#dazango

“You lied to me.”

It’s not a question. Ango doesn’t ask how he found out – Dazai always knows, somehow or other.

Ango also knows better by now than to make excuses.

“Yes,” he says. “Or rather – obfuscated the truth.”

“They are the same thing,” Dazai says, “When you make your business out of deceit.”

Ango sees his point, but really… it was an inconsequential thing. Sort of.

He’d told Dazai he’d be out of town for a meeting – that much was true. He’d neglected to mention that it was overseas, with one of the Port Mafia’s subsidiaries in Hong Kong.

What does it matter? Dazai is years out of the mafia. His dealings with them, and for the most part Ango’s as well, are a thing that lives only in memory, steeping silently in regret and anger all the while.

It’s not any of Dazai’s business, what Ango does for work. Shouldn’t be anyone’s business, given the layers and layers of secrecy involved. 

It was just a meeting. Surface level intelligence gathering, that was all – no deals, no tricks, no subterfuge.

Dazai’s been four years out of the mafia, it’s true, but his eyes, right now – they carry that same cold steel as back then, the bite of a bullet, the only light therein the flash of a gun’s muzzle.

He is angry.

“I know that we have… a certain arrangement,” Ango says carefully. He doesn’t really know what to call it, the thing that exists so nebulously between he and Dazai. The two of them meet somewhere at a crossroads of misplaced trust and hotel bedsheets and guilty mouths and festering, rotted bitterness. “But my work is my work. It is separate from… what goes on between us.”

Dazai touches his cheek, the gentleness a startling counterpoint to the violence in his eyes, and Ango leans into it, a flower to the sun. It’s perhaps a little pathetic, the way he still takes in every scrap of affection from Dazai like a starving street dog begging for food, the way he craves it and hates himself for craving it. He doesn’t deserve it. He’s worked so hard to earn forgiveness and he still doesn’t deserve it.

“You promised me,” Dazai says softly, the thrum of his anger a quiet undertone, a subtle purr, a getaway car’s engine. “When we began this whole thing – that you would be transparent with me.”

“I am,” Ango insists, “To the best of my ability. You must know, with my work, that there are certain things that I cannot tell you. That I am honour-bound to secrecy.”

“Honour-bound?” Dazai’s low laughter causes something deep in Ango’s belly to burn, shameful, like a brand. “What honour can you say you have left?”

That’s cruel. Unnecessarily cruel, and it's not even wholly true. Ango wants to tell him so, to make him feel the same remorse – he knows it’s not possible, Dazai does not concern himself with guilt and he has never once looked for redemption – but even so, didn’t they cast this aside, when Dazai gave Ango the keys to his heart? Doesn’t Dazai love him, even a little bit?

He doesn’t have an answer to that. And he knows, of course, that he is without honour, without pride, so he stays silent.

“You promised me,” Dazai says again, and – is his voice cracking?

Ango hardly understands it at first. The emotion that has poisoned Dazai’s very veins ever since the Mimic incident – it has always been anger, cold and vicious and calm, murderous intent behind a blithe smile. Toxin in the blood, flowing downstream.

Ango has never once seen Dazai with sadness in his eyes.

“I really thought, this time – this time it would be different. You promised – ”

He is only repeating the same words, over and over, almost like a naïve child who is feeling the unfairness of heartbreak for the very first time. It doesn’t make sense. Dazai is not –

But then. Dazai had been merely eighteen, the first time. A boy, really. No matter how boldly he had worn the heavy black mantle of a mafia executive, that was all he had been, in the heart of him. A boy, who lost his best friend.

Four years down the line, he had only wanted something real to believe in. Something solid and honest and true.

And Ango had – once again – betrayed that fragile trust.

He can feel everything he's worked for, over the last four years, every time he’s put his life or his job or his self-respect on the line for Dazai, to crudely shape himself into something that might be worthy of forgiveness, of love, slipping away all too fast – sand into the bottom of an hourglass.

But it's different this time. It has to be.

