The first time you pushed your body too far in front of Akutagawa, you threw up behind a dumpster afterward.

You were 18, with quivering limbs holding your kneeling body on the ground amidst gasps for air between the gags.

Whatever you had for breakfast, or lack thereof, was stomach bile splattered against concrete now.

There’s a familiar lightness of the head you get after puking as a response to limited flow of oxygen to the brain. It’s quite airy, and the shake of your limbs feels like nothing even despite the way it never relents.

It’s a survival reflex. Your body is trying to keep itself alive from a danger it doesn’t even know is from your own hands. You’re sputtering out vomit-tinged saliva from the back of your throat while your arm drips a red waterfall.

Akutagawa’s hand was set firmly against your back. A bit hesitant in the beginning, but there nevertheless. He didn’t say a word, and he barely seemed disgusted by the way you soiled your blouse. It was embarrassingly vulnerable to be kneeling, puking your guts out with him quietly beside you. A situation you knew would hang heavy on both of your consciences, but never spoken out loud. Only thought about, and to pendulum back and forth in the air like something begging to be named.

The last time you pushed your body too far in front of Akutagawa, you were still feeling the effects the next day.

There’s only so much comfort one can find in bed while wrapped in bandages. Too much pressure on your arms resulted in the familiar, nettling pain of reopened wounds. A bit stiffly, you found an awkward position on your back, propped up on a crowd of pillows sitting against the frame. It wasn’t the nicest posture to hold yourself in, but you required rest, and things aren’t always so easy.

The memory of what put you in your current condition is a bit of a blur now. It holds weight in your mind, still freshly nestled there, but smudged around the edges of where details usually come.

It was an ambush again, clearing out the base of a crime operative in the slums, one that was beginning to get too ballsy with Mafia turf. You did your job, covered the blind spots, stepped on the enemy’s toes just enough to give Akutagawa the space to wipe them out.

They were smart, though. Working under the power of an ability that heightened mutual coordination as a team. You needed the power of your bloodshed, and enough of it to outsmart their artificial synergy to make sure you were accurately supporting Akutagawa from the front lines.

If not, you risk putting him in danger. And even worse, disappointing him.

The irrational fear of letting him down seemed to plague you sometimes. The mere idea of losing the trust you spent all these years gaining in him felt like twisting a knife through your abdomen. The truth you hate to admit is that, when everything else blurs into the background, the only thing you have is your partnership with him. He is the constant that you’ve built your life around, and you shed your blood to aid his operation in battle. As for himself, he uses your insight as a way to aid you.

Akutagawa trusts you. He saw strength in you. He sees you as something useful, and worthwhile even beyond his own partnership with you. Losing that means losing the only connection you’ve had to anything.

There are distinct footsteps that grow closer outside, and then knock at the door, and then a pause.

“Yes?” You answer weakly.

The door opens to reveal Akutagawa peering in, a white paper bag clutched in his hand, while the other is slipped into his pockets and following quite loyally to his languid presence he’s presented you with.

“Hello, I’ve brought you medicine.”

There’s a flash of contentment at the sight of him, which is quickly smothered by feeling quite bashful to further consideration.

You are sprawled out in bed, with unbrushed hair, deprived of a shower for days now, and the scantiest pajamas you could find—as you found layers against the bandages quite uncomfortable. Your soft cotton pajama shorts are embarrassingly short, and the matching tank top seems to cling to your body in the worst way possible now.

Before, the skin left uncovered felt comfortable, but now it just feels wrong. Akutagawa is your co-worker, and he doesn’t usually see you in such vulnerable clothing. Well, except for the few times he has. Those still aren’t ever spoken of.

“Ah…” you say alongside a sheepish chuckle. “I apologize for my improper state. I wasn’t expecting visitors.”

Akutagawa doesn’t pay much attention to your comment, and instead steps further into your room. He opts to stand beside your bedridden body, looking over at you with his familiarly monotone expression.

“I have shiunko ointment for you.” He says plainly, retrieving the small pot of ointment from the paper bag.

He’s done this a few times now, and it’s strangely considerate coming from him. Something you wouldn’t really expect from him at all, and searching for an answer in that only leads you to more questions. Maybe he just values maintaining your usual workplace schedule. He’s quite the competent man, after all. Though it’s still a bit overwritten to get to this point, you still can’t say you mind.

“Thank you, Ryūnosuke…” you say, returning his observing eyes with an incredibly heartfelt look on your face.

And it’s an honest one. You are extremely grateful for the kind gesture, and even more grateful to even be able to be considered by him so thoughtfully.

“That’s very considerate. You didn’t have to.”

He seems unamused by how little it takes to flatter you, observing you with elegant eyes.

“Doctor’s orders, and you don’t seem to worry about infection as much as you should.” He says back matter-of-factly, with a tinge of condescension. “When was the last time you changed those bandages?”

He gestures to the now dirtied bandages that creep up both your arms, entirely covering any skin that could be left to the open air. Brown blotches of old blood paint the white cotton, proving your carelessness.

“I haven’t changed them yet,”

Akutagawa heedlessly takes a seat beside you on the bed and begins to carefully open the container of ointment, dipping about three fingers in, and then rubbing it between his thumb. A thick, dark red-tinted jelly lacquers his fingers now as he gestures a nod, a semblance of an order.

“Remove your bandages.”

