Archive of Our Own ^beta

The weretiger hunts, down amidst the rabble.

High above him, the man who is currently Akutagawa Ryuunosuke closes his eyes and breathes deep. Atop his chosen building, so far removed from the rest of Yokohama, his thoughts remain mostly his own for the first time in weeks.

What does it matter if he enjoys this moment a while longer? Let the weretiger hunt. The air is clean and calm around him, a cool balm his lungs soak up hungrily.

When his eyes drift open, it’s to the sight of the sea; a blanket of deep blue, glittering endlessly beneath the daylight.

Barely-understood senses tingle: the weretiger shifts his pattern, slinking closer, Ryuunosuke at the center of his slow spiral.

Anticipation lights him up from within. He’s smirking, though he doesn’t recall when his mouth hitched to the side.

The expression falls the moment he acknowledges it.

Why?

Below, the weretiger hesitates.

Despite not understanding how, he knows the moment the weretiger senses him in turn. His eyes slip nearly shut, lazy with a satisfaction he puzzles over.

A string dangled before a cat.

Ah. He’d known Jinko would seek him out, then. Counted on it, clearly. But the why continues to elude him.

He hasn’t forgotten. There’s no void within him, no sense of a hollowed-out wrongness, nothing stolen away.

Ryuunosuke blinks. The space between his brows pinches.

He has not forgotten but he does not truly remember either.

The sea continues to shine, but the sight brings no more comfort.

Stoker’s possession had not been an act of malice. He’s seen it, the eye-blink in which the former lord made his choice. Desperation; the girl’s safety the sole concern. There was no desire to subsume Ryuunosuke, no intent to haunt him from within, nor to control him far more effectively than any master he’s ever bothered to bow down for.

Ryuunosuke hadn’t mattered at all.

Of course.

Such noble intentions do not change how Ryuunosuke is the one with a parasite lingering within both mind and body, a parasite somehow outlasting Stoker himself.

Too often he blinks, locked outside of himself, tangled up in the laughable mercy of a dead man’s last wish: the black-cloaked nightmare, bringer of destruction and despair, turned child-minder.

Regret that does not belong to him is a loathsome tang beneath his tongue.

Within his newly inhuman senses, the weretiger is a swift-moving warmth, golden against the drab backdrop of humanity.

Satisfaction shifts, becomes a pleased amusement he rarely permits himself.

It seems the weretiger’s power no longer grants him an advantage.

As far as his memory serves, he has not properly laid eyes on his former rival since regaining his sense of self. It will be… good, he decides after a moment. It will be good, to see Jinko. Perhaps it will alleviate some of the incessant jittering beneath his skin, the urge to gather his charge, his sibling and his—the weretiger, beneath Rashomon’s mantle.

His temples throb.

He breathes, deep and slow, feeling his healed lungs expand against his ribs.

Jinko requires no protecting. Gin has not needed him in years. Stoker’s princess is safe. Regardless of the way Stoker’s final edict continues to thrum within his bones, his duty has been well and truly discharged.

Behind him, the weretiger scrambles onto the roof with a huff that morphs into a groan, joints cracking back into human shape.

Tension melts from Ryuunosuke’s shoulders despite the renewed question: why? Why would the weretiger set out to find him? Why did he wish to be found?

Jinko does not say a word as he brushes past, headed for the wall. He’s careful to keep a certain distance between them, which Ryuunosuke begrudgingly appreciates. Even still, as he passes, the heat of his body leaves goosebumps down Ryuunosuke’s arms. The scent of him perfumes the air, vibrant and heady, mouthwatering in an entirely different fashion to that of a meal.

Within himself, there’s a flare of—something. It doesn’t quite have the muted ache he’s come to associate with Bram Stoker’s remains, but he can’t place it either. Ryuunosuke frowns, prodding at it like a half-healed wound.

His mouth flattens, gaze going distant. Satisfaction, yes, but with a—disappointment? No, though there is a sadness within him, an urge to reach out for Jinko’s sleeve as though that is something either of them has ever done.

Yet there is something, out of reach, hidden beneath Stoker’s irritating phantom.

“Aya-chan’s father surrendered custody today,” Jinko says mildly.

The sound of his voice soothes the frustration beginning to simmer in Ryuunosuke’s veins. When he chances a look, he finds Jinko sitting with his back to the low wall encircling the rooftop. True to form, he’s contorted himself: one knee pulled close to his chest with the opposite leg folded beneath. Both arms are slung atop his upturned knee, supporting his head. As Ryuunosuke watches, Jinko digs his head further into the fold of his arms, stretching his spine like the overgrown cat he is.

The white of his hair gleams a polished platinum in the sun, though Ryuunosuke’s attention wanders to the obsidian patch by his neck. His ragged locks are longer than when they first met, black usually hidden beneath thick silver, but with his neck displayed so carelessly that shadowed patch seems to stretch forever.

“Funny thing, though, is that he brought Aya-chan straight to Kunikida-san at the agency,” Jinko adds after a moment. “He even had the paperwork all stamped and ready to go. The guy could not leave fast enough. He barely even said anything, kind of just told Aya-chan to sit, slammed a folder down and ran right back out the door.”

The weretiger pauses, the muscles of his back straining his white shirt before he somehow finds a laugh. It’s a soft sound, honeyed despite the darkness.

Longing. That’s the almost-sadness Ryuunosuke felt. The bittersweet of a longing kept out of sight. Proof he remains a fool.

“It’s probably good he didn’t stick around long,” Jinko muses, his voice rich with more of the same violent humor. “The minute Kunikida-san realized where the bruises came from—ah. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so angry. Whole agency’s out for blood, if I’m being honest.”

That shining silver head rolls from side to side, once, twice, thrice. Jinko pauses just far enough to the side for a single stunningly amethyst eye to peer at him from beneath his angled bangs.

He looks as though he is made entirely of gemstones, and Ryuunosuke does not know what to do with such a fanciful thought. What has he ever cared for gemstones?

“What’d you do, Akutagawa?”

Habit has Ryuunosuke arching his brows. “I’m afraid you’ll need to be far more specific, detective.”

That sole eye rolls, and Jinko sits up to meet his gaze properly. Moonstones frame his eyes, the white of his lashes overrun with a rainbow from the light that loves him so well. “I know it was you,” he says on a sigh.

There’s an undertone, an emotion layered in his voice Ryuunosuke can’t identify, and he blinks away the urge to furrow his brow. “Is that so?”

Jinko snorts. “It is so,” he parrots back pompously. “Even if I didn’t know you’ve been lurking around, Aya-chan made sure everyone knew you were the one who saved her.”

Ryuunosuke can feel his eyes widen as he stares at the weretiger. The affectionate curve of Jinko’s mouth is entirely baffling. “She told you what?”

“That you saved her. She’s been bragging about how amazing you are all day, you know? It’s cute. She yelled at Dazai-san, too, actually. That was pretty funny.”

Glee brightens Jinko’s face, but he re-centers before Ryuunosuke can demand he explain. “Seriously though, what happened? Aya-chan wasn’t sure, she said you sent her to her room. She also said there wasn’t any blood, but with…”

Jinko makes a strange face, eyes flickering over Ryuunosuke’s frame. It hardly registers beneath the fury boiling up again.

“He dared strike our princess,” Ryuunosuke snarls around sudden fangs. The words form strangely in his mouth, lilting forth with an accent that isn’t his. Jet black talons extend from his hooked fingertips. His coat twists and recedes in a rush, fabric giving way to Rashomon’s many slavering jaws. “Besotted with the bottle he raised as a weapon against his own child.”

“Akutagawa,” The weretiger snaps, harsh enough to pull Ryuunosuke out of Stoker’s fury. “What did you do?”

“He sought to instill fear. I merely taught him the weight of that fear.” He frowns, tongue running over his too-sharp teeth.

Rashomon settles, reforming his coat as he tries again. “Bastard’s lucky I didn’t gut him the second the girl was out of sight.”

Spreading the fingers of one clawed hand, Ryuunosuke feels his mouth curl down. The idea of sinking his new appendages into the man’s jugular had been almost too tempting. Such blood would not have been sweet, though he cannot say how he knows. The claws retract as he fists his hands, but the black of his nails will forever remain. He slips them into his pockets.

When he refocuses on the weretiger, his eyes are wide, golden and devastated. He’s tense, fingers digging into his biceps so tightly his knuckles whiten.

It seems the momentary loss of control has proven Ryuunosuke to be more monstrous than ever before.

Of course.

He looks away.

Rashomon flickers, a silken thread artfully slinging an envelope from Ryuunosuke’s pocket. Those taut arms flail apart, the weretiger barely catching the package despite possessing reflexes at least as quick as Ryuunosuke’s.

At the edge of his vision, the weretiger bears an inscrutable expression as he opens the envelope. Then his brows shoot up and he straightens, legs crossing properly as he leafs through the fruits of Ryuunosuke’s labor.

“Evidence,” he supplies needlessly when Jinko gifts him a horrendously wondrous look. “Enough to ensure the bastard is put away for a long time, should my—should she so desire.”

