"Everyone is happier if they have someone else to look down on, as well as someone to look up to, especially if they resent both."
― Christopher Moore, A Dirty Job
-ooo-
When he thought about it, which he tried not to do often... or at all really, he thought this strange feeling might have started the moment he made the decision to wrap Rashomon around him like a second skin. The moment he had felt the shape of slim limbs transform and stretch as he held him, guided him, fortified him, let the Man-Tiger's strength supplement his own weakness in order to defeat that trashy nouveau riche bastard.
Other times he thought it might have started before that.
Perhaps when they fought on the boat surrounded by flames and imminent destruction. When there'd been nothing between them but resentment, rage and indignation.
Or in the alley when they'd been nothing more than strangers at odds, predator and prey.
Or when he'd first seen the name 'Nakajima Atsushi' scribbled across that bounty Higuchi had handed him.
He imagined sometimes that he'd felt something in that first moment that told the story of every moment that would follow.
That somehow he'd always known that narrative would lead to the alley where they met and from there to every fight that came after and finally to this moment beneath an otherwise unremarkable bridge. To sitting against the limited shelter of shattered concrete wheezing, bleeding, waiting on reinforcements that might never come with Man-Tiger's fingers pressed warm and tight against his blood-soaked knee. As if he could hold the blood inside his body by sheer force of his concern.
His annoying, squawking, seemingly endless babble of frantic, shrieking concern.
"Akutagawa! You can do the thing, right? So, just do the thing already! You're losing a lot of blood. Stop ignoring me!"
"Then stop talking," he snarled tiredly, already stirring Rashomon back to reluctant life to slide across their skin, to lash and bind their wounds, seal the space within so no blood could escape. Better than a bandage, but more exhausting too. The tiger squirmed, making it difficult to get a decent grip. It was irksome, but then practically everything about him was irksome. "Get off me or lie still, lazy, fickle cat."
"I can't help it! It tickles! And I'm tired. I ran all the way here from the office. I'm lucky I got here in time to help."
He was not jealous of the Man-Tiger's stamina, but it often irritated that he took it so clearly for granted.
After all, the Armed Detective Agency was across town more than ten kilometers away. He himself could barely run a few blocks at a stretch.
"I didn't need you," he snapped, shaking off thoughts of his own inadequacies.
He could have managed just fine on his own.
"Well, it's not like I wanted to come," he pouted, instantly defensive as he folded his arms across his chest. "Dazai-san said I had to!"
The name gives him pause, sends a small part of him dithering about, cast adrift with endless questions that he would never receive answers for. The larger part of him remained in the moment with wide eyes and a fair certainty that the Man-Tiger was teasing him. "I should kill you for interfering anyway."
"Ungrateful jerk. I saved your stupid life, you know! That guy's ability punched through your armor like it was paper."
He snorted at the absurdity of the statement and opened his mouth to give him the response he deserved, but the sound caught in his throat and collapsed into a rough, aching cough that he muffled against the back of his hand.
He despised this weakness of body. This weakness that left him trembling with exhaustion, having to work for each strained and wet gasp of breath choked out in the aftermath of too much exertion.
"Akutagawa? Hey! Are you okay? Akutagawa?"
In lieu of the breath necessary to tell him to be quiet, he slapped his free hand over the Man-Tiger's noisy mouth to muffle the yipping hyena whine of his voice. It was a pity he lacked a third hand to scratch out the concern that widened his gaze. He was, however, fortunate enough to have additional options available to him.
He tightened Rashomon around them both, coaxing out an additional tendril, feeling the strain of the extra effort sizzling behind his eyes as he guided it with a thought to slither up the Man-Tiger's back and wind around his head, covering those eyes and buying himself relief from that inquisitive gaze as he regained control of his uncooperative body.
Which would have been fine if Man-Tiger had put up even a token resistance. He'd have had no qualms about restraining him if he'd at least been visibly put out by it. Might even have enjoyed it.
Instead he just knelt there, his whole body vibrating with tension, clutching his knees with bloodless fingers. Worse yet, he could feel his lips moving, words spoken in silence, syllables murmured like prayer against the palm of his hand, almost too fast to be understood but for the familiarity with his own name and the simplicity of the words asking him to be okay.