The order, as simple as it is, finds a sneaky way to leave you breathless as you blink at him.

Is he going to handle your wounds? Now? After showing up unannounced. It’s not that you find it rude, it’s just so unnatural for him to suddenly be so warm. The alcohol from your night at the bar must have really gotten to him. Or maybe it was that strange, never-ending warmth that engulfed the both of you while he walked you home. That had to have meant as much to him as it did you, if he can do this now.

You blink away the thoughts and begin to unravel your dirtied bandages from both your arms. They unwind around and around, unwrapping from your limbs like roots grown around trees.

The wounds that are revealed under them are as gnarly as you expected them to be. Darkened, caked-up scabs of blood litter your gashes, dark brown stains of blood smearing across the little amount of unwounded skin you have left on your arm. The sight is enough to make you grimace, if only for a second. Maybe it’s the way it looks so squalid, or the fact that it’s your arm attached to a body that barely feels like your own.

Akutagawa doesn’t flinch, he merely grabs your wrist and pulls it closer to him. He takes a moment to assess the damage with a contemplative hum before gently bringing his shiunko-coated fingers to your wounds.

It stings at first, sending your stomach caving in to sharply inhale air through your gritted teeth. It’s a foreign, nettling touch against the burn of healing wounds. His hands clasped around your wrist tighten, an instinctual gentle shush leaving his lips.

And against your doubts, it works like a charm. The firm grasp of your wrist he has is enough to anchor you to the strange feeling you’ve found yourself in. An incredibly tender feeling brews in your chest now, watching Akutagawa carefully rub ointment into your wounds while he gently shushes you—like you’re some kind of beloved pet he’s aiding back to health.

You like it. That’s incredibly embarrassing.

He’s shut you up completely, leaving you breathless while your eyes follow his fingers against your unsightly wounds.

Afternoon sun streams through the open window in beams, casting upon Akutagawa and your wrist in his hands. Dust wafts through the air, glittering in the light. You are just about awestruck now, as if to be completely entranced by the sight.

But Akutagawa seems to pay you no mind. He’s too focused on completing his precise work.

“It hurts,” you mumble out absentmindedly, still watching his fingers run against the half-opened scabs.

“I’m sure.” He shoots back, not bothering to take his eyes from your wrist beneath his fingertips.

It’s a bit of a sassy comment, even with his unfaltering tone of voice. Enough to make your brows furrow together with the slightest little pout on your face. It’s unlike him to take up such tender badinage, but you quite like it. Being taken care of is an unfamiliar feeling and you didn’t ever expect to buckle at the knees for it so quickly.

Maybe the soft underbelly of your spirit secretly hopes for tender moments with someone; whoever it may be. Or maybe the only reason you can be caught off guard so easily is that it’s Akutagawa.

Akutagawa’s fingertips rise from your arm, moving to retrieve the bandages on your nightstand. He seems to do his diligent work as if you are more of a cadaver under his hand than an actual person. He pays no mind to your poorly stifled whines of pain, or at least not enough to catch a glimpse of your expression. Instead, he works quietly, ensuring the bandages are perfectly wrapped up and down your wrists.

From the first time he ever dressed your wounds to now, he’s gotten quite good at it. He moves with a certain precision that you can only chalk up to some sort of practice or research he’s done on his own terms. By exactly what means he’d learn this from, and exactly how long the trial and error took? You don’t know, but you’d presume that was intentional.

Akutagawa was a very reserved man himself; having you know of the time he would take out of his own day to aid you was not ever something he would so carelessly reveal. His reasoning for this is ultimately cheap excuses: Formality. Decorum.

In reality, it’s just insecurity hidden beneath a thin veneer. The skewed mindset of believing that revealing his softer intentions would be nothing but weakness. He opts not to make a fuss. He likes very much how you choose to do the same.

That is one thing he can easily say he likes about you—your grace. You hold yourself with consistent composure. You do not poke or prod along the outskirts of your hard-to-name relationship. You observe it all, his intricacies to your responses, his hidden willingness, and take it in your hands with the utmost maturity. Mannerly, you return it.

He’s finished his wrappings now, but he doesn’t retract his hands away immediately.

Idly, Akutagawa runs a careful hand over your wrist, feeling the work he’s completed. Soft cotton under calloused fingertips. The supple skin beneath the bandages aches, caught somewhere between the hum of pain and want of skin-ship. It’s nearly impossible to differentiate the two when they both burn all the same.

Flashes of heat will ripple against the surface of your raw skin, quietly asking for something more.

His hand finally drops, returning back to his person. The room is still filled with that familiar silence you both have grown to find comfort in. You’ve seen too much of each other to see it any other way now.

You read the quiet with a sigh, adjusting in your bed while his gaze wanders off to the floor. His pallid hands are sitting politely on each of his knees, and he’s thinking about nothing in particular.

“I suppose I should get going.”

You thought he’d say that eventually. It seemed for just a second he was delaying it, but it’s bubbled to the surface.

Akutagawa sighs when he says it, rising from his seat on the bed and turning his body to face you lying there.

You’re caught off guard by his sudden farewell. Just a second ago he was running his hand down your wrist, and now he’s rising from his seat to depart.

It’s routine, isn’t it? There’s no way he would stay. He’s never stayed. Akutagawa lingers for a while until the vulnerability scares him away again. You both get so close to something, something so palpable, until the dreaded moment it skirts away again.