“You didn’t kill him,” Jinko breathes, holding more than enough reason for such an execution in his hands. “You collected evidence.”

The words are too soft for a human to have caught, but Ryuunosuke was barely human to begin with. If he finds himself grateful, caught on the tender curl of Jinko’s tone, then it’s no one else’s business.

“I considered it,” he admits. “But I made several promises, and the princess—“ he closes his eyes and clicks his recalcitrant tongue. “Killing him would’ve only upset the girl further. She’s fond of justice, apparently, and naïve enough to believe prison punishment enough.”

Jinko graces him with a brilliant smile, riffling through the envelope’s contents once more before stowing them safely away in the bag lying at his side. “I’m proud of you,” he says, knowing and light. “It must’ve been hard not to put him down immediately, but you’re right, that should be her call.”

“Shut up, Jinko,” Ryuunosuke hisses, heat in his cheeks.

“People who hurt the kids they’re supposed to look after are the worst kind of people,” Jinko adds quietly, smile giving way to an unhappy twist of his mouth. For some reason, his hand curls around the thin skin at the bend of his elbow. “So. Thanks for taking care of her.”

Ryuunosuke huffs, arms crossing over his chest. “Don’t thank me,” he bites out, glaring out across the rooftops. “I don’t even know why I…” He shakes his head rather than complete his admission.

The blank spaces and warring instincts within him are none of the weretiger’s concern, anyway. Simply another weakness to be ripped apart.

“Why Kunikida-san? Why not keep her with you?”

The question slaps him across the face. Blankly, he stares at the earnest curiosity in the weretiger’s face.

Keep her? He can barely trust his own thoughts, hardly knows who he is, and the idiot thinks Ryuunosuke ought to have kept the girl with him? As though he is somehow capable of—what, fatherhood? When he could not even—

Gin huddles into his shoulder, weeping in absolute silence. Small half-forgotten faces flash before his eyes, bodies broken and bloodied, left behind like so much trash. Kyouka looks up with eyes already dead and asks that he finish killing her. A child’s shriek echoes as she burns for the crime of having been a calamity’s daughter. A different child screams, quaking with fear, and he can do nothing to protect her from the mindless creatures tracking her like dogs. He is the dog, her scent caught in his teeth, fighting the order to kill, kill, kill—

His body trembles. His lungs heave. He failed them all.

“Akutagawa,” Jinko calls, cautious.

Ryuunosuke shakes his head, struggling to focus on the golden glow within Jinko’s worried eyes. “If I have a soul, it is Port Mafia black,” he rasps once he finds his voice. “I am the last man anyone should suffer as a guardian.”

Jinko draws breath, the set of his mouth intractable, and Ryuunosuke cannot fathom why this is enough to warrant his stubbornness.

“I’m both a wanted criminal and legally dead, you idiot. Did you forget? If she’s meant to stay in the light she so loudly craves, she cannot be associated with me.”

The look on the weretiger’s face says yes, somehow, he had forgotten and does not appreciate the reminder. “But you’re her knight,” he retorts, entirely asinine.

“Only a fool would consider me remotely knightly,” Ryuunosuke scoffs, though the words make something knot within him. “Your detectives can provide for her far better than I, and thus my duty of care and imposed ‘knighthood’ are over. She should be happy.”

“I think you make a pretty good knight, actually,” the weretiger says as he runs a hand over his silly little bag. Two keychains hang from the corner: a white cat, uneven stripes added with streaky black marker, and a white rabbit clutching dango in tiny paws. “So does she, for the record.”

“I am Mafia,” Ryuunosuke reminds him, suddenly weary with their entire exchange.

“Are you though?”

“What else could I possibly be,” Ryuunosuke flings at him, exasperated, but the weretiger tweaks a letter from his bag with two fingers rather than responding. “Aya-chan wanted me to give you this,” he says as he holds the fat envelope aloft.

Rashomon snatches it in a flash. His companion regards his raised hand with his usual empty-headedness as Ryuunosuke frees a veritable novel.

Oniisan, it begins, Kunikida-san says it’s polite to write a thank-you letter, even though I think that’s silly because I already said thank you and you don’t even like thank-you’s…

“Oniisan?” he croaks, bewildered, fingertip careful over the pen strokes. “Me?”

A squeak snaps his attention up from the girl’s mystifying greeting. The weretiger has both hands clapped over his mouth, cheeks puffed out and eyes so crinkled they’re nearly shut. Another squeak, higher pitched, escapes him as Jinko rocks himself from side to side.

“Sorry,” he gasps, flapping his hands around. “Sorry, sorry, it’s just—you looked so confused and it’s—you’re so—“ His palms clap together, fingers lacing so one large fist presses into his mouth. Pink stretches across his nose, highlighting the purple of his eyes.

“Never mind,” Jinko blurts, scraping hair out of his face. “Anyway, the big brother thing is your fault. And Gin-chan. And Chuuya-san, actually.”

“Explain,” Ryuunosuke says, curt, unsure which part of that statement he wants untangled first. What in the world could involve both Gin and Chuuya and his charge?

“Oh, I wasn’t actually there for it, but I guess she decided you’re her brother now based off the stories you’ve been telling her.”

“I told her what,” Ryuunosuke asks blankly.

Jinko’s face goes pinched. He begins to twist his fingers together. “You told Aya-chan about the ADA while you’ve been keeping an eye on her, and you talked about Kyouka-chan and—and me. A lot.”

There’s a sensation in the back of his skull, not unlike the stretch that accompanies Rashomon’s release. Why would he speak to the girl of his failure to guide Kyouka?

“It sounds like you told her Kyouka-chan’s kind of like my little sister?”

“Is she not?” It’s not the question Ryuunosuke thought was on the tip of his tongue.

“No, I mean, yes, I think so, but I guess I kind of just assumed she didn’t think like that, it’s not something either of us talked about before Aya-chan said something because—That’s not important! Uh, Aya-chan asked if that made you her version of me,” Jinko clears his throat, the pink dark in his cheeks, “and I said that’s kind of up to you guys and your sister, but Kyouka-chan told her yes, and then Aya-chan got all excited about you having a sibling, which somehow led to Aya-chan yelling at Dazai-san, who called Chuuya-san, who showed up with Gin-chan, who said you’d probably get embarrassed if she called you Ryuu-nii…”

Ryuunosuke’s head is spinning. Each rapid-fire word brings with it another push within his skull, Stoker’s fragments shifting as his memories try to make themselves known. “Jinko,” he growls, rubbing at his temples. “What are you saying.”

“It’s been an extremely weird day,” Jinko replies, winded.

“Clearly.”

“Maybe you should just read your letter? Aya-chan’s pretty talkative, I bet she explains.”

“I’m sure she does,” Ryuunosuke sighs. “In a moment. Just—Gin had better be unharmed.”

“Oh! Oh.” Jinko looks up with the faintest hint of a curve to his mouth. “Gin-chan’s fine,” he promises, watching Ryuunosuke sweetly. “I didn’t do a very good job of clearing this up, huh?”

Ryuunosuke huffs through his nose, closing his eyes briefly. “No.”

“In my defense, a lot kind of happened all at once. You could’ve made this significantly less complicated by bringing Aya-chan yourself.”

“My appearing within the agency’s territory would not have improved any part of this. The basics, Jinko.”

“It really would have, but whatever.” The weretiger’s gaze wanders as he thinks. “So, Kyouka-chan and Kenji-kun sat with Aya-chan while the rest of us were trying to figure out what was going on. Aya-chan got really excited when she figured out who Kyouka-chan was. She’s really fond of you, you know? She told me that you talked about me, that you told her I’d take—“

He cuts himself off with a sudden hiss.

“You told her I’d take care of her. I’d be her brother, if she wanted, like I am for Kyouka-chan.” There’s a strain in his voice.

“Of course,” Ryuunosuke replies, mild. The girl looked at him with hearts in her eyes when he spoke of the weretiger and the agency. What better place could there be for her? Especially once he realized she was already acquainted with Dazai-san’s brutally effective new partner.

“Kyouka made it abundantly clear how good you are to her. Though the glasses-detective can legally provide for the girl in ways you cannot, does she not deserve the same care?”

“Of course she does, but I’m not the one that saved her,” Jinko points out softly. He fists his hands in the black fabric around his knees. “I’m not the one that kept her company when she couldn’t sleep, and I’m not the one that got her somewhere safe, Akutagawa. She doesn’t need me to give her that care. She has you.”

Ryuunosuke shakes his head, mute.

“And now that she’s gotten to meet both Gin-chan and Chuuya-san, you’re definitely not getting away with dumping her in my lap and calling it a day,” Jinko continues, steel creeping into his tone. “Kunikida-san was filing the paperwork when I left, she’s basically adopted already, but she’s yours too, Oniisama.”

“Don’t call me that, you sound ridiculous.”

“Your everything is ridiculous. Why would you tell her to come to me?”

Ryuunosuke ghosts a fingertip over her letter. There’s so much more written, the girl as chatty in her writing as she is in person. Little doodles decorate the bottom of each page: childish renditions of a half-shifted Jinko, Gin petting Rashomon’s toothy grin, and Ryuunosuke himself stationed behind his charge, a comically oversized blade in her hand. It is identical to the sword he manifests, centuries of skill accidentally gifted alongside everything else. A knot begins to swell in his throat as he skims over her words.

