golden ✔️ | bsd

realizations pt. 1

a/n : the first eight chapters of this fic were originally posted on ao3 under @iheartlaz and i will continue to post on there but figured id put this account to use. this is my first sskk fic so please enjoy!

— akutagawa.

It's 3am by the time the two of them make it back to their hotel room, all bloodied and bruised from the mission they'd arrived from. Akutagawa watches as his partner falls face first onto their shared bed, asleep instantly. He's an animal through and through, he thinks.

There's probably gunk on the sheets now, but the black haired man doesn't mind. He's sure he won't be bringing himself to sleep next to Atsushi anyway.

He's about to walk into the bathroom when the light snoring of his partner stops him. Akutagawa turns around, and glances at the sleeping weretiger before him. He can't help but feel the smallest twinge of fondness spread across his chest, however Akutagawa makes sure to stomp it out instantly.

A part of him is disgusted by the reaction, at how soft he had truly become. Almost six months ago Akutagawa would never let himself act this way around the weretiger, he's sure that the two of them would be at eachothers throats by now, but strangely enough their relationship had shifted from that.

Somewhere along the line they stopped fighting and became what most would consider allies or even friends. Akutagawa looked at Atsushi and he didn't have those angry intentions anymore. He wasn't sure when the thought of hurting the other became so foreign, but the mafioso found he liked this change.

Atsushi's breathing was light, chest rising and collapsing slowly. The muscles in his face were relaxed now that he was asleep, which made Akutagawa almost feel comforted. Their day had been long, and tiresome, filled with too much fighting for even them to handle. It was terrifying too, Akutagawa would admit, there were moments on this mission he thought he wouldn't walk away from. However, seeing the weretiger at rest made him feel safe at last, serving as a reminder to Akutagawa that they weren't being chased anymore.

The longer he stared at Atsushi, the more a fuzzy sensation spread through his body. He could now understand what people meant when they had butterflies in their stomach. Akutagawa wasn't unfamiliar with the emotion, but certainly not used to it.

It always seemed to begin slowly, a tiny bit of pain in his chest. When he was a teenager he always thought he was about to cough, he'd brace himself slightly but that overwhelming feeling of not being able to breathe never seemed to come. Perhaps the inconvenience was of another kind, still painful yet along the way Akutagawa came to enjoy that hurt.

Though he didn't like to admit it he would actively search for that feeling, with no idea how to even invoke it. Akutagawa thought that if he was able to pick the emotion apart, find the ins and outs, then would he understand why he desperately chased after it. But soon enough he gave up trying to get why he liked it so much, afterall the sensation was so incredibly rare back then. Most of the time his mind was too focused on other things, he had to get better, stronger . However in the moments Akutagawa least expected it the feeling returned.

Little things always seemed to set it off. A glance from a pretty girl across the room, Dazai praising him, or when his sister wrapped her arms around Akutagawa unexpectedly. He was never able to understand it completely, but Akutagawa figured that if he wanted to feel this emotion he had to work for it, just like everything else in his life.

Yet what he was doing now was so easy, and frankly creepy. But that didn't matter, what mattered was the fact that Atsushi by himself was able to give Akutagawa that warmth in his chest. Generous yet curious at the same time. What did it mean? Was it dangerous? Or even better, did this feeling make Akutagawa weak?