs something from him.

Dazai doesn’t need Chuuya often, and he has never been a team player out of the battlefield.
Plus, he doesn’t /need/ Chuuya: the chibi just tends to be the most practical solution.

Chuuya, on the contrary, needs Dazai. He needs him to stay alive.
That’s why, Dazai muses,

his lovely former partner won’t refuse to share a silly little information with an old frenemy.

“Absolutely not.”

“But Chuu~ya! We are partners, aren’t we?”

Chuuya tches and gulps down another glass of red wine. It must be the fifth, but Chuuya surely is not counting.

“Former partners, you dumbfuck.”

“But partners nonetheless~!”

At that, Chuuya looks like he could slap him.
The executive wasn’t as surprised as Dazai expected when he saw the ruckus in the penthouse, but he still has to notice that /someone/ has clogged the toilet with

his favorite Chinese silk robe.
/Anyway/, Chuuya has looked like shit since the moment he stepped inside the penthouse, kicking away his shoes weakly to make a beeline for the wine cellar.
The flush on the man’s cheeks, now, barely conceals his puffy eyes and trembling hands.

“Is Chuuya tired?” Dazai asks, still nestled on the couch and petting his bottle of saké.

“If I am, would you leave me alone and stop asking shit /you know/ I can’t tell you?”

“Hm~ maybe?”

“You are a shitty detective, Dazai.” Chuuya snarls like he has no respect for the

profession whatsoever, although Dazai suspects that Chuuya just doesn't respect him - and maybe Ranpo because of the book incident but that will get better, eventually.

The sort of hatred they share, though... that's not something that gets /better/.

"Of course I'm

tired. I lost a whole squad two days ago, and I need to—“ his voice cracks, “I have to write those reports for the families. Why am I not used to that shit yet? You got over that pretty quickly.”

There are a lot of things Dazai could say: that Chuuya always cared for

those nameless subordinates more than anyone else, and that Dazai didn’t. Often enough he didn’t even bother to fill in those forms, leaving them to Ango. He could remind Chuuya that the mafia is the mafia, and people die for it.
Instead, he nods.

"I’m sorry.”

"No, you're not."

“I really am. I know how much your subordinates mean to you, chibi. I have eyes.”
Oh, his brain is on autopilot now: offer something to gain something.

Chuuya stares at him. Dazai can almost hear the cogs running inside his partner's head, slowed down by stress and overwork

and wine, but that’s /not/ what takes him by surprise.

Chuuya is way more drunk and stressed than expected.

That’s the only possible explanation, because the executive leans in to cup Dazai’s face with a gloved hand, while the other still holds the glass, and kisses him.

It’s sloppy, with the rich aftertaste of wine and tobacco, and for a second Dazai freezes. A moment later, he's closing his eyes and clinging to the bottle, leaning into the kiss.

It's something he can allow: Chuuya is tired and he's not a bad kisser, after all.
He’s sweet and

careful and his lips are soft, nothing like the harshness the detective expected.
For a second, Dazai wonders why Chuuya is kissing him like he's a glass statue on the verge of breaking. He wonders why he likes it, and if it matters at all.
He doesn’t really understand if

that's a confession or a thank you for gracing him with a glimpse of humanity earlier, but it's proof that Chuuya wants him. His partner may even /love/ him, and that opens the trading table.

When Dazai’s hand runs through red hair, the executive pulls back first.

"Hm. So," It's almost cute how Chuuya is studying Dazai's reaction without ever /really/ looking at him, his cheeks and ears a crazy shade of red. "I’m sorry.”

“It's ok,” he says, a smirk already curling his lips despite the uncharacteristic softness in his voice. “I always knew

chibi had a thing for me~”

“You didn’t know shit, you bluffing dumbass.”

True, he almost says, If I knew, I would have warned you against me.
It’s not the first time Dazai lies to someone’s face and in someone’s bed. He just never thought it would be Chuuya.
Before his partner

can smack him or return to his wine, Dazai tugs his partner against him until their foreheads touch, murmuring “good boy” on the redhead's lips and drowning the following string of protests with his mouth.
If wine and saké casually end up spilling the executive's leather couch,

they don't care.
And maybe it’s not what a good person would do, but that’s the baggage that being the former Port Mafia's head of torture leaves you: fucked up morals and the knowledge that feelings are leverage. Chuuya always /knew/ that.
So, really — whose fault is this?

-

In another life, Dazai supposes they could have been happy together. Maybe, he could have enjoyed the adoring blue gaze he sometimes catches with the side of his eye, and those delicate touches and the ravenous kisses.

He and Chuuya always fit together like puzzle pieces,

after all, two parts of the same wound. But there is nothing such as ‘love’ in the Port Mafia. Dazai trusted Mori with it once, trusted him to be a loyal leader and ally, and it’s not a mistake he’s keen on repeating.

