Work Text:
Atsushi was so ready for this day to be over.
It had already started as a disaster early in the morning.
The Agency had just finished a longer mission and in celebration, Yosano had decided to have a girls’ day out, which included Kenji, for some reason.
Consequently, Kyoka wasn’t there to notice and wake Atsushi when he slept through his alarm.
So, already rushing, he forgot to properly watch his surroundings, which resulted in him spilling some businessman’s coffee. Atsushi himself hadn’t gotten any of the drink on him. The same, however, couldn’t be said for the businessman, who proceeded to hold Atushi the lecture of a lifetime in the middle of the open street.
In the end, the man had left without demanding compensation from Atushi, but the boy would rather have paid for the dry cleaning than go through being screamed at so harshly.
When he arrived at the Agency a few minutes late, Kunikida, thankfully, didn’t do much more than remind him to upkeep a proper time schedule.
Luck wasn’t on his side, though. Having overslept, Atushi hadn’t had the time to eat breakfast, so, he decided to settle for a cup of coffee. Hopefully, it would hold him over until lunch. While reaching for the sugar, though, he accidently knocked into the mug, sending it sprawling over the floor and pouring out all its contents with it.
A light snicker from Dazai had Atsushi sighing deeply before he began cleaning up the mess.
Hungry and without coffee, he sat back down to begin his work. His report of the recent mission had to be written and, afterwards, he might be able to take it easy for the rest of the day.
For a while, it was almost silent in the office. If one didn’t count the usual bickering between Kunikida and Dazai, and Ranpo’s not so quiet munching of his snacks.
Overall, it was a slow day in the office.
Atushi wanted to slam his head into the keyboard.
As though the universe was feeling particularly cruel today, every other sentence he made a mistake, resulting in having to backspace, breaking his flow. He couldn’t even ignore it to simply come back to it when he finished. It was like his fingers wouldn’t listen to him, regularly missing the right keys. It was so frustrating!
More than once he had to remind himself to calm down, inhale, exhale, repeat.
Finally hitting the send button to forward his report to Kunikida, was the first thing that had him actively relax that day.
Now, the hardest part was over. The rest of the day would just be going over paperwork, probably doing some of Dazai’s part, in the process.
Maybe the day still had some hope of turning out okay.
...
“Atushi, could you come over for a second, please?”
He wanted to cry.
Deep breaths, he told himself.
“Sure thing, Kunikida.”
He got up from his chair and rounded the table to Kunikida’s side.
“Please, take a look at the report you sent me and tell me what you see.”
On his screen, Kunikida had, indeed, opened Atsushi’s report. However, there were multiple words underlined with a red scribbled line, indicating a mistake.
Atushi stared in horror. He’d thought that he spotted everything before sending it. How could he have overlooked so many?
“Now, I know it’s not like you to send in a report with such a high count of mistakes, most of them seem like simple typos, anyway. But I wanted to ask if there was a reason for your negligence.”
Had Atushi been looking anywhere else but the floor, he would have noticed the concerned look on Kunikida’s face. And he might have realised that the words weren’t meant as a verbal lashing, but a question from a worried coworker.
All he heard, though, was another person he’d disappointed that day.
His eyes burnt and there was a lump in his throat that he couldn’t swallow.
“Atushi?”
He flinched.
“I-I’m sorry.” He whispered.
“What? Atsushi, please, you have to speak up if I’m supposed to understand you.”
“I’m sorry!” He surprised himself with how forceful the words came out.
“I didn’t mean- I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to shout.” God, how had he managed to fuck up again ? “I’m sorry for the mistakes, I just, it's been really stressful and- I mean, I know that’s not an excuse! I just overslept! And then there was that man with the coffee, I think he was late then, too. But I didn’t mean to! It was an accident! And then the keyboard didn’t work, well, no, I mean, I couldn’t type, it kept making mistakes-“ He knew he was rambling, but he wanted so desperately to explain why his work was so bad today. Barely aware of the tears that had started running down his face, at some point. Haphazardly trying to wipe them away while explaining himself.
