Bandages and Salt (PJO X BSD AU)

(Volume II)...Chapter nineteen

We pass the cigarette back and forth, breathing in the smoke, until I can see some of the light come back into his ever darkening eyes.

But it doesn't always get that far.

A ringing sound filled the air around us, breaking the silence that had previously presided there. It was the bandaged boy's phone. I could see the younger boy tense up next to me as he reached for the offending phone. The tension in his frame was there one second and gone the next, almost unnoticeable, but I still caught it. I've been Dazai's partner for months now, going on missions with him nearly every week. You'd be hard pressed to find someone that knows him better than I do. Though I may not understand him as well as the boss seems to, I know him. Because of this, I didn't miss the way his eyes got darker when he looked at the caller I.D. either.

I watched in anticipation as the bandaged boy threw the almost finished cigarette over the side of the railing, letting the wind catch and carry it before flipping open the phone and putting it up to his ear.

"Boss," the other teen said in lieu of hello, using a voice so emotionless that I couldn't even be called cold. The boy nodded and hummed in response to whatever Mori said on the other side of the line before hanging up and putting the phone back into whichever pocket he pulled it from this time.

"...We have a new job," Dazai said boredly, still not looking at me.

I could feel the cruel and excited smile tugging at my lips before the words even fully registered. "What is it?"

The other teen sighed tiredly before walking away from the railing to the roof access door, me following closely behind him. "We'll find out when we get there."

My body seemingly buzzed in silent excitement. One thing that I loved about the mafia, despite all of its cruelt and many sleepless nights, it was never boring.

It was a place I could finally let loose.

—-

"Boys, it's been so long," the man in the long dark coat and red scarf said in a sickly sweet voice that no one in the room seemed to believe. The man was standing in front of his desk with his arms opened out wide as if he was asking for a hug. "You should both visit more, Elise gets so lonely." He turned to look at the brunette next to me before continuing. "She'd especially love it if you came, Dazai, help her with her art. We both would love it."

Mori.

It was a pleasant greeting, one much too nice to be given by the body of the Port Mafia to people that aren't even at the sub-executive level yet, but it was still the one given by the doctor. I glanced at Dazai to see if he found this odd too, but all I found was a cold, lifeless, trained look on the suicidal maniac's face.

Right... he gets weird around the boss.

A brief memory filtered across my brain. The day the boss brought me down to the torture chambers in the basement of mafia headquarters. The way he proudly showed off the teen's apathetic, unfeeling look after committing such atrocities as if it was the prize he'd been hoping to get for a long time.

It was almost as if he was showing off his new toy, the newest monster that he had created.

I fought back the urge to roll my eyes at such a useless thought. Both of the other men in the room are dangerous, their brains make them so. Neither of them would ever let themselves be so thoroughly manipulated or changed by others.

The doctor frowned almost childishly at our lack of response.

"... Anyways, I've got a job for the two of you," Mori said after a brief moment. "Nothing too hard, just tracking down some missing weapons of ours."