Bandages and Salt (PJO X BSD AU)

Chapter fifty-four

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

Dazai POV

The underground bunker had long, intricate tunnels that made me feel as if I understood, at least in part, how demigods back at Camp Half-Blood must have felt when traipsing through Deaduls's labyrinth. The tunnels were darker in this part, as if they were more concerned about those that they kept here escaping. Though it almost stung to have my capabilities questioned and completely disregarded in such a way, I didn't hold the assumption against the lot. Any other sixteen year old would have deserved the classification, or at least the ones that hadn't been trained as I have.

Fingers tracing the cool stone, Oda and I walked quietly through the bunker as darkly colored bugs scurried across our hands when we couldn't see.

"Even if we can get out of here," I started, walking lightly behind the postman as we made our way through the halls, my voice low, "that doesn't mean that they will give up on getting this painting of yours just like that," I informed the other, telling him things that I was sure that he already knew, but was curious to hear his answer anyways. It was always an interesting one, never normal in the least. "You'll need to implement some kind of safety measures, unless you're going to be moving every week."

I already had an idea of what he could do, of what I wanted him to do, but I wasn't going to say it just yet. It was a strange thing to want something again after such a long time not allowing myself to do so. I just hoped that I wouldn't lose it, and that the other would choose it.

Oda only continues to walk, his steps not faltering once and his breathing even as ever, as if I hadn't told the older man that his past was sure to continue to hunt him. I knew the feeling of your past chasing you, running fast at your heels, the only difference between the pair of us was that I had run right for it with a knife.

"There is no need to move," Oda decided as we walked. "I've been attacked more than a few times for the things that I have done in the past. I've always managed to get out of it one way or another. This will be the same," the older man explained, his voice as calm as ever. "I will live until I die."

My eyes rolled in the darkness, not that the other could see. "That is such a wise way to go about life," I sighed, my voice laden with enough sarcasm to level a small town.

I may not want to live, but even I knew that the other man's philosophy wasn't the healthiest one to have. It was like someone aiming a gun at your back and all that you do to shake them off is walk very slowly away. You were bound to be hit eventually. And it would be a hit that he wouldn't survive.

In that moment I knew that I didn't want to see the other man in a casket.

I didn't want to see the day that he became little more than a fond memory.

Well, fuck.

There had been a pain steadily growing in my chest since waking, something slow that I could pretend it wasn't there at all at first, letting my mental walls rise to a level that pain was little more than a memory. But memories become very vivid things when your breathing grows shallow and labored. They become all the more real when your body begins to tremble, growing colder and colder as I slowly collapse against the wall.

The postman kept walking, not having noticed that I had stopped, but I don't call out to him. I would just slow him down if I did. His chances of making it out of here dropped exponentially with him having to drag me along at his side. But that idea didn't seem built to last.

There's a hand pressing warmly on my side as Oda crouched down next to me, taking some of my weight with his own. "What happened?" the postman asks and I almost want to cry at the concern in the other's voice, something raw that hasn't been directed at me in years.