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sickficideas · 10 months

Note

dazai who regularly gets vertigo that sometimes eventually leads to migraines. he always tries to work through them, but sometimes it just gets too bad & he collapses. cue chuuya caretaking <3 (thinking mostly pm skk)

thank u for the delicious ask anon...dazai is not the only one suffering in this fic, there's so much suffering to go around teehee..

ao3! 4.5k words, sickfic - please refer to the link for additional tags!

you're a headache || skk sickfic

Dazai is hoping it's just the antiseptic smell. He doesn't want to think about the other possibilities.

He sits down on one of the cots as soon as the dizzy spell hits him. He's learned over the years that sitting down right away seems to mitigate some of the effects of his vertigo, but it's gotten worse over time, and it's getting more and more difficult to hide.

"You good?"

Chuuya's voice. Dazai almost forgot he was there with him. He was the one that carried Akutagawa all the way here. Dazai's secretly thankful for it, because he certainly wouldn't have been able to do it himself.

"I'm fine," Dazai groans. Chuuya stuffs his phone into a pocket as he slips back past the curtain, eyeing Akutagawa's unconscious form with far more concern than necessary, Dazai thinks. "Did you get ahold of them?"

"Yeah. They're sending someone over to come get him with our ambulance," Chuuya huffs, leaning against the wall opposite to Dazai. This isn't a good situation. Akutagawa's injuries are too severe for him to be treated long-term by the infirmary staff at headquarters, and he needs to be taken to their own emergency facility. Dazai can't quite tell where he's bleeding from at this point. His head and thigh injuries bled the most, but he has several broken ribs and a fractured collarbone that's jutting out of his skin. He's almost certain one of his arms are dislocated, and Dazai would have put it back in place himself if the kid's collarbone wasn't staring right back at him.

Unfortunately, even if his injuries weren’t this severe, he’s extremely uncooperative and requires sedation to be treated. The infirmary staff have refused to treat him even for minor things in the past.

Dazai sighs, dropping his head in his hands, not caring much about the dried blood that they're covered in. “Such a pain.”

"At least he stopped bleeding," Chuuya sighs.

Dazai nods.

He probably needs to tell Gin. Akutagawa was supposed to go home tonight, but he has a feeling that won't be for a while, now.

Dazai almost never sees Akutagawa’s injuries the moment they happen. He’s learned to use Rashomon to keep injuries quite literally under wraps, and he can stop his own bleeding pretty well if he has the focus for it, but not this time. He fainted as a result of the blood he lost before Dazai even realized he was injured. He has no idea how he managed to hide that collarbone injury.

He has a much higher pain tolerance than Dazai could ever dream of. Here he is, half a collarbone snapped off and poking out, and Dazai thinks he might start crying if this headache turns into a migraine like he's suspecting.

Dazai pulls out his phone to find Gin's contact. He considers texting her, but this is sort of urgent, so he hits the call button and presses the phone up to his ear. Chuuya tilts his head, and Dazai has to hold himself back on making a comment about him looking like a confused dog.

"Gin. Hey. Akutagawa got hurt pretty bad today. They're taking him up to the hospital at the Port for further treatment. I can text you the information when I get it," he says. Gin doesn't speak when she's working, so he doesn't expect a response. There's just silence for a moment before she hangs up, a simple acknowledgment that she heard him.

"Gin? That Black Lizard kid?" Chuuya asks.

"Mhm," Dazai asks, tossing his phone over to the end of the cot. Chuuya looks confused, but Dazai doesn't feel like explaining anything to him.

For a moment, Akutagawa's body tenses up and he clenches his teeth through a pained groan, but he stays unconscious. Chuuya's expression tenses up just the same.

"Go back to work," Dazai grumbles. He only asked Chuuya for help because he was nearby when Akutagawa passed out. He doesn't need him anymore.

Chuuya scoffs. "You go back to work."

"I can't. I have to make sure my dog doesn't kill anyone when he wakes up," Dazai drawls as if it's the most obvious thing in the world.

