Too Late~ Dazai Osamu
featuring:- PM!Dazai Osamu, gn!reader (no pronouns mentioned), Chuuya (briefly)
warnings:- angst, hurt/no comfort, being hostage, mentions of torture in captivity, graphic mentions of blood and violence, major character death, lmk if i missed anything
a/n:- im already sighing on looking at the warnings... it IS bsd i suppose.. well here's what im best at again, in a new fandom, so have some angst that is VERY late
set some time before Odasaku's death
Not many people knew what it was like to have known Dazai before he joined the Port Mafia. To be one of the few people who had been trusted by him. Keyword being ‘had’- for some, some unfathomable reason, he’d drifted away, leaving you behind, alone. Making you wonder if for some reason he wanted nothing to do with you anymore.
It hurt. It hurt that you could lose him so easily, despite having been with him throughout the years, making sure he knew that you would always be there for him, silently tending to him after yet another attempt. It hurt because you had no idea what you did wrong to push him away. It hurt because he didn’t care anymore, for you, for them, for your shared childhood.
A fool could have probably known that you shouldn’t have gotten so close to the brunette, that he leaves nothing but a trail of suffering and sorrow in the wake of the people who dared to care for him. You, however, argued that he wasn’t like this before. At all. Again, a fool’s excuse.
Perhaps the Port Mafia had changed him, so much more than it changed you. Because now, he was completely unrecognisable, almost like he was a different person altogether. And you can’t help but dully wonder where the man you once knew almost inside out went, the man who once did his best to stay with you no matter what, when he abandoned you yet again during a joint mission ordered by Mori, citing some logical reasons of why it was better for you to not be with him during a mission. (Like always.) Not even bothering to get your opinion or response, something he never did before joining the Mafia.
You watch silently as the brunette slowly disappears into the horizon, leaving you behind. Again.
That night, as you return to your apartment alone once again, (Bittersweet memories surface in your mind- young Dazai cheerily walking you back home, laughing.), you get the distinct feeling that something is off. You are a mafioso after all, you need to have a keen sense for danger to be alive in this industry. You’re instantly on high alert, even though you look calm as always, with your hands in your coat pockets, ready to pull out your knives in a moment. But you still can’t sense anyone following you. Just to be sure, you take a detour home.
You take a deep breath at the threshold of your door, relieved to be back here. That sense of danger wasn’t as prominent anymore, and you were dying to get some sleep in an attempt to get a certain brunette out of your mind. You’d deal with whatever the problem was tomorrow- you’d had enough today. You can’t help but smile forlornly as you walk into your dimly lit home-
-And then suddenly you’re falling, falling, into a void of darkness, surrounded by the people you care, by him, hurling words at you that stab you like a thousand knives in a nightmare, and dumbly you realise that you walked right into an ability user’s trap, before the unknown ability takes your consciousness, bringing a silent darkness and pain.
Mimic. A foreign organisation, a group of extremely skilled soldiers who sought the Port Mafia for unknown reasons. People who are willing to go to extreme lengths to get what they wanted- much like your own boss, really. And the ones who are your captors.
You can’t move, you’ve been chained. You assume that they want someone valuable to the Mafia as a hostage, and apparently you serve the purpose well. And dammit, you’ve been completely disarmed while unconscious, you can’t feel a single weapon on you. You’re alone, too, but there’s definite signs that someone’s been here, multiple times. There’s also an assortment of sharp weapons some distance away from you, and you think its cruel to leave them in your sight but out of reach. There’s no windows or openings either.
Footsteps echo outside the door of the room you’ve been kept in, breaking your survey of the room and your thoughts of escape routes. Two men walk in, dignified. It’s clear that they are war-trained soldiers. One of them stops talking with a grin, as he notices you awake.
They want an individual from the Mafia on orders of their boss. They claim that Mori has been taking too long in making a decision, and they apparently hope their decision to take you captive will either force Mori to choose, or force you to give up the individual’s identity yourself in exchange for your freedom under pressure. But you can’t, won’t do the latter.
