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It was right after a mission and both Akutagawa and Atsushi were in Akutagawa’s apartment. Dazai has sent Atsushi on a solo mission, calling the mafioso to join him. He specifically told Akutagawa to make sure the weretiger came back unscathed. Unfortunately that was far from the case.
Atsushi was laying cradled and passed out in Akutagawa’s arms, covered in wounds and his clothes torn and bloodstained. (It honestly didn’t seem that bad but considering he was to go back unscathed this caused some serious problems. At least for Akutagawa it did.) Sitting there and just holding him in his arms, Akutagawa hoped he’d just wake up at some point. Unfortunately it had been a while and there was no way he was setting him down on any of his furniture and getting it all bloody. He just decided he’d have to try and clean up Atsushi as he slept.
‘This is not what I wanted to be doing with my day. Hopefully he doesn’t wake up now, that’d be awkward.”
He stands up and carries Atsushi to the bathroom, setting him in the tub and turning on the water letting it warm up as he stalls removing Atsushi’s clothes.
‘This is so stupid. I can’t take his clothes off there’s no way.’
Nonetheless he decides it has to be done. Knowing the detective, he won’t be angry with him so it should be fine right?
He begins to remove his clothes slowly doing his best to keep him asleep and plugs the tub once he’s finished to let the water fill up. He look at Atsushi’s limp, sleeping body and realizes hes not going to be able to clean him from the outside of the tub. He’ll slide everywhere since hes completely unconscious. He’s gonna have to get in with him.
‘Oh god. This is so weird. I’m not really about to get into the bath with this pretty- FURRY ass man… Shit now my heads getting to me. I’ll just go fast and hopefully he won’t wake up. It’ll be just fine just just fine.’
He begins to remove his clothes as the tub fills up and he turns the water off. He steps in and leans Atsushi up against the edge of the tub and grabs some soap with a loofah and begins to wash his upper half, being careful of the hurt areas and going around them, before using his hand to run water over him to wash it off.
‘I have to wash his back somehow. I can’t flip him over he’d fall into the water. Ummm. Oh what if I…’
He sit down in a criss-cross and lifts Atsushi into his lap, leaning him against him and resting his head on his shoulder.
‘Shit this is too close. Too close too close i have to hurry.’
He grabs the loofa again and gently scrubs Atsushi’s back, doing as he did before with the water. He decides to use this position for his hair as well. He grabs the shampoo and massages it into his scalp before rinsing him with the water again.
‘Whew we’re safe’
He grabs Atsushi by the waist again and leans him back against the edge of the tub to see that his eyes are… open?!
“Wh- UH- how long have you been awake?…”
Atsushi just gives him a small smile.
“Don’t tell me you can’t talk…”
“Haha! No no I can I just don’t think you actually want the answer.”
“You’ve been up for a while then?…”
A nod
“Great… sorry I didn’t know what else to do.”
“No it’s fine I actually appreciate it. You’re really gentle so its actually pretty relaxing.”
“You’re impossible.” He starts to climb out of the bathtub, now that Atsushi is awake he can’t finish.
“Woah hey where are you going?”
“I’m… leaving you alone? You can wash yourself so you don’t need me anymore.”
Atsushi stares at him, looking rather dejected.
“What?” Akutagawa is not getting the hint.
“I kind of want you to finish…”
‘What? He’s not actually asking me to finish bathing him while he’s conscious right?! He’s gotta be kidding.’
“Haha. Not funny weretiger. Just finish up and I’m gonna find you some clothes.”
“I… wasn’t kidding Akutagawa.”
“What?”
“If you don’t want to that’s fine. Never mind.”
Akutagawa pauses. This is the absolute last thing he expected and he’s completely shocked and embarrassed by it. He realizes that yea… he kind of does want to finish. It felt nice to take care of someone, to feel like someone relied on him a bit.
Without a word he get back into the bath and just goes about scrubbing Atsushi’s legs as if he were still asleep, avoiding eye contact.
“Why’re you cleaning me anyways?” Atsushi leans back and closes his eyes. He feels completely safe which Akutagawa thinks is quite stupid, but he’s not wrong to trust him so whatever.
“Dazai told me to bring you back unscathed and you were dripping blood so I figured I could try my best to hide the wounds.”
“Ohhh so that’s why you were so protective over me hm?”
“I was not!”
“You totally were! You’d get freaked out any time I got hit and it almost felt more like you were trying to protect me than us fighting an enemy together.”
“You can’t blame me. You know I can’t help but try and do what Dazai says. Leave me alone about it.”
“Sorry sorry, I just thought it was cute.”
Akutagawa pauses and looks up to Atsushi. “What? Cute?”
“Oh did I say that out loud? Sorry forget it.”
“Okay.”
Silence. Akutagawa was definitely not going to forget that. Cute?! Him?! No way. Atsushi has got an interesting interpretation of that word if he could ever think of Akutagawa as cute.
He finishes up and steps out of the bath. He leaves, still without a word and brings back some clothes, expecting to see Atsushi out of the bath but he’s still there.
“Gonna get out or just lay there forever?”
“I can’t move.”
“Yeah right come on I have to get you back to the agency.”
“No. I literally can’t get up I’m not lying.”
He looks up at Akutagawa. His face has a completely innocent expression. He’s not lying. Suddenly Akutagawa feels bad… not because he accidentally went against Dazai, but because Atsushi is hurt.
