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Rationally, the were-tiger can take care of himself. He's strong enough to fight Akutagawa on several occasions and walk away alive, and he's intelligent enough that several years in the Port Mafia did not irrevocably break him. Akutagawa knows this. Intellectually.
However, to put it entirely kindly: Akutagawa has never used his intellect very much when it comes to fights, and he's damn well not about to start now, when Atsushi has been kidnapped by the very people Dazai warned them were going to come for Atsushi. Snatched right out from underneath the noses of both the Agency and the Port Mafia and loaded onto a ship headed for international waters.
As if Akutagawa cared about national boundaries and maritime law.
Even Rashoumon can't let Akutagawa skim across the surface of water forever, but it turns out that Oda knows how to steer a boat, which is good enough for the two of them. They get close enough that Akutagawa presses himself down and gathers all the power of Rashoumon that he can manage before he springs himself bodily up at the ship, letting the sharp edges of his ability hook into the metal with a screech that gives away his presence.
Oda rips the boat away with a roar of the motor, getting firmly out of the line of fire to prepare for the inevitable extraction, and Akutagawa uses Rashoumon to crawl up the side of the ship, spider-like and deadly.
There's only a few people on board to stop him.
That's an oversight.
Atsushi's been working with the Agency, off and on, lately, but he's still Port Mafia bred and born– and they were hardly about to let Akutagawa run off to save him without having some input in the rescue. Akutagawa raises Rashoumon up, a point in the sky above their heads, and then unleashes what his beast had eaten several hours prior: a massive amount of lemon-shaped bombs, all primed to go off the second they hit the deck of the ship.
"What–" is all the members of the Guild manage to get out before the bombs drop. Akutagawa shields himself with Rashoumon and still gets swept off his feet with the sheer force of the blow; he doesn't let it distract him. It sweeps him towards the edge of the deck and he vaults up onto it, holding on with Rashoumon until the blast passes and he's left to run across the ship.
Rashoumon darts out like a blade, ruthlessly cutting into the various shipping containers across the deck, stacked on top of each other. He makes quick work of the ones that haven't been blown apart by the blast of the bombs, and spares the struggling members of the Guild little more than a passing glance as he moves. It isn't difficult at all to allow Rashoumon to wrap around their bodies and slam them the rest of the way into true unconsciousness as he moves.
He finds Atsushi without much fanfare.
The container is filled with blood, and Atsushi's clothing is torn, but as he stands up, it's clear that he's healed from the damage already. Not even a scar left behind, in sharp contrast to the ones that Akutagawa can still see ringing his neck.
"Akutagawa," Atsushi says. It's little more than a feral growl, his eyes looking past Akutagawa to the remnants of the shipping crates; to the rest of the ship.
"Were-tiger," Akutagawa greets, shortly. Atsushi's eyes look back to Akutagawa, his dual-colored irises fixating on him with an intensity that only seems to happen in battle – except that the battle is done. Akutagawa had finished it on Atsushi's behalf, and it seems like Atsushi has been brought up short by it, all worked up with no outlet for the energy.
"You're injured," Atsushi observes, stepping forward. His fingertips go to Akutagawa's cheek, and it stings when he makes contact with Akutagawa's skin. His fingers sit there for a moment before they come away, bloody, Atsushi's nails just a bit longer than normal, tips curved into the beginnings of claws.
"It's nothing," Akutagawa says, and means it; it's little more than damage from the bombs, stray shrapnel that had been merely deflected instead of avoided entirely. "I'm sure that you were more wounded than that. You left an entire leg at the scene, you know."
"I grew a new one," Atsushi says, and there's a dark kind of humor in his voice that matches with the way his dilated, slit pupils focus in on Akutagawa. "I thought I'd have to fight."
"Don't you hate fighting?" Akutagawa asks, ignoring the way Atsushi is rubbing together his fingers, Akutagawa's blood drying with the motion.
"Yeah," Atsushi says. "I hate you too. For the record."
"It's mutual, were-tiger," Akutagawa says, and is very, extremely, undeniably aware that it's a truth that becomes a lie due to how much they're omitting. Their relationship is far too much to be boiled down to hate, which is obvious from the way they're standing too close to each other for a normal rescue mission.
Atsushi leans up, and for a brief moment Akutagawa holds his breath, waiting– and the wet heat of Atsushi's tongue darts out to trace across the wound on his cheek, the shallow cut. When Atsushi leans back down, there's a little fleck of blood on his lip, and Akutagawa reaches forward to wipe it away. Atsushi nips at his fingers, instead.
"There's," Akutagawa says, his voice suddenly a little more strangled than it had been about two minutes prior, "a getaway boat, waiting for us."
Atsushi leans around Akutagawa. Peers at the unconscious members of the Guild, who look like they're not about to get up anytime soon, given the amount of damage they've taken. Frankly, Akutagawa will be impressed if they live.
"You were expecting more of a fight, weren't you?" Atsushi says.
"Yes," Akutagawa admits, trying to see where this is going. Anticipating Atsushi is a bit like anticipating the impact of a train: just because you can see it coming doesn't mean you have any hope of stopping it.
"Then we have a few minutes," Atsushi says, cheerfully, the lilt in his voice at odds with how low his tone is.. "Since you were so fast."
"I–" Akutagawa starts, but then he has an armful of were-tiger and his mouth is otherwise occupied by said were-tiger's lips against his, and all of his pleas are swallowed back inside of him to dissipate into the background noise of his own mind. Akutagawa's arms move up, automatically, because he was expecting a fight. That isn't what this is, though– is it? It's hard to tell, because Atsushi is nipping hard enough at his lip that Akutagawa can immediately taste blood, and when he runs his tongue along the edge of Atsushi's teeth, he can feel fangs.
