Work Text:
The forest is cold underneath Akutagawa’s bare feet.
The leaves are crunchy, chilled with leftover droplets of rain, and they break between his toes. Twigs dig into his soft skin, creatures wriggle themselves away in desperate motions every time he presses his foot down. The forest floor is frightened of him, as it trembles, and it quivers, and the soil stirs, and yet Akutagawa carries on anyway.
He wants to get away from this mess - away from the wet mud, and the torn leaves, and the shadows that curl around his ankles and attempt to hold on tight. There are red marks against his pale skin, nail indents dug in deep, and his chest is aching with something fierce. He tries to swallow, but his mouth is hot and dry.
Akutagawa wants to get to the grass. He wants to make it out, to escape, he wants to reach the blades of grass, wet with fresh rain, that will soothe his battered skin. He wants to feel the nature, and the harmony, and the type of warmth that only the moon’s stolen light can provide as it caresses his sunken cheeks with the gentlest of touches.
Akutagawa wants to be rid of the dark, and the sting behind his eyes. He wants to be free.
“This way, Akutagawa,” somebody says from his right. He whips his head around faster than a bolt of lightning—faster than Rashomon’s twisting claw, but nobody’s there when his vision focuses on his quiet surroundings.
“Hello?” He tries to call out in response. His voice is softer than it’s ever been before—lighter, even, lacking the rough drawl that has made itself known from years of living with an incurable lung disease. Akutagawa almost doesn’t recognise himself.
“No,” the person, whoever they are, says, and they’re behind him this time. Akutagawa turns, and then there’s a push at his shoulder by somebody who isn’t even there. Akutagawa thinks that his head might be spinning. “Not this way, either.”
Akutagawa tries to swallow again. It still doesn’t really work. “I don’t understand,” he says, and yet he’s starting to grasp what his own tone is now. He sounds—young, almost. Childlike, as if he’s fourteen and stick-thin, dirt and blood smeared across his face, pneumonia worming its way into his ice-cold skin. He’s fourteen, and he’s a child, and he doesn’t yet know what the world of the Port Mafia is.
“Here,” the voice hums.
Fingers grip onto Akutagawa’s chin. They jerk him one way, and then another, and Akutagawa’s beginning to feel sickness swell in the pits of his stomach. It’s a nauseating storm, an unfurling flower of repugnance that’s attempting to crawl through his sore throat with dagger-like nails. He jolts, and the fingers let go.
“Stop it,” he whispers. His cheeks feel wet. His feet hurt. He wants Gin. He wants anyone. He wants somebody to hold him, to run their fingers through his matted hair, to smooth over his face as if he’s a little boy that doesn’t yet understand left from right. It’s strange, really, because Akutagawa hasn’t felt wants like these in years. “Stop it, please.”
“Will you look?” The voice responds.
Yes, Akutagawa thinks bravely.
“I’m scared,” Akutagawa says truthfully.
There are hands cupping at Akutagawa’s blood-splattered cheeks, now. They’re soft, a little scratchy, perhaps, and Akutagawa initially thinks it’s because the palms are calloused, and the fingers are rough, but as he blinks, he realises that it’s because there are bandages pressed against his skin. He stares, and warm, brown eyes stare back.
Akutagawa blinks again, and the man with the messy hair, and the warm eyes, and the thick bandages that wound around his arms before disappearing into a tan coat, is gone.
“Will you look?” The voice repeats.
“Yes,” Akutagawa says truthfully.
There’s a gentle nudge to his back, a pinch to his ear, and Akutagawa looks towards his left.
First, he sees the grass. He sees the grass, the dew-addled blades, the moss, and the weeds, and then he sees the moonlight that catches on branches and twigs. He sees the streaks of silver, and the harmony, and the freedom, and then he sees a tree stump. There’s a tree stump leaning towards the centre. It’s thick, and it’s wide, and there’s somebody sitting on top of it.
Their hair is dark. Their coat is jet-black and long. Their legs are crossed, and the smile that they wear across their pale face is—knowing, almost.
Akutagawa takes a breath, and then he runs.
He runs forward across the twigs, and the leaves, and the writhing bugs. He ignores the sting to his feet, the way that the wind whips against his frost-bitten face, the chill, and the ache, and the pounding to his head. Akutagawa pretends like his lungs aren’t on fire, and his throat isn’t cracking, and his cheeks aren’t wet, because the minute that his feet hit soft grass, it’s all worth it.
“Dazai-san,” Akutagawa pushes out. His tongue is coated in iron. His fingers tremble. His legs feel weak - jelly-like, almost. “Dazai-san,” he repeats, like he needs to in order to make all of this real.
“Akutagawa,” Dazai says in response, and it’s his voice, it’s his tone, and his drawl, and it’s the voice. The voice has a face, and a body, and a smile, and it’s Dazai. Akutagawa could cry. “Ryuunosuke,” Dazai tacks on, and then he lifts one leg away from the other, and begins to stand.
