✶ destruction, resolution ✶

★ seven (finale) ★

When Akutagawa awoke, it was to the immediate wince of light entering his eyes as his head throbbed and a horribly sharp pain in his left arm, the latter of which he realized when he tried to push himself up. Shit- broken, he cursed inwardly, blearily summoning a mock sling with what little of Rashoumon his energy would allow him.

Groaning under his breath, he tried to examine the scene around him as it came into focus, flinching when a figure dropped into his line of sight- Gin. "Oh thank god, you're okay," she said, and he grunted.

"Where-?"

"We're on the first floor, in the lobby," she replied instantly, anticipating his question.

He forced himself up to standing, shaking the spots out of his eyes before wincing at the pain in his arm. "What happened?" he croaked, and she sighed.

Pressing a steadying arm to his back, she fixed him with a sharp look. "You're lucky you aren't dead is what happened," she said lowly, and he blinked. "You fell through two stories of a building that was halfway through detonating while wrapped up with someone wearing a suicide vest," she continued, and he let out a sigh.

"Gin-"

"Be grateful that his vest wasn't wired properly and didn't activate," she interrupted, and he gave her an incredulous look."

"What?"

She shrugged. "I don't know exactly what happened, but we found you two dangling from an exposed beam with Rashoumon; the suspect's alive but barely- Higuchi's with him now, and he'll be transferred over to Nakahara-san once he arrives. You, however, we had to drag down what was left of the stairs in order to get you here safely while medical attention arrived."

Her words swam in his ears as she spoke, and he pressed his free hand to his head to try and steady the pounding in his temples; focusing on himself, he could feel a bruising ache in his back and the left side of his ribs, and felt the sting of small cuts and a nasty gash on his cheekbone. From what he remembered and what Gin told him, the half of Rashoumon that he hadn't left with Atsushi must've acted on its own to save its master, shielding them both out of self-preservation.

Going back through his memory, his breath hitched as his eyes snapped open, blood-draining fear turning his chest cold. Atsushi.

"Is something wrong?" Gin asked, but he only faintly heard her words as he looked around frantically, searching for a head of white hair amongst the suits and chattering voices-

"Where is he?" he asked, wincing when the syllables came out in a rasp.

Gin knit her eyebrows, and the edge of her mask pulled in the confused lines of her lips. "Who?"

"Atsushi- where is he?" he pressed, searching desperately, finding nothing, the fear burning like the edge of a cigarette butt in his chest.

Gin's eyes widened in realization. "I completely forgot you two were deployed together," she whispered as she digested her brother's worry. "Do you remember what happened before the explosion?"

"I left him on the roof just before, but I don't know if he was able to get out," he forced out, grinding his teeth both against the sudden flare of pain in his arm from clenching his first as well the irritation-bound worry.

Gin blinked, before faintly looking up to where a faux skylight created by the shoddy explosive setup left. "Nakahara-san and a few of his men went up there a few minutes ago as a final sweep," she said, giving him an answer left mostly unspoken.

Akutagawa let out a deep breath, dragging a hand down his face. "I don't know what happened afterward," he said, the level of concern unable to be voiced as he reworked over multiple possibilities:

He fell from the roof.
He was killed by the explosion.
I didn't shield him in time.
He didn't make it out alive because of me-

His reverie was cut short by the sound of a commotion on the other side of the lobby where the elevators and the stairway fed out onto the main floor, hearing a faint argument between two familiar voices, one of which was his superior, and the other of which was-

"Ryuunosuke!" it bellowed, and Akutagawa (including the rest of the room as they saw the source of the voice) froze as Nakajima Atsushi stalked across the room, bruised and bloodied but alive as well as absolutely furious.

"Uh oh," Gin mumbled under her breath, stepping away subtly as Atsushi made his way toward Akutagawa in a walking glory of rage still swathed in Akutagawa's coat but barefoot, a normally humorous combination if not for the monstrous look in his eyes.