“Atsushi-”
“No, no, I know I shouldn’t use excuses, but I swear I thought I had managed to find all the mistakes, I really looked! I promise! I’m sorry! I’m really really sorry! Please don’t throw me out! I swear I’ll do better! I’m so s-sorryy"
He could barely get the words out with how hard he was crying, but Atsushi still tried to apologise. To explain that he didn’t make all those mistakes on purpose. That he wouldn’t disappoint them like this, again. To please just give him another chance and he’d do better.
When he was gently pulled into warm arms, he hardly struggled, instead grasping tightly at the other person’s shirt, desperately hanging on to this only source of comfort.
The arms circled around him, pulling Atsushi against a strong chest. It was still somewhat awkward, because the other person was sitting while he was standing, but Atsushi didn’t care and simply climbed onto the other’s lap. He knew it wasn’t allowed. That only good kids got hugs and comfort, but Atsushi was practically hysterical at this point, and only acted on what little his brain could come up with.
Meanwhile, Kunikida now had an uncontrollably sobbing Atsushi on his lap.
He had only reacted on instinct when he saw the crying kid and hadn’t expect him to actually cling to him so frantically.
At least the boy had burrowed his face in the crook of the man’s neck, so he couldn’t see Kunikida’s panicked expression.
As Kunikida held Atsushi close, he tried to look for help from his coworkers. His heart basically sank into his pants when he saw that the only other people present were Ranpo and Dazai.
Both of whom were watching in amusement.
“Stop staring and help me!”, he hissed, hoping to keep Atsushi none the wiser.
Ranpo only rolled his eyes at him, as though this was clearly an easy to solve situation. “Just pick him up.”
Kunikida stared at him. "Excuse me?”
Ranpo loudly popped a lolli out of his mouth, Kunikida could feel his patience thinning.
“I told you. Pick him up. I thought you knew how to handle kids. Weren’t you a teacher once?”
Kunikida sputtered, “First of all, the kids in my class weren’t toddlers, who cried all the time. Second, even if they had been, teachers don’t just go around picking up children. Besides, what does this even have to do with the current problem?”
Ranpo groaned, "He’s obviously little, just pick him up and walk around. Even you should manage that."
Kunikida could feel his eyelid twitch. If he wasn’t currently busy, trying to calm a distraught Atsushi, he would hold Ranpo a lecture about what it means to work as a team.
“Come on, Ranpo, it’s not his fault he doesn’t have experience with this. You need to be a little more patient."
And wasn’t that a shocker, Dazai was defending Kunikida. Even if he was also being otherwise unhelpful.
Still, when Dazai turned to him, Kunikida couldn’t help but wait expectantly.
“Ranpo did have a point, Kunikida. I’d offer to take him, but he’s pretty attached to you, right now. I’ll explain what’s going on, but it’d really help the situation if you did as Ranpo said.”
While Kunikida’s first instinct was usually to be wary of any of Dazai’s advice, he decided to trust the man, for now.
It was an odd request, but Atsushi was still in hysterics and hadn’t shown any signs of calming down.
Kunikida had braced himself for the weight, but he was surprised when he noticed how light Atsushi was.
The boy gave a small squeak as he was suddenly picked up, and he clung even tighter to the older man.
Kunikida instinctively brushed over his back to calm him, gently rocking them both before he even realised. Before he could think better of it, he felt the boy sag a bit into his arms, clearly beginning to relax.
Atsushi was still crying into his shoulder, but his sobs were much less forceful now, finally letting him breathe better.
As Kunikida continued to shush the boy in his arms, he threw a questioning look at Dazai.
The bandaged man was still watching in amusement, but he had a softer look in his eyes now. “See? You’re doing fine. Just don’t panic. Kids pick up on that. Don’t be tense and just try to give off a sense of calm.”
He really hadn’t expected Dazai to be so helpful, but he still tried his best to do as the other had said.
It was then that he entirely processed what Dazai had said.
“What do you mean “kids”? Atushi isn’t a child.”
“Eh, he might as well be, right now.”
Now Kunikida was just even more confused.
Dazai let out a sigh. “Okay, remember a while ago, when I took Atsushi home early from work?”
Kunikida stared at him with a deadpan expression.
Dazai grins. “Alright, alright. I’ll specify. When he seemed really out of it and Ranpo gave him candy?”
Recognition flashed in Kunikida’s eyes.
