Archive of Our Own ^beta

In which the two dum dums bond over almost dying

“Shit!”, Akutagawa was hit yet again by an attack, it should seem impossible, but his opponent had some kind of radical cloning ability and there were blades and hot objects coming at him from all directions. It was sort of like fighting Junichiro, except these had substance, impact. All of them wielded one of three weapons: A red hot metal poker, a long sharp blade, or a weak taser, most likely also cloned with how identical they were. Akutagawa usually would just suspend himself in the air with his ability, but the ceiling of this wide abandoned building they were fighting in were too low to allow it. The clones were fairly fast, and there was a simply copious amount of them. How irritating.

He and the jinko were tag teaming against two gifted individuals for a mission at the moment. They were fighting in the enemies’ hideout. It was supposed to be a warehouse for whatever strange and dangerous substances they were manufacturing, but there was nothing on this floor.

Atsushi was fairing against some gifted woman whose speed rivaled his own, and could transform her fingers into long, sharp needles. Akutgawa was just so lucky to get this annoying bastard of an enemy.

Every time Akutagawa ripped a handful of clones apart with rashoumon, they were quickly replaced. There were dozens. He thought there must be an original hiding from sight, but akutagawa didn’t have time to search for him between the rapid attacks.

Just as Akutagawa thought he might begin to get the upper hand against the clones, he heard a splash of liquid and sharp cry.
“FUCK!”
He quickly turned his head to see Atsushi writhing in pain with steam coming off of him, riddled with injuries gushing blood. Normally Akutagawa wouldn’t be that concerned, but for the first time, the wounds weren’t healing. Peculiar.
“Shit shit shit,” he cried in agony, crumbling on the floor. That wasn’t good.

Next to him was the woman holding a tall glass empty bottle, presumably what was holding whatever substance she’d poured on him. She was also on the ground a ways away from him, bleeding. It looked like Atsushi landed a hit or two before going down.

Akutagawa’s thoughts were cut off by a sharp punch to his jaw.
“You shouldn’t get so distracted you goth bitch,” his twit of an opponent snarled at him.
Now Akutagawa was torn between his objective and his partner bleeding out behind him. Well, fuck the mission, he thought. They needed to leave.

“Jinko, we need to retreat!”, Akutagawa shouted, trying to combat a new surge of opponents. He got a muffled groan in response.
“Akutagawa… you gotta get outta here,” Atsushi sounded pained. Akutagawa spared another glance back. The steaming stopped, but he was still bleeding profusely and hunched over in pain. Shit, not good.
“I’m not going to leave you here, moron,” it sounded more condescending than worried, though he started feeling himself grow anxious and uneasy at the situation.

Akutagawa was so pissed. This guy was just so persistent and annoying, and now he had the stupid Jinko to deal with. Shit.

Fed up and ready to tactfully retreat, Akutagawa sent as many heads of rashoumon as he could to wipe out a fair bit of attackers, and dashed to his partner. With no grace at all, he scooped Atsushi up in a black tendril. Injuries be damned, they had to get out of there.

After he made his escape, he had time to more closely look at the weretiger. There was so much blood, it was a miracle he was still conscious. Rashoumon’s rough handling definitely wasn’t helping. That fiendish woman must’ve put something in his wounds to keep the blood from clotting. Perhaps it was the work of another ability, it didn’t really matter.

He was more worried than he’d like to admit. Atsushi looked in a lot of pain and the wounds were so deep. There was so much blood. The thought that he might really die from this raced through Akutagawa’s head, and it terrified him. It was so ridiculous, he thought. To think that only a few months ago this would have been a dream come true. That idiotic, pesky weretiger, finally gone from his life forever. Now though, he could hardly picture it. They fought constantly and couldn’t be farther from friends, and yet.

Once at a safe distance, Akutagawa layed atsushi on the ground and quickly dialed the standby line for backup. Dazai’s voice chirped from the other end.
“Yes?”
“Dazai, we need backup. The jinko is injured and we had to retreat.”
“Roger that. Help is on its way.”
Thank god for that. Unfortunately, he still had a very much bleeding out atsushi on his hands.

“Shit, don’t fucking die, idiot.” Again, the statement was full of malice rather than concern. Behind the words, though, he was panicking. He didn’t know shit about wound care. Why the hell didn’t he bother to learn? Oh, right, because he didn’t care about anyone and was too confident to think he would ever be injured to the point of needing it. In the meantime, he improvised by wrapping rashoumon around his limbs and torso. That would probably do something. He was desperate for ideas here.
He sat down next to atsushi. They were in a sort of grassy area far from the big run down building their enemies were hiding out in.
Atsushi opened his eyes and started mumbling. He was probably just trying his best to stay awake.
“Akutagawa, I wont… heal for some reason,” he sounded so confused.
“Yeah, I fucking see that. Backup is on the way and, hopefully, Yosano.”
“ I should have a swear jar for you,” he said through winces, “you’d go broke in like, a day.”
He sounded triumphant in his statement, like it was a brilliant idea.
“Fantastic,” Akutagawa bit with sarcasm, “any bright ideas that might help your current situation of life threatening danger?”
“I’m not-, gonna die for real,” he winced again, “The tiger will protect me, stupid.”
Akutagawa only rolled his eyes. He clearly wasn’t coherent enough to be of any help.
“You didn’t get a head injury, did you? A concussion would be so annoying to deal with,” he said while leaning over to check the dilation of his pupils.
“I’m not concussed, don’t worry. Just.. running out of red blood cells.”
“You need to be more cautious. Your impulsive behavior compromised the mission.” Akutagawa didn’t really think it did. Atsushi’s tiger senses were too perceptive. Akutagawa was just-- frustrated.
“but I’m glad you’re worried. I’m surprised you haven't just offed me yet,” atsushi mumbled. He sounded honestly grateful. The statement rubbed Akutagawa in an irritating, sort of painful way.
“Yeah? Me too,” Akutagawa responded quietly.