Akutagawa has always been a little shorter than Dazai, a little quainter in stature, but like this—he feels.. small. Dazai towers above him, all dark clothes, and thick bandages, and those long, twitching fingers, and Akutagawa swallows tightly—because he can do that, now. Just the sight of Dazai is a glistening oasis amidst Akutagawa’s rough drought.
“Come here,” Dazai says—commands, really, and he holds out his arms.
Akutagawa collapses against the older man, and Dazai catches him without a single complaint. He wraps his arms around Akutagawa, holds him close, holds him tight, even, and gently eases his face against the hard expanse of his stomach, because in this moment, that’s as far as Akutagawa reaches.
He’s fourteen again, or maybe a little younger, and he’s devastatingly sick with the pollution from the slums. His bones are weak, and his eyes are heavy, and Dazai - whatever, whoever this Dazai might be - holds him like he’s a fragile tremble of glass that’s about to shatter from the cold.
Dazai’s fingers are contrastingly warm against Akutagawa’s frosted skin. Unnaturally warm, perhaps, like he’s sucked the heat away from the sun itself just to be able to soothe Akutagawa’s shivers. It’s strange, but Akutagawa finds himself leaning into it as best he can as Dazai digs into the fabric of his ragged clothes - searching, clinging.
“I missed you,” Akutagawa whispers. He can’t bring himself to speak any louder. He doesn’t want anyone else to hear.
Dazai hums. “Did you?”
“You left me,” he accuses. “You said you’d never leave,” Akutagawa’s tone is desperate, for just a moment. He’s a whimpering child, and he’s clinging to his distant father. ”But you left me.”
Dazai’s fingers card through Akutagawa’s hair the best they can. It’s matted, covered in grime, and grease, and little twigs that are the result of sleeping on the floor for months on end. He gently tugs at the black, and the white, and the black, and Akutagawa tries not to lean into it too much.
“I didn’t go anywhere,” Dazai denies. He’s calm, sure of himself. But he’s wrong. He’s wrong.
Akutagawa has spent days sitting in this spot—in this forest. He’s been fifteen, and seventeen, twenty-two and then some, and he’s sat, and he’s waited, and he’s hoped that Dazai would return to him - press a hand over his aching sternum, fill his parched throat with droplets of relief, assure him that it was never really Akutagawa’s fault in the first place.
Akutagawa has sat, and he’s waited, and Dazai has never come. He’s never been there. Not like this.
“You did.”
“I didn’t.”
“I waited.”
“I’ve been here,” Dazai says. He lifts Akutagawa’s head up with gentle fingers. He rubs a thumb over a sharp jawline, and Akutagawa stares into the one eye that isn’t covered in bandages. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
“Dazai-san—”
“And now you’re here,” Dazai continues. His gaze is warm—open, perhaps. It invites Akutagawa closer, even if that isn’t physically possible. There isn’t a gap of space between them. Akutagawa never wants there to be one again. “And you’re here to stay, aren’t you?” He questions. “You won’t leave me will you, Ryuunosuke?”
The name is familiar. Its syllables wrap around Akutagawa’s body, and hold on tight. He nods once—or tries to, at least, because Dazai is still playing with his hair, and holding him close, and Akutagawa thinks that they might almost be melting into one.
“I don’t want to go,” he responds quietly. It’s true. Akutagawa has dreamt of days like this, he’s—he’s wished so deeply to be held by the one person that he holds above all. He’s begged, and he’s prayed, and he’s dug his nails into his skin as he’s sobbed over the fact that the Dazai he knows now only touches the Weretiger as if he’s made of gold, and not Akutagawa.
Never Akutagawa.
“So, you want to stay?”
“Yes.”
“Good,” Dazai says, and there’s a small smile tugging at his lips. It’s—almost warm, and so unlike the grins he’d worn when he was holding a gun level to Akutagawa’s forehead and threatening to pull the trigger. He looks just a shade away from fond. “But you have to say it.”
Akutagawa blinks wide, red eyes up at the older man as he tilts his head back. He shivers once, and Dazai holds him just that inch tighter. “Say what?” He asks.
“Say that you want to stay,” Dazai clarifies. He raises a hand slightly so he can gently thumb at the bare skin on Akutagawa’s neck. He traces over the blemishes there, all of the blemishes, and the scars, and the faded marks, and then he drags a finger across the length of it - right over his jugular. Akutagawa swallows, and Dazai’s smile widens. “Say it to me - say, ‘Dazai-san, I want to stay with you.’”
Akutagawa’s dark eyebrows shift downwards into a barely perceivable frown. “But you already know that,” he counters, all childish and petulant in ways that he hasn’t.. hasn’t ever been, really. He was never truly allowed the luxury of childhood, not in the slums, nor the Port Mafia.
