Chapter Text
As ordered, Akutagawa waited by the docks a day early.
The sea breeze was cool, tickling his lungs and causing him to let out soft coughs. His throat hurt, like fire burning inside him, his bangs overshadowing his eyes.
He really did need a haircut. Akutagawa had decided to keep his short bangs on virtue of it being more practical and not in his face- besides, the awkward growing out phase was never pleasant.
But now it was far too long, and the way his side bangs brushed below his collarbones made him want to tear the hair out viciously from the roots.
He didn't feel well. His vision was blurry, mind distant, throat hoarse.
Akutagawa's feet carried him to the edge, teetering on the edge as he looked down. It was deep, the water cool and glimmering in the twilight, inviting him in, luring him like a siren's song.
It was rather dark. Was it meant to be this dark at only 3 PM?
Oh, to fall into the blessed nothingness of the sea-
"Akutagawa!"
The yell snapped him out of his thoughts, if only briefly, and he turned as if through fog to meet the source of the commotion.
The weretiger stood there.
His face was twisted in irritation and another emotion he could not quite pinpoint - eyebrows furrowed, lips downturned His posture radiated annoyance and coiled energy, arms crossed over his chest.
Akutagawa found it somewhat interesting how the other boy's timid mannerisms disappeared around him, always replaced by fire and heat.
Anger, disgust, fury, hatred.
Those were the only emotions he could inspire.
"Why were you ignoring me? I yelled your name over and over again!" The weretiger exclaimed, glaring but also....with wide eyes? "Get away from the edge, you'll fall!"
Oh.
Akutagawa looked back down. He was indeed swaying, his body as thin as a leaf in the wind, a hair's breadth away from toppling in.
He didn't move.
"Why didn't you show up?! It's 9 PM! You were meant to be here by 3!" The weretiger's voice went back to anger, but there was confusion there too. Akutagawa was never late. He was petty, sardonic, sharp-tongued, but he was always punctual, always on time with that indifferent expression on his face.
He remained silent. He'd forgotten he was standing on the edge, that death lay one misstep away. So did Atsushi, it seemed, only further riled up by Akutagawa's silence.
"Come on, speak! You've never had a problem with that before!" The weretiger wasn't yelling now, exactly, but his voice was raised as he approached. Each word landed like a dull blow. "Seriously, I waited here at 3, at 4, at 5, until 6 PM! And you never showed up! And guess what?! The enemy got here early!"
What?
Akutagawa didn't realise it, but his expression remained frozen in distant indifference, even as his mind struggled to compute through the fog.
"I had to fight him off on my own! Then I went back, and told Dazai-san that you never showed up so I had to deal with it on my own. He wasn't happy." Atsushi's lips thinned. He didn't throw out the cutting words he had done once before, but it hung between them.
"This is why Dazai up and left you without a word!"
Atsushi had never forgotten Akutagawa's face that time. The way his eyes had blown wide open, pale skin draining of the little colour it had. His eyebrows furrowing, expression twisting into....anger, but also pain.
The way he'd stood silent for a few moments as Atsushi had frozen, certain he was about to die a painful, gruesome death, that his body would be mutilated by Rashoumon and become a morbid artwork, strings of flesh and muscle everywhere, dripping with blood.
The smallness of his voice as he had said, "You're right." and turned away without a word.
Atsushi didn't regret most of what he said usually to Akutagawa, considering the other man always gave as good as he got - worse, in fact, since it was usually him making sharp comments. But even he knew that that line was a step too far, a pang of regret twisting in his chest whenever he thought about it.
Akutagawa didn't know any of that.
He stood frozen, the words penetrating through the fog in his mind.
"You never showed up...deal with it on my own....told Dazai-san.....he wasn't happy."
He'd given up on earning Dazai-san's acknowledgement. But the little boy in him - the wounded, crying child of abandonment who had finally found someone to give him purpose and stumbled through the fiery torment of hell to try and gain it - shrunk down in pain. Another failure. Another one added to the long list.
He couldn't make that little boy shut up. Not fully. All he could do was beat him down.
"You're not even saying anything. You don't even care! Come on, say something!" Atsushi's voice rose, his glare fixed on him but voice wavering as uncertainty rose inside him. Why was Akutagawa so...frozen? If he were truly indifferent, he would have thrown out a sharp jab or comment by now.
"I..." His voice was hoarse and weak. He struggled to articulate. "...It's not that late."
"It is." Atsushi scowled, but his voice was dying down, eyes locked on him and...if he didn't know any better, he'd almost describe the other boy's expression as concerned.
"Listen, I don't know what's been going on, but-"
A sharp crack of ice cut them off.
A cold, white, hard substance shot between them, freezing itself into the ground and sticking up in sharp, icy icicles. It took Akutagawa a moment to identify it as ice.