…That Dazai guy laughed when I said you’re my knight, which is mean. You ARE a knight, Bram-Bram said so, and you rescued me like a real knight would! Two times!! I kicked him, and Kunikida-san didn’t even yell at me so I know I’m right. Dazai said he wasn’t being mean, he was happy, but I don’t know about that. Then Kunikida-san said kicking like that is inefficient so he’s going to teach me more martial arts and Fukuzawa-sama said he could teach me how to use a sword when I get a little older. Then I could be strong enough to be my own knight…

…Gin-san says if we’re sharing Oniisan, then it’s only fair that I call her Neechan! She’s so cool, why didn’t you tell me about them before? She’s a warrior AND a princess, that means I can be both if I want to, no matter what my dad thought…

…Atsushi-san promises he’ll head right out to make sure you get this. He doesn’t want you to worry about me. You know, this would be easier if you just gave him your number? I think Dazai has it, him and Chuuya-san keep whisper-yelling at each other but Atsushi-san wouldn’t let me ask what their problem is. He said they’re being weirdos and it’s better to ignore them. Did you know he gets a funny look on his face every time he says your name? You should be nicer to him than you were when you were a vampire, okay? I think he misses you, he’s all sad when no one’s looking. Oh! And he said that if me and Neechan are princess-knights, then that obviously makes you the dragon that gobbles up the idiots who think they can sneak up on us from behind…

“She is already better with you,” Ryuunosuke admits rather than follow the weight of I think he misses you.

Air hisses between the weretiger’s teeth as Ryuunosuke stashes the girl’s missive away. “Would Gin-chan be better off with me, too?”

Ryuunosuke’s head snaps up, ability flaring to life, but the weretiger only glares. “That is different.”

“Is it?”

“Gin did not have anyone else,” Ryuunosuke snarls. “There was only me!”

“And when Aya-chan thought she was all alone, she had you,” the weretiger fires back. “I’m not you! They care about you, you fucking idiot. They care about you so much they both pulled a goddamn knife on me! Shit, Chuuya-san too, you know? I thought he was gonna crush my skull—“ He cuts himself off with a harsh breath, slumping into himself. “Ah, fuck.”

Ryuunosuke’s eyes are so wide they ache. “What did you do, Jinko?”

“I didn’t follow you,” Jinko answers quietly, bowing his head. “I knew I should’ve.”

“When? What reason would you have to follow me?”

Jinko’s shoulders inch up by his ears. “Yeah,” he says, more softly than before. “What reason.”

It’s an upsetting sight, which in itself is an upsetting realization.

In the depths of his head, another surge of emotion, hungry and clawed, strives to crack through the mirrored glass of Stoker’s lingering power. “What the hell does that mean?”

Jinko looks up with unfocused eyes. He runs the back of his fingers across his cheek, hand shifting to cup his own jaw, mouth against his palm. “Nothing,” he mumbles, hand curling into a fist and scraping down to knuckle into his chest. “Nevermind.”

“I know you’re lying, Jinko.”

“Yeah.” Jinko scrubs at his face before tilting his head back. “Look, Chuuya-san was upset because he thought you were with me this whole time. Since the fight.”

“And why,” Ryuunosuke asks darkly, “would he think that?”

Jinko’s jaw goes tight. The tendons in his neck and the muscles of his arms stand out in high relief before he slumps back in a boneless heap against the wall. “Apparently,” he answers as his knees come up to his chest. His head stays tilted back, neck a carelessly enticing display as he rests his elbows over his knees, wrists limp. “That’s what Gin-chan told him.”

Rashomon slams into the wall beside his head. Jinko doesn’t even flinch, twisting to bite through her spear as Ryuunosuke allows himself to stalk closer. “Get to the point,” he snarls.

“We screwed up,” Jinko snaps. His eyes close, and his exhale is unsteady. He curls into himself; interlaced hands coming up to hover behind his bent neck, head drooping between the elbows propped on his knees.

“No, I did. I fucked up when I let you go without me. I knew you were struggling, I knew you weren’t okay, but you said—I should’ve known better. I know you better than that. Of course you didn’t say anything. But Gin-chan followed you, and you came to me, so she thought we were handling it together. Like we’re supposed to.”

Handling what? Even for Jinko, this is incomprehensible.

A frustrated noise escapes the twisted ball Jinko’s become. “I’m supposed to be your partner and I let you go without me.” His body heaves with the force of his disgust.

Ryuunosuke’s mind seethes, somewhere far above himself.

The fight.

They struggled, the two of them alone against a creature made to transcend reality itself, Jinko crippled with grief and Ryuunosuke hardly more than a puppet. No time to think beyond the burning drive to vanquish the beast before them.

High above Yokohama, Jinko fights to get his breathing under control. Deep within Ryuunosuke’s churning memories, the weretiger wheezes around a hole in his chest, unknown and yet somehow dear. He cries out Ryuunosuke’s name, warns him away. Flings himself over Ryuunosuke’s prone body, warding off a sword with claws wrapped in Rashomon’s armor. Jinko roars, blood and spittle flying as he drives their combined power into the beast’s throat.

The princess, Stoker’s ghost whispers as it spreads itself thin. Our princess requires her knight.

She may be Ryuunosuke’s princess but she is not his princess; his princess is made of shadows and flashing steel, with their mother’s beautiful dark eyes and a cleverness that exceeds his own. His princess does not need him, though they have him regardless. The girl, though…

There is only our princess, knight. Take care of her.

A ridiculous thought. The girl will be better cared for now than she has ever been in her short and sheltered life, deep within the agency’s ferocious heart. She has no need of him, though he will come if she calls.

And the weretiger… if there was ever such a thing as a knight, it would be Jinko.

His boots crunch over dirt and gravel as he crosses the last few feet. Jinko’s shoulders tighten, preparing for a blow Ryuunosuke is not capable of delivering. “I’m missing pieces again,” he asks without asking, kicking lightly at the inside of Jinko’s ankle.

“Yeah,” Jinko admits, misery pouring from him as he spreads his legs around Ryuunosuke’s intrusion. “You forgot me.”

The words freeze Ryuunosuke mid-crouch. He tips forward, hands catching on Jinko’s shoulders, knees digging into gravel and Jinko’s thighs.

“I did not. I know you, Jinko. I know you.”

“I know but you did,” hands fist themselves in Ryuunosuke’s shirt, tugging at him until he’s pinned awkwardly against Jinko’s chest. “You forgot me again, and I can’t stand it. But it’s my fault, if I'd stuck with you...”

Ryuunosuke’s breath comes quicker as the words begin to loop. “I don’t understand. What have I lost this time?”

Jinko buries his face in Ryuunosuke’s hair. “After the fight,” he says, breath tickling over a sensitive ear . “Do you remember anything? Anything at all?”

He tries. He tries desperately, running through the maze within his skull as swiftly as he can. Stoker’s vestiges, his last command, cling to the surface of his thoughts like oil, sticky and thin, obscuring him from himself.

He died, aboard the ship. He rose, fanged and starving and helpless against the strings wrapped about his limbs. He became Him, purposeful, powerful, righteousness alight in his veins. He fought, sword swift but Rashomon swifter, defended himself and the princess and pathetic peasants alike, fell only to rise only to fall only to have the weretiger appear beside him, furiously beautiful.

“I remember you,” Ryuunosuke murmurs against the rapid pulse of Jinko’s throat.

Stoker’s command first quieted when the weretiger collapsed at his side. Clawed hands had gripped his face, hauled him up and into his chest.

“I remember telling you you’d better heal as you fed me. I remember your promise to help find Gin.”

“Yes,” Jinko breathes, tugging Ryuunosuke up by the jaw again. “Yes, but you were the one who was hurt, remember? You passed out and we got you back to the agency infirmary. Yosano-san used her ability on you four times, but you wouldn’t wake up. You scared the shit out of me.”

“I did wake,” Ryuunosuke says, distant, hands coming up to pry Jinko’s palms from his flushed face. He did wake, but when?

Determination overtakes Jinko’s expression. “This,” he demands, manipulating Ryunnosuke’s limp hand until the back of his knuckles trail lightly across Jinko’s features. There’s the faintest hint of a prickle along his jaw, and a bump hidden along the slope of his nose. Jinko twists Ryuuosuke’s wrist, nuzzling his downy cheek into his palm. “What about this?”

Ryuunosuke shifts, wedging himself more purposefully between Jinko’s thighs. He takes Jinko’s face in his hands, careful and soft, and tilts Jinko’s chin down. Thoughtless, he runs a hand through Jinko’s bangs, baring his brow for a kiss.

Jinko chokes on his name.

Before Ryuunosuke can pull back, Jinko surges up, catching him in a tight embrace. They kneel, entwined. Jinko’s hands dig into his back and Ryuunosuke lays another kiss to his brow with a mouth made of fire.

“Give me time,” Ryuunosuke whispers against his skin.