"Stop calling him that, Dazai," he hisses.

"I'll call him whatever I want, Chuuya," Dazai groans. He doesn't have the energy to argue about meaningless things like this, but he will if it's Chuuya.

Chuuya, for some reason, doesn't seem to be so willing to leave. He leans against the wall and closes his eyes for a minute or so. Dazai isn't sure how long he's been working for, at this point. The bags under his eyes are telling enough. Regardless, he was there quickly enough when Dazai called to help him stop Akutagawa's bleeding.

"Why is he like that, anyway?"

"Like what?" Dazai groans, shooting a glare up at the latter. His voice sounds like metal grating on metal on Dazai's aching brain. He knows he's quickly developing a migraine - or, it's only hit him now that he has time to actually think.

"I saw him last time. Take that nurse's head off," Chuuya says. The memory sends a shiver up Dazai's spine. He's seen a lot of horrific things in his time in the mafia, but he's never seen a clean, instantaneous decapitation like that. Akutagawa is often heavily disoriented when he wakes up, especially when he's injured or ill, and that happened as a result.

Akutagawa didn't speak for two weeks after that happened, and Dazai could never seem right figure out why.

"He's from the slums," Dazai mumbles. His vision starts to list sideways as he straightens himself up, and he tries his best to hide any sign of his vertigo from Chuuya.

"Yeah?" Chuuya asks. He's starting to look irritated. "The fuck's that mean, Dazai? I'm from the slums too, asshole. What's that got to do with decapitating people for no reason?"

"I'm like, ninety-seven percent sure he was trafficked, so, more that sort of thing," Dazai says casually, not at all thrown off Chuuya's random defensive bite.

Chuuya loses some of the color in his face.

"Shit," he curses, letting out a shaky breath.

"I mean, I don't know for sure. I know he wouldn't tell me. But I'd say there's a good chance," Dazai shrugs. "Sure you saw your fair share of that."

Chuuya doesn't say anything, but he knows the answer. He thinks the two of them probably have a lot more in common than either of them realize.

"Maybe you could ask him, since you like him so much. He'd probably tell you," Dazai teases.

"What the hell is your problem? He can't stand anyone but you. He wouldn't tell me," Chuuya scoffs. "I wouldn't ask about something like that anyway, you freak. It's not my business."

Dazai has tuned him out at this point. He doesn't care much to hear Chuuya's defenses, he was really only doing it to get a rise out of him, but now he regrets it. Chuuya's voice is normally a cacophony in Dazai's ears, but now with his ever-present migraine, it's making him much more aware of the dull throbbing in the back of his head.

"Shut up, will you? You'll wake up my dog," Dazai groans, dropping his head back into his hands. Chuuya won't care if Dazai tells him the real reason, he's sure, but he's much more likely to comply for Akutagawa's sake, for some reason.

"Call him your dog one more time," Chuuya grumbles to himself, but Dazai ignores him.

It's silent again for a while. Dazai doesn't have much concept of how much time has passed, he's simply trying to will away his migraine, somehow. Chuuya refuses to leave. It might be a good thing. He can probably carry Akutagawa out once they arrive to pick him up. Dazai couldn't carry him even if he wanted to.

Then, of course, the nausea hits him.

"I'll be right back," Dazai grumbles. He figures he's probably not walking as straight as he thinks, but he's more worried about getting to the bathroom in time than hiding his vertigo from Chuuya, at this point. He pulls the curtain back and stumbles toward the bathroom, one hand clamped over his mouth just in case his stomach contents decide to make a reappearance before he can do it of his own free will.

He drops to his knees with a groan as soon as he closes the door behind him, and he lays his head on the toilet seat. His head is spinning so much that he can't see straight. He has no idea how he managed to get here so quickly. Muscle memory, his strong desire to get away from Chuuya, it's anyone's guess.

