Dazai couldn't breathe.
He can feel Chuuya's thready pulse fluttering against his cheek, as scarlet claws its way up Dazai's once pristine prison uniform, forever scarring this moment into the fabric. He's so scared that if he lets go, that pulse that he's straining so desperately to feel and hear will fade into nothingness and he'll be once more left alone in this world that he so struggles to connect with. Still, lamenting over his failures isn't going to do anything for anyone. So Dazai does what he does best.
He lets go. It's the only thing he knows how to do.
He retreats into his mind, his soul fading into the tenebrous depths, as instinct takes over and Dazai pulls himself to his feet with Chuuya still in his arms.
"Time to go!" A huge smile tugs forcefully at Dazai's cheeks, straining the muscles there.
Sigma stands at the exit, watching him with narrow eyes and furrowed brows. He looks like he wants to ask Dazai something, but no words leave his mouth, so Dazai continues talking in order to fill the silence and turn attention away from himself and his momentary break of character.
"I did promise I'd get you out of here alive after all!"
Sigma nods but stays quiet as he follows Dazai through the corridors. His eyes keep darting in between Dazai and the limp figure in his arms as if trying to figure out their connection to one another. At the moment though, Dazai couldn't find it within himself to really care about Sigma's opinions on his relationship with Chuuya or anything else for that matter. His body was on autopilot, as his mind spiraled into self-deprecating thoughts.
A voice whispered in his ear that maybe the next time he tried to kill himself, he should make sure that he actually had follow-through. Perhaps he'll even make himself drown just like he did to Chuuya, in order to experience the same pain he'd put him through. An eye for an eye. A death for a death. It was only right. It was his penance.
"Dazai… are you okay?"
The question jolted him out of his thoughts and took him several moments to process. He could pull the muscles at the corners of his smile twinging as they struggled momentarily to maintain the façade. Like candlelight on the verge of burning out.
Was he alright?
He couldn't remember the last time someone had asked him that. Come to think of it, had anyone ever asked him that? He honestly couldn't remember.
His family had always been… well he didn't like to think about that. Mori had never really cared about anyone and had been way more interested in just trying to use Dazai as a pawn in his schemes. Dazai had let Odasaku die, so any concerns Oda had ever had about him didn't matter. Atsushi and Kunikida just kind of got used to Dazai being that way. And Chuuya… well they never really did talk about stuff like that. It was always just jabs and beating around the bush with them. Conversations about mental health weren't exactly their forte.
Regardless, even if anyone was genuinely interested in the state of Dazai's wellbeing, he wouldn't really know how to talk about it. Those emotions and feelings that were so deeply woven into his soul made him feel like he was trapped under the rubble of a fallen building every time he turned to face them. Like the walls were closing in. Dust covering his face. Metal jabbing through his legs. A chain collar tightened against his throat. Pressure from above. Pressure from below. His lungs caved inwards. A place of no escape. A place of no return. A place where he couldn't breathe.
"I am doing so wonderful! That is just ever so kind of you to ask, Sigma!"
The cheerful expression on Dazai's face and the carefree patter of his footsteps echoing across the prison vastly contradicted the state that he was currently in, with a bloody, nearly-dead figure clutched tightly in his arms and the scarlet patches on his uniform.
There was no way that he was okay, but Sigma had his own problems and barely even knew Dazai, so just like everyone else, he predictably stopped caring enough to inquire and turned away leaving Dazai once more alone with the weight of his collapsing mental health.
The walls were closing in. His back was caving inwards with pressure. His skull felt like it was going to split in two. He couldn't keep doing this. His plan wasn't perfect. He failed. He'd actually failed. He'd failed everyone. He'd failed Chuuya. He'd failed-
Dazai turned down another corridor and headed towards the elevators, which he was able to bypass easily, having already murdered most of the guards in the prison with the help of the time-stopping ability that left only him unaffected until suddenly he was standing outside of Meursault prison.
How… uneventful.
It would've been the perfect escape if not for the sagging body hanging from his arms, just barely holding onto life. Chuuya always had been so stubborn when it came to living, it was one of the biggest differences between them. Dazai sought his end, whereas Chuuya sought his future.
Beyond the prison, Gogol was waiting with a portrait of green laid out beyond him, as trees swayed in the wind and birdsong echoed throughout the wilderness. His pale eyes pierced into Dazai's darker ones, as a playful frown tugged at his lips. His eyes then turned to Chuuya, who was still held securely against Dazai's chest. For a moment, faint interest sparkled in the man's eyes, but ultimately his interest in Dostoevsky's failure won out against his interest in the dying man in Dazai's arms.