The force of Jinko’s sobbing rocks them both. They fall, Jinko twisting to cushion the impact. He blinks wet eyes, tears diamond-bright in his lashes. “Fuck you,” he bites, more watery than anything else.

“I told you to give me time,” Ryuunosuke says in a rush, eyes flickering sightlessly as the ghost within him finally, finally falls dormant, too weak to combat the Jinko’s relentless nature. “To wait for me.”

In the infirmary, he’d woken with his weretiger curled into his torso. He’d traced the lines of his sleeping face, tilted him up to kiss the crown of his head.

“You said you’d come back for me,” Jinko accuses, blinking quickly. Tears pour from the corners of his eyes, catching in his hair. He drags his face against Ryuunosuke’s chest rather than relinquish his grip. “You said you’d come back, but you fucking forgot about me.”

“I did not forget you.”

It’s important he knows that, even if Ryuunosuke hadn’t quite remembered everything. Rashomon braces him as he scoops his weepy weretiger up, settling them so his back is to the wall and his ridiculous Jinko is cradled in his lap.

I have to go, he’d murmured when his weretiger awoke at his touch. I have something I have to do. Wait for me.

No wonder he’s felt so restless.

He keeps his promises.

“I knew letting you leave was a mistake,” Jinko mumbles. “The thing you had to do, that was take care of Aya-chan, right? Why didn’t you take me with you?”

He does not know what to say to that.

“We tried to keep tabs on you,” Jinko confesses. He keeps his face pressed into Ryuunosuke’s throat, arms tight about his shoulders. When Ryuunosuke fists his hand loosely in his hair, Jinko manages to go worryingly limp.

Cat, he thinks again, amusement flaring.

“We?”

“Me and Gin-chan. They apparently knew something was wrong the second you got home.”

Frustration betrays itself in the tightening of his spine. Ryuunosuke digs his knuckles in on either side of the bone and drags down over the curve.

Jinko sighs into it.

“You cycled between the three of us, me and Aya-chan and Gin-chan. She—she thought I knew what was going on, but I guess she didn’t realize you never actually let me see you when you were stalking me at two in the morning or whatever it happened to be that day.”

“Which is why they misdirected Chuuya-san,” Ryuunosuke concludes. He squints into the distance, trying to settle images of himself crouched atop various rooftops into the proper order. “Gin would not have felt the need to risk coming to you more directly if there was already evidence you were aware, nor would they risk anyone else learning of my compromised state.”

“I guess, but. That’s. Um. That’s not the only reason.”

Pulling Jinko back by the hair, Ryuunosuke simply raises his brows.

“She thought I was anchoring you,” Jinko blurts, beet-red and staring over Ryuunosuke’s head. “Aya-chan said something like that, too, or I would’ve thought Gin-chan was—”

Ryuunosuke pulls harder, forcing Jinko’s head back far enough for his spine to bow. “Gin possesses many skills, but cruelty has never been one of them.”

“Okay,” Jinko yelps, breathless as he slaps at his chest with the hand not clinging to Ryuunosuke’s wrist.

Rather than release him, Ryuunosuke tips him up and tucks him back into his throat. “Idiot. What does ‘anchoring’ mean?”

Jinko bites him.

It’s unexpected, sharp and hot, bursting through his system so swiftly he jerks, gasping, head knocking into the wall behind him as his grip goes far too tight in silky hair.

“Jinko!”

Wide purple-gold eyes pin him in place as easily as the weight over his legs and the hands twisting his collar.

“I don’t know,” Jinko admits in a voice several shades too high. “Aya-chan said when you started to sound too much like Stoker you’d start telling her about me. Gin-chan just said you were using me to keep yourself anchored.”

Ryuunosuke’s knuckles creak as he forces his hand open.

“You know what they meant,” Jinko accuses when he remains silent.

An elbow digs into his ribs and a knee nearly clocks him in the face as Jinko flails around until he’s astride Ryuunosuke’s thighs properly. The weretiger glares down at him, entirely too haughty considering his position. Ryuunosuke snorts, sliding further down the wall to pull his knees up and cage the brat in.

“I did not recognize it at the time, but yes. I was using the thought of you to prevent myself from succumbing to Stoker’s will.”

Jinko’s mouth wobbles before firming into a thin line. “Why didn’t you just say that,” he hisses, planting his hands on Ryuunosuke’s chest and arching his spine to glare into his face. “I could’ve been there in person!”

The hands on his chest attempt to crush his lungs.

“I was trying to give you time because you asked for it,” Jinko rasps, fury warring with more tears as he presses Ryuunosuke nearly flat. “I was really, really hoping you just weren’t ready to talk, but I know when you’re close, stupid, I knew you were hanging around but refusing to—I thought you changed your—but no! No, you’re out here doing vigilante shit all by yourself, rescuing little girls while fighting off being fucking possessed by the king of vampires!”

“I had a duty of care,” Ryuunosuke grunts, but Jinko cuts him off.

“Okay, and I would have helped!”

“I don’t have an answer for you, Jinko. It felt like all I had was my mission, and my mission was—”

“Aya. The princess. And probably your sibling, since you kept checking in on them, too.” Jinko’s eyes go wide, and his tone wondrous. “…And me. That’s what you were doing, you were making sure I was okay. But I’m not a princess?”

The sheer befuddlement in his tone proves too much. Ryuunosuke laughs, one hand coming up to hide way it catches, low and dusty in his throat. Jinko leans back into his thighs, watching him with those same wide eyes and a softly parted mouth. The hands on his chest flex, Jinko’s knees tight to his sides as he reaches out to tug Ryuunosuke’s hand from his face.

“I made you laugh,” Jinko murmurs, far more awed than he should be.

Ryuunosuke closes the rest of his mirth behind his teeth and uses Jinko’s hips to shimmy himself upright. Jinko’s grip shifts with him, fingers curling over his shoulders.

“Am I a princess?” Jinko asks, tilting his head to one side.

Ryuunosuke smirks. He leans in close, amusement deepening his voice as he rumbles, “Do you wish to be my princess so badly, Jinko?”

Jinko flushes a stunning shade of red. He makes a furious noise not unlike a teakettle, smacks Ryuunosuke’s shoulder, and scrambles to his feet.

“What if I want to be the knight, huh,” he challenges, gesturing wildly. “You already saved me, so you should let me save you this time!”

For a moment, Ryuunosuke can do nothing but stare.

No matter how he tries, he cannot muster any fury over his own weakness being announced so boldly. A terrible bruising spreads within, stretching to cover a frightening void, a yearning he cannot acknowledge. Slowly, he gets to his feet, chin high and spine straight.

“Am I meant to believe you, of all people, would undertake such a heavy oath, Jinko?”

The weretiger’s blush deepens, but he meets Ryuunosuke’s gaze without flinching. Frustrating creature that he is, he stands his ground as Ryuunosuke steps in, voice dark with derision.

“Does the agency’s venerated weretiger intend to drop to his knees before me? The great white beast, professing fealty to me, offering his claws and teeth in my service?”

He allows his gaze to wander, taking in the tremor in furred fists, the stubborn set of his jaw. Golden eyes glitter, pupils gone to thin slits. “Loyalty and obedience for a lawnmower. I think not.”

“You’re trying to piss me off,” the weretiger spits through his teeth. “But the thing is, I’m not playing anymore, Akutagawa. You want an oath, then I’ll give you an oath.”

Ryuunosuke scoffs and the weretiger matches him, stepping in so he has to tilt his chin up to continue their staring match.

“Besides, you already gave me yours.” The weretiger’s voice wobbles. A hand comes up, fingers human and warm and unbearably gentle as they slip over the thin scar across Ryuunosuke’s throat.

His heart jumps, clenching painfully, and he snatches his—the weretiger’s wrist. “Don’t,” he warns past a mouthful of fangs.

“Princess, knight, whatever, Akutagawa, I don’t care,” the weretiger continues as though Ryuunosuke isn’t threatening to bury claws into his wrist. His eyes are so bright they’re molten, mirroring the passion in his words.

“If you want me to make a big deal out of it, then yeah, I’ll do that, I’ll kneel and give you whatever fancy promise you want, but this goes both ways. That’s how partnerships work. We take turns, we work together, we take care of each other. And right now, you’re the one that needs help, so let me be your knight this time.”

“My knight,” Ryuunosuke breathes, entirely lost. He scours Jinko’s expression, heart tripping in his chest. “You can’t be serious.”

Jinko sighs, twisting his wrist until their hands fall, fingers laced together. He drops his head to Ryuunosuke’s shoulder, free hand coming up to curl in his shirt. “Come home with me,” he mumbles into his chest. “We’ll fix this.”

Ryuunosuke is backing away before the words have fully settled within his shaking head. Jinko reaches for him, but he skips aside. “I can’t,” he says, jerking back when Jinko swipes for him again.

“Akutagawa.”

“No,” Despite how harshly it snaps from his mouth he knows he’s begging. The weretiger lunges but Ryuunosuke’s body flickers out of range so quickly the world blurs around him. His chest heaves, hands suddenly clawed, instincts he doesn’t understand suffocating him.