"Fuck," he groans, spitting his saliva into the water. So far, there's no sign of Chuuya following him over, not that Dazai is too aware of his surroundings right now anyway. He tries to turn his head to see if he can see anything from the space beneath the door, but everything suddenly turns on its side, and he chokes up a mouthful of vomit. The only sign he has that it landed in the toilet is the splash he hears - he can't see anything.

His brain feels like it's thumping against his skull, which is a sensation so nauseating that it makes everything else feel so much worse. He whines, much rather wishing someone would put him out of his misery. This surely isn't worth surviving.

Whatever forces itself out of his stomach next is strong enough for Dazai to consider it near projectile. He feels it coming out of his nose, which is only adding to the list of awful sensations he's feeling.

He whines to himself, not caring much about how pathetic he must sound. He spits up another mouthful of vomit with a wet burp.

“Hngh…”

He tries not to move his head too much, but he can't stay here for long. He reaches forward to flush, hardly with enough energy to. He's sure he'll have to go with them once they take Akutagawa just as a precaution, and they should be here any minute. He takes a wad of toilet paper to wipe his mouth and nose. His throat already burns so bad.

He has to use the toilet seat for support to get up, and he finds himself leaning heavily against the wall as he's hit with another bout of vertigo. He's lucky he already threw up, or else he's sure this bout would have made him vomit all over the tile floor.

He keeps a hand along the wall as he finds the door, and once he opens it, he has to lean on the bathroom door frame for support. He can't get away with hiding it, not now. If he tries, he'll pass out for sure.

Chuuya is glaring at him, an eyebrow raised. Dazai doesn't have any clue how long he's been out here.

"Did you just throw up?" Chuuya asks.

Dazai groans, pressing his forehead up against the frame. He wishes Chuuya were more like Akutagawa. He's trained the latter to be silent if he notices anything wrong with him, but Chuuya always has to point it out. Annoying.

"The hell's wrong with you, Dazai? You've been weird this whole time," Chuuya huffs. He takes a step forward, almost looking like he wants to approach him for some reason, but Dazai just turns his head back to the side. He feels awful.

"Nothing. Go away, slug."

And then it hits him again, as soon as he takes a step forward and loses the support of the door frame. It feels almost like one foot landed where it was supposed to, and the other somehow took a step on the wall, and now his head is rushing toward the floor.

Of course, Chuuya catches him before he can turn his migraine into a head injury.

Dazai makes no effort to move. He'd do anything to wriggle out of Chuuya's hold right now, but he's practically incapacitated right now, his eyes screwed shut in some attempt to get some control over what he's seeing.

"Dazai -"

"It's just this shitty vertigo," Dazai mumbles quietly, trying to peer his eyes open. "I'll be fine, just -"

Chuuya doesn't give him any room to defend himself. He scoops him up without a second of deliberation.

Dazai finds himself lying in one of the cots in no time at all, one in a closed room. He doesn't trust himself to open his eyes just yet, but he can tell it's dark in here. That usually helps. He probably should lie down for a while.

"Stay here and don't fucking get up," Chuuya huffs before he pulls the curtain closed, and Dazai covers his ears a bit too late, the metal rings sliding along the pole proving to be a bit too much for him. He's not sure why Chuuya was in such a rush to leave, but he hears his phone ringing off in the distance. They must be here to get Akutagawa.

Dazai curls up on his side, taking the pillow and holding it over his head to dull his senses some. It still feels like he's cascading down a waterfall inside of a wooden barrel, but now that he thinks about it, he'd rather actually be doing that. At least he has death to look forward to at the end. This is just pointless suffering.

He hears something. He's not sure what. Something falling against the tile, some sort of a struggle.

"Hey. You're okay. You're in the infirmary, at headquarters," he hears Chuuya say sternly. "Dazai's right in there. He fell asleep."

Dazai can't even remotely muster the energy to get up. Akutagawa's awake, and he's not there to negate his ability.