He looked at the Jinko then. His expression wasn’t so contorted with pain as it was before, and he was looking up at the sky. His haircut was so stupid, akutagawa considered chopping it right there with rashoumon. His eyes were weird, too. Definitely unnerving and not at all interesting to look at. The features of his face were so boyish and soft, despite the cuts, dirt, and smears of blood on it. Akutagawa made himself look away, only to be drawn to the way his chest rose and fell, heaving for oxygen. What a silly thing to pay attention to.

After a pause of silence, the weretiger spoke again, “well, thanks for caring. It's good you don’t want me dead,” and closed his eyes again.
“Just… be quiet. Save your strength on trying not to die.” some of the worry accidentally laced itself in his words, despite his attempts to hide it.
“Whatever, you can’t boss me around,” Atsushi said with spite. He said things along those lines frequently, but not usually that childishly. Despite his statement of rebellion, however, atsushi didn’t speak anymore after that.

The silence gave Akutagawa space to think. Did he, care, about the jinko? It seemed like a strong word. Besides, ever since he was a kid he’s known that the only person in the world he cares about is his sister, Gin. However, he couldn’t find another explanation for his concern that wasn’t far worse, so he would have to just admit it. Maybe he did marginally care, just a little, barely, for Atsushi’s wellbeing. Barely.

But even still, it was strange how upset he’d gotten in such a short amount of time. He didn’t wanna think about it, pushing the thoughts away. Instead, he focused on his own injuries. They weren’t very deep, but there were quite a few, and they stung. The burns, especially.

It wasn’t long after that until some agency members arrived. Akutagawa saw a car pull up a short ways away and a small group of people come towards them on foot through the grassy area. It was Dazai, kunikida, the short blond one with the hat (he couldn’t be bothered to learn all of their names), but most importantly, Yosano. She strode towards them, bag in hand.
“Quite nasty injuries you’ve racked up, there,” Dazai said nonchalantly, looking them up and down.
It was then that akutagawa remembered he still had the weretiger wrapped in his rashoumon, and he quickly retracted it. This time, though, he tried to be a little gentle about it.

Akutagawa gave them the rundown of the situation, to which kunikida, dazai, and the short one left in the direction of the hideout. Yosano, obviously, stayed behind to tend to atsushi.

“How strange. His regenerating ability was impeded?”
“Yes. I suspect she poured some sort of poison into his wounds that prevented them from closing.”
“Hm,” Yosano hummed while taking off atsushi’s shirt and beginning to clean gravel and such from the wounds, “I doubt it was anything normal. You’ve seen what his body can do. His leg grew back in seconds after you ripped it off that one time. It was probably an ability.”
There was no bite to her words, and he probably imagined it, but it still felt a little passive aggressive. He couldn’t ignore a pang of guilt from remembering all the hate he’d harbored so long ago. It led him to remember some of the other horrible things he’d done to the Jinko that he miraculously survived. He couldn't even count the amount of times he’d impaled him through the chest. He thought, maybe, one day, he might apologize. Not anytime soon, but maybe one day.

After Yosano finished carrying out her… medical practices, she told Atsushi to sit and rest for a bit longer before getting up; then told Akutagawa to make sure he sat and rested (“don’t let this little brat here run off and do something stupid after just recovering. Just.. stay.”). She asked Akutagawa if he wanted her medical attention, but he politely declined with the excuse that he didn’t want to be in the agency’s debt and he could have it taken care of at the mafia headquarters. With that, Yosano left to make sure all was going well on Dazai and Kunikida’s end.

And so, the two were left on their own again. Akutagawa didn’t realize how tired he was until then, but he was physically exhausted. All of the day’s stress and exertion finally settled into his limbs, and it wasn’t exactly pleasant.
“Thanks for getting us out of there, Akutagawa,” Atsushi said while fiddling with the shirt, ruined with holes and blood stains as it was.
“Of course. I’m not so big-headed that I don’t realise when we need to retreat.”
Atsushi seemed hesitant with what he was going to say as he continued to fidget with buttons and such, but eventually spoke up, “hey, so I was thinking..”
“What now?” Akutagawa questioned with his usual irate tone.
“No need to be mean, geez. I was just thinking your name is kinda long, especially to shout in battle. I would ask to use your first name, but its just as long, maybe longer.”
“What are you getting at, jinko?” he didn’t like where this was going.
“We should have a short version, for the sake of practicality in battle, yknow? Like a nickname! What about, like, Aku?”
“That sounds absurd,” Akutagawa hated the idea. It was embarrassing and unnecessary,
“Okaay,” Atsushi squinted a little at him, “what about Ryuu?”
“Absolutely fucking not. That’s way worse.”
“Man, I was onto something with the swear jar idea,” he said jokingly.
“Shut up, Jinko,” was all Akutagawa had the energy to respond with.
“Alright, so, Aku it is then!” Atsushi said with such an unguarded smile, and for some reason he couldn’t say, it made Akutagawa’s chest hurt. Just a brilliant sight. Why would he be smiling so brightly? They just failed a mission horribly and escaped painfully injured, then even more painfully healed, in Atsushi’s case. Why would he be so happy? Positively radiant. Akutagawa didn’t want to look away.

Seeing him now, and thinking on the day’s past events, he thought that maybe he cared for the weretiger a little more than marginally. Maybe adequately. More, even. It didn’t matter.