Atsushi immediately jumped back further, as if they hadn't already been standing quite a bit apart.
Akutagawa, however, was not so fortunate.
He didn't so much as flinch, mentally checked out and body mostly frozen, but he teetered all the more on the edge as the ice spread.
His eyes slowly travelled upwards.
A man stood there, eyes as blue as ice chips, sporting a manic grin. His silvery hair blew back and forth in the wind, gloved hand extending as he shot another burst of ice - this time towards Atsushi, who dodged yet again, legs transforming into ones of a tiger.
"You again!" The weretiger gasped, glaring, and Akutagawa faintly remembered that this was the ability user they were meant to fight today, one with the skill of ice manipulation, the one Atsushi claimed he'd "dealt with."
So much for that.
"Me again!" The man confirmed, giggling as he perched on the edge of a railing. "I couldn't just leave after fighting one of you, after all! I need to fight both of you!"
What?
"Ha! The Hellhound of the Port Mafia! I have heard of your strength and desire to challenge worthy opponents! Here I am! Fight me!" The man's maniacal grin grew as an explosion of ice burst out, heading straight for him.
He didn't move. Why couldn't he move? He wasn't scared, his body just....wouldn't cooperate. It was as if his sharp survival instincts had turned themselves off.
Those split few seconds felt like an eternity to him. Akutagawa watched the ice fly towards him as if in slow motion, imagining it pierce his chest, shoot through it easily and pass through the heart-shaped hole in his chest.
Perhaps this was how he was meant to go. People like him didn't deserve the luxury of ending their life on their own terms-
"AKUTAGAWA!"
The shriek was loud enough to ring in his ears, and before he could react, a sharp force thrust him backwards, hands pushing him and sending him flying into the water.
The breath was knocked out of him, his weak lungs struggling for air as his body shot through the water from the sheer force. He felt, faintly, arms constricting him. Large, strong arms were wrapped around his frail frame.
He couldn't open his eyes, but he didn't need to. The arms were too big and strong to be that of a human's. The weretiger. One arm let go, but the other remained wrapped around him, and he felt them going up, that strong body propelling them upwards until they broke the surface and he was hurled over.
Akutagawa collapsed on....ice?
The water was beginning to freeze over, ice spreading as the ability user activated his skill. He was freezing, shivering as his body hacked up bouts of blood.
The deep-red crimson spread over the frozen white ice, his black coat spread out, and he couldn't help but think nonsensically of Snow White- skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood, and hair as black as ebony wood- but he was not beautiful, he was disgusting-
Then that strong arm grabbed him and he was suddenly airborne, before landing on the solid pavement again.
"My, my." The ability user tsked. "I thought you were meant to be strong. Many criminals run away in tears when they hear your name. I didn't expect to see a pathetic, shrivelled boy."
I have always been a pathetic, shrivelled boy, Akutagawa thought numbly.
"Akutagawa! What's wrong with you?!" screamed Atsushi as he threw himself in front of the frozen man, swiping at spears of ice with his massive, transformed claws. "Fight back!"
"Your eyes." The man commented, continuing the attack. "They long for death."
Akutagawa did not answer. He simply stared up like a lost child begging for salvation, black eyes wide and empty.
"I though I'd meet a powerful, heartless man. But all you are is a crying boy untethered to the world." The man's lips curled into a sneer. "Disappointed yet again. I hoped I'd find a worthy opponent in this city. Apparently not."
The next attack was unavoidable.
The weretiger tried to block it - he really did. But his ability wasn't built for this- if anything, Akutagawa's ability was better suited to deal with this man. He could easily fire long-range attacks and block the ice with his Rashoumon.
But he didn't use it. The next icicle stabbed through his leg, spraying out blood and sending him backwards before he stumbled to the floor.
Fool. You may crave death, but is this how you wish to go?! Dying so pathetically, let alone in front of the weretiger?!
...Yes. This is all I deserve.
He remained sprawled out on the floor. The sight was gruesome - his pant leg was tattered, the pale flesh beneath pierced with the sharp icicle that had lodged itself firmly through his leg. Deep crimson ruined the pure white, dripping down the sharp point. He wondered how it looked like within - the muscles and arteries and veins shredded, the surrounding tissue slowly freezing as ice seeped throughout his leg. Rashoumon bristled internally, wanting to defend her master, but even she couldn't move, restrained by his weakened body and numb inability to think.
Pathetic. The weretiger was fighting all on his own now.
He raised his eyes slowly, watching as if from a long distance away. Gone was the timid boy. In his place was a fierce, snarling man, tiger muscles flexing as he pummeled down the ice, using his tail to swing up until he was raining blows on the skill user.
Atsushi had been a lean boy when he'd met him. He'd never noticed how the weretiger had begun filling out, arms and legs thicker as he gained the weight he should have had, toned from all the fighing and sparring he did.