“There you go. Now, the reason Atsushi reacted so strongly when we had a fight back then, was because we scared him. He was mentally already overwhelmed from stress and the shouting just sent him over the edge. The cherry on top, if you will.”
“That might explain his behaviour back then, but what does that have to do with him being a kid? He’s over eighteen, Dazai.”, Kunikda was still gently rocking the boy in his arms. Atsushi had calmed down considerably and was now mostly sniffling, resting his head on Kunikida’s shoulder.
“I’m getting to that! Jeez, so impatient, Kunikida.”, the teasing tone was way more in character, but it still held a softer note, keeping his volume low. “It’s simply a protective mechanism that his brain came up with to shield him from trauma and stress. People just don’t talk about it openly, because they often get embarrassed. Noone likes being seen as childish.”
“So, what? He’s a child, right now?”
Dazai hummed, “Pretty much. From what I can tell, he’s probably around toddler age.”
“That young!?”, Kunikida’s eyes widened.
“Relax, it’s normal for Littles to slip that young. All he needs right now is some comfort. He just got overwhelmed after a bad day. That report was just the final trigger.”
Kunikida quietly regarded the boy he was holding. Well, as much as he could, anyway. Atsushi still had his face hidden in Kunikida’s neck, and the man could feel the damp spot that had formed on his shoulder.
For now, Kunikida was simply glad that the boy had finally calmed down. While his breathing was still a bit shaky, Atsushi wasn’t actively crying, anymore. The walking really seemed to have worked wonders. Kunikida was still mildly overwhelmed with the situation, but it was significantly easier to deal with, now that Atsushi wasn’t sobbing his eyes out. And over something small as a report.
Did Kunikida really come across as that strict? That he would reduce their sweet Atsushi to a crying mess over some spelling mistakes?
“Ugh, I can hear your stupid thoughts from here. Didn’t you hear him? He had a bad morning and it just got too much for him. It wasn’t your fault, so stop with the guilt trip. It’s annoying to watch.”
Kunikida threw an unimpressed glare at Ranpo. Of course, he knew that this was the man’s way of reassuring his coworker, but his colleague really needed to work on his choice of words.
Still, it was nice to hear that he hadn’t been the reason for Atsushi’s breakdown.
While Atsushi was commonly known in the agency for being emotional, it was still a completely different thing for him to lose it like this.
This did, however, raise a different question.
“What do we do now?”
“What do you mean?”
Kunikida barely contained a scoff at Dazai’s answer.
“Well, what do we do with him now? He can hardly keep working like this. And besides, what if it happens again? You said this is already the second time. How do we prepare for this? We can’t let him get overwhelmed and completely stressed out every time. That’s no way to lead a healthy work-to-life balance.”
“Aww, Kunikida really does care~” Kunikida is definitely gonna ask Fukuzawa for a raise. “It’s not too difficult, though, so Kunikida doesn’t have to worry about his schedule. Besides, I can just take care of our little Atsushi.”
Dazai sounded way too excited for someone who usually avoided any sort of work and responsibilities.
“What on earth makes you think that you should be taking care of a toddler?”
“So hurtful, Kunikida! Did you forget that I just had to explain all of this to you?” That was true, he couldn’t argue with that. “Plus, I took care of him last time, as well. And Atsushi is hardly the first Little I’d be taking care of.”
Kunikida couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at that. Dazai, taking care of someone else?
At his desk, Ranpo only snorted at Dazai’s answer, but didn’t disagree. The bandaged man stuck his tongue out at the other detective.
Kunikida sighed. It was definitely feeling like he was dealing with more than one toddler. “Fine. Let’s say you can be trusted with this. What about any other time? How often is this going to happen? What do we-”
At Kunikida’s abrupt halt, the other two spared a glance to understand what had made him stop.
Within a few seconds, Ranpo was sporting the biggest grin Kunikida had ever seen on him, and Dazai was basically boiling over with excitement.
“Oh my gosh, Ranpo take a picture! Take a picture, right now! This is the best day of my life!”
Kunikida, the poor man, had stopped in middle of his questioning rant, muscles tense, feeling unable to move. In his arms Atsushi. Still safely being held, his head resting on the older man’s shoulder, half asleep and- softly sucking on the other man’s neck.