Atsushi is pushing against him, insistently, and Akutagawa disentangles himself just enough to ask:
"Are we fighting?" Akutagawa asks, and Atsushi turns his gaze back up, lips glossy and red as he grins.
"Yeah," Atsushi. "I think we're fighting."
Akutagawa considers this. Nods, trying to figure out where exactly he stands, if this is a fight with teeth and claws and the feeling of skin-on-skin instead of the sound of bullets and fatal injuries. It's not a fight he's used to, but it's a fight he's very interested in continuing it.
Atsushi is, too, from the way he surges back up. His body weight falls against Akutagawa, and Akutagawa has two options: allow himself to be pushed backwards, to give until he can be crowded against the nearest standing surface; or fight back and refuse to fold.
The answer is obvious. Rashoumon reaches out behind him, sinking into the ship and making it that much harder for Akutagawa to lose ground. Atsushi pulls back, eyes bright, and moves so fast even Akutagawa has trouble tracking him for a brief second. He spins around Akutagawa's body to land a hit on Rashoumon, claws extending, his ability to cut through other abilities warping Rashoumon until Akutagawa is forced to take a staggering step back to support himself. Then Atsushi is on Akutagawa, pouncing him like an overgrown housecat and sitting, triumphantly, on his hips, when Akutagawa manages to wheeze breath back into his lungs.
Atsushi sits there for a brief moment, hand splayed on Akutagawa's chest. He does have a tail out behind him, swishing back and forth, and all Akutagawa can think is that all of that interest is turned on him and he's hardly ready for it. All of Atsushi's attention is focused into a laser pointed at Akutagawa, and it makes Akutagawa's newly recovered breath stutter back out of his lungs as he reaches up, hands shaking.
He doesn't know what he's reaching for, not really, but it doesn't matter, because Atsushi seems to have very clear ideas about what's going to happen. His hands lace through Akutagawa's, fingers crossing fingers, and he presses Akutagawa's hands back as he leans in to kiss him again. It's still a hot, hungry heat against Akutagawa, but there's something satisfied in the way Atsushi is leaning into him, long strands of his hair tickling down Akutagawa's cheek.
Akutagawa's hands flex, almost automatically: there's nothing for him to do with his hands and nowhere to go. There's the reflex to run, the situation unknown and overwhelming, but after a long moment, he simply curls his fingers down around Atsushi's, and Atsushi makes a pleased rumble in his chest that's an almost-purr.
Akutagawa usually has a firm grasp of time, but he can't begin to try and judge how much time passes like that, with Atsushi spread on top of him. He can tell that time is progressing, because Atsushi moves from kissing him to biting a line of sharp bruises down the side of his neck, along his collarbone. Rashoumon parts for Atsushi willingly, without needing to be fought into it, and Akutagawa can feel the submission in that act alone, a heavy taste in the back of his throat that makes him grip harder onto Atsushi's hands.
Atsushi finally pulls away. It's either five minutes or an eternity stretched out between them – Akutagawa can't tell. All the signs of time are rendered confusing in light of the adrenaline that's gone from coursing through him for a fight to lazily keeping the fever in his cheeks; his pulse pounds, but not with desperation but with desire.
"We should probably go," Atsushi says, and he sounds a little mournful about it. The tip of his tail curls, slipping down and sliding between Akutagawa's back and the metal of the floor.
"What?" Akutagawa says, his mind skipping over the meaning behind Atsushi's words. It keeps replaying everything on loop: the swollen feeling of his own lips where Atsushi had bit them; the heat that seems to be setting his veins ablaze; the way his focus has narrowed to nothing but Atsushi.
"Well," Atsushi says, and he's pushing himself up, regretfully, without removing his hands fully from Akutagawa's. Akutagawa is dragged along with the motion, pulled until he's sitting upright. "You end most fights pretty quickly… so we should probably go, before anyone gets suspicious."
"Suspicious," Akutagawa repeats, and then – most damningly of all – feels himself flush like a child. It feels a bit late, but he can't help but look down at their hands. He tugs at them as he stands, but Atsushi just laughs, following Akutagawa for a final kiss, this one light. A promise instead of a declaration of intent.
"After we both talk to our bosses," Atsushi says, "can I come over?"
"Yes," Akutagawa says, before he can stop himself, and then, as if there's any hope of covering for anything, blurts: "Why?"
"You might be injured," Atsushi says, with a smile that makes his eyes too dazzling to look at. He seems unwilling to let their hands go just yet, so he just leans up onto his toes, brushes the tip of his nose just under the scratch to Akutagawa's cheek. "What if there's more where that came from?"
"There are," Akutagawa says, too quickly. It isn't a lie, but he also doesn't need Atsushi there to put a few band-aids on his minor injuries. "There – might be some on you that haven't healed yet, too."
"There might be," Atsushi says. His hands squeeze Akutagawa's one last time before he takes a step back. "We'll have to check."
They turn: Akutagawa misses the boat when he jumps, in a way that no one can prove was on purpose. Thankfully, no one questions him, as he resurfaces and clambers, wet and considerably more chilled, onto the surface of Oda's rescue boat.
It helps with the heat in his cheeks, even if it does nothing to disguise the marks on his neck.
Akutagawa's never been one to hide evidence of a fight, after all.