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The mission was meant to be simple, straightforward. But it’s them, together, and nothing has ever been straightforward for them even when it is.
A shapeshifter, Ranpo said. Succubus, Dazai claimed as he draped himself dramatically across the desk. Ability, Kunikida snapped, file flung into Dazai’s face. “It’s not human, as far as we can tell. It’s an ability that seems to take on the shape of someone with… ah. Someone you regard highly, and uses that form as a lure. That’s how it feeds, apparently. Drains people and leaves them in a state similar to a coma for weeks on end. We’re not entirely sure how that translates to the person wielding the ability, but for your mission it’s not important anyway. All you need to do is eliminate the shapeshifting thing. We’ll deal with the ability user.”
“Feeds?”
“Feeds,” Dazai echoed, batting the papers from his face to waggle his eyebrows at Atsushi. “You like helping with that, don’t you?”
Kunikida picked up the files to throw them at Dazai a second time.
“Strong emotions,” Ranpo said around his lollipop with a wrinkle of his nose. “Love, lust, longing. Gross.”
Atsushi gathered up the papers from the table and the floor rather than look anyone in the eye. “Why me, then,” he asked, soft and uncertain. “I mean, longing, right?”
That’s all he is, really. Longing trapped inside skin and bones.
“You’re safest,” Kunikida answered, already moving on to the next bullet point on his list. “Your longing is more along the lines of trying new things and being normal. That’s not the same, it’s not going to take a human shape.”
But Atsushi caught the way both Ranpo and Dazai went still; gazes averted and fingers curled into their palms. He hadn’t been brave enough to ask who they thought the shifter would show them. Hadn’t been brave enough to admit he already knew.
Hadn’t wanted to admit why his own heart thundered so loudly behind his ribs.
It goes wrong the moment Atsushi finds Akutagawa waiting for him in the ryokan. It’s painfully upscale and spacious—large enough for one big onsen on the balcony and a smaller one tucked inside.
Two weeks, they’ve been given. Two weeks living out of one another’s pockets, sleeping in adjacent beds. Two weeks of tiptoeing around each other, two weeks of sneaking in a soak alone and pretending it doesn’t hurt when Akutagawa never joins, never looks. Two weeks of ignoring how often Atsushi can’t look anywhere else.
Two weeks to catch a creature that changes shape and eats the things leaking freely from Atsushi’s heart.
It takes two minutes of Akutagawa ignoring him for Atsushi to admit he’s not the hunter here. He’s the bait.
Two hours in and Akutagawa storms out. Two hours more and he slinks back, softer but no less distant. Two days and they find a rhythm, their banter almost what it was before.
Before Akutagawa died. Before he came back with fangs and claws and a body that needed more than food.
Before Atsushi pulled him into his room and tilted his head back and let Akutagawa take as much as he wanted. Before he was naked and they were tangled together on the floor, Akutagawa inside him in more ways than Atsushi could count, in every way Akutagawa could manage, desperate and dizzy with it. Before Atsushi woke just in time to watch Akutagawa hesitate by the door. Before Akutagawa left.
Before Akutagawa didn’t come back.
Atsushi lies awake in the small hours of the morning, the only time Akutagawa sleeps, and watches how the moon kisses his cheekbones. He rests on his side, hands curled loosely by his face. Some nights it feels like he’s reaching, that maybe if Atsushi slipped his fingers into place Akutagawa would hold on tight. Pull him in.
Atsushi bleeds. He wanders the grounds at Akutagawa’s side and leaves a trail that must smell as sweet as Akutagawa’s tea. Their hands brush and the ache in his chest might be enough to feed the creature to bursting, simply from taking his seat once he stands. Surely that’s why it never makes a move. Atsushi’s spilling so much into the air just watching Akutagawa watch the stars that there’s no need to take anyone’s shape at all.
Atsushi’s blood and Atsushi’s hurt, he’s so many meals wrapped into one tiger-striped package but Akutagawa eats alone, quick neat bites that never quite finish his plate. Akutagawa slips away but never carries the faint tang of iron and copper when he returns. The hollows under his eyes grow darker and his skin somehow more pale.
“You fucking idiot,” Atsushi snarls when it clicks, far later than it should’ve. Akutagawa draws himself up, a sneer already blooming as Atsushi shoves him around the corner and deeper into the darkness.
Rashomon snakes up the fist Atsushi twists in Akutagawa’s shirt, overtaking his arm to the shoulder. She slips along his pulse like lace.