Ridiculous.
"Just," he began, stifling another brief coughing fit against the back of his free hand. "Just give me a moment."
He felt more than saw the nod as Man-Tiger's lips fell still against his skin.
It took longer than a moment, but by the time he withdrew his hand and uncovered Man-Tiger's eyes he felt steadier and the need to cough had eased for the moment.
"Okay?" He asked quietly, fingers still clutching his knees.
"Fine," he answered, too quickly, he realized, half-expecting Man-Tiger to comment on it, but he didn't. Instead he merely nodded before slumping back down to lay beside him, eyes shut, rolling and flopping down on his back across the blood-stained dirt and weeds as if he'd spent all his energy in the adrenaline of those moments of misplaced concern.
The black tendrils of Rashomon remained stretched between them, an awkward cat's cradle of crisscrossed lines thrumming with power.
He gingerly leaned aching muscles back against the concrete support behind him, reaching for comfort or, failing that, at least a brief respite from the pain weaving through his shoulders and lower back where no doubt clouds of color were already blooming dark against his skin beneath layers of fabric.
He had always bruised easily.
He hadn't realized that he'd closed his eyes until he felt Man-Tiger shift beside him, slitting his eyes open in time to see as well as feel his head pillow itself against his thigh.
He wondered briefly if freakishly fast healers were capable of being concussed or if, perhaps, Dazai-san's suicidal tendencies were actually contagious.
"What are you doing?"
The tiger yelped and jumped and probably would have scrambled backwards if he hadn't caught him in place by tightening the hold of the fabric still wrapped around his forearm.
"Sorry, I was just..." he opened his mouth and shut it again once, twice, three times as if he had an idea of what he wanted to say but no will to actually carry through with saying it.
"You look like a landed trout," he commented, closing his eyes again and using the fabric to tug at his wrist. It was all the permission he was willing to give and he still wasn't certain when the weight of Man-Tiger's head settled against his thigh once more whether he was annoyed or grateful that he'd taken the hint.
It wasn't as if he wanted him so close. It was simply easier to keep track of him in such an instance.
It was strange being so close to someone, but it kept him awake, aware, kept him from relaxing completely, which he was grateful for.
And time passed.
There was something like a grumble vibrating the air between them, the growl of the tiger resonating in his all too human throat. When he looked down he was surprised to find Man-Tiger's mouth slack, features softened by sleep.
Ridiculous.
He lifted a hand to curl against the long column of his neck, easing cramping fingers tight around his sun-kissed flesh.
He might have been able to kill him in that moment, while he slept, his power inactive and likely exhausted.
The impulse was certainly there. That rampant, unquenchable desire to prove he was… better, more deserving, more useful, stronger, worthy. That he deserved what he had, that he was more than what he had once been.
That he was capable, that he had become something more than weak.
That longing, that hunger, was still there, as it had always been as it would likely always be, inescapable. He had been born hungry and nothing in the years between had ever managed to ease that feeling for more than the span of moments.
Not even Dazai-san's praise.
There would always linger that compulsion to prove his worth, to justify his continued existence, to find a purpose for the useless power he wielded. To prove to himself again and again that he deserved to be a part of this blood-soaked, sunlit world so far from the darkness that birthed them… that he deserved to be.
To prove he was strong enough, that he would never be that child again unable to protect, only to avenge.
For that feeling, that affirmation, he would work and he would kill and he would die and in the end it would still never be enough.
He would never be enough.
The temptation to carve the proof of his improvement into the Man-Tiger's hide was phenomenal.
As if by doing so he could finally wash away the memory of that helplessness, that looming shadow of weakness from his soul.
It had been so even before Dazai-san had compared them and found him wanting.
But….
The weak were meant to die.
The weak did not survive.
But they had.
Together.
Many times.
He could even admit, though never aloud, that since they'd met, he'd felt… better. As if something inside him, some undefined tension, had been eased by Man-Tiger's existence, by the presence of someone who he could throw himself against in earnest. A challenge, a wall he could not yet scale. Someone he could depend on to survive anything that was thrown at him.
