limerence // akutagawa ryuunosuke
tw ⇢ mentions of violence and injuries, mentions of abuse, sexual tension, highly suggestive content, slightly possessive aku, akutagawa has a wild imagination
wc ⇢ 9.7k
a/n: i just liked the idea of someone being there for aku when he was being mistreated by dazai. it just spiraled out of control
Akutagawa had always sensed something indescribable drawing him to you - an invisible thread tying your two existences together in a way he couldn't put words to. Ever since joining the Port Mafia under Dazai's brutal tutelage, there had been this inexplicable feeling that you were meant to be a fixed point in his life's orbit.
It wasn't that he felt the incessant urge to hurt you, like he did with so many others he deemed inferior or disposable. No, the rasping voice in his head that incessantly whispered for destruction and chaos went utterly silent whenever you were around. If anything, your presence seemed to dull the storm of his violent impulses to a steady patter.
He admired the way you carried yourself - the fearless determination shining through your eyes, the ruthless efficiency with which you dispatched any who crossed your path. You pulled your own weight without question or complaint, swiftly earning respect and a solid position amongst the mafia ranks in a remarkably short time.
In many ways, you reminded him of himself - two feral strays plucked off the streets by the maddeningly enigmatic Dazai and molded into his own personal weapons. Perhaps that was where this strange kinship stemmed from initially. He saw reflections of his own brokenness, his own will to survive and stake a claim in this unforgiving world, gazing back at him through your steely gaze.
The first time Dazai had introduced you two, Akutagawa immediately noticed the way your eyes seemed to flicker with something like...recognition? A fleeting spark of light danced through those dead irises whenever you glanced his way. In that moment, he knew you had been through unspeakable hells, just as he had. The kinship was immediate, if unacknowledged.
"This is your new...partner, of sorts," Dazai had said with one of his signature inscrutable smiles. "I expect you two to look out for each other from this point on."
You had simply given a curt nod, not speaking a word. Akutagawa remembered being struck by your silence, the way it seemed to have great weight and volume despite the lack of sound.
That was how it remained between you two for the longest time - an unspoken bond of understanding threaded through the quiet moments you existed side-by-side. Like the time Dazai had disciplined Akutagawa a little too severely, leaving him a crumpled, bleeding mess on the warehouse floor.
"Just kill me," Akutagawa had rasped through gritted teeth, despair crashing over him in waves at the thought that he wasn't strong enough, wasn't good enough to be of use. If he couldn't be of use, he had no purpose.
That's when he felt the feather-light caress of fingers grazing over his mottled skin. His head had snapped up, eyes wild, as Rashomon burst forth with a violent screech to attack the perceived threat. But there was no scream, no cry of pain or fear - only the soft patter of blood droplets hitting the concrete as Rashomon's jaws clamped down on your shoulder.
You showed no pain, only that same weighted silence and expectant look that somehow conveyed you trusted Akutagawa to call off his attack. He found himself dismissing Rashomon without a second thought.
From that day on, a new unspoken ritual formed between you two. Whenever Akutagawa was left beaten and broken by Dazai's savage lessons, you would appear like a wraith. Not a word would be exchanged as you gathered his battered body with surprising gentleness and began cleaning and binding his wounds with a steady, practiced hand.
An entire year slipped by in that manner - two damaged, jagged souls orbiting each other in a companionable silence. Until one day, you finally spoke.
"Why do you let him do this to you?" Your voice was little more than a hoarse rasp, as though long unused to forming words.
Akutagawa's eyes had gone wide at the unexpected sound. "He...He's making me stronger," was his automatic reply.
You shook your head, mouth setting into a grim line. "No. He's breaking you."
Those four words hung thick in the air as you resumed cleaning the fresh wound on his cheek with surprising tenderness. Akutagawa wanted to angrily refute your allegation, but something in the depths of your gaze stopped him. He searched your expression, took in the tightness around your eyes and the hardened set of your jaw, and realized you weren't just speaking in hypotheticals.
"What do you mean?" he found himself asking, a slight furrow creasing his brow.
You paused, seeming to carefully weigh your next words. When you spoke again, it was low and measured. "Dazai...he takes pleasure in breaking people. Molding them into what he wants, no matter how much it shatters them in the process."
Your hands stilled, falling away from his cheek as your gaze grew distant, as if you were seeing something far away that only you could perceive. "I've seen it before, in others he claimed to 'mentor'. The light slowly extinguishing from their eyes as he systematically stripped them of anything that gave them strength beyond his control."