‘No way I actually feel bad for this guy. He’s my enemy. Right? Yeah right nobody would bring their enemy home with them. God this is so ridiculous.’
With a sigh Akutagawa unplugs the bathtub, picking up Atsushi and wrapping him in a towel and setting him on the ground for a moment. He grabs a bathrobe and throws it over himself considering he still doesn’t have anything on himself.
He grabs a smaller towel and uses it on Atsushi’s hair. Suddenly Atsushi looks down, making the hair drying difficult.
“Hey wait I’m trying to dry your hair don’t move your head down.”
He moves one hand to his chin lifting his face back up to see why he went down. His face is completely red, he’s so flushed you can see it on his ears and he looks like he’s… about to cry?
“Woah hey what’s going on are you okay? Are you sick?”
“N-no I’m fine. Just hurry up. Please.”
“Um. Okay…”
He finishes up as quickly as possible and brings Atsushi into his bedroom, setting him on his bed and bringing him the change of clothes he left in the bathroom. He brought him in here for a softer surface. With the detective on the verge of tears he assumed that maybe he was in pain and a Cushion might help. He was wrong because Atsushi continues to look like he’s getting closer to breaking down.
“Um… are you sure you’re okay?… you seem like you’re in a lot of pain… you have to tell me.”
“I don’t have to tell you.”
“I have access to your clothes, and all ability to not give them to you. You have to tell me weretiger.”
A soft, hitched sigh leaves Atsushi’s mouth before responding. “Sorry. Im just… really really embarrassed now. I was fine before because I was half asleep but as soon as I fully woke up I started totally freaking out.”
“You’ve got nothing to be embarrassed about idiot. I’m the one who brought you home and stripped you, then put you into the tub with me.”
“Yeah but you did that just because I needed it, because I couldn’t do it myself. I… I asked you to keep going just because I enjoyed it. That’s much more embarrassing…”
“We’ll all you’re doing is making it worse so just stop talking. You can cry if you need to I won’t be upset.”
Atsushi doesn’t cry though. He just kind of lies there, letting Akutagawa move him around and dress him. He looks down the whole time and Akutagawa notices how frail he really is. He’s not dangerously unhealthy or anything but clearly all his strength comes from his tiger form which is… not an ideal situation.
Once he finishes he stands up next to Atsushi and kind of just looks at him, not entirely sure what to say or do.
“What?” Atsushi asks him curious as to why he’s staring so hard.
“Hm?”
“Why are you staring at me like that?”
“Wh- what? Staring at you like what?”
“Like you… I don’t know you’re just looking at me weird.”
“Sorry? I just don’t know what to do. Do you want me to take you back to the agency?”
“You’re supposed to take me back unscathed.”
“Pretty sure that’s not going to happen from the look of things. I can’t keep you here forever so if you’re thinking I’d let you stay till you heal you’d be wrong.”
“Awe why not?”
“Um. I don’t know maybe because you’re my enemy?”
“Oh. Yeah you’re right. Sorry.”
“Did you… forget?”
“Yeah.”
“How on earth do you forget something like that?”
“We’ll y’know, most of the time enemies don’t exactly… care for eachother. Any other enemy of would have left me to die and none of them would have helped me bathe or get dressed, let me lay on their bed or tell me it’s okay to cry. Enemies don’t do that. You’re not my enemy Akutagawa and you know it.”
At this he has absolutely no response. Atsushi HAS to be his enemy. This guy is annoying so he turns around and starts to leave the room.
“Woah hey where are you going?”
“To the living room.”
“Cant you stay here?”
“What?”
“I want you to stay.”
He turns around to face the detective. He’s managed to roll over to look at him. There’s no way he’s telling the truth about not being able to move. He has an expression that makes him look almost distraught, abandoned by Akutagawa even though he’s literally just going a few feet away.
“Why are you so clingy? I’m not your friend or anything you’re being so weird.”
“You’re the one who stripped me naked and bathed me you’re the weird one.” He mumbles in response
“What’re you gonna do for me if I stay here? I’m not obliged to stay with you at all so you’ll have to convince me.”
“Oh god. Nevermind. Just do whatever you need to do and come get me when you’re ready to take me back.” Atsushi said this with venom on his tounge and for some reason it actually stung.
Akutagawa realizes that he actually wants to stay with the detective from this and walks back towards the bed. Slowly realizing all he’s doing is completely giving in to him.
“What do you want me to do?” He asks as he stands over Atsushi.
“Just… I don’t know sit here, lay here, whatever. I just don’t want to be alone.”
“Oh ok, you gonna try and sleep?” Akutagawa climbs up onto the bed after grabbing a blanket and laying it partially over Atsushi and partially over himself.
“Can I?”
“Yeah, I can take you back to the agency when you wake up if you’d like.”
“That’s sounds good. Thanks.”
With that he slowly drifts off to sleep as Akutagawa lays next to him, feeling like he can’t leave even though the man next to him wouldn’t have any idea if he did. Over time he started to get sleeping himself and was about to drift off when Atsushi started sleep talking.
“Huh… hug… hug me…”
‘Is he dreaming or asking me to hug him?…’
“Mmmh. Please… hug.”
‘I feel so weird today what on earth is this man doing to my head.’
With that he rolled over and brought Atsushi close in him arms, stopping the mumbles about wanting a hug.
Slowly after Akutagawa felt himself drift off to sleep as well, leaving the two “enemies” cradled in eachothers arms underneath the blanket.