Weaving through the many hallways of the massive building that is the Port Mafia's Headquarter, Dazai finally finds himself before the door that leads to the largest, most reinforced training room of the entire HQ complex. Dark brown eyes survey the steel door in thinly veiled disinterest, boredom colouring the edge of gaze sharp as diamonds. The so-called Demon Prodigy pulls the safety lock open.
Dazai is not at all surprised to discover the whole room has indeed been wrecked almost beyond repair. He leans his weight against the sturdy frame of the entrance as he sweeps his eyes around. Whistling appreciatively at the mess, his attention ultimately lands on the figure sprawled in the centre of the punctured floor. He has stripped off his overcoat, bolero vest, and even his black tie, leaving only the waistcoat over the usual combo of white shirt and black trousers. Dazai snorts out a laugh at the sight. Splayed out in a cross shape, his partner, the one and only, Nakahara Chuuya lie seeming for all the world relaxed and pliant amid a chaos only a monster could have brought. Dazai knows better though (has always known). That Chuuya is probably as relaxed as a string pulled taut can ever get. Even without accounting the swirling spheres of scrap metals and broken concrete orbiting in the air around his form. Whose existence relies solely on the sort of tension only For The Tainted Sorrow could did not take Dazai more than a glance to notice the little circling mess the shorter boy (man?) has got going is almost the exact replica of the solar system, as far as theories are concerned. Dazai barely suppresses a crazed guffaw. Because even in ugly, nasty destruction, the boy (man?) still looks for beauty.
(He remembers, from a long time ago, when the both of them were still only two-thirds steeped in darkness, Chuuya had once told him with wide eyes that he had always found space and stars and supernovas to be inexplicably beautiful. Especially when they explode. Dazai would never admit but he had never seen Chuuya more beautiful.)
"What the fuck are you doing here?" Ah. Of course Chuuya has already known Dazai has been observing him. Dazai merely smiles, cold and empty and is that mania?
"Well," He began, "Shouldn't I be the one asking you that, stupid Chibi?" Dazai cannot see his partner's face, but he can tell whatever expression Chuuya is sporting, it is not in the least pleasant or pleased. "Aren't sheep dogs supposed to always follow their owner around? And isn't Chuuya my do—"
WHAM!
The next thing he knows, there is a long piece of shrapnel imbedded in the door frame a mere centimetre away from his head. The shorter teen has not moved an inch since Dazai began his observations, but he does not need to. Not when the piece of metal threatening to pin itself into Dazai's brain is just another rather obvious display of Chuuya's Kingly rage. And his voice alone is enough to convey the kind of danger Dazai is teetering on getting himself into.
Low and rough and feral. "Shut the fuck up. Get lost."
Dazai is amused.
Chuuya is pissed.
Any sane person would have ensured themselves scarce after witnessing the bubbling volcano that is Chuuya's temper. But Dazai is nothing but a daredevil, and perhaps the Devil himself. So he does not move from his precarious location at the doorway. Even though he would rather not go to missions with slings under his arms and crutches against his sides. Even though he would rather meet Odasaku as intact as he could have.
Still, Dazai tempts fate, or his partner in this case.
Because apples are ever the sweetest ripened and barely ripped-off of a tree.
"Can't," He says with a shrug, "Believe me when I say I'd rather not be here at all, but as Lady Luck would have it, here I am. Doing my best to breath the same corrupted air as you, Hat Rack. Quite disgusting, I can assure."
Chuuya growls. Dazai listens to the fury coiled tight and hot and grins a bit wider.
Screeecchhhhhhh.
Screeeccchhhhhhhhhhh.
The grind of metal on metal is indeed as vile as it gets. It grates his brains and screws his bones. Dazai smiles. The air thick and searing as melting lead and iron.
Chuuya all but snarls like an animal, "Another fucking mission." The persistent low and rough quality of Chuuya's voice imbues the space with something Dazai knows far too intimately. He shivers, miniscule. The electric rush of adrenaline bunched together like gravitons in Chuuya's hands has his mind buzzing intensely, fervently. It is almost enough to make him imagine things less than decent involving none other than the teen he has been forced to work with all these years. Hm, he might as well commit suicide from overwhelming pleasure borne of such thoughts. Not the worst death, he must admit.
After all, even Eve was not insusceptible to ripe red apples. Why would a Devil?
But that is not why he is right where he is standing, Dazai has to remind himself.
"Give me another reason to be here. I dare you, Chibi," He raises an eyebrow at the response. Of course it is a mission. Why else would he be looking for this epitome of all-brute-force-and-no-brain of a partner instead of going to his cancelled meet-up at Lupin? No matter how attractive Chuuya or Chuuya's voice is, he has never been worth abandoning a night at Lupin. Not when professionalism is everything but a guise for the inexcusable.
Silence meets Dazai's challenge. The slide of metals has toned down to a hiss, droning like dying engine in the back of his mind. Chuuya is as volatile as gods and humans and evils could be. Dazai could not help it; pushing and pulling until either of them explodes at the seams. Vaguely, his mind whisper-tells a story, of how death and calamity meet.
"Right," Chuuya says curtly, "So, Mori? Or you?" He still does not move from where he is on the floor, perfectly maintaining the whirling mini solar system that is an inferno. Dazai does not answer.
He hears Chuuya's growl echo across the room again, before seeing him push himself to his feet smoothly, even from his sprawled-out position. Despite his more than apparent superiority in intellect, Dazai does find himself slightly envious of his partner's physical capabilities from time to time. Imagine the kind of hell he could raise, Dazai's mind laments mournfully. Imagine what he could do to put limits and limitations to test. That Chuuya has done them all, Dazai thinks wryly, is an utterly bitter defeat.
The Demon Prodigy watches as Chuuya makes his way towards the corner of the room where his clothes lie discarded. The pieces of metal and concrete ruins part automatically as the gravity manipulator walks across the ruins. What a show-off, Dazai snorts. His dark eyes never once leave the ginger's form as he bends to pick up his stupid hat and plops it carelessly over his head. With one fluid motion, Chuuya swings his long coat and vest over his shoulder and all but prowls towards where Dazai is standing. The brown-haired boy (also man?) trains his gaze singularly on his partner as he stops right in front of him.
Pulsating blue against insipid brown.
Chuuya's eyes have always been piercing, electrifyingly blue, darkly shadowed by the brim of his (stupid) hat. If Dazai's brown orbs are endless pits in the midst of darkness, then Chuuya's glow and blaze even when there is no light.
It reels him, them, in like bees to honey, Dazai muses, like moths to flames.
Like sharks to blood.
God and Demon. Who to tell the difference?
Dazai vaguely registers the quiet hums of gravity licking at his subconscious. Chuuya's eyes boring into his own has always brought about new kinds of catastrophe and apocalypse. A war waged between the too-young yet too-wise amongst themselves. And leaves whoever involved suffer. Dazai is not for the first time, or last really, reminded of certain glaring facts.
That Chuuya is not Odasaku. That Chuuya is only his partner by force rather than choice. That Chuuya is danger incarnate.
And that Chuuya is anything but a friend.
He blinks when Chuuya brushes past him in a flurry of black and copper. His voice smooth and low in Dazai's ears.
"Fine. Lead the way."
A deafening sound, and the ground tremors.
Dazai follows after him, head ringing with noises of metals and concrete. The glaring facts stare at him in the face and Dazai blinks once, twice, against their gleam.
The hole fills up with blood and gore and recedes once more to emptiness.
Dazai would, could, only ever take Chuuya as his partner.