A muscle ticked in your jaw and your hands clenched into white-knuckled fists against your thighs. "I won't let that happen to me. To us." Your eyes snapped back to his with an intensity that pierced straight through to Akutagawa's very core. "We can't let him break us, Akutagawa. We have to stay strong, for ourselves."
He could only nod mutely, trying his best to absorb the weight behind your impassioned words. For the first time, he was seeing the full scope of the simmering rage and defiance you clearly harbored towards their mentor. A rage he realized, with some surprise, he might share more kinship with than he previously thought.
The silence stretched onward as you took up the first aid supplies once more, resuming your ministrations with a little more force behind the movements. Akutagawa could feel the heat of your body from where you knelt in front of him, smell the faint tang of your skin and the metallic hint of his own drying blood. It should have felt suffocating, but instead there was an odd sense of comfort in your presence surrounding him.
Finally, you seemed to reach some internal decision and spoke again without looking up. "From now on, you come to me if he...if that happens again." It wasn't a question, but a quiet, steely command. "Don't let him take any more of you than he already has."
Akutagawa gave another muted nod, unable to give voice to the jumbled emotions currently ricocheting through him. He knew in that moment that something had irrevocably shifted between you two - a new gravitational force lashing you both securely in each other's orbit, an unbreakable chain reforged in defiance of the man who brought you together only to try and rip you apart.
As you dressed the last of his wounds and made to pull away, he caught your wrist in a grip just shy of bruisingly tight without conscious thought. You froze, eyes flicking up to search his face with that piercing, unblinking stare. Akutagawa opened his mouth, but no words would come. He simply held your gaze, trying to convey the gratitude, the bone-deep relief at knowing he didn't have to be alone in this hell anymore.
You seemed to understand regardless. You simply gave a solemn nod and covered his hand with your free one, giving it a tight squeeze. Akutagawa felt something unknot in his chest at the contact. It was as if you had extended him the thinnest fragile lifeline, a tendril of connection keeping him bound to the side of light and humanity he so feared losing sight of entirely.
From that day forward, your unspoken ritual took on a new dimension of fierce protectiveness and silent strength being drawn from each other's resolve. Akutagawa continued weathering Dazai's cruel tempests, but now he had your steadfast presence to keep him moored, to keep him from shattering apart entirely.
And in turn, he vowed to be that same anchor for you...
The weeks passed in a steady cycle of brutality and quiet reprieves. Dazai's cruel lessons grew harsher, his bemused smiles taking on a sharper, more mocking edge as he pushed Akutagawa to his limits over and over again. But each time, without fail, you would appear like an avenging spirit - silent fury simmering in your eyes as you gathered Akutagawa's broken body and began the ritual of putting him back together.
Your touches during those stolen moments started to linger a beat longer than perhaps was necessary. Fingertips would ghost over the newly formed scars and mottled bruises with a tenderness that made something warm unfurl in the pit of Akutagawa's stomach. He found himself craving those light caresses, irritated when you pulled away too soon.
You seemed to sense the shift as well. He would catch you staring sometimes, head tilted ever so slightly as you observed him through narrowed eyes. As if you were studying him, cataloging every wince and sharp indrawn breath for deeper analysis. The weight of your regard made the hair on the back of his neck prickle, though not in an unpleasant way.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the walls between you began eroding away. What started as terse one-word answers when you asked him gruffly how he was faring blossomed into full, albeit stilted sentences. Your brows would knit together whenever Akutagawa recounted in clipped tones the new creatively sadistic punishments Dazai had devised, your jaw tensing until he could see the muscles flexing beneath the skin.
"He can't keep doing this," you bit out one night, hands stilling where they gently probed the fresh fracture in Akutagawa's arm. "We're not his dolls to torture for his amusement."
Akutagawa could only grunt an affirmative, reflexively biting back a pained hiss as you cautiously finished binding the limb. He didn't dare voice his most deeply buried fear - that Dazai wouldn't stop until he had thoroughly and irreparably broken him to align perfectly with his own twisted vision.
As if sensing his dark thoughts, you shifted until you were kneeling directly in front of him, invading his personal space in a way that should have felt suffocating but didn't. You reached out with one hand to firmly grasp his chin, forcing him to meet the searing intensity of your gaze head-on.