He slips his hand into Dazai’s, where it had been resting at his side, and tries to curl their fingers together.

“Dazai,” Ango says, “I – it means nothing, I know. But for what it’s worth – I’m sorry.”

Dazai’s hand remains still and unmoving.

“I knew you would be angry,” Ango keeps trying, all the same. “That I had had dealings with the Port Mafia again, even indirectly. I knew that you would question me about it and that there would be certain answers I could not give, even to you. I wasn’t…” He takes a deep breath, here, the flinch before the inevitable pain of the honesty. “I wasn’t prepared for that conversation. And so I avoided it, like a coward. You are right to be angry. I do not blame you for that.”

Dazai stays silent. Ango isn't sure if there's a light of hope in his eyes or if it's the shine of unshed tears. Somehow he isn't as shocked by the idea of Dazai crying as he perhaps ought to be.

So many people think of Dazai as a cold machine, especially anyone who knew him in the mafia, but Dazai feels. Of course he does. That's Ango's whole issue. It’s only that... well. Used to being on the receiving end of nothing but Dazai's anger, his petty bitterness, Ango had allowed himself to forget that the man is capable of so much more.

“I did promise you that I would do better by you this time, when we began this,” Ango says, “And I… didn’t wholly live up to that, I don’t think. We should have had a conversation about that meeting. I should have known it would hurt you.”

Dazai shakes his head. “You find it too easy to fake it, still. Am I wrong?”

Ango sighs. Lets his shoulders drop heavily. “Maybe. Are you a saint, yourself? Do you ever drop your masks around your new agency friends? Do they know how many you’ve killed?”

Dazai is quiet for a moment. Ango wonders if he’s struck too deep of a nerve, if those tears are still stinging in Dazai’s half-lidded eyes. He does not let go of Dazai’s stubborn hand.

“I also swore to you that I would be better,” Dazai says hoarsely, “That I would let my anger lie, in the interest of building something new.”

Ango runs his thumb over Dazai’s bony knuckles. “That you did.”

Slowly, ever so slowly, Dazai’s fingers intersect with his.

Ango gives Dazai’s hand a tentative squeeze, as gentle as though his very bones were glass.

“That's exactly why I'm talking to you right now,” Dazai continues, “And not making arrangements for a bomb hoax at your apartment block.”

“Am I supposed to thank you for that?” Ango remarks dryly. To his quiet delight, that makes Dazai giggle. His eyes squeeze tightly shut when he laughs, and the tears gather in the wrinkle of skin at the corners.

“There's my Ango,” Dazai says softly, and oh, god, lovingly. It makes Ango dizzy.

It's confusing.

“What... what do you mean by that?”

“Well,” Dazai says, “Before you insisted on torturing yourself every time you looked at my face – and believe me, I know I pushed you into it, you don't need to remind me – you were quite unashamedly funny with me, in a disparaging sort of way. I'd missed that wit.” 

“Disparaging?” Ango remembers what Dazai means. Oda would meet Dazai's weirdness head on, and Ango was always the foil for their antics, the one who played it straight. None of it feels real, now. If not for Dazai standing in front of him with the same shared memory, Ango could be convinced it was only something he saw in some tragic play, and not something that he lived. It hurts to remember, still, a broken bone that healed wrong and aches in the cold. “You... liked that?”

“Was it really not obvious at the time?” Dazai's expression turns genuinely thoughtful. “You and he were the breath of fresh air I needed. My reality check when I was at my most insane. I thought it was clear that I worshipped you both.”

Ango suddenly finds it very hard to swallow. “No,” he says, with some difficulty, “I only recall seeing... how you felt for him. And... my own guilt, I think. Whenever you smiled at me I only thought of how I'd have to leave you.”

Neither of them can say his name out loud, even now. They tiptoe around the borders of grief, trying to grow something new from the rot within. Flowers pushing through cold concrete in an abandoned lot. 

“You have always held me at arm's length, haven't you?” Dazai says. Ango can't run away from that accusation, not when he's this close, this tangled up with him.