Lying in this bed in a mess of bloodied bandages and with a relentless fatigue from the blood-sickness, a stranger feeling plagues you. It feels like desperation, even over something so simple. You aren’t in your right mind now, the pain meds have put you in a haze that just barely fogs up the glass of your vision.

Though Akutagawa clearly burns through the haze, strangely so.

What could you risk choosing weakness over insensitivity? Your coveted role in a partnership with Akutagawa, perhaps. Watching him get paired with someone else would kill you; shoving Higuchi beside him to fill the holes you left.

Or maybe you risk losing the respect of your fellow members. Devolving to such perishable desires in a company that fights to keep the city together from the underground. Shouldn’t you be more calloused by now?

Akutagawa takes your silence as a response, giving you one last departing look before he heads slowly for the door. As he does, he takes his few moments to observe the smaller details of your bedroom. Clothes perched against chairs, books scattered against desks. Pictures on the walls.

His hand meets the door he will exit through, but he pauses. Akutagawa lingers there for a long moment, looking from the hallway back to you on the bed.

The grace he usually holds in his expression is still there. Like a spirit, he hovers by the exit, caught between staying and vanishing.

“Well…” he sighs out, holding your gaze from across the room, “Goodbye.”

Dazai would laugh in your face about all of this, probably.

That alone is enough to push you over the edge through the drugged haze you currently wisp in. Spite has special ways of helping desperate causes in times of need.

“Ryūnosuke, I…“Your voice fails you for a second before you can finish.

He pauses in his steps, halfway out the door now. His back is facing you while he overlooks the hallway in front of him. No words are leaving his mouth yet, he’s only listening. Maybe awaiting something, although it’s hard to tell.

“I don’t have any friends, or family. I just have this company—or our partnership.” You begin, observing your hands that rest in your lap.

It’s hard to look up at Akutagawa lingering in the doorway. His presence is a demanding force.

“When I’m ill like this, you’re the only person I see for days,”

The point has lost you entirely now. It’s beginning to sound like tenderhearted nonsense, mumbling about nothing in particular.

“Just stay a little longer, alright? So I don’t go insane, locked in this goddamn room alone.”

You sound angry at nothing, or yourself. Rushing out your words with a sharp edge while you whip your head up to see Akutagawa at the door. Your hands are still caught in your lap, but clasped tightly around each other now. Knuckles blanch in the grip, trying to find some semblance of release from the pressure.

Nothing is as grounding as Akutagawa’s fingers hooked around your wrist.

He finally turns around. Slow, footsteps thumping against the hardwood floor. It’s a light and deliberate motion, and in your drugged-up haze, it feels like the physical, low thump of a heartbeat. He stops himself at the foot of your bed, observing you there once more.

You are breathless now, trying to fight for clarity despite the disorientation that blurs the edges of everything.

“The meds have gotten to you.” He says blandly, “And your face is…”

Your eyebrows furrow at the strange hesitation in his last words, bringing a chaotic hand to touch your face.

It’s hot to the touch—no, burning. Is this a fever from your condition? Or is the room too hot?

You didn’t even notice your temperature until he pointed it out, meaning that oddly enough, the warmth felt normal.

“Do you need a doctor? Is your condition worsening?” Akutagawa asks, more serious now as he returns to your side with the slightest urgency.

You scoff, shaking your head adamantly and returning a hand to your lap.

He’s really done you in one. Maybe those pain meds were secretly aphrodisiacs.

“No!” You exclaim, “No. I’m okay.”

His brows push together, bringing his lips to a tight line. He’s incredibly confused by why his simple question has flustered you so badly. Akutagawa looks down at you on the bed beside him, bringing a thoughtless hand to your forehead.

He runs cool, you can say that confidently now. The cold of his hands against your burning forehead feels embarrassingly relieving. Maybe you are warm enough to aid his perpetual cool? The thought is simple enough to heat you more.

He hums a low sound, querying your condition to himself before his hand wisps away again.

Stupidly, and thoughtlessly your hand finds its way to catch his as he leaves. It’s chasing the cool that radiates from his body. Your hands move by themselves, seeking to satiate your overheating.

Shaking its way to wrap weak fingers around his own, just barely hanging onto the edges of them. He flinches at first, caught off guard by the sudden touch, but he doesn’t drop your hand.

“You’re so cold,” you hum out, bringing his hands closer. “Sit with me.”

The mixed-up daze from the painkillers buzzes in your head. The space that usually holds your brain feels exceptionally empty now, and the rush of euphoria is too hard to swat away.

You aren’t in your right mind currently. The meds have put you in a haze that makes you act in ways you wouldn’t usually. He is your partner, and it’s just as much his duty as it is yours to be there for a partner. That’s what Akutagawa tells himself as he takes a seat beside you on the bed.

You hum to yourself beside him, fluttering your eyes closed and then back open. You are finding comfort in his weight dipping in the mattress as he sits beside you.

The warmth of your sick body radiates beside him. It’s easier to feel now that he is closer, and impossible to ignore. It must be uncomfortable being plagued with such relentless heat. You feel like an oven running next to him. Some of the heat feels like his own apprehension to the situation, but it’s impossible to tell.

Sweat has begun to glisten at his forehead. Akutagawa wipes a hand across it, trying to shoo it away for good, but it only does so much. The thick, heavy fabric of his coat is beginning to feel like a prison.