It mattered very little to him even now whether they fought together or as opponents in the long series of hard-won battles that made up their respective lives, that strange feeling that sometimes felt like relief and sometimes like pain and sometimes like some indefinable something for which he had no name lingered on within him just the same. It felt just as satisfying to hit him as it did to hit someone with him and it brought a vicious smile to his lips just as often as it did a frown.
He'd tried to speak of it to Gin once, but even as he'd opened his mouth he'd realized he had no idea what to say, how to describe it. That feeling of being able to do… more, be more, with him than he had been before. It was… a disconcerting feeling in the times between and one he didn't care for in the least. It made him feel vulnerable, as if he were the one being laid open and bare by the clench of fabric around those thin wrists.
Perhaps he was even the slightest bit concerned that Gin would say - as so many had - that they were similar. That from Gin the words would take on a far greater form and weight than they had from any other, that they might hold a measure of truth that forced him to scrutinize his own denials.
Whatever the reason in the end he kept his silence on the subject even with Gin.
He did not wish to think of himself as being half so foolish as that idiot.
He was certain that he could have killed him the first time that he had dared to bare his throat to his power and trusted that he would not simply rip it out.
He was, after all, the sort of fool who would trust a stranger's directions even if he heard them snickering at his back as he walked away.
The kind of idiot who seemed to have forgotten that they were even enemies at all, as if it had simply never occurred to him to take that trust back when they parted ways to return to opposing sides of the long-standing conflict between agency and mafia. As if it didn't bother him in the slightest that whatever trust had been between them had never been truly earned.
And yet that strange feeling allowed him to refrain from using that trust to cut the Man-Tiger down even though the temptation to do so was always there.
Allowed him to catch hold of him whenever he tried to run or allow Man-Tiger to act as his shield when it was necessary. Allowed them to be something perilously close to partners even with all the resentment that still lingered between them.
He commanded many within the organization he had chosen to serve, but he rarely felt the weight of their lives as distinctly as he felt his in the frantic beat of his heart in the hectic fury of battle or in these quiet moments that came after.
So, once more, as he had many times before, he stood at the precipice with his life in his hands and once more he allow that life to continue untouched, to choose instead to surrender to the persistent weight of exhaustion tugging his limbs and power towards lethargy. He was, after all, on the verge of collapse, buoyed only by the euphoria of a job well done and the unsettlingly weight balanced against his leg.
It would hardly have been worth the effort anyway. He'd probably have survived any weak attempt he might have made just to spite him and then withdrawn to sleep elsewhere and he would have lost the languid warmth of Man-Tiger's weight sprawled across him for no significant gain.
His grip against Man-Tiger's neck eventually loosening, seemingly of its own volition and by no will of his own, allowing gravity to pull his limp fingers to settle in the Man-Tiger's rough-cut hair, carding through sweat-damp strands. It was uneven and unflattering and he frowned at it, gaze bleary and eyelids heavy.
Soft.
He probably cut it himself, like he did his own, though their motivations were probably considerably different.
He pressed the back of his free hand against his mouth as a weak cough worked its way free of his chest to heave weakness against his skin once more.
"Okay?" Man-Tiger asked sleepily, turning his head to stare up at him with those wide, disconcerting eyes.
He could barely find the energy to hum an affirmative, but it seemed enough for his companion as he turned away his face away, sighing and nuzzling against his leg in an attempt to find a comfortable spot that almost certainly didn't exist.
Dawn was breaking, light slipping over the horizon, through the cracks in distant buildings to spill across the waters of the canal, to visit warmth across their feet to contrast with the cool of shadow that still swathed the rest of them.
Their enemies were gone, at least for the moment, carried off by the water's flow toward the sea along with some of the Man-Tiger's discarded limbs and one of his own shoes. He wasn't even completely positive at what point in the fight he'd lost the shoe, but he definitely had and he realized he must be even more exhausted than he thought not to have noticed until that moment.
He frowned at his stocking clad foot, wiggling his toes to worry against an inconvenient hole and managing only to widen it. Knitting the sheer fabric together was simple enough task typically, he rarely bought new clothes when it was such a small matter to repair the old ones, but the fight had been long and drawn-out and he lacked the energy or the will to turn his attention to such trivialities.
