Note: Crossposted on A03

PART 2 OF 2

He wasn't answering his phone. That was the first thing Dazai noticed. The second was that he never turned up for work.

"He's your subordinate," Kunikida told him. "Make sure nothing bad happened to him."

The first instinct Dazai had was that something bad had indeed happened to Atsushi, it was no secret that there were many (many) people out to get him and the worst case scenario was that he had been kidnapped on the way to work - which would just be . . . An absolute trainwreck. So Dazai did the proper senpai thing and went to check on the younger male and as such found himself standing outside Atsushi's apartment with his phone held to his ear listening carefully.

He wasn't answering - still - but Dazai had the sneaking suspicion that if he could hear the boys phone ringing then it meant 1 of 2 things. 1. He had left it behind at home and he was, in fact, missing (i.e the less preferable of the two options) or 2. He hadn't left his home at all and it was just a case of getting into the small apartment. Once more ringing Atsushi's phone, Dazai kept an ear close to the front door and, sure enough, the faint sound of Atsushi's phone could be heard.

Okay, so one thing was right, his phone was in his house which meant that he had to be home . . . Right? Tugging at the handle, the door was unfortunately locked (at least he had sense to lock his door unlike some people he knew) but the world created spare keys for a reason.

(Bless the president for being organised that way and making sure his workers always had means of getting into their homes otherwise a door would have probably been kicked in and Dazai (no doubt) would have been the one to pay for it).

The smell hit Dazai first as he let himself into Atsushi's apartment. It was overwhelmingly strong and stale - it wasn't like Dazai wasn't used to the worst sort smells, his line of work, both past and present definitely meant he came across many and was far beyond used to it. Regardless, there was something still slightly unnerving about it. Slipping off his shoes in the doorway, Dazai pressed on into the completely silent home.

"Atsushi?" Dazai called, ever so slightly creeped out by the lack of human presence and the crushing feeling that something was seriously wrong settled down on his shoulders. Shit, what if he really had been kidnapped, wouldn't that just be an absolute kicker (somebody, a small voice in the back of his head screamed Kunikida, would have his head for not looking out for Atsushi better).

Pressing forward into the house, the smell was getting worse. It went from slightly stale and unplesent at the front door to overwhelmingly pungent the closer Dazai got to the door that lead to Atsushi's bedroom. Peering around into the room, the brunette was taken aback by the sheer stench - which that was an incredible feet in itself because Dazai prided himself on the fact that he had a steely stomach for that sort of situation, but jesus christ did the room not half reek. It wasn't difficult to work out why either, Dazai's eyes trailed across the floor to Atsushi's unmade bed which still lay out, blankets thrown back with vomit smeared across the sheets and pillow.

"Atsushi?" Dazai called again, sneaking suspicion he knew what was going on - but he just wanted to make sure too, he'd already invited himself into Atsushi's home without warning and if, like Dazai suspected, Atsushi was in . . . a state, he didn't really want to freak the teenager out who already had major trust issues to begin with. With no reply to his second shout, Dazai turned and began to head to the only other room Atsushi could be in. Even from his position at the bedroom door, he could see the small puddle of vomit halfway to the bathroom. "What have you got yourself into?" Dazai thought, crossing the room to the bathroom.

The door wasn't shut.

Sure enough, curled up amongst one hell of a mess, Atsushi lay curled up - seemingly dead asleep. Dazai sighed, well at least he wasn't missing or dead but, at the same time, was asleep on the bathroom floor surrounded by blood and puke any better? He didn't think so. Turning away from Atsushi's sleeping form, Dazai pulled his phone out from his coat pocket.

Dazai: Found Atsushi, not dead. Just very sick.