After the first kiss in his penthouse, Chuuya grew hungry.

Sometimes, the executive’s bites draw blood and Dazai’s stomach knots, feeling like he’s free falling. Those are the kisses that make him moan, and there is no kindness in them.

Loving Chuuya is not much different from a fight, but now at least Dazai can give a /name/ to that

funny feeling that twisted his guts whenever he ended up with his back against a wall and his former partner’s hands choking him.
Despite everything, he finds himself arching his back whenever Chuuya’s hands close on his throat, toes curling while breaths and prayers blend

together.

More than anything else, kissing Chuuya is intoxicating.

The chibi is good with his mouth, and careful and exceptionally considerate, especially for a midget who always refused to help Dazai with his grocery shopping throughout all their teenage years (/cruel/).

No, Chuuya had to be a good kisser. And a damn good lover. And a good /boyfriend/.

The first time the redhead casually dropped the b word, Dazai almost choked on his okonomiyaki.

“So that’s what we are.” Dazai hums later, the endless muscle knots in his body mellowed by the

warm water.
They spent the rest of dinner without addressing Chuuya’s slip, but Dazai rarely lets go of a chance to torment his partner.
While in the bathtub, the executive’s smaller body is nestled in between Dazai’s legs, head resting against the detective’s chest. There

are no bandages to hide the scars that map his body, or to separate their skin when Chuuya tenses against him.

“Does that bother you?”

“I just thought you wouldn’t want to be in a relationship with someone like me.”

“Yeah, figures. Don’t think I like you or anything” he scoffs

“That’s a shame, since I like Chuuya very much.”

He can /hear/ the grin curling the executive’s lips.

“Ah, do you now?” He asks, but that doesn’t really require and answer and Dazai lets the matter slip away, forgotten in the mutual assumption that their partnership just

switched into something /new/.

“Say, Chuuya, is there a reason why you still trust me?”

With a groan, Chuuya splashes him. If not for the embrace of No Longer Human, Dazai is pretty sure the question would have earned him a gravity-induced tsunami instead of a half-hearted

splash of lukewarm water.

“Shit, Dazai. Why do you have to bring that up now?”

“Because I read that shrimps have, after all, a decent memory span. I’m just testing that theory”

“You bas—“

“Answer me.”

The water smells nice, but it’s growing cold fast. Chuuya doesn’t seem to

mind, nor to notice how uncomfortable the tub is going to become in a few minutes. Maybe he doesn’t care, too bothered by the question.

“Are you an idiot?” He says, but there is no real bite in it “Hell if I know. Sometimes you gotta hold on and trust your guts, y’know?”

Trust your guts. The irony of the comment steals a dry laugh from Dazai.

“Like that time when “there is no time to chicken out and go home”? Is chibi wise after all?”

“Hah?! And how do YOU know about that?”

The detective hums, satisfied of how warm Chuuya’s skin

Chuuya’s skin has grown all of a sudden: he swears it could raise the temperature of the water, if given enough time.
Flustered is a good look on the Chibikko.

“Ango recorded the conversation, of course. I earned myself a copy.” A wolfish grin. “And by earned, I mean stolen.”

“You scheming bastard—“

“But I’m a scheming bastard you still want around,” he corrects, quietly.

Chuuya sighs in agreement, his back still pressed against Dazai’s skin. The height difference is perfect for Dazai to rest his chin on the top of his partner’s head and, for once,

no one cares to comment.

It still baffles him how easily he can make Chuuya dance in his palm, how willing is the best fighter of the mafia to be played and broken and betrayed all over again.
It’s not the first time Chuuya allows him to guide them both through a dance in

the dark of some sort, but that’s usually about /survival/.
This has more to do with living and purpose and vulnerability, and Dazai never thought he would deal with that.

At least, it’s not like he will ever stick a poisoned blade in his partner’s body: he /cares/ about

Chuuya, but he also left the mafia. His loyalty lies elsewhere, in something he wants to protect with everything he has.
The chibi, of all people, should understand.

Hence, Dazai feels but a small tinge of shame when Chuuya moves out of the tub and looks at him like he’s been

holding back his whole life, or when stuff about the Port Mafia starts to slip in between conversations.
It starts with little things — Hirotsu, Q still looking for their doll, Elise’s new dress — but Dazai has always been a patient agent.

The following week, Ranpo throws

him a funny look when Dazai shows up at work with a fancy homemade bento, but the man just shrugs.
He trusts Mori even less than he trusts Christie: last time he gave Mori the benefit of the doubt, Odasaku died.

But he trusts Chuuya in spilling everything he needs to know.

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