Or perhaps he'd known his fingers would find their way there eventually.
Perhaps the idiot Man-Tiger's particular brand of insanity was contagious.
Warm fingers traced around the edge of the fabric, across the shape of his toes, tapped against the nail of his big toe.
"There's a hole in your sock."
"Is there?" He inquired, his tone dripping disdain.
"Where'd your shoe go?"
"I don't know, but it's probably your fault that it's gone."
"Why would you losing a shoe be my fault?" He grumbled, affronted, short nails scratching over that inconvenient spot of bare flesh.
"You fight like you're trapped in a burlap sack, all flailing limbs and no direction, no restraint. It's pathetic."
"No, I don't!" He snapped, fingers poking irritably between toes that wiggled away from his touch and against an arch that shimmied this way and that to escape as Rashomon stirred to life and snapping at his jabbing fingers like a lazy, affronted kitten. It was a pathetic defense, but the best Rashomon seemed willing to mount for such a mild irritant. "And even if I did, it's not like I was really trained or anything so I don't know what you expect."
"I expect," he replied, fingers yanking tiredly at his hair. "That you let me lead since I'm the one doing all the work."
"Hey! I'm not just a doll for you to push around."
"Then what good are you?"
"Shut up," he grumbled, fingers swiping across the underside of his foot, causing him to jerk it back and away. "We won, didn't we?"
"We did," he agreed, catching another cough against the back of his hand.
"Okay?"
Though he'd been hearing it in similar questions for months, though he'd recognized it in the Man-Tiger's actions earlier, the concern in his voice still made him uncomfortable.
"Idiots who have time to worry about others should worry themselves first," he grumbled, turning his face away towards the deepening shadows beneath the bridge.
Man-Tiger fell silent as he always did. Probably reflecting on how he didn't deserve to ask after his health or something equally ridiculous.
Irksome idiot.
"Think they'll get here soon?" He asked. It was an awkward and obvious change of subject and he wasn't even entirely certain who the 'they' was in this scenario, but he let it pass unremarked.
And then when the expectant silence grew too bothersome, he sighed a heavy: "soon enough."
"Yeah," Man-Tiger answered, jaw cracking as he yawned, wide, twisting his head this way and that as he made himself more comfortable against the bend of his knee completely oblivious to any potential danger he might be in.
Eventually he settled down, his outstretched hand falling across his foot, covering his bare toes with all the subtle casualness of a angry rhino mowing down pedestrians at an outdoor bazaar.
He let that pass unremarked as well, too tired to bother taking issue with such a small thing. It felt better to have that skin concealed again anyway.
The silence that had fallen between remained uninterrupted this time and he found himself dozing for moments at a time as the sun continued its assent, casting the shadows darker in contrast to the bright warmth that rolled across the Man-Tiger's back, over his hand where it was still nestled in the unruly fall of his hair.
He curled closer, mumbling in his sleep, his grip against his foot tightening minutely.
It was a strange feeling.
That tightness in his chest, that warmth in his belly.
It made him feel uncertain, made him soft in ways he'd never been before.
He was pretty sure most of the time that he really hated it.
But, at the same time, it was not unlike putting on a pair of ill-fitting shoes: uncomfortable, often unpleasant, but he still felt better with that feeling wrapped around him than he had without it.
NOTES:
As far as I can tell, with limited exception, Akutagawa tends to think of people in terms of descriptors. I assume this is (unconsciously) an effort to impose distance between himself and others. Hence the Man-Tiger is the Man-Tiger both when he's speaking with him and when he's thinking about him. I also assume he has labels for almost everyone else he deals with outside of Dazai and Gin and Higuchi (and possibly Mori... but I'm pretty sure he's an insubordinate little SOB there too).
And, yeah, I just assume that Akutagawa can use his power to mend his own clothes, because Akutagawa using Rashomon to heal minute tears in his coat amuses me. I also just assume that when Atsushi loses a piece of himself the regeneration happens at the wound and thus the discarded piece just bounces off across the battlefield. Consequently after a particularly vicious fight, I like to imagine that the area is just lousy with bits and pieces of Atsushi and that it embarrasses the ever-living heck out of him. I make my own fun. Clearly.