Apprehensively, he begins to remove his coat. It slinks off his limbs, finding a place on a chair beside your bed while he neatly lays it there.

It’s unlike him to remove his coat at all, especially when it’s a medium for his ability. Despite his hesitation, he does.

That counts for something important between you. It means, miraculously, he can let his guard down the slightest bit. If only for a moment.

His figure brushes against your own, closer now without the thick layer of fabric his coat withheld. The thin blouse he wears makes it much easier to feel the pressure of you beside him, shoulder to shoulder; and he is so very cold.

“I remember when I saw you sick like this for the first time. It’s been a long time since then, hasn’t it?” Akutagawa says lightly.

His voice is tinged with an unfamiliar note of nostalgia, as if he’s flipping through all the memories you have shared like a photo book. All of the milestones. From the first moment he saw you, to the last. This glimpse of your flushed face, messy hair, and wrapped in bandages.

It’s a strangely earnest concept. Caring for someone in a way he isn’t familiar with.

He’s cared for someone, only once before. Gin, his sister. In quiet little ways, he cares for Gin; things that have naturally settled into their routine and how they have grown up together. It’s natural and intrinsic to their kinship.

You, on the other hand, are an entirely strange concept to Akutagawa. This care he feels for you is not innate to your relationship, but rather something he’s slowly grown to feel.

He didn’t feel this way at first. It was all unfeeling professionalism to him. You didn’t get in his way, and fought tooth and nail to perform consistently well. He respected that, he worked with it, but it wasn’t anything more.

But then he watched the way your body failed you that night. Your personal sacrifices made for deliberate actions. You held yourself till the very end, just long enough to watch the enemies hit the ground. You stumbled away, clattering to the ground but still somehow not cracking under the pressure. Even on the ground, covered in your own blood and vomit, you were relentless.

He acknowledged details in shocking clarity in that moment. Things he’s always known, but never had flash before him as it had then.

You’d never once tried to avoid your consequences or shift a burden onto anyone but you. Your ability required discipline, self-control, personal responsibility, and a willingness to accept consequences.

You suffered for a purpose that would break anyone else, but still somehow found a way to only chip away at the edges. The jagged edges of porcelain ceramic still held together.

Akutagawa would be willing to cut his fingertips on your sharp, fractured edges if it meant he could finger your wounds.

Caring for you is much more difficult than he’d like. This conflict he fights with is the avoidance of passion. He knows passion is an uncontrollable force that dictates one’s feelings.

“It has been a while… We’ve grown up so closely together.” You murmured back.

There is a soft smile on your lips as you join his fond recollection of the times you’ve shared together. You were so young back then, still fresh with humming meat exposed to the surface.

Akutagawa was a whole lot more mature than you were, to your naive little brain. He was like an unflinching force in a world constantly threatening to eat the two of you up. Never once did he let it.

He was something of your knight back then.

Akutagawa is smiling softly too now, just barely. Only enough for you to notice. Anybody else would chalk it up to his unusual aloof appearance.

This heat in his bones must be passion. It’s that familiar feeling that’s begun to routinely assault him since that day behind the dumpster two years ago.

Caring for someone. Passion.

Akutagawa turns the ideas over in his head like a coin. He isn’t sure what he’s decided about it yet.

“A lot has changed since then.”

You were walking out of a side door and down the side of the school building when you saw it.

Shuichi was slouched over, leaning against a brick wall beside the dumpster. It looked as though he had ducked away there to avoid the eyes of the few people still exiting, but it had proven not to work as expected.

His hat, unusually, was lying on the asphalt beside his kneeling form. He was holding a hand to his nose as blood continued to drip through his fingers anyway. There was a pained grimace on his usually soft expression.

"What happened?" you rushed out, quick footsteps hurrying over to his side.

Shuichi jolted upright for a moment as you knelt beside him. He wasn't expecting you to be there, and he certainly wasn't planning for you to see him like this.

"Ah..." he rasped from behind the hand pressed against his nose.

Closer to him now, you could get a better look. He looked completely out of it, far more than usual. His uniform blazer was unbuttoned, nearly slipping from his shoulder. The tie around his neck was loosened and dragged down to his chest. The usually clean white button-up paired with it was now stained with small splatters of dark red blood.

Shuichi's hair was in total disarray, completely disheveled. His bangs were uncharacteristically out of his face, pushed every which way. The blood from his busted lip dribbled ever so slightly down his chin.

"What the hell happened to you?" you asked again, this time sterner. "You look like hell."

"It's nothing. I'm fine." He rushed the words out, trying to wipe away the blood.

He dropped his hand, letting fresh drips stain his white shirt again. A light bruise had already begun to bloom around his left cheekbone, tinging into a faint dusting of purple against his pale skin.

You already knew what happened. Shuichi had run into his usual bullies again, and he had never once had the nerve to defend himself. He tried to act as though it was no big deal, but the bruises that blossomed against his paper-white skin were impossible to ignore. It was glaringly obvious, and it made you angry that he would even think to bluff.

"Why are you lying to me? I don't like that." You reprimanded him, vitriol slipping from your words like venom.

"I said it's no big deal." Shuichi shot back, a rare irritation threading through his voice.

That only pissed you off more. Who gave him the nerve to lie to you like that? He had always been obedient to your bossy demeanor, and he had no good reason to change his mind now, of all times.