Because the individual they want is Oda Sakunosuke, Dazai’s new best friend, and you know damn well that he would utterly despise you if you gave up his identity, if you took away the one who gave him his reason to smile these days. Bitter thoughts cloud your mind, of how he abandoned you completely over some new friends, and you wonder if it would be better to just tell them. But then, your mafia sense kicks in, reasoning that if Mori doesn’t want his identity to be revealed yet, then you're probably as good as dead if you choose for him instead and return alive. (You would later realise that this thinking, too, was planned out by Mori, that bastard.) Your captors let hints slide that they’ll let your absence build up for a while, then let the Mafia know of your being their captive. Hopefully they do something.
You’ll just have to do your best to get out of those damn bonds by then, or survive till then. This was a very convenient time to wish that Dazai had taught you his little trick on how to unlock handcuffs, you think wistfully.
As it turns out, surviving is an extremely hard thing to do after a few days have passed since Mori was apparently informed about the news of your captivity. Mori still hadn’t responded with his decision. Proof being the various cuts and bruises littering your skin already, a few small bloodstains already on the wall and floor. Not too much. Yet. They were intent on forcing your answer out of you, and clearly wouldn’t mind going to extremes for it.
You did your utmost to not make a single reaction when the knife pierced through your skin again, despite the pain that shot through your body for the umpteenth time. Unfortunately, you were well trained on how to not divulge information in captivity- after all, the Port Mafia really couldn’t risk their insider secrets getting out.
You were still intent on escaping, on getting out. You still had a flicker of hope in you, that someone would come for you, that he might come for you, despite the past few days proving fruitless. You refused to give up yet. You still believed in him, in them, that you wouldn’t be abandoned so easily by your kin.
‘Such a naive belief’, you would dully think some days later.
Hope seemed like such a foolish thing now. You had lost track of time in the room without windows. No idea of how many days or weeks had passed. They weren’t coming for you. Of course they weren’t. You weren’t that important anyways, easily replaceable. Casualties happened often, what did it matter if someone died by being taken hostage? You truly attempted to free yourself, many times. You never succeeded, and each time you only received more wounds as punishment. Your captors were merciless, to say the least.
Wounds. That seemed like a small word to use at this point, with how battered and bruised you were. Your clothes were bloodsoaked, and you’d lost count of the number of scars and cuts you’d gained from your captors a long while ago. You could sense they were getting extremely frustrated by the lack of response. You didn’t mind, you didn’t care. You’d even stopped screaming when they cut you particularly deep- you just didn’t have any strength left in you at all. You passed out a few times from extreme blood loss. You could almost hear Mori in your mind, scolding you to get up already.
Mori. Of course, everything was probably a part of his heartless plans, fully willing to use any number of pawns for their execution.
At this point, you just wanted to be put out of your misery.
Your wish was granted some time- days?- later.
Dazai was initially relieved when you didn’t show up to your next joint mission. He wouldn’t have to ensure your safety and hide his feelings again. But he’d quickly figured out that something was wrong when you didn’t show up again, and again, and you were nowhere to be seen around the Port Mafia buildings either. He’d gathered up the courage to go to your apartment, but had immediately sensed the ability at the entrance and deactivated it. That was what confirmed it for him, and finally, he allowed himself to feel fear for his childhood best friend. For you.
He was well aware that he didn’t deserve to, after how terribly he treated you in an attempt to protect himself from his emotions. His only defence was that he was afraid of hurting you- he knew his reputation well. But that didn’t matter right now- he had to find you. Except not a single person had a clue of your whereabouts. The only person he hadn’t questioned yet was Mori.
Somehow, he couldn’t bring himself to go beyond the doors of Mori’s office. He was scared. Scared of what he’d find.
Again, that would prove to be one of his biggest mistakes, when Kouyou grimly approached him, having accidentally obtained information about you that she wasn’t even supposed to know in Mori’s office. Kouyou cared for you enough to let Dazai know of your situation.