“Okay,” Jinko cries, but his voice is wrong, fearful and shrill. “Akutagawa, okay, just—“

“I can’t,” he hisses back, senses overloaded, danger on all sides. “I am trying, but I cannot—“

His legs hit the short wall.

Startled, Ryuunosuke topples into open air. He gasps, body weightless.

Rashomon punches into the building. A huge white paw grabs his arm. He lays between the two with his ankles caught on the ledge, blinking owlishly up at a weretiger far more tiger than man.

“Holy shit,” Jinko breathes heavily, face pale. “You’re so much more out of it than I thought you were.” He leans over the wall, curling one enormous arm behind Ryuunosuke’s back. Rashomon gives way as he stands, releasing Ryuunosuke’s body to his weretiger’s strength. Jinko hauls him up, huffing when Ryuunosuke automatically wraps his legs around his hips.

“I would have been fine,” Ryuunosuke mutters as Jinko carries him away from the edge. “Rashomon caught me.” He tugs at the fur on Jinko’s cheeks.

Jinko snaps at his hand and gently sets him down by the access door at the center of the roof. “Nothing about this is fine. You didn’t trip, Akutagawa, that was on purpose. It was like your legs were doing something without your permission. You’re not safe—“

“Exactly,” Ryuunosuke cuts in, latching onto the thought with all he has lest he begin tearing at his own skin. “I am not safe, which is precisely why I cannot go anywhere with you. I could not even get the girl to the agency on my own. The specter within me wants to shred your senior down to bare bones for taking her from us!”

Jinko drops down into a squat, paws flat on the floor between them. “No, it’s another reason to come back with me. There’s no way in hell I’m leaving you like this.”

“I can’t,” Ryuunosuke hisses though it’s a brittle thing on his tongue. Rashomon flares threateningly but his infuriating weretiger doesn’t even blink. “I barely managed to allow the girl to leave in the first place, if the blight I carry lays eyes on her now I—“

“So that was the plan, huh? Ditch Aya-chan with us and then fucking disappear?”

Ryuunosuke strikes the weretiger hard enough to knock him onto his rear. The hot wash of pain in his knuckles keeps him centered as he seethes, “I have no control, Jinko! Have you forgotten what Rashomon is capable of? I will not risk Gin, I will not risk you!”

“But you’ll leave us again,” Jinko growls, viciously incredulous, surging up to flatten Ryuunosuke against the door with an arm across his throat. “You selfish piece of shit.”

“What other options are there?” The pressure makes his voice weak and thready, but he holds tight to Jinko’s forearm rather than remove the limb. “It would be better to put me down like the animal I am.”

“No!”

Jinko’s anger vanishes as rapidly as it appeared, leaving him to slump forward, arms loose around Ryuunosuke’s neck. “You’re going to be so pissed about this once you’re alone in your head again. You don’t run, Akutagawa.”

Ryuunosuke turns, burying his face in white hair as he clings to his unbearably foolish weretiger. “There are so many voices inside me,” he says quietly once Jinko’s breathing settles. “So many compulsions left behind.”

Jinko pulls back, worry scrunching his face, and Ryuunosuke’s chest aches. He leans forward so their foreheads touch. “Is it not a crueler fate to live when I do not know how much of myself remains?”

“Of course you’re still you,” Jinko nuzzles into him, running his nose along the sharp slope of Ryuunosuke’s. “And if Dostoevsky got to live as long as he did, then why can’t you? We saved the world, Akutagawa. What more could you possibly do to prove to yourself that you’re worth the life you have? Actually, no, that’s bullshit.”

Jinko leans back, pinning Ryuunosuke with a look rarely seen outside of battle. “We don’t have to earn the right to exist, not anymore. Isn’t it enough that we already do? Isn’t it enough that you want to? That you have people who care about you and want you here? Gin and Aya and Chuuya and me. Shouldn’t that be enough? Don’t we count?”

“Now who is being selfish, Jinko?”

“Still you,” Jinko snaps.

“You are being deliberately obtuse, aren’t you? I cannot be sure of who I am at any given moment. I don’t know what I am, yet I am meant to pretend I am not a danger to the very people you throw in my face—to what purpose? To make you feel better?”

“I don’t think anyone really knows who or what they are,” Jinko says with a grim humor as he ignores the latter half of Ryuunosuke’s retort. “But if that’s what’s freaking you out, okay. Gin-chan told me to ask: what did Rashomon do, the first time she manifested?”

Ryuunosuke thumps back into the door. White spots burst along the edges of his vision.

He no longer remembers what made that day so terrible; atrocities bleeding into one another. The streets were new enough for hunger to bite at him as ferociously as the cold, his leg hardly capable of supporting his weight when he crept across their hovel. He should have been the only one awake, meant to stand guard over the others. But their fire struggled, and the snapping and popping of green wood hadn’t been enough to cover the muffled weeping.

“There were only a few of us then,” Ryuunosuke croaks, struggling to keep his mind from drifting to another child who sobbed herself to sleep in his arms the night before. “I was the eldest; I did my best. But she wouldn’t stop crying that night. Rashomon grew her flowers from my scarf.”

Jinko’s gasp calls him back to the present.

“Oh,” Jinko reaches out, awe sparkling in his lovely eyes as he runs a delicate fingertip along the petals between them. “It’s so pretty, Akutagawa.”

Rashomon shivers, pleased at the attention. She curls along Jinko’s hand as a red-tinted ivy, putting out blooms of every shape and size.

“You said you don’t know what you are,” Jinko murmurs as Rashomon’s garden makes use of his shoulders. “But I don’t think you changed. Not where it really matters.” He smiles, blossoms sprouting in a crown around his head.

“What am I, then,” Ryuunosuke breathes, entirely defenseless against the sight.

“You’re a protector, Akutagawa. A shield. You take care of your people; that’s why Stoker’s ability has such a strong hold on you. It’s reinforced the parts of you that are the most you.”

Ryuunosuke’s heart squeezes, sudden and painful. He clenches a hand in his shirt and rasps, “I am no one’s protector, Jinko.”

Because he failed them when they needed him most, terrified and weak.

But Jinko tilts his head, earnest and sweet. “You protect me all the time.”

Something about Ryuunosuke’s face must give away the churning within him. Jinko gathers up his hands, determination in his violet gaze. “You take care of Gin-chan,” he says in that gently implacable tone. “You’re protecting Aya-chan as best you can, right now. You got her somewhere safe, even if you had to trick yourself into allowing her out of your sight.”

“Jinko,” Ryuunosuke tries, the name ragged on his tongue. He has no idea what words might spill forth, but his name feels like a blessing he does not deserve. It doesn’t matter, since Jinko presses a kiss to his knuckles that grinds his thoughts to a halt.

“I figured it out, you know,” Jinko murmurs into his skin. A tiny tiger lopes through the forest overtaking their clasped hands, winding its way up Jinko’s arm until it can drape itself around his neck.

Jinko’s expression grows impossibly tender as he watches Ryuunosuke from beneath his lashes.

“If your plan really was to run, you’d be long gone. But you’ve been up here. You knew I’d come after you, which means I’m the plan, aren’t I? You were counting on me.”

Ryuunosuke can only stare. His heart thuds so loudly in his ears.

Jinko shines with light against the blue sky beyond, Rashomon’s flowers anointing him from knight to god-king.

“How long have you been waiting for me?” Jinko asks, shifting so their hands intertwine.

Lowly, he admits, “I don’t know.”

His gaze is stuck on the way their fingers interlace. Carefully, slowly, he folds his fingers down until he can feel the bones beneath Jinko’s tanned skin.

Jinko shakes their hands in a ridiculous little ta-da motion, as though that somehow proves his point. “You did good, you know? Looking out for all of us, fooling the ghost in your head. You did so good, but if you want to take care of us then you have to protect yourself, too. Part of that is letting me help.”

A hand covers Ryuunosuke’s mouth before he has time to do more than inhale, reeling, drawing his gaze back up to Jinko’s terribly soft eyes.

“No, shut up. You trust me with Aya-chan. You trust me with Rashomon. You trusted me enough to wait for me, so trust me to take care of you.“ He waits a moment, as though to impress his seriousness upon Ryuunosuke, before allowing his hand to fall.

“And when I endanger the girl and everyone else you hold so dear?” Ryuunosuke’s voice is so raw it hurts to speak. “What will you do when Stoker unleashes me upon your precious detectives?”

Rather than answer, Jinko sits back on his heels and digs his phone out of his pocket one-handed. He texts, clumsy, tongue peeking out between his lips. “There,” he announces, satisfaction clear as he flicks something on the screen. “If the agency’s out then so is your place. I’m telling Chuuya-san to pick a neutral location and bring Dazai-san. You guys have safe houses all over the city, there’s got to be one nearby, right? I’m asking Yosano-san to come too, if anything weird happens she can heal you again. Which hopefully won’t happen, but if it does—”

Ryuunosuke slots his fingers over Jinko’s screen.

The texting stops and he looks up.

“Jinko,” Ryuunosuke starts, hoarse, desperately lost and overwhelmingly heartsick. “Why are you doing this? Why are you here?”