Shuichi was stupidly insecure about you seeing him like this, and stupidly lashed out because of it. What he didn't know was that seeing him like this was so incredibly alluring to the urges you so shamefully try to suppress.

He was beginning to stumble back to his feet and grab his bag before you snatched his wrist. Your hand flew to him by itself, as though it was acting on instinct.

Shuichi's face twisted into a grimace, but you didn't loosen your grip.

His wrist felt so fragile beneath your touch, little more than skin and bone. He was so strangely frail, and it was painfully apparent now as the bone of his gaunt wrist dug into your palm. If using such little force was enough to stop him, you couldn't even imagine how much those boys had roughed him up.

Surprise painted his expression as his eyes darted from your fingers firmly wrapped around his wrist to your face.

"I don't like it when you're stubborn. Stop it." You chastised him, tugging him toward you only slightly.

"I-I'm sorry," he muttered immediately, completely breathless.

Shuichi folded into defeat, or perhaps into you, immediately. He was already ashamed that he had carelessly lashed out at you in the first place, and his continued defiance didn’t help his case. The blush that crept up his cheeks seemed to find its way there all on its own.

He was closer now after the rough tug on his wrist. You were crouched at his level, holding his wrist while he remained on his knees in front of you, leaning toward the pull of your hand. Your face hovered in front of his own, watching his eyes frantically trace every detail of your features through a deepening flush.

"I forgive you, but you have to be good for me. Okay?"

Shuichi nodded, swallowing down a hard gulp of air. His Adam's apple slowly bobbed before settling again. You could feel his heavy breath against your face from here. It smelled faintly of copper.

"I will." He obeyed, his voice sodden with devotion. His eyebrows pulled ever so slightly together, an apologetic look resting on his face.

He looked so cute like this, desperate to satisfy you after so cruelly raising his voice at you of all people. As though you were an angel in his life, sweet enough to extend your unalloyed grace.

"Good job." You smiled softly, releasing his wrist and bringing a gentle hand to fix his hair back into place. Exactly where it always sat, and exactly how he liked it. You picked up the hat beside him and carefully settled it back atop his head. Shuichi held his breath, careful not to disturb your work.

"You're so obedient, Shuu-kun," you cooed softly, in his favorite tone of voice.

He hated how embarrassed that stupid nickname made him, so much that he had ended up loving it. He was drunk on the nerves eating him alive from the inside. The feeling was so palpable, so overwhelming, that it felt as though it could tear itself from his body. He would be left a gored mess of a corpse, and he hoped you'd enjoy it just as much as he would.

His eyes trailed away from yours, settling on the ground. An embarrassed pout sat on his face, but he didn't object. He always could. He never did, because Shuichi never wanted to.

You could always refrain from making the condescending comments you did, but you didn't want to, either.

For a little while, neither of you spoke.

Shuichi held his breath between wandering eyes and nicely flushed cheeks. You liked it so much. You wanted more. You wanted to see how far you could get.

A gentle finger moved to the split in his lip, the one still dribbling blood. You collected the beads of red carefully, letting them pool against your fingertip before slowly spilling down again.

He held completely still for a moment, as though he needed the pause to process what exactly you were doing. His eyes widened briefly, flicking from your fingertip back to your placid expression. They seemed to calm again at the sight. His chest fought for one last hurried breath before its rise and fall finally evened out.

Wordlessly, you brought the blood to your lips, past them and onto your tongue. It was sharply metallic at first, followed by the faintest trace of sweetness. Thick, coppery honey in little drips across your tongue. In the end, as it melted away, it left behind something almost savory.

Your eyes were glazed with the dim glow of infatuation. Through dazed, half-lidded eyes, you met the devotion in his own somewhere between the two of you. He was so quiet and so willing, blood still smeared across his face while tear-stained cheeks glittered beneath the late evening sun. The world was still again, only for the two of you.

"Do you like it?" he breathed out at last. His tone was raspy, escaping his throat in a desperate whisper. Awe had taken him by the throat and stolen him away from reality.

"Mmh." You nodded, slipping your finger from your mouth. Naturally, your sweet smile lingered.

Saihara liked that the most. The way you tease him so mercilessly with an angelic smile on your lips.

He liked how much you enjoyed pushing him until he couldn't bear any more of it. Even when the pressing discomfort of butterflies in his stomach begged for it to stop. If anything, he liked that feeling best, especially when he knew you did too.

Shuichi looked like a glass statue sitting there, shell-shocked from pain and wonder. Blood dripped down his face, pooling on his white shirt. He sat slack-jawed, putting his heavy breaths on pause simply to soak in the confusing weight of pure attraction. The pain in his face hadn't eased. It would continue throbbing long after the rush was gone. But the thrill had rendered him numb to everything except your touch.

Your hand graced the skin of his face. You wiped the blood from beneath his nose and from his chin. You didn't even flinch at the touch of blood that had disgustingly escaped his body. That little ghost of a smile still danced upon your lips.

Your body was so warm against his face, or maybe it was just his nerves making it feel like fire. He couldn't tell, but it burned so perfectly.

It made the aching pain violating his limbs feel almost sensual. He wanted more, and only from you. That was all he could think about; It clouded his vision like a drug.

Shuichi looked so pretty like this. His frailty was laid bare before you while he sat splayed out like a painting meant only for your eyes.

