Work Text:
Dazai puts a hand on Akutagawa’s shoulder, and tells him that he’s gotten stronger. Akutagawa completely freezes, knowing it’s a lie, but loving the feeling anyway. Dazai doesn’t mean it. He’s never been proud of Akutagawa before, and this one stupid incident isn’t going to change anything. He’s stupid to think otherwise, but his heart still soars. Then he ends up passing out. When he wakes up, he can’t help but wonder if it happened at all, or if the incident was just a figment of his imagination.
Akutagawa pulls himself out of bed, and moves through the motions of getting ready for work early that morning. The Black Lizard is having a meeting early, so he heads straight to their office. He can hear voices talking when he enters the building.
“Why do you think Akutagawa does some of the crazy stuff he does? It’s like he has no self preservation,” Tachihara says.
“You have to be more specific,” Hirotsu replies, sounding tired.
“I mean all of the reckless shit he does. Like when he-”
Akutagawa doesn’t let him finish. He walks into the room, and it immediately goes dead silent.
“What, you don’t have something to say to my face?” Akutagawa asks, sitting down in one of the open seats.
Tachihara doesn’t say anything, choosing to keep his eyes on his shoes instead. Akutagawa decides to drop it there. Hirotsu puts out his cigar, and leans back.
“Do you have any idea what this meeting is about?” he asks Akutagawa.
“Yes, I have all of your assignments for the next couple of weeks. You’re all being put on month long assignments instead of your normal shorter ones. You’ll get the first two weeks worth of work today, and the second half in two weeks.”
“That’s… new,” Hirotsu offers, and Akutagawa smirks.
“Yeah, Mori has a lot of stuff he’s doing right now. You should see how packed the Executives’ schedules have been.”
Gin walks in with Higuchi trailing behind her. Gin sits down beside Akutagawa while Higuchi sits in the next chair. Akutagawa stands up, and opens his backpack. He starts handing folders out, and explaining each of their tasks.
Once he’s done, Higuchi asks, “What are you going to be doing?”
“Why?”
“I just don’t know if it’s safe for you to work completely by yourself.”
Akutagawa rolls his eyes.
“I don’t have an assignment yet. Mori said he wanted to talk to me personally after the Executives meeting today.”
Gin looks up at him with a quizzical look.
“Speaking of which, I need to go. You guys should review your packets, and get started as soon as possible.”
He walks out, heading back towards his car. The building is packed when he gets there, but someone escorts him to Mori’s office. Chuuya is there too, sitting in a chair across from Mori’s desk. He’s flipping through paperwork, but he perks up when Akutagawa walks in.
“Hello, Akutagawa,” Mori says, motioning for him to sit down next to Chuuya.
Akutagawa complies immediately, his eyes flickering between Mori and Chuuya.
“I called you both here, because you are going to be working on a joint mission with the Agency.”
Chuuya’s face drops immediately, and Akutagawa hides his snicker behind a cough.
“I don’t want to.”
“Chuuya.”
Chuuya drops back against the chair, folding his arms, the papers still in his hands.
“Thank you. Anyway, there’s a gang that’s been causing too many problems for everyone. I wanted to deal with it myself, but Fukuzawa got his charity cases involved. He said that either we could be caught in the crossfire, or we could be cooperative. I wasn’t in the mood, so I just said I would send you two their way. That would be more than enough firepower to handle the situation, and then you could do cleanup afterward.”
“Where are we meeting them?” Aktuagawa asks once he’s sure that Mori isn’t planning to continue.
“At their office building.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“No, I’m not.”
Chuuya stands up.
“Ok, fine. I’m going to go smoke a cigarette while you fill Akutagawa in on the rest of the details. I already know what gang you’re talking about.”
He walks out with his paperwork, leaving Akutagawa and Mori alone in the office.
“You don’t need any more details. The Agency will tell you everything you need to know, and then you just follow orders.”
Akutagawa nods, also standing. He waits inside the building for a few minutes to give Chuuya time to cool off. Chuuya puts his cigarette out when Akutagawa walks up. They head to the Agency in silence. Kunikida is outside when they get there.
“Come inside. We have a lot to discuss.”
Chuuya continues angry sulking as they follow Kunikida through the coffee shop on the bottom floor. He stops outside of the first door they come across.
“You’re going to stop here. Dazai and Atsushi are in there, and you’ll be on their strike team. Nakahara, you can keep following me to the other strike team.”
Chuuya glances at Akutagawa, then follows Kunikida past the door. Akutagawa, on the other hand, walks inside. Atsushi and Dazai are standing in one corner of the room, talking about something.
