Russian Roulette

Characters: Osamu Dazai, Ryuunosuke Akutagawa

Summary: An intelligence mission leads to more souring of an already foul relationship. Set around episode 2 of the anime plotwise. Done for #bsdwrite, this got in for number 2 (drink) but can also be for number 3 (capture). First Bungou Stray Dogs fic of mine.

Trigger warnings: mentions of suicide/drugs/death plus gun use.

Ships: Could be interpreted as Dazai x Kunikida or Dazai x Akutagawa, but it's not meant to be.

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters. They say you can't put a copyright on a person's name, but Kafka Asagiri and Harukawa 35 seems to have gotten around that, huh?

Dazai laid out a series of assorted bottles and canisters on the wooden desk, assessing them with his eyes. Cicadas gave him an impromptu performance for the evening to combat his loneliness, but his focus was not deterred.

Finally, he set down the last bottle - brown, like the table - and picked it back up again after a second's contemplation. The faint scent of almonds drifted in the air.

Yes, cyanide. The perfect poison for death.

The door creaked open softly just as he yanked off the lid with a pop. A moment's hesitation lost Dazai to the person who'd just entered, a stream of black engulfing Dazai's beige jacket and white shirt.

Surprise beat cyanide, every time.

/

A characteristic cough gave away the kidnapper's identity. Akutagawa, of course. Unless the kidnapper was Kajii (who would have been louder than that), there would've been no one else with quite the same motive or drive for kidnapping (or was that Dazai-napping?). The revelry of a street festival was only a few blocks away, but to Dazai and Akutagawa it was an eternity's distance.

Moonlight streamed through the windows, indicating that he was now inside the warehouse where Atsushi's abilities were unveiled. Akutagawa, having absolutely no remorse, had laid him on the ground and was staring at him from the right side of his feet.

...Wait. What was that, there, near Akutagawa's waist, in his jacket?

"Coward," he retorted, hoping his former student wouldn't have noticed he'd seen something of importance.

"I am not a coward. I am merely giving you the suicide you have been longing for." Akutagawa could have gotten this information from anywhere, but Dazai wasn't very careful about who saw his suicides so...no need to go silence anyone.

The Rashomon user turned to the table behind him. It was indeed the same table Dazai had been arranging his prized suicide drugs on but with an addition of 5 glass cups, filled with what appeared to be water. Now that the table was in a much more open space, the faint smell of the drugs was much more unnerving, but Dazai knew the contents of each of the receptacles in his possession.

"You know the concept of Russian roulette, yes?" Akutagawa asked, turning back as if to break the uneasy silence between them.

Dazai ignored him and continued with the previous part of the conversation. "Only a coward kidnaps a lone person," appearing unfazed as he stood up. "If you were truly ruthless, you would have kidnapped me in front of everyone in the Agency."

A Rashomon tendril reached out to him from near Dazai's feet, and more grabbed the cups, flinging them at him in a clumsy manner. Dazai would have liked to swallow the contents of the cups, but he stepped back and let them fall.

"There's more where that came from." Akutagawa was really getting into it now, one could tell, because his eyes were more...alive. His words were getting angrier but his voice was evenly calm. "Tell me about the man-tiger." There was his ulterior motive, as obvious as the moon through the window.

There, too, was Dazai's chance.

"Why should I?" Again, such taunting in Dazai's voice, as Akutagawa ignored the fact he'd crammed the tabletop with objects and flung the whole table at Dazai using Rashomon. A bandaged hand reached at the table, then another as Dazai forced the table off himself and lunged at Akutagawa's wrist. A black shoe met Dazai's face first, then the barrel of a gun met his right cheek.

"I was going to let you drink to your death, and you would have had a clean suicide as you wished." A hint of a twisted smile curled the corner of Akutagawa's mouth as he declared this. "But because you haven't been cooperating, you'll get the messy option..."

...three evenly spaced shots echoed through the warehouse, covered up by the street festival's fireworks.

...

..

.

Nothing.

Nothing?!

Dazai leapt up, righted the table and grabbed what could be salvaged of the bottles and canisters. Akutagawa shook the gun and peered through its barrels, but he could only sigh in resignation. Dazai had emptied the gun before the game got serious.

"I merely stopped you from killing me, since I'd much rather prefer to do it myself." A playful smirk made Dazai's face beam like the moon behind him while he played the magician, emptying his pockets to reveal one bullet and some of his salvaged goods. "Plus Kunikida-kun would've loved to know you have a knack for keeping things orderly."

Akutagawa merely coughed twice. "I don't need to know anything about your 'Kunikida-kun'. That was a waste of my time..." the Rashomon user murmured, almost imperceptibly, under his breath as his figure, a dark human-shaped stain on the moonlight, trudged away from Dazai and the desk.

Dazai sighed half-heartedly and grabbed the desk with both hands. The background festivities did not make him any cheerier as the night suddenly became a whole lot longer.

/

A few hours shy of midnight, the rest of the Agency members returned from the street festival, loaded with odds and ends for Dazai...only to find him snoring over the table while still in his seat, his head over his hands. His bandages were more unravelled than usual, the table was coated in dirt and drug stains and Dazai himself looked a little worse for wear.

They didn't wake him up. After all, it was better not to disturb the guy who could kill you in his sleep.

If you don't get this story the first time around, pay attention to the italics and read it again.