Work Text:
Ranpo, naturally, had to make a recording of Dazai’s hysterical laughter after the incident occurred. Ranpo himself didn’t laugh nearly as much as Dazai did, but there was that tell-tale shit eating smirk that nearly split his face in half as he held his phone up to record Dazai, who was currently curled up on the floor in fetal position, pounding at the ground in hysterics at their stupefied faces.
“Dazai-san…” Atsushi mumbled into roughened palms, “It’s really not that funny.”
Dazai’s laughter simply skyrocketed in volume, piercing through the air like a howl that pained Atsushi’s ear drums.
Akutagawa seemed to be in even more pain, however, a scowl twisting on his mouth as he held the currently unconscious criminal to the ground by their neck. A young runaway from a foreign country. A runaway that could’ve gone unnoticed if not for their… rather particular ability that drew the concern and paranoia of many a country’s government that they’d hopped to; the ability to jump from body to body, taking over a person’s life for a certain period of time from as long as a month or more to as short as a few minutes, so long as their true body was nearby. Naturally, in the midst of this, this meant that the culprit—Levithan, had become something of a petty criminal. They also left a trail of very confused victims who’d lost sense of time, place, sometimes even winding up in a completely different city than they were the last time they were fully conscious, while Levithan took over their bodies.
Subsequently, the military police had no hope of catching Levithan when they could hop from body to body. And so, it’d been left to Yokohama’s best.
Which then led them to this situation.
The coat on his shoulders felt incredibly heavy and stupidly hot.
“It’s June,” he groused, narrowing his eyes at Akutagawa, “How can you wear something this dark and heavy in this heat!?”
“Don’t whine like that using my voice,” Akutagawa grimaced, crossing arms that weren’t his across a chest that also wasn’t his.
In the heat of battle as Atsushi tried to claw Levithan out of the body they’d taken over for the past week, Levithan tried to hijack one of their bodies to escape in, without much success. In the end, with Rashomon being used as a tether and Atsushi’s claws dragging Levithan’s true form out of their stolen body, their combined powers forced Levithan into their true body. But in the mix up, well…
Akutagawa and Atsushi glared at each other over the still (but very much breathing and alive) body of Levithan, both of them seeing each other’s own faces as Dazai’s laughter filled the air once more.
“Oh no,” Gin said, grasping Akutagawa’s face (whose body Atsushi was currently trapped in until its effect wore off.. whenever that was) and squishing the cheeks with a very serious look, “You’re not going anywhere while you’re wearing my brother’s body.”
Atsushi felt his— Akutagawa’s face darken with a flush. His expression soured— twisting in a very familiar way. “You make it sound like I’m wearing a suit.”
Just hearing Akutagawa’s rasp out of of his throat gave him a small shiver— he’d always heard it in his ear. Hearing it come out, making the noises and feeling how the words rolled off of the tongue was a very strange and eerie sensation. Atsushi wasn’t sure if he liked it.
He heard a scoff from the kitchen and Atsushi scowled, seeing a mirror of his face looking at him flatly over the rim of a tea cup. Seeing his own face scowling at him like that, devoid of the usual, sleeve-worn emotion that was spoken so plainly on his face was weird. Knowing that Akutagawa Ryuunosuke was wearing his body, stuck in there for who knows how long, was even weirder. Especially when—-
“You might as well be wearing a suit, and a very haphazard one at that,” said Gin, hands on her hips, “Because everything about your body language gives you away, Atsushi-san. And there’s simply no way I can allow you to go wandering outside so long as you’re both stuck like this.”
Ah, right, thought Atsushi, Gin-san is the Brother Reader.
Well, it was better than being laughed at for two straight hours.
As soon as both Akutagawa and Atsushi walked into the apartment the siblings shared, Gin immediately saw the difference and practically interrogated them both about what just happened. Once she was told, she promptly told them both that they were essentially going to be quarantined in the apartment and that Atsushi in particular was going nowhere until this was fixed. Kyouka agreed rather quickly; she was just as weirded out seeing Akutagawa in Atsushi’s body as Atsushi himself was, and she was going to take refuge with the Tanizaki siblings in the meantime. Thankfully, no one outside of the ADA and Gin knew about the… switch up, as it were.
Akutagawa promptly took sick leave and advantage of vacation time because there was absolutely no chance he’d risk the humiliation of the Port Mafia finding out about their situation. Atsushi would’ve felt insulted if he didn’t agree; the last thing he wanted was to deal with other Port Mafia members.
“They’ll know that it’s not me if you keep making those stupid expressions with my face.”
“And you look constipated,” Atsushi retorted back.
Akutagawa simply made an uglier face back at him and Atsushi didn’t know how his face was capable of scrunching so much like that, or giving such a nasty scowl. Even the voice sounded different with Akutagawa in control of it.