You could feel the weakness in every detail of his landscape. Lips slightly parted. Slack-jawed. Eyes clouded with nothing but reverence. Blood-stained clothes in complete disorder. A blazer on the verge of slipping from his thin frame. His collarbones exposed through his shirt. That all-too-familiar rattled blush on the apples of his cheeks.

Shuichi was in pain, and he looked perfect.

He was posed there like art for you to relish in the beauty of. Shuichi was wide open and raw, presenting himself to you so sweetly. He was deserving. It was exhilarating how desperately he threw himself at your feet to please you.

"[Name]?" Shuichi rasped out.

The name escaped him more as an excuse to say it than any genuine attempt to get your attention.

You presumed your silence, and the intensity with which you observed the pathetic image before you had put him on edge. He was incredibly embarrassed to have you see him like this, but he liked the hot rush of discomfort.

Your fingers found his wrist again, wrapping around it once more. It was a gentler hold this time, and nowhere near as rough or careless as before. You held him there tenderly, simply to feel the way his perpetually cold skin slowly warmed beneath your touch.

"You're the nicest to me, Shuu-kun. Even when I'm nasty to you." Your eyes fluttered shut in a warm, delighted smile.

Shuichi's lips pressed into a thin line. His gaze drifted down to your hand wrapped around his wrist, then back up to your face.

Finally, he smiled. It was a shy smile, but sweet nonetheless.

You could ruin him right here if you wanted to. Pierce through his discomfort with your words while tugging cruelly at his wrist, as though he were nothing more than a doll for you to play with and discard afterward. You could leave him beside the dumpster in tears.

But you wouldn't. You liked how sweet he became when you were considerate after indulging in your impulses. It reminded you of a little puppy crawling back for more affection.

You liked him too much to abandon him, even when that vulnerability felt like a knife twisting in your stomach.

Shuichi saw this, and liked letting you take charge as a way of quieting the relentless feeling of insecurity hidden deep inside you, beneath all the layers. As for himself, being so nicely controlled by you eased his own feelings of inferiority. He had always shamefully enjoyed the idea of it, and now he had the ability to experience it all to himself.

From someone as saintly as you; it made devoting himself to you so easy.

"That's why I think you're so cute."

Nagito Komaeda has been tied up in an old, rotting banquet hall for, as of now, 60 hours.

Although, much to the disapproval of your fellow classmates, you find this act of keeping him in place particularly barbaric. On the other hand, you know, to an extent, his recently revealed hysteria could prove dangerous.

But the way his tone lowers so softly when he speaks to you makes it hard to convince yourself of any real danger he would plan to pose against you.

The old, creaky hinges of the dining hall door screech against the pressure of the movement, before groaning back shut with a loud thud.

The light through the boarded-up windows of the hall slips through the cracks of unevenly nailed wood against the glass, but it’s only enough to give you the faintest vision of the shapes of shadows in the room. At the bottom is the laid-out figure of Nagito’s body.

“Ah. I wasn’t expecting visitors.” His voice emerges from the dark.

You switch the light on and give yourself a moment to adjust to the yellow-tinged glow that flickers awake with a fluorescent buzz.

Nagito is huddled on the floor, knees tucked in with ankles bound tight with rope. His arms are wrapped behind him, with a hefty chain binding them back.

The precautions taken to contain a boy as frail as Nagito seem a bit excessive, but putting yourself against the others could risk their trust in you. And even worse, you risk being tied up and thrown into a dark room alongside Nagito.

But your trust in Nagito’s word seems to get the better of you. Now you find yourself sneaking in with food snatched from the restaurant, as the rest of the class has only really agreed to feed him once a day.

“I’m only trying to be fair.” you say quietly, placing the tray of food beside you as you take a seat in front of him.

His eyes follow your movements as you travel closer to him; the flick of your wrist, the sway of your uniform. A curious smile is painted across his pale face, with dull green eyes that bear no light.

“Fair?” he repeats. It’s a mixture of amusement and curiosity. The tone of his voice, though, is still exceptionally soft. “You risk ostracizing yourself from your fellow Ultimates in the name of fairness?”

Nagito is not offended by the way his words do nothing to you, nor the way your eyes bore back into him with a calculated gaze. If anything, he revels in it.

Your hand slowly raises to point a finger at him, to watch the way his eyes curiously follow.

There’s a moment of quiet before you speak, alongside a moment of deliberately veiled anticipation that vibrates from Nagito. The same anticipation you can see right through. Under your microscope, he is delighted to be your petri dish. To watch the cogs in your brain begin their mechanisms.

“I see through your hysteria, and I’ve decided you are not a threat,” you begin, lowering your finger and bringing your hand to a plastic-packaged curry bread on the tray. Your fingers carefully open the bag as you continue.

“The truth is, Komaeda…” You retrieve the bread from the bag, ripping it in half. Your voice is still calm, analytical. “I use my profession as a moral shield to treat my patients as if they are test subjects. After all, when you’re a criminal, the law grants you no kindness.”

You bring a piece of the bread to his lips. He hovers in place for a moment, his amused expression faltering into something closer to wonder. Slowly, he parts his lips.

“If they saw me here, they would question what reason I have to give you grace. If I told them the truth, I would become suspicious alongside you. But I’m not insane like you. More so hedonistic.”