“I suppose I have,” Ango replies, a touch breathless.

Dazai closes what little distance is left between them and presses their foreheads together, cupping Ango's face with his free hand. Dazai has grown taller, Ango notices, and he has to look up now to see into those pretty dark eyes.

“You can let me in, you know,” Dazai tells him. “For fuck's sake, I gave you my heart, didn't I? Literally. I trust you. I hate that I do, I hate that I still need you, but you have to let yourself need me too or this all falls apart.”

“I do need you,” Ango cries out, squeezing Dazai's hand tighter this time. “I need you too much, that's the problem. I'm...” God, he feels flayed raw by all this. It's too much honesty for two men who make their living in lies. “I'm too afraid of losing you, after everything I've done.”

“Then stop pushing me away,” Dazai says. “Just because – what, you think you aren’t deserving of my affection? Because you’re afraid of the intimacy of letting me see the real you? Forget all that, just forget it.” He drops Ango’s hand and grabs his face with both hands. Deliriously, Ango notes the way Dazai’s smallest finger reaches all the way around to the back of his neck. Had his hands always been so big? “Listen. I know I can be… difficult. I know I can be an asshole. But just – let me have you, you fucker. And let me keep you.”

Let me keep you. Those words set something wild loose in Ango’s heart, something that flails and scratches and stings.

You could have this, it wails, rattling the bars of his ribcage. He wants you to stay.

“Dazai,” Ango says, softly. He tilts his head, leaning into Dazai’s touch. He can’t always tell when the man is being sincere – Oda had a knack for it that Ango never quite grasped – but he drops his pretences often enough around Ango now that he thinks he’s starting to see through them. “Don’t be cruel. Are you teasing me?”

“No,” Dazai answers, looking straight into Ango’s eyes, and the truth in it is so clear that it burns; like lake ice in your palm, a shot of vodka in your throat.

Ango feels it prickle in his skin, his hair, his tongue. He reaches up to curl his hand around Dazai’s wrist, feels the rough gauze of bandages under his fingertips.

Dazai’s lips part to take a breath – and Ango kisses him.

Sharing kisses is not new to them, of course. They began their quiet affair shortly before Dazai’s stint in prison, and continued it without pause after he got out. They have exchanged many kisses, spent many nights in each other’s embrace, but this – this is softer.

Pure, somehow, if that were something either of them were allowed to be.

Dazai pulls Ango closer, arms enfolding him, and Ango falls deeper into it, his hands circling around Dazai’s slim waist, his pretty waist –

It’s a lot. Ango starts to pull away first, still a little unsure, offering Dazai the space to back out.

Dazai, though, drags him back in, hands tangling in his hair, an unequivocal I want you. It’d be kind of an asshole move in any other scenario, but much like most things Dazai does nowadays, it’s an asshole move for the greater good, which means it’s allowed to fly.

Ango spreads his hands flat against Dazai’s chest, as though he means to push him away but knows he won’t. This embrace is all-encompassing, safe in its completeness, Dazai’s tongue tracing the edges of Ango’s teeth; his older, stronger hands cradling Ango’s head.

Dazai’s chest is broader, now, too, than Ango ever remembers it being back then – not that he’d held Dazai like this, in those days. He’d kept him at arm’s length, just like Dazai had said.

Not now. Not this time. Trial and error and trial and error and trial and fucking error it may take, but god damn it, Ango wants to make this work. For the sake of whatever shared legacy the two of them have left, and whatever shared future they might be able to build with the sheer force of this kiss.

Dazai is kissing him so hungrily, so fervently, and in the harsh press of his lips and hands Ango feels a sort of mirror image, the same stubborn need that burns in his own heart.

As soon as I want something it is lost to me? Not this time. Not again.

When they finally draw apart, it’s as one, in a single-minded and mutual exhale of breath.

They’re nose to nose. Dazai’s dark eyes are the colour of whiskey on a polished oak bar.

Kisses aren’t new to them – but kisses that feel like a promise? Kisses that are warm and genuine and offered up in totality alongside a bared soul?