Rolling her eyes, Gin sighed and gathered her purse and a light jacket. “I’ll head out and buy some groceries since you’ll both be staying in indefinitely.” She pointed at Atsushi, who started, “Do not go anywhere until I get back. And you too, Nii-san, don’t look so smug over there.”
Atsushi snorted when Akutagawa jumped at the accusation, the smirk on his lips (twisted awkwardly on Atsushi’s face) wiped away fast even though Gin barely looked at him at all. She really did know her brother all too well.
Atsushi smiled faintly: it was kind of cute.
As soon as she left, an awkward silence fell over the two left inside the apartment. Atsushi tugged at the collar of a dark navy shirt that hung low on his neck. He could feel Rashomon stirring within the threads and Atsushi heard a faint growl deep within the recesses of his mind the was completely unlike the tiger.
“It’s really… different,” murmured Atsushi, sitting down on the cough as he continued to tug at the shirt. “Does it always feel like this? Are you always able to… feel it?”
There was an exhale and the soft pad of feet against the floor as Ryuunosuke came to join him on the couch. Atsushi hungered to press against his lover’s side but he resisted, hesitant to initiate anything when he was in his boyfriend’s body. It felt wrong to do so after all the strides that Ryuunosuke made in allowing physical affection and initiating such affection on his own terms.
“Not always,” he said, legs crossed in his normal reclining pose. He adjusted some, clearly unused to the limbs that weren’t his own. Atsushi held back a laugh. “Rashomon is both sentient and not, but when I’m simply going about a day, Rashomon is dormant. It must sense that you’re not me.”
Ryuunosuke paused, and scooted just a centimeter closer so that he could feel Atsushi’s warmth; an instinctual habit by now, even though the body he now inhabited had far more body heat than his own did.
“But Rashomon recognizes you.”
Atsushi blinked. As if responding to the words of its true master, the cloth around Atsushi seemed to coil and press against his skin gently, pleased. Atsushi remembered the first time he felt Rashomon wrap around his body as armor, working in sync with the tiger to bring down their foe. He’d known then that it was something that could come alive with Ryuunosuke’s will, but he hadn’t fully understood how intrinsic Rashomon was to Ryuunosuke until later.
Now that he was stuck in his boyfriend’s body, he felt as if he finally understood.
He smiled and held out his palm, taking a moment to admire just how slender and long Ryuunosuke’s fingers were despite the scars and calluses on them. “I’m sure the tiger recognizes you, too.”
Ryuunosuke blinked and Atsushi’s smile widened. Ryuunosuke’s shoulders twitched and Atsushi watched as his own face twisted with mild distress. He started to worry that he’d said the wrong thing until Atsushi saw the faint pink flush on his own face.
He blinked.
..Huh. Did he really blush that easily?
“Stop smiling,” said Ryuunosuke, without its usual heat. “It’s weird seeing you use my face like that. Stop it. Stop smiling—“
Unable to contain himself, Atsushi’s smile broadened into a wide grin that practically split across the face he wore and he laughed. He didn’t miss how Ryuunosuke drew his fingers close to Atsushi’s, gently intertwining them.
“I’m helping you practice, Ryuu,” he teased. “You have a really nice smile, Ryuu, so I want your facial muscles to get used to it so that I can see you smile more!”
Ryuunosuke scoffed, hissing at him to shut up, its bite barely a graze on Atsushi’s skin, which just made him laugh more. But Ryuunosuke didn’t try to fight him on it anymore and that’s how Atsushi knew that he won. When he felt Ryuunosuke intertwine their fingers firmly, hip pressing against hip and elbows brushing, it was a victory.
Stressful as this would be and despite the cabin fever that would arrive eventually, Atsushi thought that maybe this wouldn’t be so bad. It was so rare for them to have this much quality time with each other, away from the prying, curious eyes of the agency that didn’t know about the full extent of their relationship— something that both had agreed on. They wanted to keep their relationship under wraps for the time being, not ready to deal with all the complications and repercussions that came with being open about the extent of how far their partnership went just yet.
As he pressed a chin against the other’s shoulder, taking note of how their bodies fit against each other from Ryuunosuke’s perspective, Atsushi thought that he was allowed to be just a little selfish this once.
A comfortable silence passed over them, the sweet smell of lotus scented incense pooling through the air from the window that looked over the pier, and Atsushi could’ve fallen asleep right there. He nuzzled further against his boyfriend and sighed, content, smiling when he felt Ryuunosuke relax against him in return.
“…I suppose, in a way, I truly have defeated you.”
“Hmm? How so?” Atsushi asked, not opening his eyes.
He didn’t see how the smirk broke across his own face.
“I’ve been inside of you in every single way, now.”
Smug laughter filled the apartment as a red-faced shriek of “RYUU!!” shook the walls.