31 Days Of Dazai

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Dazai had a feeling that, most likely, Oda didn't know who he had pushed himself in front of.

After all, in this timeline he despised Dazai.

But nonetheless, the kind, selfless Oda who showed compassion to most everyone stepped in front of him, taken the bullet meant for Dazai.

He'd only been out for forty-five minutes, and was in a mild bar off in the inner part of the city, along the border of Port Mafia territory.

He'd been sitting, silent and poking at a cup of whiskey, caught up in his thoughts when the door first opened. He'd paid it no mind, continuing with his thought, feeling the warmth the alcohol had lit in his gut, the fuzziness that began to envelope his mind, bordering him tipsy.

The relief alcohol and drugs brought him was always immense and between all the timelines he'd dealt with, this one, knowing Oda would never love him, never forgive for all he'd done seared a hole in his heart.

But it was all for the sake of creating a world where Oda happily writes his novel. The ends justify the means, after all.

The scraping of a chair against linoleum hardly registered within his mind at the time, as his focus remained the little balled ice settled in the golden liquid in front of him.

It'd been just shy of ten minutes when the door opened once more, this time with significantly more force than the previous.

At the click of a safety being clicked off, Dazai's head whipped around, his alarm no doubt visible on his raw face, only to be met we a familiar back and the loud bang of a gunshot.

When the figure began to fall backwards, Dazai's mind praying, pleading that it was not him, but even his subconscious knew well enough who'd just stepped in front of a bullet for him. Dazai reached and caught the man, settling an arm under his armpit as he leant back against him, Dazai whipping out his pistol and firing a shot into the forehead of the assailant, sending him sprawling onto the ground, already breathing his last rattle.

Dazai slumped to the ground with the body, the weight in his arms familiar, horrifically, comfortingly familiar.

A single glance at rusted auburn hair confirmed his worst fears, that it was him.

Oda stared up, face mottled with a rare startled confusion, watching Dazai's progressively mournful expression.

"I..." Dazai attempted to choke out, bounce catching in his throat, leaving the two of them in silence as blood formed a beneath, staining Dazai's prim, dark suit that revealed no choice of Oda's liquid life soaking into it.

Another world, he'd have to do it all over again, another failure, he was so fucking tired. His desire for death had to be put on the back burner while he worked towards creating this world for the man, creating the perfect environment to allow him to flourish and achieve his dreams. To become the man he longed to be, and yet he continuously fucked up these worlds, something would happen, would go wrong and Oda would die, a gun shot to the head, a stab wound to the heart, collapsing buildings, illness, suicide-- it all happened, and Dazai failed to stop it. To save his only friend.

It filled him deeply with a sense of shame, the idea that he could not give something so simple back to the man who meant everything to him brought him a deep sense of self hate. Far stronger than his usual hate which had fizzled away into a sullen sense of apathy, but in these moments when Oda died, when he held him and watched life escape his eyes, watch the man escape this world without him, it returned with an impressive fierceness.

He knew that as he held Oda, he was not the person he long to die in the arms of, in fact he was probably the last face the man wanted to see as he crossed the boundary to the other side, yet he couldn't bring himself to get, to retreat and leave the man to bleed dry in some seedy bar all on his lonesome, so selfishly he stayed.

He stayed and he held him tight and fought the liquid despair that attempted to force itself out of his eyes.

"You idiot." Dazai bit out, voice shaky and the surprise at how raw and distressed Dazai was displayed on the other mans face, who stared up at him puzzled, a stern undertone still ever present, as it always was with Oda. No matter the universe, that fact of his character would always remain the same, no matter his environment.

The red haired mans eyes began to flutter closed, the tiredness of blood loss taking hold of his body, wrangling the ever fighting Oda into quiet submission as he lay in Dazai's lap.

Dazai but at his lip as he watched the other fight for consciousness, to fight against deaths clammy hands that grasped at him, whispering tantalizing little lies to lure him away from the mortal plain, the same loving words he murmured in Dazai's ears at night, attempting to convince him to give up, to follow him into the sweet abyss that was death, to relax and allow everyone to move on without him, to heal from the black that was Dazai Osamu.

Every night Dazai would respond with whispers of his own, denials and promises of 'later, one day, I'm still needed, I have to make it perfect, to build a world that supports him, allows him to thrive' but every offer was so tempting, the kindness death offered was beyond sweet, a peace that no man like him should ever be offered.

So Dazai persevered, he waited and waited to create the perfect reality, one where it all worked nicely for his friend, no matter whose lives he destroyed in the process.

It didn't matter, all that mattered was Odasaku's comfort. Especially not his.

The body was growing cool, a chill settling into the room from the still open door allowing the chill winter air to fill the room.

"Odasaku is so cruel, going where I can't yet follow..."

Perhaps he was the one commonality between these negative worlds, that he always died, nearly without fail because Dazai was alive. Because Dazai was causing issue, by killing and being a target and being his rotten, filthy, inhuman self.

He knew that, for the next and final world, he must entirely remove himself from the equation.

After all, how can the dead kill the living?