"Dos-kun's dead… how tragic. I had such high expectations for him," Gogol paused, seeming lost in thought for a moment before continuing, "well, it is what it is, I guess!"
The antidote was handed over to Dazai, who injected it into his arm, while still keeping a tight grip on Chuuya.
"Anyways, I guess I should be going!" Gogol mused, before grabbing Sigma, who let out a startled yelp after having been quiet all this time. The two were sent falling back into one of his portals in a flash, leaving Dazai and Chuuya alone outside of Meursault with an endless forest that seemed to go on for miles. Lost in France. All alone.
The carefully crafted mask slipped from Dazai's face, as he once more examined Chuuya's state. Blood continued to bleed sluggishly from multiple wounds spanning across his body and having been drowned beforehand did nothing to help his current state. If Dazai didn't patch up his wounds quickly, then Chuuya really would die and he really would be all alone. If that happened, then his next attempt wouldn't be something to laugh off.
Wanting to put some distance between them and the prison, before tending to Chuuya, in order to help secure their escape, Dazai set off at a quick pace through the woods. He found himself taking deer paths at random to make himself harder to follow as he plowed through the underbrush.
It was strange being back outside again after having been in that prison for so long. As birdsong and the sun poking through the leaves of trees greeted him instead of the sterile lifeless walls and the taunting of Dostoevsky's voice.
At the thought of the demon, the image of his body flashed in front of Dazai's mind's eye and he wondered once more why he had been unable to kill Chuuya.
Of course, he was grateful that Chuuya hadn't been murdered by someone as despicable as Dostoevsky, but still by all rights if drowning and being consumed by corruption had failed to kill him, the touch of Dostoevsky's palm should have done the job. Along with that, how had Chuuya broken free of his vampiric state? Dazai had at first assumed that perhaps Arahabaki had overridden such a thing, but now he wasn't so sure when he thought back, because when he thought hard about it, he was pretty sure that Chuuya's eyes had cleared right before he'd slipped underneath those heavy tides. If he was right in that, then that meant that it couldn't have been Arahabaki to break him free of such a curse. Yet if it wasn't Arahabaki that had broken him free of those chains, then what had done the job?
Still, as much as Dazai wanted to find out those answers now, there were other much more pressing matters that he had to deal with immediately, such as dealing with the worst of Chuuya's wounds.
After putting a few miles between them and the prison, Dazai laid Chuuya down gently on the forest floor, propping him up against the sturdy trunk of an old tree. Then, he quickly got to work doing a closer inspection of the wounds covering his old partner's body.
A few cuts and scrapes were scattered across his face, but nothing life-threatening there. His vocal cords however appeared to be a bit damaged, by the way, weak rattling wheezes racked Chuuya's body in the place of regular breathing patterns. Grabbing Chuuya's knife that he'd once taken in order to free Q, a faint smile tugging at his cheeks for just a moment at the memory, he cut open Chuuya's shirt, to further examine the damage that had been wrecked upon his body.
For the most part, he seemed alright, if not for the long, red, jagged slash that tore diagonally across his chest, most likely courtesy of Arahabaki. So, this was the source of the problem. If Dazai didn't fix this quickly, then Chuuya would most definitely bleed out on this very forest floor.
There wasn't much time and only one way that Dazai could think of that could fix this.
He'd never missed Yosano's ability more.
He didn't have much time, as Chuuya grew increasingly pale and his breathing became more erratic. So, Dazai got to work quickly collecting an assortment of dry sticks and arranging them into a small campfire, before setting it ablaze.
The knife he'd taken from Chuuya earlier began to feel heavier somehow.
Before he went any further, Dazai grabbed one more stick, this one being a bit sturdier than the others, before placing it into Chuuya's mouth, because if nothing else would awaken Chuuya, the pain of what he was about to do would. Still, it was the only way to save him, because out here in the wild with essentially nothing, they didn't have many other options left.
Dazai really hoped this worked, because in terms of plans this really was a last resort.
Holding the knife steadily in his hand, he thrust it into the mocking flames, his dark eyes reflecting right back at him through the knife. He could feel it growing hotter in his hand from the hilt but still waited until it began to glow a faint red. As soon as the scarlet color entered the knife, Dazai pulled it from the blistering heat and made his way back over to Chuuya, who continued to slowly bleed out from the life-threatening wound in his chest.
This was the only way.
He pressed the knife against Chuuya's skin.
A scream was ripped from a mangled throat, as terrified blue eyes stretched open to meet brown.