He sent the text off to Kunikida but didn't wait for a reply before pocketing the phone and taking his jacket off too set it aside. The tiny bathroom didn't leave much space for Dazai to manoeuvre around, even with Atsushi's small form, and how messed up the floor was didn't help matters either. The room also smelt like absolute shit and the fact that the window wasn't open didn't help any either - but, being the amazing person that he was, Dazai shoved those minor inconveniences aside to try and shake Atsushi awake (because god, if he had died from vomiting in his sleep . . . well that wouldn't be good).

"Wha?" Atsushi groaned after only a few moments of shaking and Dazai incessantly calling his name. Thank god he definitely wasn't dead . . . but what now? It wasn't like Dazai really had experience with taking care of people, he didn't have a family of his own and whenever he was sick it was a case of toughing it out until he was better - and that was a rare occurrence anyway. On top of that, Atsushi was so . . . so himself, that would he even be okay with being taken care of, would he even want Dazai around? God, so many questions were swirling around in Dazai's mind and all Atsushi had done was make a confused noise as he was woken out of an uncomfortable slumber.

"What happened?" Dazai asked, optimistically hoping he would get an answer (even if it was confused and maybe a little rambled, he could deal with that).

"I . . ." Atsushi looked around his bathroom, down at himself before beginning to cry . . . hard. Oh shit, no, that was not something Dazai was prepared for. Crying people were not in his repertoire. Sick crying people were even worse. All the brunette could do was awkwardly pat Atsushi's shoulder. "I . . . I'm sorry."

Huh?

It was small and incredibly muffled but unmistakable nonetheless - Atsushi was . . . apologising?

"For what?" Sure, he didn't mean to say it out loud, and it totally came out way more accusatory than it was intended to. But it happened, and they were going to roll with it. Not that Dazai was getting any answers since Atsushi had fallen back into a sobbing mess, hiding his face with his hands and he cried/gasped into them. At that rate he was probably going to make himself sick again - something that would be nice to avoid. Dazai knew he had to get the sick teenager out of the bathroom because 1) it was an absolute shit show and 2) no doubt the smell of said shit show was not helping the situation.

Time for operation 'Make Atsushi as pliable as possible without making him throw and/or cry again' aka move to the living room.

It was much easier said than done.

Whatever was ravaging Atsushi's system not only made him incredibly nauseous but weak too, no wonder he hadn't moved from the bathroom, he was basically unable to hold his head up let alone stand up. It was Dazai's turn to apologise.

"Sorry about this." Perhaps he was a little rougher than intended, but Dazai pulled Atsushi up into a sitting position as quick as he could just to get it over with.

Big mistake.

The moment the teenager was upright, he gagged, hard and productively, bring up nothing more than yellow/green tinged acidic bile over his already puke covered shirt. Atsushi meanwhile, was so out of it he barely noticed what he had done. Which was maybe a good thing because if he was panicking and crying again then it would make life a lot more difficult and Dazai just . . . couldn't with that. Now that Atsushi was up right, he placed a cool hand to Atsushi's forehead - thankfully he seemed to be lacking a fever (thank god for small miracles).

"Hey, you with me?" Dazai asked, gently taping the sides of Atsushi's face, honestly the poor kid looked about five minutes from passing out again. The incredible paleness to his skin didn't help, sure he already was a pretty pale person, but his face had gone a funny grey colour which kind of reminded Dazai of a corpse. At least the fact that Atsushi was breathing was a constant source of confirmation that he was not dead (thank god).

"Dazai?" Atsushi looked up at him confusedly, squinting a little.

"Yeah," he could have sighed in relief he was so happy to hear him talk and not be crying or apologising. Even though it did come out confused as heck, he was all there . . . for the most part. "I want to try and move you out of here," he gestured to the bathroom just for added help and emphasis. "Is that okay?"

"What?" he sighed. "What happened?"

As if it wasn't obvious. "You're pretty sick, and it's . . ." nah, he couldn't do that. No doubt if Atsushi noticed the mess he'd made, he'd go back to crying and apologising. God, Dazai could do without that. "Do you think you can stand?"