Kunikida had no idea what to do in this situation. This had never happened to him and nowhere in his notebook had he prepared for this.
Dazai was still dancing around him, cooing over Atsushi like he was the cutest thing Dazai had ever laid eyes on.
“He’s like a little kitten! Kunikida, you have to let me hold him next. I cannot miss kitten Atsushi!”
“Dazai.” Kunikida’s voice was complete emotionless. “If you do not help me in the next three seconds, I swear-”
Dazai only giggled and jumped out his reach.
“Alright, alright. I suppose I can be nice for once. But you’ll owe me for this, Kunikida. Don’t forget that.”
Before he had even finished his sentence, Dazai was already rummaging through his desk drawer.
“Ranpo and I already thought of this weeks ago. So, I got a little something for our dearest Atsushi.”
Ranpo only scoffed at that, pretending like he had no idea what Dazai was talking about. Not once did he disagree.
When Dazai was bounding over to him again, Kunikida could make out a plastic object in the other’s hand. His eyes bulged as he realised what it was.
“A pacifier? Are you insane? Those are for babies! It’d be so bad for his teeth.”, he hissed.
“Hm? Oh no, don’t worry, this one is specifically for people like Atsushi. As long as he’s fine using it, there shouldn’t be a problem. He seems pretty out of it, though, so I doubt he’ll be fussy about it.”
Kunikida’s mind was absolutely reeling with the input of information. Dazai was talking about this like he really did have a lot of experience and that already was enough to send Kunikida’s mind spinning.
He only stood there, muscles still coiled tense, as Dazai leaned forward to speak to Atsushi. His voice was so unusually low and gentle, Kunikida had a hard time believing that this was the man he worked with daily.
Atsushi was interrupted in his dozing, a soft voice calling him.
He was tempted to ignore the voice. He was feeling so warm and comfortable, he didn’t want it to stop. But the voice seemed so nice, he couldn’t detect a hint of malice.
Maybe they wouldn’t take him away from this nice place.
He blinked his eyes open.
“There you are. Hey, Atsushi, do you think you could let go of Kunikida for a second and look at me? I promise I got a really nice surprise for you.”
Let go? But he felt so nice right now. He didn’t want to.
“Aww, I know, you probably feel so comfy. I promise, it’s only for a second. And then you can go right back to cuddling. Think you can do that for me, little one?”
There was a hand tenderly running up and down his back.
Atsushi didn’t understand why it was so important for this person, but they had promised he could stay in the warm place. And they didn’t sound mean, at all.
He was still hesitant, scared to be roughly pulled away. But no such thing happened. Even though he was sure that he was taking too long, nobody was rushing him. They seemed genuinely kind and like they didn’t mean Atsushi any harm.
Slowly, he peeked out of his hiding place. It appeared to be someone’s shoulder, but they made no move to shake him off, so Atsushi hoped it was alright that he leaned his head under their chin to still be close to them.
When he looked around a bit, he saw a familiar pair of brown eyes, patiently looking at him.
“ ‘zai?”, his voice was very quiet, but going from the way the other’s eyes lit up, he was still heard.
“Hey, Atsushi! You doing okay?”
He hummed softly in response.
“That’s great, sweetheart. See, Kunikida here was having some trouble, so I decided to help him out a bit. I’m sorry I had to wake you for that. Say, do you think you could tell me how old you are? It’s okay if you’re a little confused. Just say whatever feels right.”
Atsushi stared at him. How old he was? Of course he knew. But everything was so fuzzy. Nothing felt right. Now that he thought about it, he wasn’t entirely sure. He was sure the number was supposed to be higher than what his brain was telling him.
When he glanced back at Dazai, the man was still looking at him with a smile. He had said that Atsushi should just say whatever felt right, so that meant he wouldn’t get mad if Atsushi got it wrong, right?
He hesitantly held up two fingers, nervously gauging the other’s expression. Still, there was no anger, only soft understanding.
Everything about this situation was so confusing. He anxiously brought his fingers up to his mouth and waited for Dazai’s response.
“Two, hm? Such a cute little Atsushi we’ve got on our hands. I’ve got a little something here for you, do you think you could try it for me? Then you can go right back to sleeping, I promise.”