Get away from him, he wants to say. Akutagawa's true intentions don't matter, the fact is he could easily kill Chuuya in those first blinded moments before he realizes where he is.

But he doesn't hear anything. He doesn't hear any kind of struggle at all, not past that first bit.

Dazai scoffs to himself. Of course he's fine with Chuuya. Of course Chuuya can handle himself.

And then he hears it again. Some kind of struggle.

He forces his head up off the bed, which proves to be a massive mistake. His head swims and rolls off his shoulders, it feels like, reminding him how horribly nauseous he is, and he leans over the side of the cot to try to vomit on the floor, but he's greatly misinterpreted how far off the cot he leaned because of the vertigo, and his whole body tumbles to the floor.

He doesn't have the energy to even lift his head to vomit. Whatever he manages to choke out just slides off of his tongue and spreads on the floor next to his face.

He'd rather be blackout drunk than this.

…

"Dazai," Chuuya mumbles. He hates how concerned he sounds. He doesn't often let himself be read like that.

"I'm fine," Dazai barely manages to croak out, but he's not really sure where he is. He thinks he might be back in that same bed, which means Chuuya moved him from where he was, laying in his own vomit.

It's still dark. Dazai is lying on his back, feeling significantly less dizzy, but now he's met with what feels like the worst migraine of his life, pounding through his skull like there's no tomorrow. He whines, grabbing a fistful of the sheets he's lying on for some kind of distraction.

He feels something damp press against his cheek, and he manages to open an eye to see it's still only Chuuya, rubbing a washcloth on the side of his face. Dazai groans and tries to turn his head away. He realizes there's a washcloth laid over his forehead, too. He doesn't think he has a fever, but it does feel nice.

"Cut it out. Trying to clean your face up," Chuuya grumbles, his free hand taking Dazai's chin to turn his head back in his direction. "What the hell even happened, Dazai? I come back and you're passed out on the floor and laying in your own puke?"

"'M fine," Dazai mumbles. He's exhausted. He can't have been passed out for long.

"No you're not. This isn't normal," Chuuya huffs. His brow furrows.

"'s just a migraine," he says quietly, but he can hardly speak. His voice rattling around in his brain is making his already insanely painful headache worse. He wants to tell Chuuya it's not a big deal. He gets these all the time, they're just bad for the first few hours and then he's okay, but he can't get the words out.

Chuuya, somehow, seems to realize this.

"You should've fuckin' said so," he whispers with a click of his tongue, somehow already understanding that other voices are making it worse.

Dazai's eyes fall shut. He's grateful for it being so quiet in the infirmary tonight. He didn't see a single member of the staff so far, or any patients. Now it's just him and Chuuya.

He hears something click, and realizes Chuuya has shut off the lights in the main hall of the infirmary, too. It's almost completely dark, aside from the emergency light just barely peeking past the curtain.

"I'll come back later. Gonna report to the boss," Chuuya whispers.

There's blood on Chuuya's face. Dazai can trace the faint outline of it, but he disappears before Dazai can figure out where it's coming from. This time, not a single ring of the curtain moves on the metal bar. It's a silent exit. Dazai's impressed.

He lets go of a shaky sigh.

…

"I'm not gonna move him."

Chuuya's voice wakes him. Dazai groans, beyond annoyed to have any voice wake him up - let alone Chuuya - until he manages to remember where he is.

"He's not injured. Just leave 'im. I've got it covered," Chuuya says.

Dazai hears the hushed voices of some nurses, and as he pries his eyes open, he realizes the lights in the main hall of the infirmary are on again, spilling into the dark room he's been resting in. He wonders how long it's been. He hasn't had time to properly rest in a few weeks, at the very least, so he's lost track of time.

The nurses' voices have stopped, and Dazai hears Chuuya's footsteps.

He's still very quiet. Dazai can only hear the fabric ruffle when Chuuya slips past the curtain, and Dazai lets himself fall still again, pretending to still be asleep. He doesn't hear a sound from Chuuya at first, but soon enough, he lets out a deep sigh, and it sounds like he slides down against the wall, opposite to the curtain.