From this angle, on your knees beside Nagito with your eyes focused on his lips, you can see him in sharper detail. The wispy flutter of his white eyelashes, ghostly pale skin, his eyes glazed over with that flickering hope he speaks of.

He takes a small nibble, eyes focused down at the bread between your fingers. It’s quiet for a moment as he chews, until he speaks again.

“So, you’d prefer the killing game to continue, don’t you? You come here to feed me because you choose to believe in the hope that I will continue to be an accomplice to murder, as I was with Byakuya?”

There’s a slight smirk on his face while he speaks, words falling out of his mouth like poison.

You choose to mull over his words for a long while, observing the rope that is messily, but tightly, tied around his legs. In this position he looks incredibly fragile, and this he knows. He knows anyone could wander into the dining hall with a determination to escape the island, but he is perfectly content with whatever fate decides to make of him. That is what you enjoy, and that is what he doesn’t see yet.

“You’re sharp, Komaeda. But you aren’t understanding yet.”

Nagito’s eyes glitter with intrigue. “Won’t you be so kind as to enlighten useless garbage such as myself?” he protracts.

“You could call me sadistic, but I retain my humanity. I choose not to become an accomplice to murder, or to hope for it to happen. After all, murder happens no matter how many laws you put in place to eradicate it.”

You enjoy hearing people break. To see the desperation flicker across their face when they know they have been caught. But alongside this, you choose to believe in order, justice, and protecting civilians. You follow systems and rules, with a genuine belief in your humanity when punishing a criminal, rightfully so.

Nagito takes in your words piece by piece, as if to breathe them in and compute them into analysis within his brain. And as he does, he enjoys every second of it. Who knew a killing game could be so exhilarating?

“You revel in a criminal’s despair, because you know absolute hope will be the result of prosecution?”

The truth behind his words is that they are not a question, but rather a statement. To let you know he’s dissected your words down to their truth, and mirrored your mindset back to you precisely.

“That would be a truthful way to put it.” You nod, a little proud smile tugging at the corners of your lips. In return, an accomplished smile tugs at his own.

Another piece of bread meets his lips, which he takes in little nibbles. “I’ve been starving here, all tied up. But I suppose I deserve it, hmm?”

You meet his soft, pressing stare. Your face is flat, but your eyes reflect tantalized intrigue.

“I suppose you do, but I wouldn’t personally treat my patients so poorly.”

Nagito smiles again, with a gaze so intense you could almost convince yourself it’s whirling in circles right within the socket.

“Talentless trash like me deserves it.” He drifts over his words as if they are nothing at all, despite the weight of them, before he continues. “Not you, though, [Name]. You are special. A special kind of hope I’ve never seen before.”

Hope, he says. It’s always hope. He finds a way to relate the life flashing before him back to hope and despair, as if they are the two principles of the world that keep the earth itself spinning.

“You possess the perfect combination of hope and despair. They bind themselves together in your philosophy so well that it becomes whole.”

As he lies helpless on the floor, with his head craned up to look at you from where he lays, his pupils expand through half-lidded eyes. His features are strangely delicate, even with the wonderstruck hypnosis that glitters in his dead eyes.

“The kind of person I should only exist as a stepping stone to. For ensuring your hope is fulfilled.”

You take his words, storing them away in your mind while you ruminate over them thoroughly. Sure, you’ve met a lot of deluded criminals. Criminals who would claim their actions were necessary, even before their execution. But Nagito seems special; the way his philosophy is so solid, so analytical. It doesn’t scare you, but instead exhilarates you.

You’re riding the unfiltered high of a reality that could only blossom from the horrors of a killing game. Watching everyone too weak to grasp for sanity crack under the pressure of a hysteria that’s been brewing beneath their skin for years.

You discard the lid of a small bottle of green tea onto the tray, bringing the bottle to his lips with a simple order. “Open.”

Nagito listens almost instantaneously. His lips part as he guides his head as best he can to catch the line of the bottle.

A bit sloppily, you tip the tea down his throat. The liquid comes in jagged flows, retracing back and forth from the careless movement. You watch silently as Nagito tries his best to catch the tea in his strained position, but misses anyway.

The tea dribbles off his wet, shining lips. It trickles down his chin, with some droplets falling to the floor, and others slipping down to his protruding collarbones. Nagito sees through your teasing, but chooses to indulge in it anyway.

“It seems I can’t do anything right,” Nagito drawls with a kittenish tone. “Now I’ve made a mess…”

You take a long moment to observe his face, and swallow the tension in the room whole. The hot, humid air of the broken-down dining hall is thick, pooling heavily in your lungs. Beneath them, the sensation of a large, gaping hole runs straight through your stomach. The faint draft of the room drifts through your abdomen, and even despite the emptiness, it finds a way to fill you wholly.

Nagito’s face is dulcet now, with sedated eyes and a barely-there smile gracing his lips. He looks too happy to be tied up, looking up at you. Too happy to be in your control.

You waste no time pressing a rough thumb to his lips. His mouth pushes down beneath the pad of your finger, and you drag your thumb downward to catch the traces of tea. It’s a slow, deliberate movement. Almost teasingly so.

His smug expression is gone now, replaced with something more taken aback. Breathless and entirely mesmerized. A rare sight to see from him indeed.