Ango’s heartbeat hums in his throat, behind his soft, wry smile. “Does this mean you’re thinking of forgiving me?”

“Forgiving you?” Dazai almost laughs. “Forgiveness is… complicated. It’s not something I put much stock in, anyway.”

“Then what do you put stock in?”

“The now,” Dazai answers simply. “The present moment, and the people in it.”

“How can you?” Ango says, forlornly. It’s halfway between an accusation and a plea for understanding. How, when our past is such an all-swallowing shadow, the mire that we pushed through to make ourselves who we are?

“Don’t misunderstand me,” Dazai says quickly. “I do not forget. I refuse to. I remember the way things were, and the way they ended.”

Something in the sharp and stubborn way he says it… maybe Dazai, too, is beginning to lose the edges of the memories to time. How, exactly, did Oda’s hair fall in his face again? Ango recalls that his voice sounded different after an hour in a smoky bar, but was it deeper? Scratchier? The details are indistinct, a photograph half-developed, like trying to find the shape of the horizon with the sun in your eyes.

 I do not forget. Even now, Dazai is lying, in a way. But it’s a small lie, one Ango will allow him to keep; to hold close in the secretive dark.

“Still,” Dazai says. He takes a breath in, and seems to centre himself again. He doesn’t bother with the happy-go-lucky fake smile, the one that barely even hides the outline of his pain, a thin veneer of paint over scratches in the walls. He knows that Ango knows that he hurts. “You know, I always think it’s bullshit when someone says oh, but it’s what they would have wanted. About someone who’s dead. You don’t know that, and you can’t very well ask ‘em. But, I do… very firmly believe… that us, well, trying – trying to make something newer and cleaner and better, and rebuilding it as many times as it takes because hell knows we’re fucked up people but we want to make it as good as we can get it, and it’s not because we feel like we need atonement but because we just… want to. I think…” He has to quietly pause to take a breath, and Ango understands. Sincerity is a weed, a sick and tangled thing that grows too fast. It makes you choke on the truth.

“I think he’d like that,” Dazai says eventually. “Do you… disagree?”

“You really don’t think he’d still resent me?”

“I do not,” Dazai says, and backs up his point with a kiss to Ango’s forehead. “He was not the same as me. He was better with... forgiveness, and things of that ilk; although not perfect - nobody is. But like I say. I don’t know, not for sure. That’s just something you gotta carry with you.”  

Ango huffs a weary sigh, and leans forward, using Dazai’s shoulder to rest his head. “I know,” he says into the lapel of Dazai’s coat. The tan one – Ango knows why he chose that colour. He wonders if anyone else does, or if he alone gets to share that soft and fragile part of Dazai’s soul.

“I know you know,” Dazai replies.

“Don’t be so damn smug.”

“I’m not.” He rolls his eyes. “It wasn’t like that. I meant to say that… you know. I get it.”

“You don’t do guilt,” Ango accuses him.

“Not really.” Dazai’s smile is pained. Not for the first time, Ango wonders if sometimes he wishes he felt more than he does. If he has ever wanted to atone for his crimes, for his brutality. “But I understand it. And I understand… the circumstances of it.”

Ango is still leaning on Dazai’s shoulder, and Dazai has to twist his head sideways to awkwardly press a kiss to Ango’s cheek. It ends up halfway on his ear, but that’s okay. They’re trying.

“You carry your pain,” Dazai says, “And I’ll carry mine. And that way we’re in it together – sort of.”

“Is this your version of empathy?”

Dazai shrugs. The motion half-dislodges Ango’s glasses. “Take it or leave it.”

Ango straightens up, looks Dazai in the eye. “I’ll take it,” he says, “For better or for worse.”

“For better, I hope,” Dazai says in a whisper so soft Ango can’t even be certain he meant to say it out loud.

“Yeah,” Ango says, “I’d like to think we tend towards the better, now.”

Dazai kisses him again, and the softest wingbeats of a fledgling hope start to flutter in his lungs.