Dazai turns his head just enough that he'll be able to see Chuuya's face.

He looks exhausted. If Dazai had really just woken up, he would have thought Chuuya was dead asleep, the way his head is hanging down. For just a second, Dazai feels something akin to guilt. The blood Dazai remembered from earlier has since dried and cracked against his skin, and his skin is pale, but Dazai isn’t sure why.

"Sleeping on the floor's not good for you, Chibi," Dazai teases, his voice hoarse, hardly above a whisper.

"Fucking hell, Dazai," Chuuya growls, obviously startled, his eyes wide and fixed on Dazai. If Dazai had been any louder, he might've hit his head on the wall from the surprise, "I thought you were asleep, dammit."

"I was, but your annoying voice woke me," Dazai complains with an overdramatic sigh, laying his forearm over his eyes.

"How's your head?" Chuuya asks, evidently not interested in Dazai's taunts. He uses support from the wall to help himself get up, or rather, struggle to, and Dazai hears a quiet groan from him. He’s holding a hand against his abdomen, just for a moment.

"Worse now that you're here," Dazai mumbles under his breath, turning over on the cot. He's still not a huge fan of the lights.

"Seriously, you ugly fuckin' mackerel. Do you feel better or not?" Chuuya groans.

"A little," he admits. It's not nearly as awful as it was before. He can handle the sound of his own voice, at least. The headache is still present, and he's not sure he wants to test his luck with the vertigo and try to sit up, but he's better for now.

Dazai moves his hand back down to his side, and finds a damp washcloth beside his pillow, likely replaced at some point during his sleep. He tosses it over to Chuuya, who doesn't react nearly as quickly as he shoulder.

"You demanding motherfu-"

"Wash your face," Dazai huffs, "unsightly. What kind of executive are you?"

He's teasing, of course, but Chuuya doesn't seem to understand what he's referring to. Normally, Chuuya wouldn't dream of using something to wash his face that's already touched Dazai, but he wipes his cheek and checks the cloth, surprised to find blood.

"Oh, that's…" Chuuya mumbles to himself. He sits down on the cot.

"Akutagawa?" Dazai asks.

"He was scared," Chuuya murmurs, of course, right away to Akutagawa's defense. His fingers graze across the dried cut on his forehead. "You…you need to be more gentle with him."

Chuuya's words are lost to him. He's more concerned with the way Chuuya's looking right now, like he'd pass out any second. He's seen his head bob forward a few times now.

"Lay down," Dazai mumbles. Chuuya meets his gaze for a few moments. Dazai expects him to argue, but he thinks he's so exhausted that he doesn't even give himself a second to think of any retort. He just lays on his side at the end of the bed and curls up, like a cat. Dazai's noticed he often sleeps like that. It almost seems defensive.

"You piss me off," Chuuya murmurs, his voice already heavy with sleep, whispered. Dazai watches all the tension leave his body, but he keeps his gaze on Dazai for as long as he can, before another force makes his eyelids fall shut.

"Yeah, yeah," Dazai whispers, watching Chuuya as he starts to fall asleep.

Only a few moments later, a nurse peaks her head in through the curtains, not as careful to avoid the metal scraping as Chuuya was. Dazai grits his teeth at the sound, but he turns his head, an eyebrow raised at the woman.

"Is he asleep?" she asks so quietly Dazai can hardly hear her. There's one or two more nurses behind her. Dazai just nods, thinking it was obvious enough. "We've been trying to get him to rest all morning."

"All morning?" Dazai asks.

"Yes, he's been in here with you the whole time…he refused to rest," she says. "Please let us know if you need something, sir."

"Turn the lights back off out there, will you?" Dazai sighs, and the nurse nods fervently, disappearing past the curtains. Dazai sighs, long and annoyed, and plans on shutting his eyes and going back to sleep before he feels something warm under the heel of his foot.