Atsushi’s eyes widened a bit. Dazai got something? For him? But Atsushi never got presents!
He gave a little nod in response. Atsushi was still scared that it would just be a joke, so he carefully tracked Dazai’s expression for any hint of a lie.
The other man only chuckled at his curious gaze, but never did the warmth in his eyes fade.
Atsushi was confused when Dazai brought up a hand and gently tugged his fingers out his mouth, and he made a questioning noise that turned into a surprised one as something else was pressed to his lips. He opened his mouth without much thinking and continued to stare at Dazai, who kept his hand softly pressed against the object.
Dazai had prepared for Atsushi to maybe spit it back out, but he had started instinctively sucking on the pacifier almost immediately.
As Dazai let his hand fall away, Atsushi made an unhappy noise
He didn’t want Dazai to leave. Dazai was kind and had given him a nice present.
Dazai tilted his head. “What’s wrong, Atushi? I’m still here, see? Not going away, I promise.”
But Atsushi only shook his head.
That’s what everybody always said, and then they’d still leave.
He stretched out towards Dazai, making a sad noise that had Dazai cooing at him.
“Aww, it’s okay. Come here, sweetheart.”
As Atsushi was carefully transferred into his arms, Dazai couldn’t help but sneakily stick his tongue out at Kunikida.
His colleague only rolled his eyes at his childishness.
As if Kunikida would be jealous over something like this. Although, he did kind of miss the warmth of Atsushi clinging to him. Not that he would ever admit it.
Atsushi, on the other hand, happily burrowed into Dazai’s arms. Letting out a content sigh as arms safely held him, he let his head lean against Dazai’s shoulder.
Aside from maybe Kyoka, he liked Dazai’s smell the most. He never really could describe what his coworkers smelled like as it was just so uniquely them , but Dazai’s was the one that put him the most at ease.
It could be because the other man had been the one to find him and then taken him in. Or maybe it was because he felt like he was the safest in Dazai’s arms, who always had a contingency plan for every situation.
From his new position, he could now see Ranpo sitting at his desk. The man took the time to open his eyes and give him one of his rare genuine smiles, playfully winking at him.
He giggled and hid his face in Dazai’s neck.
A hand was now running through his hair, petting his head and renewing the comfortable warm feeling from before.
He didn’t really have much desire to move from his spot, and steadily relaxed into Dazai’s arms.
When no one appeared to be upset by this, he sighed softly and let his eyes fall closed again.
Dazai continued letting his hand run through Atsushi’s hair and over his back, feeling him grow heavy in his hold.
He walked around, lightly swaying as he did, until he felt the steady rhythm of Atsushi’s pacifier stop against his neck.
For a moment, he considered lying Atsushi down on the couch, but his intuition told him that the boy would certainly wake from that and grow upset. So, he resigned to sing on the couch himself with Atsushi draped over him.
Kunikida seemed to take pity on him and came over to cover to cover the two of them with a blanket, ignoring Dazai’s wide grin at this action.
Last time, Dazai had planned to talk to Atsushi when he woke up. As it had grown later and later in the day, though, he’d had to retire for the night and the next day, as expected, Atsushi had feigned sickness to stay home. From then on, it had been difficult to catch the boy alone, because mission after mission had come flooding in, and Dazai had sent a link to Atsushi, to at least try to breach the subject.
With Kunikida now in the loop, the other man would, no doubt, be nagging him about it constantly until the situation was resolved.
Dazai sighed heavily. At least Chibi and him had had the lack of communication down to a profession. This time, he would actually have to talk about everything and make sure to solve any miscommunications. What a pain.
From the seat at his desk, Ranpo snorted. Dazai threw a glare over to him that was only met with an unimpressed look. He decided to choose the adult route and ignore Ranpo.
Kunikida was meanwhile, furiously typing on his computer, undoubtedly looking up age regression and noting down any and all information he would deem helpful.
For now, Dazai simply relaxed back into the couch cushions. He would wait and see just how long he could put this off. Who knew, maybe he could seek refuge at Chuuya’s for a few days. Even if he would eventually be kicked out, he could at least hide out for a bit..