The phone rings. Ryuunosuke snatches both hands back and Jinko nearly drops the phone, cursing wildly as he fumbles. He looks up with fierce eyes and stabs a finger into Ryuunosuke’s chest. “Because you matter to me,” he says fiercely, accepting the call and bringing the phone up to his ear.

“Where the hell are you,” Chuuya demands in a flurry the instant it connects. Between his heightened senses and Chuuya’s ire, Ryuunosuke can hear him as clearly as though he stood before them. Jinko puts it on speaker anyway. “You found him? What do you mean, find a safe place? The fuck’s wrong with here? What happened, whose ass do I gotta come beat?”

Jinko angles the phone away and yanks Ryuunosuke in by the collar. “See?” he hisses while Ryuunosuke blinks stupidly at him. “I told you, you’ve got people who care about you.”

“Oi, Tiger-boy,” Chuuya growls through the speaker. “Fuckin’ answer me!”

“He’s mostly fine, Chuuya-san,” Jinko says, righting the phone as he releases Ryuunosuke.

Without the strength of his grip, Ryuunosuke falls back against the door, wide-eyed and stunned more thoroughly than he’s ever been in his miserable existence.

“He’s worried about going to the agency like this,” Jinko explains, holding Ryuunosuke’s gaze. The fabric forested along his shoulders recedes slowly, rustling faintly in displeasure as she slinks back to her proper place. But Jinko, ever the contrarian, twirls a vine around his littlest finger and holds tight.

“Eh? What’s his deal? Wait, shit, I thought Gin said he hadn’t forgotten anything?”

“He hasn’t really forgotten,” Jinko hedges. “Just kind of… misplaced things?”

“How is that different. Whatever, what’d he ‘misplace’ that’s got him freaked about the agency? Dazai? The truce? Does he know he’s not technically Mafia anymore?”

Ryuunosuke’s stomach plummets. “What?”

Jinko shoves the phone into his hands before he can snatch it, worrying at his lip.

“Chuuya-san, I’ve been expunged?” His eyes skip across the roof, wary of every stray leaf despite being stories above Yokohama proper. “How much time do I have?”

There’s a beat of silence and then Chuuya blows out a harsh breath. “No, no, none of that. You fuckin’ died, kid. Remember? And the whole vampire thing—look, shit got weird. All I’m saying is, if you don’t wanna come back to us, boss won’t make a fuss. No repercussions, no hit, nothing. You can figure out what you want out of your life now that you got, y’know, choices.”

Ryuunosuke waits a moment on the off-chance Chuuya elaborates. “What choices,” he grits through his teeth when Chuuya doesn’t. Jinko makes a quiet sound, disagreeing as he burrows into Ryuunosuke’s shoulder. “I am Mafia. There is nothing else.”

“There is if you want it, Akutagawa. Dazai over here says Doc Glasses messed with your record. Y’know, payment for the saving everyone’s ass bit. Plus, my people set up a whole new identity for you, but obviously he didn’t bother to pass any of that along,” irritation spikes in his tone. There’s a familiar smacking sound, and an even more familiar yelp.

“He’s been playing housedog, Chibi, and I’m in a wheelchair. How was I supposed to tell him anything?” Another yelp, and then Dazai’s wails are overshadowed by distant shouting.

Chuuya snorts, amusement echoed by the snickering Jinko presses into his shoulder. Empty-headed, Ryuunosuke doesn’t have it in himself to deny the urge to wrap his free arm around Jinko, holding him close.

“Look, you decide you wanna come back, we’ll take you back,” Chuuya says, picking up where he left off. “You’re good at what you do, Akutagawa, and you’re one of ours no matter what, you hear? But it’s still your call. You got time, y’know, so think it over. Me and Higuchi and the Black Lizard crew aren’t going anywhere either way. Right now, all you gotta do is get your ass back here. Preferably before Gin and the new kid skip out to find you themselves. Ain’t that right, kid?"

Alarm races up Ryuunosuke's spine. He lurches forward, hand digging into Jinko's arm. "Chuuya-san, don’t—!”

“That’s right, Oniisan,” Aya chirps through the speaker, happily belligerent. “Stop being stupid and get over here already! I’m tired of waiting for you.”

Blood flows in a hot river over his clawed fingertips.

Jinko’s voice is frantic, unintelligible in his ears.

The phone clatters to the rooftop. Ryuunosuke wheezes, desperate.

“Jinko!”

The world blurs, streaks, voices loud and jumbled together beneath Aya’s cry of “Oniisan! What’s wrong?”

Two bands wrap tight around him, crushing his arms to his chest. He snarls, thrashing, sinking claws and teeth and Rashomon’s blades into whatever he can reach.

He must get free. He has to go. The princess calls for him with fear in her voice.

“Oniisan!”

“Get away from the phone, Aya-chan!” The weretiger roars so ferociously Ryuunosuke’s ears ring. A leg kicks out, sending the phone skittering away. Ryuunosuke manages to get his knees beneath him, heaving them both upright.

“You dare keep her from me,” Ryuunosuke’s mouth spits, another man’s rage cutting across his tongue. He staggers, the weretiger’s body swelling, enveloping him. He roars with fury, Rashomon dragging them across the roof.

The tiger swears, limbs enormous as he wrenches Ryuunosuke clean off his feet.

“Fight it, Akutagawa!”

Rashomon billows into the air around them, hungry, directionless. Ryuunosuke bites at nothing, writhing, hissing, raking his claws against himself. Jinko’s quick, slamming them back down in a wild tangle of limbs and abilities.

“Breathe,” Jinko grunts, strained but clear as he holds Ryuunosuke atop himself, back to chest. “It’s me, I got you. You can do this. Focus on me, just like you’ve been doing. You’re stronger than him, Akutagawa. Come on, come back to me.”

Jinko surrounds him entirely: strong arms locked across his chest, tail slung wire-tight around his middle, heavy legs clamped around his thighs. It should be suffocating. As Jinko continues to chant encouragement into the side of his neck, Ryuunosuke finds nothing but reassurance in his refusal to loosen his grip. He focuses on the pressure, the heat of him, the rumble of his shifted voice, and tries to beat back Stoker’s fury.

The girl is safe. But if he is beside her, she won’t be. He cannot go, cannot pluck her from the agency and keep her hidden away forevermore. The girl is safe, and he is not.

“I’m here,” Jinko’s saying, has said who knows how many times while Ryuunosuke fights himself. “I’ve got you, you’re not alone, okay? Listen to my voice, Akutagawa, and wake up. Come back, come back, come back.“

The sky overhead is an endless blue, made richer by the barest brush of white. Jinko’s heart thunders in Ryuunosuke’s head, thumps heavily against his back, breath hot against his scarred throat as Jinko pleads.

The girl is safe.

Ryuunosuke will be. His Jinko will not allow anything else.

He turns his head, silver hair brushing against his mouth as he rasps, “Atsushi.”

The arms around him squeeze impossibly tighter. Jinko cranes his neck, stretching to find his gaze, wide-eyed and frantic.

“Akutagawa? Fuck, please—”

Ryuunosuke digs a hand in the short fur of Jinko’s wrist. “Atsushi,” he says again, hoarse and shaking.

“I’ve got you,” Jinko tells him, and Ryuuonsuke goes utterly slack in his grip.

The fool relaxes.

“Don’t,” Ryuunosuke gasps, groaning when Jinko cuts him off with another harsh squeeze.

“I won’t let go ‘til you’re ready,” he mumbles. But he softens around Ryuunosuke in slow increments, until he tethers Ryuunosuke inside his skin with nothing more than the security found in his touch.

They lie together, Ryuunosuke’s frame rising and falling with Jinko’s breath. The calm Jinko gifts him trickles through his bones, Stoker’s desperation drying out with the steady ebb and flow of Jinko’s ribs.

Rashomon stirs to life with barely a thought. Jinko flinches, but Ryuunosuke sends her slithering across the roof in search of the phone. It’s cracked, and he makes a mental note to replace it with something far sturdier.

“Trying again?” Jinko asks, tickling the space behind Ryuunosuke’s ear. “I should probably…” He grunts, shuffling beneath Ryuunosuke without releasing him.

Rashomon slips under them both, tugging them upright until Jinko’s back is against the wall edging the roof again, Ryuunosuke held between his legs. But Jinko still peels an arm free to take the device from Rashomon’s ribbon.

Ryuunosuke’s chest flexes oddly. The lack of one arm should not leave him bereft, not with how much of Jinko encapsulates him, but he wants it returned immediately.

“Not letting go, promise,” Jinko’s voice smears across his skin, and Ryuunosuke doesn’t require choices when his decision is long made. “You’re okay. Oh, it’s still connected?”

“Sure as shit is,” Chuuya agrees in a crackle of static. “What in the fuck was that all about?”

“Do not allow the girl or her handler anywhere near me,” Ryuunosuke croaks, having to stop and clear his throat.

Jinko relinquishes the phone back to Rashomon’s tendril, worming his fingers between Ryuunosuke’s instead. Their hands rest over his heart. Light-headed, Ryuunosuke sags into the body behind him and admits, “The girl’s well-being is paramount, but I will inevitably be made to attack her new caretaker. Stoker’s echo already regards the agency as an enemy purely for housing her, Chuuya-nii.”