Akutagawa barely opened his mouth as Atsushi reached him, halfway through a plea of his given name when Atsushi wordlessly reached up and slapped Akutagawa full across the face, open-palmed and stinging.

Gin choked on a surprised laugh as Akutagawa lurched backward, one hand flying to his cheek in shock before Atsushi leaned up and pulled Akutagawa to him in a relieved hug as tightly as he could; Akutagawa didn't breathe as one of Atsushi's hands desperately tangled in the hair at the back of his head to pull it toward him while the other curled around his neck. "Don't ever do that again," Atsushi whispered, the words barely spoken more than breathed in a terrified wisp, fingers tightening in Akutagawa's hair.

Akutagawa didn't say anything, and only exhaustedly dropped his face into Atsushi's shoulder while his good arm curled around him in apology to tug at his elbow.

Even through the burn in his cheek and the pulsing pain in his broken arm, there was nothing but relief to feel Atsushi against him, warm and breathing and whole; he didn't know who to thank then- Fate? God? Whatever had pulled them along such a bizarre journey, as tangled and torn as it was.

"You're squeezing my arm too hard, idiot," Akutagawa finally chastised and Atsushi released him to blink down at said arm, eyes widening before he clicked his tongue dryly.

"I'm surprised you aren't in worse shape after that stunt," he sniped, crossing his arms, and Akutagawa raised an eyebrow.

"I did what was required," he said simply. Atsushi rolled his eyes, opening his mouth to start another rant before squeaking when Rashoumon wound its way around his neck to clap over his mouth. (Simultaneously, other parts of Rashoumon bled away from the inside of the coat to gently search Atsushi for injuries, wrapping around a sprained ankle, a wrist and fingers covered in burn marks and cuts, and a knee just slightly off-kilter.) "You're too loud, and my face hurts."

Petulantly, Atsushi tried to complain, throwing his arms down by his side in annoyance when Rashoumon wouldn't relinquish its gag, and a faint smirk quirked the corner of his lips as Atsushi's face went red in irritation. Akutagawa finally released him, earning a scowl. "I wouldn't have smacked you if you didn't throw yourself into a damn explosion like that," he argued, and a hum made Akutagawa turn just slightly.

"I agree with him there," Gin commented, and Atsushi blanched just slightly as he realized her proximity. "Nice shot though, Nakajima; you got him pretty good," she added, tapping at her face. Akutagawa's hand flew to his own, and Atsushi's face went white and then pink in the span of a second when he saw the swath of freshly-dark gold glittering overtop the red mark of Atsushi's slap bright on Akutagawa's skin.

"Oh my god," Atsushi breathed, and Gin snorted as Akutagawa went ramrod straight. (Over Atsushi's shoulder, Chuuya was fixing Akutagawa with both an incredulous as well as horribly knowing expression on his face, an expression that was one of the few perfectly mirrored things he and Dazai still shared from their time in the Mafia together that always made Akutagawa want to hide under a rock.)

"I'm going to kill you once we get home," Akutagawa barely whispered, and Atsushi squeaked mutedly in apology.

Gin, having caught the response, gave him a surprisingly impressive look of innuendo with only half of her face visible, and he glared at her, only worsening her expression.

He was a mix of mortification, surprise, pain, and relief trapped in a body that was still unused to processing emotions as potent as such, but as his eyes flickered back over to the bitterly pouting expression of Atsushi, with silver fingers and a glittering smudge on his cheek from when he'd pulled himself to Akutagawa, with Akutagawa's coat around his shoulders and his own beast guarding him, and he felt that his world made a tiny bit more sense to him at that moment.

Sure, a human heart may be inconvenient at times-
But it still allows him the right to feel.

(And from what his heart was telling him as he held a freshly-showered and bandaged Atsushi in his arms later that night with warm blankets smelling of them both wrapped cozily around them in the gentle light of night, there was nothing else he could possibly name that feeling as but home.)