"Don't let him take you from yourself, Akutagawa," you said, low and serious. "No matter what happens, you have to hold on to who you are at your core. I'll be here to remind you, if you start losing your way."
Akutagawa's breath hitched at the unexpected vow, at the protectiveness burning in your eyes mere inches from his own. He could feel the warmth of your closeness soaking into his chilled skin, smell the faint hints of soap and steel that seemed to cling to you always. It was utterly intoxicating in a way he didn't want to examine too closely.
"I won't let you lose yourself either," he heard himself promising in return, voice coming out lower and rougher than intended.
Something flickered through your gaze at his words, there and gone too quickly for him to identify. But you held his stare for a beat longer before giving a solemn nod and releasing his chin. Already, Akutagawa felt the loss of your proximity like a yawning chasm opening up in his core.
From that day forward, you both moved as cohesive units - flowing around each other in the training rooms with the kind of seamless synchronicity generally reserved for lovers. You would spar with him for hours, pushing him to operate at his peak physical and mental state, showing no quarter even when his body screamed for respite. Because you understood that the stronger he became, the less Dazai could use his punishments as justification for his depravity.
In turn, Akutagawa could feel himself focusing with terrifying intensity whenever you sparred with Dazai. He would watch every shift of muscle, every bead of sweat that formed at your brow, looking for the slightest tell that you were nearing your limits. If Dazai ever went too far, took his games to the point of potentially crippling you, Akutagawa knew he wouldn't hesitate to unleash his fury in retaliation.
You were his tether, his lodestar in this increasingly dark and disorienting world Dazai was crafting around you both. He didn't think he could withstand having that grounding presence ripped away.
It was that realization, after a particularly vicious sparring session that left you both bruised and panting for air, that Akutagawa felt the first delicate tendril of something deeper unfurling in his chest. As you reached up to wipe away the thin trail of blood from the corner of your split lip, he found himself paralyzed - utterly transfixed watching the way your tongue instinctively darted out to wet your chapped lips.
A sudden, visceral need slammed into him then - the urge to lean in and chase that flash of pink with his own mouth, to taste the sharp tang of copper and the softness of your lips all at once. The thought had his throat going dry and heat lancing through him so suddenly it was disorienting.
You must have noticed something shift in his expression, because your brow furrowed quizzically as you dropped your hand. "Akutagawa? You okay?"
He could only give a tight nod, reeling from the intensity of whatever this new feeling was taking root in his battered psyche. By everything he had been taught, he should reject it immediately - these unbidden wants and needs were simply weaknesses to be exploited, flaws in his design that required purging.
And yet... he couldn't seem to make himself extinguish the tiny ember burning in his soul. Not when it made him feel more human, more alive, than anything had in longer than he could remember.
So instead of snuffing it out, he chose to protectively cup the flame with his hands and let it slowly blaze brighter and hotter until he could no longer ignore the truth shining forth.
He was falling for you - slowly, insidiously, like a man being pulled into a riptide's powerful underwing before he even realized the waters around him had shifted. But now there would be no stemming the tide.
Akutagawa felt himself being swept away by this new force, and he was powerless to stop it. Worse...he didn't want to.
several years later
The Port Mafia headquarters was quieter these days without Dazai's presence casting that ever-looming shadow. He had defected years ago in a dramatic storm of chaos and bloodshed, abandoning his prized students to fend for themselves in the aftermath.
For Akutagawa, it was a perverse sort of liberation.
The cruel mentor who had taken such sadistic delight in systematically tearing him down was gone - leaving him unshackled from that dark paradigm. No longer did he have to temper his every action, endure harsh punishments for perceived failures or signs of wavering loyalty. He was finally free to embrace his true self, uninhibited.
And perhaps most importantly, he no longer had to share you.
From the moment Dazai slipped through their grasp that fateful night, it was as if a remaining tether binding you to the Port Mafia had been abruptly severed. You seemed to come alive in a way Akutagawa had never witnessed before - like a wild animal who had finally been released from its cage.
The quiet intensity that he had found so intriguing all those years before bloomed into an aura of unbridled confidence and power. You moved with the self-assuredness of a natural apex predator, never bothering to cover the blatant disdain that flashed in your eyes when having to take orders. Everyone could see it - you never intended to be bound or controlled again.
It set Akutagawa's blood thrumming hot through his veins just watching the transformation. This was the woman he had fallen for slowly allowing her truest nature to unfurl. He drank in every nuance, every subtle shift, like a man who had been trapped in a desert finally allowed to experience the intoxicating force of a ravenous storm.