“But you need to say it, Akutagawa,” Dazai says, and his tone is a little sharper this time around. It’s a little darker, a little more like what Akutagawa is used to, or at least, was used to from his mentor when he looked like this. He shivers again, though this time it’s not from the cold, and this time, Dazai doesn’t squeeze him any tighter.
Akutagawa parts his cracked lips to respond. He’s a twitching bundle of anxiety, and desperation, and he doesn’t want to disappoint. He’s going to say it, he’s going to respond with what Dazai is demanding from him, he’s going to, and then—and then there’s a slight flicker in the corner of his eye.
Barely perceivable, but there all the same.
Amidst the towering trees, and the looming shadows, and all of the grass with the dew-addled blades, there’s a.. shimmer. It’s a rift, perhaps, or something close to that at least, and if Akutagawa listens closely enough, if he looks closely enough, he can hear voices, and shouts, and demands, and he can see silver hair, and flashing eyes - he can see orange, and red, and fangs as they slice through delicate sheets of cold flesh.
He pauses. His small, crooked fingers dig into the thick material of Dazai’s coat. Akutagawa’s mouth is going dry again, but he manages to push out a tiny, “what is that?” anyway.
Dazai follows his gaze. He’s quiet for a few beats, as if he’s thinking about what to say, and then he looks back down towards the child clinging to his body like a rigid parasite. “It’s nothing,” he answers calmly, smoothly—assuredly.
Akutagawa’s eyes are stinging. He isn’t sure why. “It doesn’t look like nothing.”
“It is nothing.”
“Dazai-san—”
“Akutagawa,” Dazai says firmly. He shifts their positions in a blink of an eye - moving so that he’s cupping at both of Akutagawa’s cheeks instead of holding him close. Akutagawa is forced to look away from the rift. He can see nothing but Dazai’s face, all of his sharp lines, and his dark gaze, and the familiarity that, for just a moment, doesn’t seem so familiar. “Look at me.”
Akutagawa is pliant, and he’s malleable, and he swallows down a pathetic, little, I am.
“You want to stay here with me,” Dazai says, and his tone is clear. He sounds so sure of himself, as if he knows everything about Akutagawa, all of his wants, and his needs, all of his flimsy desires. Maybe he does. “You want to stay here. By my side. You want to be here. You don’t want to leave. You don’t want to go back.”
Akutagawa’s eyes are wide, and they’re red, and they’re glazed over with something wet. “Go back where?” He whispers.
Dazai’s smile is there again. It’s wide, and it stretches, and it’s unnatural in the worst of ways, but Akutagawa doesn’t see that part. “Exactly,” he says. “Where would you go? Your home is here, you see?” He lets one hand drop away from Akutagawa’s face to take his smaller hand instead. He intertwines their fingers, and squeezes. “You have nothing else left except me.”
Dazai’s hand is warm, and Akutagawa feels so, so cold. “I want to be here. With you. Please. I don’t want to go anywhere else. I don’t want to be anywhere else.”
“Then say it, Ryuunosuke. Say it.”
“Dazai-san, I want to stay with you.”
“Good,” Dazai breathes out. He steps back somewhat, his other hand falling from Akutagawa’s face completely now. Their fingers stay closely intertwined for only a moment longer before Dazai lets go. He begins taking off his coat, stripping himself of the dark fabric and instead reaching to settle it over Akutagawa’s narrow shoulders.
The fabric drowns him. He’s only small, after all. Small, and thin, and sick with a thick veil of pollution that clings to his fragile lungs. It drowns him, but it’s warm, and Akutagawa easily accepts Dazai’s hand once more when the older man is sure that Akutagawa is nestled within his coat.
“Thank you,” Akutagawa says.
“Let’s go,” Dazai responds.
Akutagawa doesn’t look back anymore as he follows Dazai into the shadows. He almost does, for just a moment, when there’s a tiny pull against his arm, a tiny whisper in his ear, a growl that sounds just like a tiger and makes him want to turn with wide, mesmerised eyes, but he doesn’t.
Akutagawa is obedient, and he’s good, and as he walks a trail of red follows him, his neck an open sore, but gripping onto Dazai’s hand, and swallowed whole by Dazai’s coat, and thriving within Dazai’s presence, he doesn’t seem to notice.
—
Fukuchi stares down at Akutagawa’s still body. He’s lacking his coat, and he’s covered in red, and he’s not moving. Not even by an inch.
“It’s meant to work,” he says slowly—carefully. His gaze flickers to Bram’s despondent form. “Why isn’t it working?”
“I don’t know,” Bram replies.
“You do.”
“I don’t—”
“You do,” Fukuchi repeats. His gaze is cold, unamused. “Tell me. Now.”
Bram’s shoulders bump up and down as best they can. He heaves a sigh. He’s tired. He wants to go back in his coffin and be done with this.
“They have to want to come back,” he explains, like it isn’t important at all. His gaze is stuck on Akutagawa, Akutagawa who no longer breathes, and no longer moves, and no longer lives. Bram blinks. “I suppose that he didn’t.”