Jinko takes a sharp breath.

“So we keep the kid and her guardian out of sight, Ryuunosuke-kun,” Chuuya says, significantly more gruff than a moment ago.

Several voices bloom in the background, too many to untangle.

“Enough,” Chuuya barks, loud enough for both Ryuunosuke and his Jinko to wince. “No, hush, he can’t talk to you yet, go get Kunikida—Gimmie a damn minute, you shitty bastard!—Ryuunosuke,” Chuuya’s voice is softer now, the other voices muffled. “I’ll have Gin take them somewhere else for now, but you better be here within the next sixty minutes or I’m coming after you my goddamn self. Oh, yeah, and little tiger? Actually do your job this time, or we’re gonna find out exactly how far tigers fly.”

The line goes dead.

Jinko’s jaw cracks. Somehow, there’s more irritation in that sound that he’s displayed since his arrival. “Whenever you’re ready, we can go,” he mutters into Ryuunosuke’s hair, then taps at his torn and bloody sleeve. “Should probably avoid the trains, though.”

It takes a moment to realize the unsteady breathing in Ryuunosuke’s ears comes from himself. He flicks a finger, watching as Rashomon snaps the phone shut with a click that grates on his nerves. She stows the phone in Jinko’s bag and dissipates.

“You’re still holding me,” he notes distantly.

The body behind him tenses, curling into him. “Should I…” Jinko cuts himself off with a disgruntled noise. Then he noses at the side of Ryuunosuke’s head, catlike, and starts over. “Do you want me to stop?”

Jinko’s embrace is warm, welcoming, entirely terrifying purely for how Ryuunosuke grits his teeth against the impulse to cling.

“You should.”

“Maybe,” Jinko sounds like he’s not sure if he’s exasperated or amused. “But I didn’t ask if I should, I asked if you want me to.”

“What does that matter?”

He can feel Jinko sigh. And then the arms around his stomach shift. He yelps, Rashomon bursting into the air as Jinko gets to his feet, hefting Ryuuonsuke up as though he weighs nothing.

“I got you,” Jinko soothes, frustratingly calm as he turns to set Ryuunosuke on the wall encircling the roof. Rashomon bats at his chest before sulking back into Ryuunosuke’s coat.

Jinko snickers, dropping between Ryuunosuke’s legs to sit on his heels. “Wanted to see your face,” the fool admits as he loops furred arms loosely around Ryuunosuke’s hips, huge paws against his lower back. “I thought this would be a good compromise.” Jinko smiles up at him. It’s lopsided, fond despite the teasing edge, jagged bangs half-hiding his laughing eyes.

Rashomon left her mark along the rest of him. Blood dots the white of his shirt, dozens of spider lilies spreading through the weave. There’s a certain measure of pride Ryuunosuke unearths at the sight: none of the wounds would have been lethal despite his weakness.

“I don’t think you want me to stop,” Jinko says after a moment. His smile is smaller now, a secret caught within the curve Ryuunosuke isn’t sure he can decode. The gold of his eyes blends into the violet, turning his gaze into soft pink clouds. “And I don’t want to either. If you need time, then we’ll take some time, okay? Everyone else can wait a bit.”

“Time,” Ryuunosuke murmurs, half to himself. “Have I not lost enough time?”

Jinko cants his head, a crease between his brows. Those paws knead lazily at Ryuunosuke’s spine, raising goosebumps along his limbs. “Did you want to head back now? Ay—oh, that’s why you don’t say her name, huh? Well, Gin-chan and Kunikida-san are pretty scary by themselves. Nothing’s going to get past the two of them. You know she’s safe and that she’s not at the agency, so heading over shouldn’t trigger anything. But you’ve got me, you know?”

The sheer absurdity of his continued earnestness—It’s maddening.

“Save me your pity,” he replies, dark. He wraps a hand around the length of Jinko’s tie.

“Akutagawa.”

That’s all Jinko says. His name, scold and entreaty both. Ryuunosuke scowls and yanks the tie in his fist. Jinko tilts with the pull, one way and then another, before he lays a human hand on Ryuunosuke’s wrist.

Ryuunosuke’s mouth flattens under Jinko’s challenging gaze. He can practically hear the what’s wrong with you, and it’s not pity, stupid.

Abruptly he demands, “My knight?”

Jinko’s lovely eyes blow wide, pupils ballooning to near perfect circles. “Yeah,” he breathes. “Yours.”

That obnoxiously pretty blush creeps across Jinko’s face, dusting over his nose. He smiles, a bare flash of a fang, and then practically purrs, “Still want that oath? I’m already kneeling.”

“I cannot stand you.”

A thumb drags lightly across the thin skin of Ryuunosuke’s wrist.

“I don’t believe you,” Jinko murmurs. A flicker of pink and his lower lip tucks between his teeth, though not enough to suppress the tiny smile he wears.

Ryuunosuke growls, wrenching Jinko’s stupid tie towards himself. Jinko rises up off his heels so easily. It makes no sense. How can he be so damnably soft?

How can he offer that softness belly first to Akutagawa Ryuunosuke?

Jinko’s hands find a home on each of Ryuunosuke’s knees. He leans in, following the pull of his tie, looking up with half-lidded eyes and a cocky little smirk.

Ryuunosuke bends down to meet him without a single thought in his head.

He brushes his mouth against Jinko’s, barely breathing around the sudden electricity in his veins. When he pulls back, Jinko’s lashes fan crystalline across his cheeks. His mouth is slightly puckered, caught in the act of chasing. Despite the brief contact, the heat of those lips lingers on Ryuunosuke’s. He swallows hard but cannot resist the need to give his Jinko what he wants. Especially if, somehow, what he wants is him.

The second kiss lingers.

Jinko’s mouth is addicting, the swell of his lip sweet between Ryuunosuke’s. A tilt of Jinko’s head and they begin a deliciously slow dance they know without knowing, pieces fitting together seamlessly. An impulsive flick of the tongue and Jinko rumbles for him, low and plaintive. It reverberates straight through the hand he doesn’t remember splaying over Jinko’s broad chest, tie crushed in his grip. He gasps into Jinko’s mouth, knees tight to Jinko’s sides, hand buried in silky hair.

The third kiss is ravenous.

Jinko’s hands slide, digging into the meat of Ryuunosuke’s thighs, pulling him flush. Ryuunosuke barely registers the needy little hum that escapes his throat, but Jinko inhales like he’s been hurt. He presses into Ryuunosuke with a throaty sound, clever tongue working his lips open, dragging hungrily along his own. Teeth sink into Ryuunosuke’s lip, sudden enough to elicit a breathy whine. Jinko rushes after the sound, tasting the way it coats the back of Ryuunosuke’s teeth, exploring his mouth with a desperate territorial edge. There’s no finesse, no practiced advance; Jinko simply takes because Ryuunosuke allows.

They break apart, panting together, Ryuunosuke clutching Jinko’s tattered collar. He has to close his eyes against the sheer warmth in Jinko’s bright eyes.

The hands on his thighs slide up to cup his hips. He shivers, caught, pinned, held, in Jinko’s grasp.

“To be completely clear, you can kiss me pretty much whenever you want,” Jinko murmurs between breaths, pressing a fourth kiss, chaste and faint, to the edge of Ryuunosuke’s tingling mouth. “Please, please kiss me whenever you want. But ah, what was that for?”

Embarrassingly, it takes a moment to retrace his thoughts. He doesn’t need to open his eyes to know Jinko is pleased with himself. He can feel the curve of his devilish mouth against his cheek.

“Akutagawa?”

Ryuunosuke doesn’t open his eyes. “No. Not from you.”

Hands cup his cheeks, tilting him slightly to the side. Jinko’s mouth fits itself back to his, so perfectly reverent it rearranges the world as he knows it.

“Ryuunosuke,” Jinko breathes against his mouth, stealing a sixth kiss like the scant distance between them is too much to endure. “Ryuunosuke, talk to me.”

A seventh kiss, an eighth and a ninth, Jinko’s mouth trailing along the edge of his jaw.

“I keep losing myself,” Ryuunosuke murmurs into the darkness behind his eyelids.

Jinko’s thumb lifts his chin, baring his throat for a tenth. He pauses, breath hot, before tonguing an eleventh across scarred skin.

“I keep losing you,” Ryuunosuke confesses quietly, pulse in Jinko’s mouth. “I find I am tired of it.”

Jinko’s breathing hitches, lips catching on raised skin. “Ryuunosuke.”

“Chuuya-nii claims I have choices. You claim I have time.”

Twelve, behind his ear. He sucks in an unsteady breath as the lobe is licked, pulled into Jinko’s burning mouth. The sensation is overwhelming, his eyes too heavy to open.

“What if I find I have no need for either choices or time?”

Jinko stills against him. Hands drag hesitantly down his sides. When Jinko shifts as though to pull away, Ryuunosuke holds him in place with a hand to the back of his head. His knees squeeze Jinko’s hips, and he nearly hiccups when it earns him a thirteenth, laid gently on his temple.

“I was many things in my former life. Devourer. Nightmare, dog, puppet...”

