Work Text:
It was a normal afternoon at the Armed Detective Agency, everybody was working on their assigned tasks (besides Dazai obviously). Kenji had gone on a mission with Ranpo earlier that day so they should be back sooner rather than later. Tanizaki, Kyōka, Yosano, and Atsushi were all at their desks, either filling out paperwork or looking into new cases. Meanwhile on the other side of the room, Kunikida was yelling and nagging at Dazai while his bandaged body laid on the couch, refusing to acknowledge Kunikida’s presence. “All you do is lay around all day and let all your work rot on your desk for everybody else to do for you,” he pointed out, “if you ask me, it’s a damn miracle that Fukuzawa hasn’t fired you already!”. He continued his rant for about 5 maybe 10 more minutes before Kenji and Ranpo had returned back from yet another successful mission. Kenji was never one for unnecessary conflict, so as soon as he saw what was going on between Dazai and Kunikida, he cheerfully walked over to try and resolve what was going on between the two who were most definitely older than him.
Kenji lightly tapped Kunikida’s shoulder before walking in between the two men. “I’m sure there's a more peaceful way to go about this, yeah?” he began to reach an arm out to pat Kunikida’s shoulder, “lets try to be kinder about-”. Kenji was cut off when Kunikida had harshly swatted his hand away, though he did accidentally use more force than what he had originally intended to, but he was too enraged by Dazai’s behaviour to think rationily. When the sudden slap cut through the dead silent room, everybody’s eyes were on Kenji and Kunikida, even Dazai had seemingly lost all his prior attitude towards Kunikida. “Kunikida! what the hell was that?!” Tanizaki called out, standing up quickly. Atsushi and Yosano were also at their feet, quickly making their way over to Kenji to make sure he was okay. Yosano crouched down beside Kenji while Atsushi stood between him and Kunikida, unsure of what to do in the current situation.
He would be a liar if he said he wasn’t scared right now, Atsushi was afraid, some of his past trauma from the orphanage he grew up in resurfacing for a moment before he pushed that down to defend his friend and co-worker. “Why did you hit him?! What did he even do to warrant that reaction, Kunikida?!” Atsushi snapped both angrily (and also somewhat territorial?) at Kunikida. The blond man just stared down at Atsushi, and while his hands were slightly shaking, his expression was almost unreadable. Kunikida sharply exhaled before turning to walk towards the main door of the agency, he couldn’t be in the room anymore, he needed space but he didn’t show nor express that in the slightest. With the lack of information, Atsushi quickly grabbed his co-worker’s arm, stopping him from leaving. “Kunikida! You can’t just walk out on this! You of all people should be able to understand that much!”. Dazai glanced away from Kenji and towards Kunikida and Atsushi, immediately recognising his body language.
“Atsushi! Look out!-”
Before he had any time to react, Kunikida’s ‘Ideals’ notebook had hit Atsushi hard on his face, causing Atsushi to freeze, his PTSD immediately triggering at the sudden contact. Kyōka and Dazai’s faces both drained of color, as they knew what had just happened and why Atsushi had suddenly started shaking and breathing unevenly after freezing. “Atsushi!” Kyōka rushed over and tried her best to calm him down in the short time frame before he either broke down or bolted. “Kunikida, do you have any idea what the fuck you just did? Whatever happens next is completely your own fault.” Nobody in the agency had ever heard Dazai that serious before, it even surprised Dazai himself, but he had to push past that for the time being.
Kunikida had gone silent as he slowly started to come back to, matter of fact, the entire agency had gone quiet, aside for Atsushi, Kyōka, and Dazai. The notebook lay motionless on the ground in between Atsushi and Kunikida, nobody bothering to pick it up at the current moment. Yosano was looking Atsushi up and down from a distance, not wanting to make his situation worse for him but also needing to both physically and mentally examine him for injuries and for what had caused such a reaction from him. Heavy breathing… shaking… the almost fight or flight body language he was showing… how he was shakily and tightly clutching the upper right portion of his side..
“Dazai, Kyōka, what's going on with him? He's showing heavy signs of-”
Yosano was cut off when Fukuzawa came into the room holding a document folder from Kenji and Ranpo’s last mission. “Ranpo, I need your help clearing up some details about your last assignment-” Fukuzawa looked up from the papers in his hand to the sudden tension heavily present in the room. Suddenly, Kyōka’s grip on Atsushi slipped as he ran out of the room and out of the building.