Dazai felt sick to the core when he saw the single picture attached in the message Kouyou sent him, along with a decision to choose between you and the future-seeing ability user- Odasaku. His heart dropped into his stomach even more when he saw that the last message was a few days ago. What if-?
No. Dazai refused to think of that possibility. He’d track down the source of that picture, he’d hunt them down, make them regret their decision, and he’d get you back. He’d make sure of it. He had too many apologies he owed to you after all, even if they would never make up for all that he’d done. He would.
You were surprised that their boss hadn’t shown up to interrogate you yet. You simply stared hollowly at the walls as the door slammed open and the highest-ranked individual in the facility walked in, knife in hand.
Not a single piece of information slipped past your mouth, as he went through the routine torture process.
Time passes, and you can see that he’s grown extremely frustrated with your lack of response. One of the others standing at the door, watching your misery, suggested that he simply kill you and get it over with. It was pointless to keep you around anymore.
‘Finally’ you think darkly. You didn’t think you could hold out for much longer.
You close your eyes, not wanting to see your killer. Instead, you remember the people you care for, silently apologising to them for giving up. Somewhere, in the background, you hear the distant noises of shouting. Probably some of the other soldiers playing cards or something again.
Despite you willing yourself to not make a sound, a shattering scream tears itself out of your throat when you feel the knife harshly stabbed straight into your heart. Your killer twisted it roughly- another scream, your last- and then pulled the knife out.
You feel yourself fall forward, double in on yourself, wrists held back to the wall. The agony is excruciating, but hopefully it won’t last long. To you, it feels as if your screams are echoing in the room, or maybe in your mind, and your vision has gone blurry in pain. But then, you realise through your numb haze that your screams do not sound like that- you’ve heard the sound enough.You realize that maybe someone has attacked your captors.
There’s a terrified shout mixed in all the clamor, and its a voice that you would recognise anywhere. ‘But there’s no way’, you think hollowly. No one cared enough to come for you.
Then you feel yourself falling forward suddenly, blood gushing out from your chest, into someone’s familiar arms as your eyes close. The handcuffs are gone. Faintly, you hear a voice- his voice- through the ringing in your ears, saying something unintelligible to you. You can’t understand what's being said, but you struggle to open your eyes one last time to see.
And somehow, Dazai is there, holding you tightly, eyes full of panic and terror, everyone else in the room crushed to the ground. He’s saying something worriedly to someone behind him- Chuuya. You briefly wonder if you’re hallucinating, but decide against it- this all feels too real. This must have been the shouts in the distance.
They came for you. In the end, they came, albeit a bit too late. You feel yourself being lifted, and then Dazai is running out, holding you carefully as if you could break any moment- you’re already broken though. You feel the cool night breeze for the first time in ages, see the beautiful moon again. A small smile rests on your lips as you feel yourself finally fall limp in his arms. ‘He still looks as pretty as before, and maybe, just maybe, he still cares for you’, is what you think.
You shut your eyes again, surrendering yourself to the darkness beyond the agony.
Horrified is much too mild a word to use, when he sees your condition. When he sees you being stabbed in front of his eyes, when you fall limp in his arms. The next moments are a panicked blur, Chuuya saying something to take you somewhere, that he’ll handle this place. He runs straight out, towards the Mafia building, towards the doctors, towards the hospital, anywhere, anywhere you can be saved.
But its already too late, he knows it when you don’t move in his arms anymore, when your bleeding chest doesn’t rise and fall again, and he doesn’t know what else to do apart from screaming in sorrow and fear, because he’s just lost the one person who understood him like no one else, who cared for him like no one else, who he stupidly pushed away, and its all because of him.
He falls to his knees, still clutching your lifeless, bleeding body. Your face had a hint of a smile in your last few moments, and that is what finally breaks him. All he can do is cry out apologies continuously, tears freely streaming down his face, for everything he’s done wrong, for how he’s treated you, for being too late to save you.
finallyyy, and as usual, votes, comments and reblogs are very much appreciated also lmk if you guys want a happy ending :D