He was by no means bulky - it would be a far stretch to even call him built - but it was a deafening contrast to Akutagawa's own thin body, arms like sticks and ribs visible beneath his shirt. Another way in which he was better than him.
Oh, the weretiger was mad.
Lips curled into a snarl, gold and purple eyes blazing as he landed hit after hit on the ability user. Flesh met flesh with loud slaps, bone meeting bone with sickening cracks. The weretiger was restraining himself, he knew, yet he was using greater force than usual. His knuckles slammed into the man's shoulder, stomach, side - the bone underneath creaked loudly, denting beneath the blows. The ability user yelped in pain, twisting and turning as his ice tore Atsushi apart. Blood sprayed out of the weretiger, but his body continued to regenerate, until a large fist hit the man's head with so much force that he was knocked unconscious, falling down until he hit the pavement with a nauseating thud.
He wasn't dead, but Akutagawa could tell the man would suffer some painful injuries.
Funny, the weretiger usually wasn't so brutal.
Speaking of which, the weretiger landed and immediately turned to face him, eyes wide and blazing.
"Why didn't you fight back?"
The old him longed to throw out an insult, but he didn't have the energy, remaining silent as the boy rushed towards him, dropping to his knees and examining him.
His hands hovered apprehensively, back to normal. "You- why would you-" Atsushi sputtered. He seemed to be struggling between anger, confusion, and deep concern. "Are you hurt anywhere else?! Your leg! I'm taking you to Yosano-sensei-"
"No."
His voice wasn't as strong and firm as he'd like it to be. It escaped as a whisper, hoarse and weak as he finally made Rashoumon stir to life. It wrapped around his bleeding leg, acting as a tourniquet.
"Don't be an idiot. You need help! And you- you didn't even try to defend yourself- you could've fought back and overwhelmed him so easily but you didn't and you could have died-" Atsushi's voice shook, words tumbling out one after another as his hands finally grabbed his shoulders.
Akutagawa didn't have the strength to throw him off, but watching the weretiger recoil away sent a pang of self-loathing through him.
"You're...you're so...."
Thin? Weak?
He knew the words hovering on the tip of Atsushi's tongue. His shoulders weren't particularly narrow but nor were they broad, however they were bony. He could feel the weretiger's fingers loosening, his thumb pressed against where his prominent collarbone lay.
The anger had faded, replaced by furrowed eyebrows and wide, concerned eyes. Those hands slid down from his shoulders to wrap gently around his upper arms, pulling him up with painful care.
"Listen, I'm gonna take you to Yosano-sensei. Stop protesting. We have a truce now, she'll help you out- you need it."
Akutagawa pulled himself away, struggling to stand on his legs but remaining upright. He'd pushed through far, far worse.
"No."
The only word he could get out right now.
"Damn your pride!" Atsushi protested, frustrated. "Where are you gonna go, then?!"
"The Port Mafia....medics....obviously." rasped out Akutagawa weakly. "We have competent doctors there. I...don't....need your pathetic....Agency's help..." A lie. Like hell he'd go there voluntarily, but anything to keep the weretiger off his back.
His voice wasn't as cutting as he'd like it to be, and the white-haired boy's face only fell further.
Atsushi wanted to be angry, he really did, but it was hard with the man in front of him looking so lost and bedraggled. He was wet and shivering, his fire and passion replaced by numb blankness.
Akutagawa had been acting off for weeks, and Atsushi hated the concern that coiled low inside his gut.
He by no means liked Akutagawa, but...he'd begun to understand the other man. They really were two sides to the same coin.
He was violent, reckless, impulsive, and merciless.
But Atsushi couldn't help but look at him and see buried beneath a desperation that lived inside both of them.
"Akutagawa...."
The rumbling of a car approaching cut them off.
The Armed Detective Agency.
Here to take the unconscious criminal.
At least they'd succeeded in the mission objective- or more accurately, Atsushi had succeeded in the mission objective, whilst weighed down by the burden that was Akutagawa.
"Leave me, weretiger. Not that I'm any of your concern."
He walked away slowly, ignoring the shooting pain that throbbed up his leg, the way ice still clung to him.
He never saw the lips parted in a silent call, the wide purple and gold eyes fixed intensely on him. He never saw the way that deep brown eyes and gold-green ones narrowed at a glimpse of him before he disappeared around the corner.
Akutagawa stumbled inside the warehouse.
A spare place he'd kept when he couldn't go home to Gin.
He collapsed onto the floor. A thick lump was in his throat, but his eyes were dry and empty.
His leg throbbed, and he knew he probably needed medical assistance, but no. He'd dealt with worse before on his own, and he'd deal with this one too.
That was where the boy slept, the cool floor his bed and pillow as moonlight slanted in, painting a soft glow over his face as the leaves rustled outside and silence settled.