“Akutagawa, you made it,” Atsushi says, trying to sound polite.
“You can drop that. What do you need from me?” he asks, turning to Dazai.
“Well, someone’s in a rush. We’re going to be taking over their main base. Then we’re going to send out a distress message, and wait for the others to show up. Our job is to take the base without alerting the other parts of the organization that it’s a trap. That’s why you two are doing it, because you have the power to do it, but your abilities aren’t that loud.”
“Ok, and when are we leaving?”
“In ten minutes.”
Akutagawa nods, and then leans against the wall to wait. Dazai keeps giving him odd looks, but he tries his best to ignore him.
I do not have the bandwidth for this right now.
Finally they get going. Dazai drops them off a block away from the actual building.
“Ok, be careful. We think they have ability users of some sort.”
Atsushi nods, and Dazai keeps driving.
“How do you want to work this?” Atsushi asks.
“I don’t know. Let’s just go in and kill everyone.”
“No, we’re not killing anyone.”
“Fine, we go in and knock everyone out. Then we can restrain them so we can find the distress message system without interference.”
“Ok, that doesn’t seem very detailed, but whatever.”
They’re able to clear the building quickly, knocking out everyone within fifteen minutes. They work their way in, finishing at the control center.
“These systems are fairly simple. I’m going to send out the distress signal as soon as I can hack the computer. Just watch the door,” Akutagawa says, eyes scanning the computer.
Atsushi hums, turning back towards the door. Akutagawa gets the computer open right as the door bursts open. They both turn, and Akutagawa makes eye contact with the man standing in the doorway. His vision immediately fades.
Akutagawa walks into the warehouse that Dazai said to come to yesterday when they were training. It’s dark in the warehouse. No light comes through the open doorway either, because it’s still dark outside. Dazai is standing in the dark room, his arms folded.
“You’re early.”
Akutagawa stays quiet, because he doesn’t really know what to say.
“I didn’t have time to finish setting up. Do you know what this place used to be used for?”
“No, sir.”
“It was used for crime scene cover up. There was a team that worked out of this building. Go into that room,” Dazai says, pointing to a door.
Akutagawa walks over there, cautiously opening the door. He walks in, and can immediately tell that it’s a walk-in freezer. Dazai shuts the door, and Akutagawa sighs.
“Here we go.”
Akutagawa ends up settling on the floor, his feet tucked against his legs. He’s not sure how long he ends up spending there, but the door eventually opens. Dazai comes in, and immediately kicks Akutagawa in the face.
“What, you can’t work when you get a little cold?”
Akutagawa coughs, and Dazai kicks him in the chest. Akutagawa can hear something crack. Then Dazai steps on his knee.
“Well, are you going to get up?” he asks, leaning more weight on his foot.
Akutagawa flinches, then knocks Dazai’s leg away. Dazai looks mildly surprised. Akutagawa knocks his feet out from underneath him, then scrambles backwards. Dazai gets up slowly, his eyes bright with rage.
Akutagawa wakes up to Atsushi shaking him.
“Akutagawa,” Atsushi says as soon as they lock eyes. He sounds so relieved. “I thought you were going to die. What happened?”
Akutagawa sits up, pushing Atsushi away. The man is tied up to the side. Akutagawa recognizes him once he gets a good look at him
“The mafia has a file on him. He makes people relive their nightmares,” Akutagawa explains, then looks away.
“What did you see?” Atsushi asks, and Akutagawa can feel his ears turn red.
“None of your business.”
“The second strike team is taking out the rest of the organization already. Do you want to join them outside?”
Akutagawa nods, and climbs to his feet. Dazai and Chuuya are arguing outside.
“Atsushi, Akutagawa, you’re back. What took you so long?” Dazai asks, scrunching up his nose a little bit.
“Can you shut up?” Akutagawa asks.
All of them go completely silent, and everyone is staring at him now.
“What was that?” Dazai asks, his eyes flashing.
“I said, can you shut up? I have let you belittle me, and make fun of me for years. Then you up and leave, and when you come back, you think everything is the same? I’m tired of this. I regret everything I’ve ever done with or for you. I regret the person that I’ve become, and I hate how much you had to do with it. You’re only weighing me down, and I’m done with you. I don’t want to hear from you, or see you again. I’m leaving.”
“Akutagawa,” Atsushi says, his eyes blown wide.
“Goodbye, Atsushi.”
Akutagawa walks away before anyone can say anything. Chuuya jogs to catch up with him, but thankfully stays quiet.
“Can you just drop me off at home? I want to get some rest,” Akutagawa says, and Chuuya nods. So, he heads home to wonder if he did the right thing.