Your thumb travels up to his lips once more, but this time pushes past the border of them closed. It feels slick against the wetness of his saliva, and Nagito does not refuse. Instead, his teeth nip so gently at the edge of your thumb before you pull it from his mouth. A long, thin string of saliva bridges the gap for a moment before breaking away.

He’s breathless now, looking up at you with expectant eyes. Waiting for more, so he can falter at the will of your dominance. He looks particularly pathetic, bound by his hands and ankles while he desperately waits for you to thrill him once more.

Instead, you rise from your knees beside him, collecting the empty tray with the garbage that sits on top.

“It may be time for me to leave. I can’t risk raising the suspicion of the others.” you say quietly.

It’s true, even as much as you’d like to stay. Indulging in such hedonistic things could only be something someone breaking beneath the pressure would do. You know better than to satiate your urges now.

Nagito smiles, watching you return to the door. The same way he watched you enter. How lucky he must be, to be able to watch a talent like you adapt so quickly to your nature. The way you so devotedly submit to hope; as if to fall to your knees in church pews, hands clasped together in prayer.

When you and Akutagawa were young, he used to doze off on your shoulder.

A gentle lull of his head falling into the crook of your neck. His breath in soft, rhythmic pulls and releases. Being older than him, you supposed you always took it upon yourself to protect him, even if you were only barely more grown than him.

You were both so small, and both so fragile. Not yet turned fully callous by the carnage that would define the both of you, in your own separate ways.

In flickers of special moments, Akutagawa was gentler then. He cared about you, about protecting you when he had nothing else to care about.

When Dazai found him there, still raw with flesh to be easily molded into a machine, his sights changed. His reason to live became satisfying his superior. There was no way to compete with his desperate need for Dazai’s approval, and you were left with half the person you used to know.

Even now, after so much time. You miss him, or maybe what he used to be. You miss when he wasn’t rendered untouchable by the terrible things that changed him. You think, sometimes, he can tell. And sometimes, he allows himself to give in, even if it’s just for a small moment.

But Akutagawa hates the way you try to hold onto it forever.

The smell of disinfectants and latex of an infirmary room is distinct. It fills your senses, perfectly familiar. Light from the sun pours in through thin white linen curtains, casting a gentle glow against the bunks of thin mattresses and cotton sheets. Amongst the sterile smell of chemicals, lingers the coppery smell of blood.

Akutagawa is sat in a hospital cot, beside the window. You are sat beside him in an office chair, observing the blood that stains the white cloth of his blouse as he takes off his jacket. It’s still that dark crimson shade; the color of blood freshly shed.

“What happened?” You ask uniformly. More so out of the ingrained routine of a doctor rather than genuine worry. It’s not like he doesn’t come to you to treat his wounds regularly. Akutagawa silently slips into your office with gnarly wounds too often for it to be anything but a ritual.

“Battle.” He deadpans. He does not turn to meet your eye contact. Instead, he gazes out of the window that overlooks a scene of the skyline and the sea of Tokyo Bay. Although, you know he’s not one to be all too impressed by beautiful scenery.

“Mmm.” You hum back, pushing a leg back to meet a desk behind you. A small container full of the few things you need to clean and dress a wound. Local anesthetics are one thing you have never needed. Your ability can numb the pain itself. Your own body is the lidocaine, and you’ve managed it just enough to utilize it perfectly– only after years spent learning all you need to know just to use it.

Eventually, after countless sleepless nights and illegal practices of underground medical care, it became enough. You became the Port Mafia’s medical trump card; praised by Mori himself. A man with medical knowledge you wouldn’t dare try to surpass.

“You’ll have to remove your shirt.” You say with that gentle, perfected professionalism learned from years being nothing but a doctor.

His face twists into a slight scowl– or maybe more like a pout. Wordlessly though, as not to give up too much weakness, he begins to unbutton his blouse. You can tell he hates your faux professionalism. He knows better than that, he knows you, even if he refuses to act like it. But in your quiet office that smells of old blood and sharp antiseptics, all that matters is your ability to treat your patients as effectively and efficiently as possible. Not whatever strained relationship you and Akutagawa share.

The last button of his blouse pops off. Slowly, he peels it off, placing it neatly beside him on the cot. His pale skin glows against the faint reflection of the sun through the curtains. Bony ridges of his ribcage press against his skin, along with the fading scars and bruises of combat that riddle his flesh. Those scars and bruises you know so well. More than anyone else.

The gash that ripples along his upper arm is deep, blossoming with blood. It trickles down in red waterfalls; perfectly contrasted against the pale, almost-white of his skin. It’s like a painting every time. Only your favorite patient could produce such a beautifully visceral sight…

maybe im biased, but ethel cain’s music reminds me so much of him– that rugged apathy from a corrupt man so alluring you almost mistake him for a saint

i think that idea of a man turned jagged by his isolating life is the perfect idea of him. so very complex, only the keenest of people could peel back all the layers

its like domesticating a feral dog. it takes that special kind of patience and grace

jeffery is resistant at first. he tries to push you away because he’s already told himself that the only person he has is himself.

but finally, in short little moments, between his neglect that works as a defensive mechanism for him, he gives in

the mercy you give him is unlike anything hes ever felt– it’s rendered him vulnerable in ways that scare him

you are mercy to him, it’s terrifying how intense it is for him

some dogs bare their teeth the way lonely hearts mistake mercy for danger <3

ive written a jeff the killer fic on ao3 here, if u want to see more of my personal take on jeffery