“You’re hungry,” he hisses, trembling with the hurt and the not-quite-anger. Akutagawa goes still, wide-eyed, Rashomon curling across Atsushi’s chest and down his ribs. “I’m right here, and you still won’t ask?”
Akutagawa’s blank-faced as Atsushi shakes him. “Why,” he asks, too wobbly to be the demand he wants. “Why won’t you ask me?”
“Why would you want me to?”
Atsushi bites into his arm to muffle the scream. Rashomon protects him from himself, coating his fangs and his sleeve, pulling his arm away.
Atsushi laughs. It’s bitter and soft and he’s made so many wretched sounds in his equally wretched life but this feels like watching his heart disintegrate before his eyes.
You like helping with that, don’t you?
When he gets home, he’s going to set Dazai’s futon on fire.
“You’re so fucking stupid,” he says, exhausted as he unbuttons his shirt to bare his collarbones. “If you won’t ask, then fine, whatever. Just eat, Akutagawa.”
Akutagawa makes a sound, low and dark. His fangs inch over his lip even as he pivots and slams Atsushi back-first into the building. “How can you offer me this,” he hisses, Rashomon tight around Atsushi’s wrists as Akutagawa crowds in.
“Are you telling me you don’t want it?”
Crimson floods Akutagawa’s eyes. He swallows, thick, as his hands come up to cradle Atsushi’s jaw. “Why,” he says slowly, softly, “are you so difficult?”
Atsushi doesn’t have to answer. Akutagawa’s mouth fits perfectly to his throat, tongue mapping the skin, teeth slipping inside, holding him open, pouring him over that tongue and down Akutagawa’s throat with every shuddering pulse of Atsushi’s traitorous heart.
His head falls back further, hands coming up to hold Akutagawa in place, to clutch at the fabric between his shoulder blades. It’s a sugary heat, tingling through him in a rush, leaving him loose and needy. He’s whining into the night, Akutagawa’s fingers splayed over his mouth as he drinks, long digits pressing between his teeth to rest on his tongue.
Atsushi licks, suckles them. Akutagawa groans into his throat.
“Yeah, take it, c’mon,” Atsushi manages around the fingers filling his mouth.
But Akutagawa’s pulling back with a gasp. He’s crushing Atsushi between his chest and the building, mouth red as he pants, as he grabs Atsushi by the face with both hands.
“Take it,” he seethes, low and furious. “You want me to take it?”
His mouth slams into Atsushi’s. His tongue replaces his fingers.
Atsushi’s limbs are sluggish but no less strong as he wraps himself around Akutagawa. Rashomon covers them, clinging, holding them together. The kiss begins as viciously as any of their fights, teeth clashing before Akutagawa makes a sound that settles in Atsushi’s chest. He allows himself to be soothed with longer, slower kisses, Akutagawa swallowing every noise before they can spill into the air between them.
Akutagawa’s pressed so tightly between his thighs, sharp hips digging in, the hard line of his cock enough to make Atsushi whine again.
“Knew you wanted it,” Atsushi mumbles. The hair under his fingers is thick, the perfect length to catch between his knuckles. He pulls and Akutagawa gasps. “Such a good boy for me.”
Akutagawa freezes.
He steps back, once, twice, leaving Atsushi to scrabble against the wood on legs that barely remember how to stand. “Akutagawa,” he starts, baffled, hurt unspooling through his veins. His blood cools on his throat, Akutagawa smeared across his mouth.
“You should go,” Akutagawa says. His voice is rough but scraped clean, blank, cutting Atsushi out again.
“Go,” Atsushi echoes. The door clicks softly behind Akutagawa in his memory, and no matter how often he lies awake and waits, it will never click open. He scrubs at his mouth and can’t stop the hateful way he says, “I should go? Fuck you. Couldn’t even wait for me to be unconscious before changing your mind this time, huh?”
“I have no interest in being a cat’s plaything,” Akutagawa says, violence in every deliberate curl of his mouth.
It’s so absurd Atsushi laughs. “If anyone’s treating you like a plaything it’s—“
The blow snaps his head to the side. He closes his eyes. Works his jaw and chews down the need to lash out, to keep making it worse. Takes a breath and walks away, leaving behind enough of himself to feed a city.
He slinks back to the room, their room, where it smells like Akutagawa no matter where Atsushi is.
Akutagawa’s beaten him there.
It’s not him. It can’t be him, not when Atsushi left him outside, furious and hurt, with Atsushi’s blood still on his teeth. It can’t be him, because Akutagawa will never look at him like this, like he’s pleased, like Atsushi’s wanted, like Akutagawa’s starving, like he needs Atsushi—but Akutagawa stands opposite, yearning clear on his beautiful face, coat discarded.