At first, he’s inclined to make a joke, but all of the little things he’s noticed have come together to make him realize that Chuuya’s blood is soaking the mattress, and he’s still unconscious. Dazai forces himself to sit up to get a better look at him, and his head swims, proving he’s still not completely recovered from his migraine.

“Chuuya,” Dazai breathes out. He grabs his shoulder, but he doesn’t budge.

Dazai shouts for a nurse.

…

Chuuya’s color is finally starting to come back. Dazai takes note of that. It’s a good sign, even though he’s still fast asleep.

The nurses aren’t too worried about him not waking up. The wound on his abdomen bled a lot, and they’re a bit worried about infection, but at the moment they say it’s nothing he needs a hospital visit for.

Evidently, it was an injury caused by Akutagawa, but Dazai is at a loss for why Chuuya refused to tell anyone, let alone get it treated. He’s sure Chuuya has his own noble bullshit reason for it, something Dazai could never even dream of understanding.

“Can’t you ever just let me suffer by myself?” Dazai grumbles, his head on a pillow beside Chuuya’s. He doesn’t expect Chuuya to answer, but he hopes he subconsciously absorbs the message.

“Fuck you,” Chuuya mutters, his eyes still shut. Dazai didn’t realize that he woke up. His voice is hoarse and heavy with sleep. “Can you shut up? My head hurts.”

“Boo hoo,” Dazai huffs. He manages to fish a free hand out from under the sheets to flick Chuuya in the forehead. Chuuya groans, snatching the sheet they’re both under and pulling it over his head.

“How’s yours,” Chuuya mumbles from under the sheet.

“My what?”

“Your head. Moron,” he huffs.

“I’m fine. Go back to sleep, slug,” Dazai tells him, taking the sheet back so he can see his face. Chuuya’s glaring at him. “Stop worrying about me so much. It’s weird.”

“You’re weird. Ugh,” Chuuya grumbles, tucking his head back into the pillow. “Tell me the next time something’s wrong with you, freak. I don’t wanna find you passed out in your own puke again.”

“And I don’t want you bleeding out in the be I’m laying in again, chibi. Take your own dumb advice,” Dazai groans.

“It was deeper than I thought,” Chuuya mumbles defensively. Dazai knows it was much more complicated than that, but he won’t press for more details. Chuuya’s thought process is a mystery to him, and he’d like to keep it that way. “Dazai?”

“What, slug?” Dazai groans.

“I was trafficked too,” Chuuya mumbles. It’s much quieter than everything else he’s said, and any anger or annoyance has long since left his expression.

“I figured,” Dazai says back quietly. His chest tightens up, and he’s not sure why. He knows how common that sort of thing is in the slums, it doesn’t surprise him at all that that’s something Chuuya went through, but he’s at a loss for why Chuuya’s deciding to tell him.

“Waking up and not knowing where you are’s fucking scary,” Chuuya grumbles. “I don’t…I don’t blame Akutagawa for freaking out.”

“Never said I did, Chuuya,” Dazai reminds him. He recalls simply answering Chuuya’s question as to why Akutagawa reacts the way that he does.

“So don’t punish him. It’s not his fault,” Chuuya mumbles.

Dazai sighs. That’s what he’s getting at, then. “I won’t.”

Chuuya relaxes, just a bit, and only then Dazai realizes how tense he was.

“Will you go to sleep now?” Dazai huffs, trying to force some sort of annoyed tone to get Chuuya to comply, but he’s already halfway there. The exhaustion takes over him one more time. Chuuya’s always been one to fall asleep quickly.

Dazai brushes some of Chuuya’s overgrown bangs from his eyes. He really doesn't want to know how all of this would have gone if Chuuya wasn’t there - between Akutagawa’s injuries and Dazai being nearly completely incapacitated from his migraine, Chuuya took care of it all, and completely neglected himself in the process.

He’s far too selfless. Dazai doesn’t think he’ll ever understand it.

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