Bandages and Salt (PJO X BSD AU)

Chapter fifty-two

A/N: This chapter is a rewrite of The Day I Picked Up Dazai in Dazai's POV

Dazai POV

Time passed quickly after that as my wounds slowly healed past the delicate stage they had been in when I came to the postman and into something closer to what I do swerved to be normal. The wounds still hurt and made it difficult to move at best, but somehow I felt lighter than I had in years.

Since the card game I knew just how fruitless it would be to try and run now, not that I hadn't had an idea of the extent before. Trying to run from a man that could see the future was futile, so I decided to let myself enjoy what little break I had from the doctor and his mind games instead. After a few considering looks from the postman, the older man undid the restraints confining my legs. The postman kept the door still tightly locked, not that I couldn't pick the lock if I wanted to. Though as my mood seemed to get better the postman's grew strange.

It was the third day that I saw the not so stranger sitting in the chair by the window that I decided to say something. The older man had a faraway look in his eyes, like someone remembering something from another time, as he stared out the window waiting patiently with me for the water to boil in the kitchen.

"What are you thinking about?"

The dark haired man didn't look at me when I spoke, his gaze still trained out the window, but I could tell that he heard me all the same.

I watch with interest as he shrugs almost gracefully, something in the tightness of his shoulders keeping it from being so. "It's just that this was the time of year that I quit my previous job," he tells me calmly, giving as little information as he could.

Maybe it was a good thing that he seemed almost determined not to meet my gaze, because if he had he'd have seen the almost manic interest that filled my eyes as the second mystery that had been plaguing my mind started to unravel itself.

"Previous job?" I asked, my voice holding little more than a causal interest to it though I felt much more than that.

The older man takes a quick glance into the kitchen towards the kettle as he weighs his options. Whatever he chose, he seemed almost surprised that he did so.

"Nothing big," he says, meaning that it most likely had been just the opposite. I watch as he walks away from the window and towards me. "It was a violent job," he says as if that explained all that there was to know. "But I quit a long time ago."

I knew it.

The way that the postman moved, the skills that he possessed, weren't those of someone that had lived a mundane existence as he did now. That was part of what made him intesting.

A part of me wanted to grin, but I kept that reaction to myself.

"Violent in what way?" I press, trying not to sound too eager.

But it didn't matter.

The other man doesn't answer, letting the room fall into an uncomfortable and uncontrollable silence as I seemed to be toeing a line that I hadn't known existed until the postman chose to shut down. In the distance I could hear one family calling out to another as they passed each other on the street. He seemed to be content to listen to the outside sounds but I couldn't stand the oppressive silence.

That didn't mean that I did anything to make it better.

"Don't want to talk about it?" I eventually ask, hating the fact that I felt the need to at all. Silence was something that I grew up drowning in and yet it was only affecting me now that I finally wanted to speak. Pathetic. "Fine then," I grumble, annoyance lacing my tone. "When the wounds are healed, I'll leave and we won't see one another again. That's all that there is to our relationship anyways."