Work Text:
It took weeks for Akechi's wound to even come close to healing. Weeks of lying in his bed, tossing in agony, sweating through fever. He was senseless for the first couple of weeks, could only vaguely recall shapes and shadows hovering over him, murmuring nonsense. Replayed over and over in his nightmares the Shadow that near clawed his insides out. Heard again and again his screams, and Akira's screams. Saw blood running thick and red down his hands.
When he finally came to, there was Akira Kurusu, sitting right beside him, staring in tired relief.
“You're back,” he choked out, and Akechi grit his teeth against the fact that he really must have come so close to dying.
He was careless. All his plans nearly shattered because he let himself be carried away by the Thieves pointless escapades into an underground dungeon with no end. It was fantasy. It was childish.
Akira helped him sit up (and the pain was still fresh, a stabbing ache from his chest to his stomach), helped him move over to the small table set out in the living area of his small apartment. Distantly, Akechi wondered how they'd known where he lived, and how they'd managed to get in, how they'd managed to drag him there at all. He understood not taking him to a hospital—there would be no way to explain such a disastrous wound without seeming beyond suspicious. Even so, the wrapping around his torso was snug and didn't chafe too much. Professionally done.
Akira came back with a cup of some kind of tea, which he set in front of Akechi on the table.
“Special brew,” said Akira, nodding at the small cup. “Courtesy of a doctor friend of mine.”
“I didn't know you had a doctor friend,” Akechi replied, wrapping his bare fingers around the cup's stinging warmth.
Ah. His fingers were bare. He bristled at the realization that his gloves were off, that Akira had seen his scarred and dirty hands, but he supposed there was nothing he could do about that now. How infuriating, that Akira had seen so much of him, had taken so much of him into his hands. It wasn't supposed to be like this. If anything, it was supposed to be the other way around.
He stared into the tea, barely taking in the off-yellow color, unconsciously scrunching his nose at the sickly sweet scent. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he thought that maybe he shouldn't be drinking something strange from his mortal enemy, concocted by a supposed doctor whose identity he had no idea of, but he was too tired, and in far too much pain, to care much. He sipped at the hot liquid and tasted honey with a bitter bite.
It took all of his concentration not to spit it out.
“This is supposed to do what, exactly?” he asked, frowning.
“Speed your healing,” Akira said. “Ease up the pain.” He paused and then added, quietly, quietly, “We almost lost you.”
Akechi's heart skipped a beat. Something about Akira's tone of voice was so small and so scared, and it made Akechi feel small and scared, too. He hated feeling so helpless. He hated being taken care of.
Akechi cleared his throat. Smiled. “Yes, well. You didn't. Luckily for you, I'm still here. You'll need my help to steal Sae's heart, after all.”
“That's not—” Akira stopped, shook his head. “I'm just glad you're alright. I don't know what I'd do if I'd...if you'd gone.”
Akechi didn't want to think too deeply about that. Wasn't in a state of mind to think much about anything, anyway. He set Akira's words aside for another day.
Akira watched him, studied him, even, as he drank the tea bit by bit. When the cup was finally empty, Akechi celebrated internally. He'd managed to choke it all down without gagging. Small victories.
When Akira took the cup, his fingers brushed lightly over Akechi's, lingered. Akechi refrained from looking up. He knew what he'd see: Akira's eyes searching, searching, searching. Needing something that Akechi couldn't give. Something that he wouldn't give.
And then Akira pulled back, taking the cup with him.
Akechi stared at his hands in his lap, at the thin white scars crisscrossing his knuckles, the backs of his hands, his palms. Relics from bygone days, when he'd hurt himself to feel anything at all.
Perhaps this, what he had with Akira, was hurting himself, too. Like picking at a scab, ripping open an old wound so that it stung and bled. It was as satisfying as it was painful, but he didn't want to admit that, not even to himself. Especially not to himself.
So he buried it. He buried it deep, and refused to examine it any further.
When his wound was painful enough to make him curl into a ball with sick, Akira guided him gently back to the futon and laid him down. Smoothed back his hair, sticky with sweat, from over his brow.
“Kurusu,” he gasped, struggling to push words past his heavy tongue.
Akira leaned forward, placed a soft, lingering kiss on his forehead, and whispered against his burning skin, “I know.”
Akechi sunk back into the hollows of sleep, wondering what it was that Akira knew that he didn't.