That alone ought to have made Atsushi’s fur stand on end but this version of Akutagawa says his nickname so softly, so tenderly. This Akutagawa holds out his hand, gaze dark and beseeching as he gives a stiff apology, and Atsushi’s eyes are wet.
He takes his hand. He allows himself to be bundled in against this Akutagawa’s chest and cradled in his arms.
It’s not him, Akutagawa, it isn’t, but he smells almost the same: Akutagawa’s favorite teas, the jasmine and hojicha and figs, the old parchment and fading ink and the soured wash of arousal. All that’s missing is the lingering copper of Atsushi’s blood on his breath.
Atsushi is weak, selfish. He aches and he wants, and he lets himself pretend for just this moment that the creature holding him like he’s wanted is Akutagawa.
This Akutagawa nuzzles into his temple, leaving a kiss that burns. This Akutagawa puts two fingers beneath Atsushi’s chin and guides him up for a kiss that makes his knees as watery as his eyes.
Love. There’s so much love in this kiss that isn’t his. It’s right in all the wrong ways, a mockery he can’t give up.
He can feel himself growing weaker, shakier, the thing wearing Akutagawa’s face feeding from him, using him, same as the vampire himself had only a few minutes gone.
And Atsushi allows it, because in the end that’s all he’s allowed, isn’t it?
The kiss breaks. This version of Akutagawa rumbles soothingly, stroking Atsushi’s hair when he’s too weak to keep his head up.
“I could love you,” he admits quietly into the liar’s throat. “I don’t know that I’d be any good at it, and I know he doesn’t want me to. But I could start so easy. I think about it every time he looks at me.”
The Akutagawa holding him shifts, craning to find Atsushi’s face. “He?”
“Him,” Atsushi says, refusing to move from the curve of his throat. “I think, honestly, that it’s always been him. Couldn’t ever be anyone else but him.”
His claws grow through ribs that aren’t Akutagawa’s.
“I get why people let you drain them dry now. I’d let him, if he asked. He’ll never ask. But you…”
Blood runs hot over his paws, matting his fur as the man who is not Akutagawa jerks and wheezes in his hold.
“You’re not him.”
The borrowed mouth beside his ear gasps, blood bubbling up, splattering against Atsushi’s cheek.
Behind him. There’s a click. Akutagawa’s voice is tight, dangerous, “Jinko!”
Atsushi doesn’t turn. He can’t bear to see the indifference, not after learning the way affection could sit so sweetly in Akutagawa’s mouth.
The Akutagawa behind him pads closer. He hesitates as the Akutagawa in Atsushi’s arms struggles.
A hand curls over Atsushi’s shoulder. The angle’s wrong, but that’s because Atsushi’s on his knees and he doesn’t know how he got there. Not-Akutagawa is in his lap, impaled on his claws, gasping for air and scratching weakly at Atsushi’s sleeves, and Atsushi—
Atsushi—
Atsushi’s looking at his—no. Not his, never his, he’s made that clear, but the real one, the only one that matters, Atsushi’s staring at his boots.
The ribs beneath his paws are shifting, rippling, bones grinding against the claws still buried around a slowing heart.
“Jinko,” Akutagawa rasps above him. The tone is strange, soft but wrecked in a way Akutagawa never allows. The grip on his shoulder goes too tight, vampiric claws biting into the skin in a mockery of the short swords Atsushi has in the double’s chest. “Jinko. Look at me.”
Atsushi looks.
Akutagawa’s face is wrong. His eyes are wide, mouth crumpled up like wet paper. He’s shattered, broken open, bleeding, staring down at Atsushi like he’s the one dying in Atsushi’s lap.
Akutagawa’s gaze darts to the body Atsushi’s keeping pinned, a flash of shadow that hardly registers. But the flinch around his eyes snaps Atsushi’s head down.
His claws are buried to the wrist in his own chest. Blood pours from his opened mouth. His eyes are so purple and his shirt is so red. Atsushi’s claws flex, sliding deeper, scraping against the scapula from inside. The Atsushi in his lap gurgles, blood flowing from his mouth to stain his skin, his hair. Atsushi’s hurt spills from the body’s lips, Atsushi’s hands reach up, shaking, as he cries, begs, for Akutagawa.
Akutagawa’s breathing hitches. He drops heavily beside him, them, Atsushi and the Atsushi he’s killing. Tears shine in Akutagawa’s eyes as Atsushi stares.
Akutagawa reaches out.