“Protector,” Jinko says, tone brooking no argument even as he places a fourteenth kiss to the vulnerable ridge of Ryuunosuke’s throat. “Chuuya-san’s friend. Aya-chan’s knight. Gin-chan’s brother. My partner. You’re not defined by what you did to survive, or what other people asked of you.“

Ryuunosuke swallows, Jinko’s mouth chasing the bob of his throat. “If there is a choice to be made, Jinko—“

Sharp teeth sink into his collarbone, red careening through his nervous system. He gives a pathetic gasping whine he can barely hear under Jinko’s foreboding rumble. “Say my name.”

“Atsushi,” he pants immediately. “Atsushi, Atsushi—“

Fifteen and Ryuunosuke becomes nothing more than a mouth, opened and plundered and wholly claimed.

Atsushi holds him in place with paws larger than his head. Atsushi is a summer storm between his thighs, hot and devastating as he encircles Ryuunosuke entirely. Atsushi pulls back enough to allow him to breathe but not enough to part entirely, nibbling along his swollen lip before surging back in. The motion of his tongue is deliberate, all-consuming, sweeping deep before retreating in a purposeful rhythm Ryuunosuke struggles to match.

When Atsushi has taken his fill, he withdraws slowly. A pleased chuff unsticks Ryuunosuke’s eyelids, though he find himself watching Atsushi look him over, lax and dazed, held up by enormous paws.

“Say it again,” Atsushi orders, chest heaving, eyes heavy on Ryuunosuke’s slick mouth.

Ryuunosuke musters up a sneer instead.

A shifted thumb migrates along his cheek. It swipes moisture from Ryuunosuke’s lip, pressing in over his teeth to rest heavily on his tongue.

He bites.

Atsushi yelps, yanking his hand free. He shakes it rapidly, spittle flying. “You don’t have to be mean,” he grouses, examining his knuckle. The indents of Ryuunosuke’s teeth are already gone. Pity.

“You deserved that. Arrogant little shit.”

Atsushi smiles to himself. “Maybe a bit,” he admits softly, drying his thumb on Ryuunosuke’s knee. “I interrupted you, before. What about choices?”

Does the faint brush of his mouth along Ryuunosuke’s cheekbone count as sixteen? He shakes Atsushi’s grip off, trying to gather himself back together. There’s an unbearable amount of heat beneath his skin, his face positively radiating against the hand he swipes over his mouth and chin.

“What makes you think I’ll tell you after you’ve mauled me?”

Ridiculously, Atsushi headbutts him. “Ryuunosuke,” he groans, exasperated despite the way he nuzzles into his temple.

Relenting with hardly more than a huff, Ryuunosuke admits, “I don’t know what choices Chuuya-nii meant. But I find myself hoping that you, at least, might permit me to… become something I once thought beyond my capabilities. Something I never truthfully considered.” He pauses, hands fisting around Atsushi’s suspenders. “Something new.”

Atsushi snickers, tugging at the white tips of Ryuunosuke’s hair. “You’re already my princess,” he teases, voice bemusingly pleased. “You don’t have to ask.”

Ryuunosuke loses his mind a little. It’s the only explanation for why he turns his head and bites at the closest stretch of flesh, teeth pressing as deep into Atsushi’s throat as he can without breaking skin, claws pinching into the meat between his ribs.

The body between his knees ripples. Atsushi makes a noise that buzzes through his head and turns his thoughts to mush.

He growls around his mouthful.

“Oh, fuck,” Atsushi whines.

A yank on his eartail startles Ryuunosuke back. There’s a bruise struggling to bloom on Atsushi’s throat, his face flushed and eyes hungry.

Ryuunosuke wants to lean right back in to leave a matching mark on the other side.

“I am no princess,” he says instead, low and dangerous around the fangs overtaking his mouth. “Do not mistake my current state for weakness, Jinko.”

Atsushi stares.

Ryuunosuke stares back.

Atsushi breaks first. “You can be so stupid, you know that?” he groans, shifting so he can sit on his rear and wrap his arms over Ryuunosuke’s legs.

“I’m not calling you weak, or saying you can’t take care of yourself. I know you’re strong, I know you don’t need me. I’m calling you important. Like—I don’t know, treasure. Something precious. I’m saying you’re something, someone, that I want to protect, someone I’d choose to take care of if you’d stop being a bitch long enough to let me.”

Ryuunosuke blinks down at him, slack-jawed.

“You haven’t even noticed, have you?” Atsushi waits a moment, and then rolls his eyes when Ryuunosuke remains silent. “This whole time, you’ve been fine. You’ve been focused on me. You’ve been paying attention to me, and Stoker hasn’t been a problem at all.”

That snaps Ryuunosuke’s jaw shut. His brows draw tightly together as he rapidly works back through the last however long, and finds himself astonished to realize Atsushi is correct. But whatever he believes that proves isn’t.

“Without the girl, there is no reason for his ghost to speak.”

“That’s not true and you know it, but okay, fine. What about when I bit you, and you didn’t try to fucking kill me for it? Or when you bit me two minutes ago and it didn’t even trigger your need to feed. You trust me, Ryuunosuke. You feel safe with me. You do, so could you just—let me?”

“Let you,” he echoes, entirely entranced with the deep shade of red overtaking Atsushi’s face.

“You were going to ask me to let you care about me,” Atsushi says, tilting sideways until he’s looking up at Ryuunosuke through his hair, head pillowed on Ryuunosuke’s thigh. “Right? That’s the thing you didn’t think you were capable of. This, whatever we’re doing right now. The kisses and the touching and caring and being honest.”

The last is said with a pointedness he doesn’t particularly appreciate.

Ryuunosuke flexes his jaw. He exhales, fitting a hand to the curve of Atsushi’s skull, stroking through thick white locks. Atsushi’s eyes flutter and he hums low in his throat. The sound vibrates along Ryuunosuke’s leg. Something about that tiny intimacy tears straight through him.

“Atsushi,” he says, slow, purely for the sake of it.

Atsushi doesn’t open his eyes as he mumbles, “I want to be your knight, you know? I told you that already. But I want to be your princess, too.”

“You do not.”

The denial spills forth automatically. But even as he speaks, Rashomon slithers down to wrap herself around his partner’s shoulders, the slope of which she knows nearly as well as his own.

“It’s embarrassing how much I actually do,” Atsushi grumbles, turning so he speaks into Ryuunosuke’s leg.

There’s a warning in his voice when he asks, “Are you saying you want my attention, Atsushi?”

“I already have your attention.” Brilliantly gold eyes look up from where Atsushi’s wrapped himself around Ryuunosuke’s leg. “Don’t I.”

Hunting, Ryuunosuke thinks suddenly. The weretiger never stopped hunting him, did he?

But because he is, in fact, honest, he nods.

“I better,” Atsushi says with the same dark humor he had earlier. “But here’s the thing, Ryuunosuke; you want my attention, too. So, yeah, care about me. Look after me. Protect me and fight with me. Grow with me. Trust me, and be with me.”

Atsushi’s voice is carved from stone despite the softness in his eyes. He reaches out with one hand, loosely twisting the hem of Ryuunosuke’s shirt between his fingers.

“Give me everything, Ryuunosuke. Accept that I’m going to give you everything right back.”

Ryuunosuke untangles his fingers from his shirt to lace his own between them instead. A smile blooms across Atsushi’s face, sweet despite being mushed into Ryuunosuke’s leg. Or perhaps because of how he’s pressed himself so close.

“Let me take you to the agency,” Atsushi says, heart clear in his tone. “Let me save you.” He kisses Ryuunosuke’s leg and then shifts back up to his knees to drop another kiss to Ryuunosuke’s mouth.

“Eighteen,” he mumbles, even as Atsushi takes his nineteenth. It’s slow, gentle, exploring how well they fit against each other. Ryuunosuke can’t help the sound he makes, not quite hungry, not quite pained, a hum that asks for more.

He wants so much more, nebulous as that idea may be. Anything. Everything.

“You took such good care of your princess, Ryuu,” Atsushi whispers against his mouth. “Just like you took such good care of me, even when I didn’t know it. It’s my turn, okay? Let me take care of you.”

Ryuunosuke’s eyes are closed.

When he concentrates, he can feel Stoker’s remnants within him. But no longer is it an oil slick clinging to his every thought, staining his every move. Instead it hovers much like a fog, dewy and intangible, visible from a distance but dampened and blurry from within.

Atsushi shines against the darkness, daylight burning through.

Ryuunosuke waited, made himself visible in a manner only his weretiger would see. He hadn’t run, hadn’t needed to.

He’d known his knight would save him.

There is, then, only one truth left to speak.

Their twentieth kiss is an ember, an oath, a beginning. Ryuunosuke moves slowly, coaxing the heat between them. Atsushi melts beautifully. It’s so easy to press him back down to his heels, to use thick white hair to hold him in place. Weak hands come up, urging Ryuunosuke closer by the collar. Ryuunosuke obeys, leaning over his Jinko, his tiger, his savior, his match, and watches hazy amethyst eyes flutter open.

“Take care of me, Atsushi.”