“What just happened?-” Fukuzawa asked, both confused and concerned.
“Izumi, Dazai, what happened to him just now? It’s obvious you both know something that you're not sharing with us.” Yosano stated, looked intently at both of them.
Meanwhile, Akutagawa was at his and Atsushi’s shared home, he had taken the day off because he had been neglecting his medication to help him with his lung disease. He knew his condition was serious but he had either never had the time to take his medication due to work or had simply forgotten. He was currently in the living room after he had actually remembered to take his medication when the front door had been slammed open by Atsushi rushing in and running to their bedroom. Akutagawa immediately tensed up at the sudden noise of the door harshly hitting the doorstopper, looking out into the hallway he briefly saw Atsushi disappearing into their shared bedroom and slamming the door. Obviously, Akutagawa was more than a little confused and concerned by this, as to him never seeing Atsushi act like this before.
Akutagawa stood up, slowly so as to not disturb his lungs much, and walked over to the room Atsushi had fled into, using Rashōmon to close the front door that had seemingly been disregarded. He reached a hand forward towards the doorknob, but hesitated, unsure of how to go about this situation. He never was the one to initiate comfort in situations like this, Atsushi was always the one to comfort Akutagawa, never the other way around because his partner had always been so well put together and cheerful. Akutagawa was snapped out of his thoughts when he heard Atsushi’s heavy and uneven breathing, almost like he was..
“Jinko!”
The door suddenly swung open and Akutagawa rushed inside to look for Atsushi after he heard him hyperventilating. Atsushi was sitting in the corner by their closet, head on his knees and his arms wrapped around his legs, Atsushi was also staring at the floor mumbling to himself through his heavy breathing and tears. Akutagawa was frozen, he had never seen Atsushi acting like this in the many years they’ve known each other, he knew something had happened, he just didn’t know what it was that happened. Should he contact Dazai? What if Dazai didn’t know what happened? He wasn’t sure what the hell to even do right now. Akutagawa was pulled out of thoughts once again by the sound of Atsushi’s breathing getting more and more broken and uneven, Akutagawa quickly crouched down in front of Atsushi while also trying to figure out what to do.
Akutagawa hesitantly put a hand on Atsushi’s shoulder, holding him with a firm yet comforting grip. “Ji- Atsushi, breathe, everything’s alright, okay?” he could tell that Atsushi had slightly calmed down by the fact that he had broken eye contact with the floor to look at Akutagawa, which gave him slight hope that he’d actually be able to help him. Akutagawa soon had gently pulled Atsushi into his lap with both arms wrapped securely and comfortably around Atsushi’s shaking body.
The very last thing Atsushi had expected was to be pulled into Akutagawa’s arms, but that's what had just happened. His body was still shaking, but he practically melted into Akutagawa’s embrace on the floor. As the two boys stayed seated on the floor wrapped in each other's embraces, Akutagawa had begun to run his hand through Atsushi’s hair calmly, causing the shaking and hyperventilating to slowly subside. After what felt like an eternity, Atsushi had calmed down almost completely, which led him quickly to exhaustion, but he wanted to stay like this for longer, he didn’t want to fall asleep just yet.
“Are you feeling better, Jinko?”
“Mm.. kinda.. M’just tired, but I wanna stay like this a bit longer…”
“You should sleep, Jinko.”
Akutagawa didn’t give him any time to protest, he quickly used Rashōmon to wrap around Atsushi to pick him up. He stood up after a moment with Atsushi suspended by his ability and walked over to their shared bed, gently putting Atsushi down before he himself crawled onto his side of the bed. Atsushi laid there for a bit before tapping Akutagawa’s shoulder, “Aku, could I..?” Akutagawa immediately knew what he was talking about, he didn’t know why Atsushi was asking to use his ability, he didn’t have an issue with it so he gave a small hum and nod. With that small bit for confirmation, Atsushi activated his ability, turning fully into a tiger. He curled up around the headboard of the bed as Akutagawa rested his head on the tiger’s side.
END