Dazai counted the tiles in the ceiling for what must have been the hundredth time in just a few hours. Visually, he could see that these tiles were larger and the room smaller than that of the military infirmary, thus logically, fewer tiles, but he had to make sure. Better safe than (so, so so so unbelievably) sorry.
Two-hundred-and-fifty-six. Sixteen by sixteen. Fluorescent lights. No stains. No blood. Clean. Safe.
He let out a shuddering breath which turned into a series of hectic and dry coughs. Quickly, he muffled them with his blanket and cast a worried glance towards the door, hoping it wouldn't open. This was the first night he had been left by himself but he knew that Atsushi, ( probably- he really didn't know who had been stuck with the chore of babysitting him tonight) , was lingering right behind it, ready to come to his rescue at the first sign of trouble.
Dazai didn't get why they even bothered. Surely they must have realized how destroyed he was by now (as if he wasn't damaged before) . There was no more use for him. It would be months until he would be able to walk again, if ever. He was practically a mute from being strangled repeatedly over such a long period of time, and he had already been half-blind before Dan Saito had taken him. They might never get him back, or, the version of him they thought they knew and loved, but were so wrong about.
They had to understand that he was damaged goods. Or actually, damaged bads seemed more accurate.
He readjusted the nose cannula that had replaced the oxygen mask yesterday. It always lingered annoyingly in his peripheral vision and if he didn't pay attention, it would startle him to a point of hyperventilating, which was just silly since it was an aid supposed to help him breathe, not take his breath away.
With his less-injured arm, he tugged at the knitted light grey jacket Kyouka had presented him with one of the first few days in the hospital, wrapping it tightly around his sling and trying to button it up with one clumsy, trembling hand. The always serious girl had matter-of-factly stated that he was shaking all the time, and they had been unable to find an actual warm piece of clothing in his dorm, so she had no other choice than to knit one for him herself.
The gesture in itself was beautiful and heartwarming, but the implication made it go cold down his spine. Because as much as he had faith in the small girl, he knew she couldn't knit. The knotted mess of a scarf Atsushi still insisted on wearing every winter was evidence enough. Not to mention that there was no way she would have been able to knit a piece like this in the matter of a few days.
He knew someone who could, though. And she did too- and the fact that she had felt compelled to seek help from that woman made him feel sick and impossibly guilty. Guilty enough that he was tempted to slide out of the garment and be cold in favor of wearing it and be reminded of what he had made her do.
But, the messy heap of too tight, too loose and dropped stitches at the hem of his sleeve made him reconsider. She must have tried so hard, and not feeling freezing all the time and having such soft and cozy fabric on his body made it a little bit easier to remember where he was, even with the neverending footsteps outside in the corridors, and the unyielding stench of blood, vomit, tears and all the other contradicting smells between life and death surrounding him all the time.
Dazai yawned sleepily, breath hitching a little at the height of the rising sensation. It felt strange to be so tired all the time. Before, he would go days on end, forgetting to sleep altogether. The concept of night and day had never really mattered to him and he wouldn't go to sleep until he was close to fainting. In return, once he did feel tired, he'd usually have to find the nearest place to lay down no matter where he was, unless he wanted to collapse on the floor. Luckily, if he wasn't in the dorms, he was almost exclusively at the office which had an absolutely adequate couch in the back. Or, he'd be at the cafè on the first floor. They never said anything except for when he was still sleeping when they were closing for the evening.
Now, he could go two, maybe three hours at most before his brain turned to mush and his eyes would droop, making it nearly impossible to get his eyelids to open again when he blinked. When unable to fix his gaze on anything, his surroundings tended to morph into whatever he didn't want to see, and his brain made him think of things or feel these feelings he didn't want at all.
Maybe that wasn't as far away from what it had been like before, but it happened so much more frequently now when he was unable to stay awake for more than a few hours at the time.
Sliding back under the extra blankets he had been given by the hospital, he relented and let himself drift back to sleep, yet again entering the depths of his own brewing insanity.
Sleeping was scary, even before. Osamu Dazai was known as the prodigal son of the devil himself, doomed to a life as a shadow walker. Someone so cruel, that most people who had heard about him thought he could be nothing but an urban legend; the boogeyman hiding in the closet, the unknown figure at the other end of your mirror, the one who should never have their name repeated three times in the darkness of your closed bathroom.
The funny thing was, that even if Dazai was inclined to believe every horrible thing he had heard about himself, he had always been afraid of the dark. Even as he emerged from it, clad in his black suit and heavy coat, smiling eerily at his target, he'd be terrified of looking back to the pitch-black behind him. Because he knew what lurked in the shadows. People like him did. People like him, Mori, their old boss, Fydor and… and Dan Saito.
Mori visited Dazai's dreams for the longest time. Before that, it had been the old boss. Now, it was Saito. But he didn't only keep to Dazai's dreams- it wasn't enough for him. He would appear every time he closed his eyes, every time he forgot to pay attention and anything that got caught in the tiny bit of peripheral vision he still had left.
And technically, Dazai was right to be wary. He knew that the ADA, the military and the police (and probably every special ability organization in Asia) were all searching for him and that he was unlikely to take the risk of coming back, but he could.
Dan Saito could be anywhere, waiting to take Dazai back. Chain him down, burn, electrocute, cut, stab, starve, break and humiliate him. Torture and abuse him in ways only limited by the deranged scientist's imagination.