But not for the Atsushi clinging to his coat. Not for the Atsushi dying on the floor. He reaches for the Atsushi he left, the Atsushi he sent away, the Atsushi he shut out.
His hands settle on Atsushi’s cheeks, as they had outside. They slide down his throat and over his arms until he can wrap long fingers around Atsushi’s bloody wrists. Slowly, slowly, he pulls Atsushi from the ruins of himself.
“Enough, Jinko,” Akutagawa murmurs as he brings gory hands up to his face. Blood smears over his mouth and cheek as he presses a kiss to Atsushi’s paws. His tongue darts out over a velvety pad.
“It doesn’t taste like you,” Akutagawa notes, and Atsushi’s lungs stopped working so long ago the world is hazy and thin.
Rashomon swirls around them as Akutagawa leans in, cupping the back of Atsushi’s head. He pries open Atsushi’s mouth, sharing the strange taste on his tongue and replacing it with himself, forcing in air and words Atsushi doesn’t understand.
Atsushi kisses back, starved.
When it breaks, Akutagawa doesn’t retreat. He nuzzles into Atsushi’s temple, covering the imposter’s kiss with his own. “It turned into me,” he says, gravelly and lost. “Me.”
Atsushi nods, and Akutagawa’s exhale is uneven. “It took on my face, and you let it hurt you.”
Atsushi nods again. Akutagawa kisses him so furiously Atsushi can only stare, mute, when he stops.
“I’m calling someone to deal with this,” a tilt of his head indicates the mostly unconscious body strewn between them. It’s a strange combination of their features, all shades of white and black and gray with a single purple eye. Rashomon shifts, shielding the creature’s face from Atsushi’s gaze.
Akutagawa shifts too, standing only to pull Atsushi up onto his knees by his chin. “When your words return, Jinko, I need to hear it.” His eyes dart over Atsushi’s face, intent. “I need you to say it to me. I need you to mean it.”
“Come back this time,” Atsushi croaks, human hands tangling in Akutagawa’s coat. “And I’ll tell you ‘til you believe it.”
Akutagawa’s inhale is loud. He bends further, fingers insistent, stretching Atsushi up for another kiss that leaves Atsushi drunk and weeping. Then he’s gone and the door is shushing closed behind him.
Atsushi can’t breathe. He can’t move. He sits on his heels in the spreading bloodstain, the blood he spilled, the blood he clawed out of a chest that looked like Akutagawa’s, like himself. It’s in his hair and soaked into his pants, clinging cold and wet to his skin.
He has no idea how long he’s stared at the ruined carpet before the door opens.
Akutagawa came back.
He came back.
Akutagawa says nothing as he slips Atsushi’s arm over his shoulder and has Rashomon help him get to his feet. Akutagawa says nothing as he guides Atsushi into the bathroom and strips him with efficient hands, but he hums softly when Atsushi gasps under the spray. His hands are gentle as he scrubs Atsushi clean. And then he steps away, fingers flexing at his sides, water dripping from his hair.
Akutagawa stares at Atsushi, eyes restless. He nods once, bracing. His hands fly over his own clothes.
He stands in front of Atsushi in only his shirt and holds out a hand.
Atsushi stares, uncomprehending.
Akutagawa sighs. “Atsushi,” he says. “Come here?”
Atsushi takes his hand. He’s hauled up to his feet, and then Akutagawa is behind him, herding him carefully into the onsen. Akutagawa climbs in first, legs long and bare as he tugs Atsushi in after him, arranging him in Akutagawa’s lap.
They sit in silence, pressed tight together. Atsushi drifts, nose pressed into Akutagawa’s pulse.
When Atsushi feels halfway human, Akutagawa says, quiet, “You wanted me to ask. But I don’t know what you want me to ask. Tell me what you want.”
“This,” Atsushi mumbles. “You.”
The hands holding him close dig in.
“The creature took on my shape,” Akutagawa says again. “You…” he subsides with a confused sound, thinking.
“Looked like me for you,” Atsushi says, petulant even as he allows the truth of that statement to sink into his bones.
“Yes. It did. There’s no one else it could have been.”
“Take me home,” Atsushi decides, because they’re allowed more than this. “Take me home and make me believe it, too.”
Akutagawa inhales sharply. “If I take you home with me, Atsushi, it’s to keep you.”
Atsushi sighs. His arms are heavy as he moves, slinging them around Akutagawa’s neck. He offers his mouth, and Akutagawa’s kiss is gentle, lingering, overflowing with love in all the right ways as it patches Atsushi’s heart back together.
“Good. Take me home.”