Atsushi, face crumpled in defeat, shook his head. No wonder, his legs were probably dead from lying in the same position as well as just being generally exhausted. Dazai was expecting it though and nodded in confirmation.

"Okay, I'm going to pick you up then. Is that okay?" Normally he might have just tried to get Atsushi to his feet but there was something telling him that there was no way that he was going to stay upright, supported or not, carrying him would just be the faster (and probably safer) option in moving Atsushi around. Dazai would have deposited him into his bedroom if it wasn't covered in puke (fuck, he was probably going to have to clean that up because it wasn't like anybody else would . . . well maybe if he asked), instead the small couch in the living room seemed like the best bet.

Atsushi nodded at Dazai's request. "Okay, I need you to put your arms around my neck."

It was kind of awkward and uncomfortable to do. There were probably easier ways to get somebody from one position to the other but since Atsushi's legs were not cooperating, picking him up was just necessary. Once his arms were around Dazai's neck, the older male slid his arms under Atsushi's legs to lift him in a weird almost hugging sort of motion - vomit stained shirt be damned - once they were up and clear of the bathroom, Dazai kind of didn't want to let Atsushi go. The sick teen buried his head into Dazai's shoulder and he could feel him shaking; from the position they were in it was hard to tell whether Atsushi was crying once again, or he was simply cold, regardless it made Dazai feel . . . weirdly parental. Had Atsushi ever been taken care of before then? Or was he just left to his own devices. The thought bothered Dazai, but he pushed it aside to focus on the then and now.

Setting Atsushi down on the couch, he knelt down next to him.

"How you holding up?"

Atsushi was looking to the floor, playing with his fingers awkwardly. There was a faint redness across his face which Dazai tried to assume wasn't him blushing . . . but was he?

"I'm sorry . . ." Atsushi forced out.

"For what?" Dazai questioned, this time intentionally. "For getting sick? It happens, it's not a big deal." It didn't seem to help, Atsushi just looked downright miserable, though, honestly, anybody in his position would be. It was completely understandable, but it didn't make Dazai feel any better either, Atsushi didn't deserve to be miserable. "We'll get you cleaned up okay, I'm sure that'll help."

Standing once more, Dazai crossed into Atsushi's bedroom to fish through his cupboard to find a fresh t-shirt (ignoring the stained bedding, he would deal with that in a while) for Atsushi before grabbing and wetting some kitchen roll from the counter, getting a glass of water before going back to his sick workmate.

"Here," he handed the items to Atsushi who seemed lucid enough to sort himself out, even if his movements were slow and sluggish. "There's nothing wrong with asking for help, I think passing out in your bathroom is probably a worse idea than just, y'know, texting somebody."

"I didn't want to . . . be an inconvenience."

Oh . . . that's what it was. Dazai sighed and flopped down next to Atsushi who had just finished wiping off his face and was taking measured sips from the glass that he had been presented with.

"You're not an inconvenience," Dazai said softly - is that how your assured people? He had no idea. "You dying from dehydration would have been more of an inconvenience." Yeah, A+ caretaking right there. What was there to say? It was true.

"Thank you," Atsushi murmured before leaning against Dazai heavily.

It didn't take a genius to work out that he had fallen asleep where he sat and, taking in the moment as the teenager rested against him, Dazai wrapped an arm around Atsushi's shoulder, pulling him a little closer.

"Don't mention it."

Slowly, he lowered Atsushi onto the couch, before grabbing his own jacket and laying it across the teen as a makeshift blanket - sure he would have probably been better off with an actual blanket but, well, those were kind of indisposed at the moment. Now that he was settled, Dazai looked around the apartment - might as well do something to help the poor teen out. Before setting off to get things cleaned up, Dazai spared a glance at Atsushi who had cuddled into the jacket, thankfully sleeping without disturbance.

Dazai smiled.

He'd be just fine.

Hey look, I finished a 2 part story!
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