Pictures of his own mutilated limbs and disfigured flesh flickered through his mind for the next hours of sleep. Sometime during the night, he could hear someone entering the room and feel their unfamiliar presence, but the heavy drugs they kept him on made it impossible to stir fully awake. A new liquid was being pushed into his IV line, leaving a dull stinging feeling. Images of the doctor he might or might not have killed flashed into his memory, and he wondered if he was back.
Dazai wanted to see for himself- wanted to fight them off and prevent them from doing this to him, but as soon as the thought came, it escaped as a new wave of heaviness washed over him as the drug took effect and he felt himself being dragged deeper into the depts of the drug-induced slumber.
Forever went by, captured inside his own body. Trapped in the darkness, running blindly in the hopes of finding a door, a wall to put his back against or a tiny glimpse of light illuminating his surroundings- anything but this forever darkness that swallowed everything around him.
After running for another eternity; it might have been minutes, hours, days or years, the gloom seemed to turn into a hazy grey.
Live your life in the light, Dazai thought with an abrupt sense of optimism. Oda is here. Oda-san is showing me where to go!
The massive void of black suddenly lead him into a narrow hallway with a bright shining light in the end. Dazai picked up his speed, determined to get to it as quickly as he could. The walls were rushing past him and it went up up up to the surface until finally...
A loud crash knocked him back to reality.
Dazai threw himself up into a seated position, wild bruised eyes darting back and forth, finally finding the source of the ruckus.
A bowl laid shattered on the ground. Its contents spilled all over the floor. It smelled amazing. The sight made his senses sharpen- where was the rotten mush? Nothing alive seemed to be crawling around in the brown, fresh-smelling liquid.
Before Dazai could gather himself, his survival-instinct took control of his body, and he darted out of bed. The IV tugged painfully as the tube snapped out of his wrist, and the stand toppled over behind him and clacked to the ground. The wire of the nose cannula burst and his breathing felt instantly more labored as his body hit the floor. Dazai let out a voiceless scream of pain as his muscles spasmed and he writhed in agony, but he staggered up and dragged himself over to the glass-filled meal on the floor.
With one hand he started to scoop up the burning hot liquid and slurped it down as quickly as he could before it could be taken away from him. Small shards of glass crunched between his teeth but if he didn't have time- he needed to eat and get his strength back- needed to eat it all before they could take it from him.
"D-Dazai-san?" A frail voice, frightfully small uttered close-by, catching his attention.
Dazai paused. That voice… Freezing his motion, a hand halfway to his mouth, Dazai looked up and into wide, flickering dual-colored orbs.
Atsushi was sprawled out on the floor much like himself, still clutching the tray that had held the bowl of soup that had been spilled. The boy looked achingly at his mentor, and Dazai slowly lowered his gaze back to his hand. A puddle of blood had accumulated and blended into the scorching broth in his grip from a cut across his palm. He blinked emptily at it.
Atsushi repeated his name, this time with a little more vigor and Dazai looked up again. "Are you okay? I'm so sorry, I tripped. I- I'm so clumsy, I'm sorry. I'll get somebody-" The teen scrambled to his feet and was nearly at the door when he stopped.
"Nnh-" The noise was garbled and weak, strangled and broken. Atsushi turned back around with a shocked expression and saw Dazai's trembling hand reach for him. Dark waves danced around his too-thin features as Dazai shook his head.
"I- but, I don't think I can do much to help with this, Dazai-san," Atsushi uttered helplessly, yet he couldn't make himself turn away. The number of times the boy had reached out for someone to hold his hand but being met with a cold shoulder instead had been many, but not a single one had been at the Agency.
Atsushi was also sure that no matter what had truly been done to Dazai while he'd been held captive, regardless of how gruesome or nightmarish it had been, a hand reaching out for comfort would not be a regular occurrence even on the darkest days to come.
Painstakingly slowly, Atsushi walked back over the floor, careful not to step on any broken glass and leaving an even bigger mess to clean up. Once he was close enough, he held his arm out to take Dazai's shaky hand in his, but the hand reached around and with a surprisingly strong grip, tugged Atsushi back down to the floor with him.
Glass ground and left ugly scrapes on the floor beneath Atsushi's knees and he felt them nick at the skin underneath the fabric of his trousers, but the young man was frozen still.
Dazai had laid his head on his lap, hand having shifted its grip from Atsushi's shirt, leaving a bright red handprint, and was instead grasping mindlessly at the neck of his hospital gown. The erratic hicks that had been his breathing had slowed down, but still groaned like the wind seeping through a glitch in the window frame.
But what truly terrified Atsushi, was the feverish pink that flushed Dazai's cheeks and how his eyes had narrowed, brimming with thick, salty tears pleading to be released.
Atsushi uttered a silent gasp, arms hovering over the trembling form curled on his lap, unsure of what to do for a moment. But, he quickly got a hold of himself and scooped Dazai up and held him tighter than he really dared to, afraid to hurt him more. As the cries grew in intensity however, Atsushi steadily realized that it might not actually be possible.
As Dazai slowly but surely started to still in his arms, Atsushi let go a little to peer down on how he was doing. Puffy eyelids had slid shut, and an even stream of ragged breath flowed in and out, brushing across Atsushi's own arm.
Atsushi gave the mop of unruly brown curls a quick and gentle kiss as he shifted and hoisted Dazai up in his arms and carefully laid him back on the bed.
The teen sat back and watched as a couple of aghast nurses started to clean up the mess they had made, as well as treating the new wounds on Dazai's arm, reattaching the IV line and replaced the nose cannula with another mask.
As calmness settled back over the room, Atsushi observed Dazai's chest move in reassuring breaths and wondered just how much abuse one person could take before their body simply refused to knit itself back together again.