There was a feral sort of grace to the way you moved now, each sinewy muscle coiled like a panther's before it strikes. He noticed the details with an almost obsessive focus - like how your hair seemed permanently tousled from constantly raking your hands through it, or the tiny bead of sweat that would form on your collarbone whenever you exerted yourself. Little things that somehow entranced him in a bone-deep way.
Not that he would ever let on just how utterly arrayed he found himself in your presence these days. The lingering awkwardness and uncertainty over how to define the bond between you persisted - an unspoken hesitance to outright acknowledge or give voice to the molten tensions thrumming through every weighted glance and casual touch.
Still, the gravitational pull between you had only grown more irresistible the older you both became. Ever since that first spark of undeniable want had awoken in Akutagawa's soul all those years ago, he found himself unable to fully suppress the yearning anymore. It would blaze hotly to life at the most inopportune moments, sparked by the smallest and most innocuous things you did.
Like the way you would absently chew on your pen cap whenever you were deep in thought, staining those plump lips a deep crimson from the pressure. Or how you would shrug out of your signature leather jacket in a series of languid movements after a long day, briefly exposing the flexing muscles of your arms and back.
Mundane moments that somehow became searing, impossible for Akutagawa to tear his eyes away from even if the world had depended on it. You didn't seem to notice or care that his gaze had taken on a scorching new intensity, holding his stare and quirking an amused brow as if challenging him to keep watching.
Which of course, he did, feeling arousal and frustration swirling through his gut in an intoxicating, dizzying mix. Self-restraint was a constant battle when you were around, every fiber of his being straining to touch, to taste, to finally allowed himself to succumb to the relentless maelstrom of need you awoke in him.
The simmering tension had grown nearly unbearable in recent months, finally culminating in an impasse one humid summer night...
The summer night was thick and sultry, the air heavy with humidity that seemed to cling to exposed skin like a damp veil. Akutagawa could feel perspiration beading along his hairline as he made his way through the Port Mafia's dimly lit corridors towards your quarters.
There had been a mission earlier that evening - a relatively straightforward information retrieval, but one that had still required your collective skills. As always, you operated with the same brutal finesse that he had come to admire and crave witnessing with an almost physical ache.
Now, with the adrenaline had ebbing from his veins, Akutagawa found his thoughts turning inevitably back towards you. His steps carried him in your direction without conscious thought, body seeming to operate on autopilot as if drawn in by its own powerful gravity well.
He told himself it was simply to go over the mission debrief one final time before submitting the report. But a deeper part of him knew that was merely the flimsy excuse his fevered mind clung to for justification. The truth was, he merely ached to be in your presence again, consequences be damned.
When he reached your door, he raised his hand to knock out of ingrained habit and propriety. But he hesitated at the last moment, fingers hovering just millimeters from the weathered wood. From the other side, he could hear the faint sounds of movement - no doubt you were already back, unwinding with whatever nightly routine you indulged in.
The thought of catching you in those unguarded private moments had shameful heat licking up the back of Akutagawa's neck. He shouldn't be here, not without announcement or purpose. This went beyond the lingering tension constantly sparking between you two. This was treading into territory that, if finally acknowledged, could irrevocably alter the delicate threads holding your bond together.
Just as he started to draw his hand back, there was a soft thump from inside followed by a muffled curse slipping through the door's thin barrier like silk. Akutagawa's breath caught in his throat as he instantly recognized your voice - low and gravelly in a way that sparked firebrands of pure want lancing straight through to his core.
There was the soft whisper of fabric shifting, falling away - no doubt you were starting to undress for the evening. Akutagawa knew he should leave, right that second before he somehow forged across a line that could never be uncrossed.
But his feet seemed leaden, rooted to the spot as those mundane sounds of your nightly routine echoed to him louder than thunderclaps. His imagination eagerly painted the visuals for him - the slow, sensuous shedding of clothing and gear until you were finally bared before his mind's eye. The urge to see that imagining made reality twisted his insides with searing intensity.
Another soft thump came from inside - the weighty clunk of boots being kicked off perhaps? Then the creak of what had to be the bed frame shifting under your weight as you settled onto it.
Akutagawa was rapidly losing what little remained of his quickly fraying restraint and composure. Heat blazed through his veins at just the mere thought of you laid out in repose mere feet away, potentially as exposed and vulnerable as he had ever seen you. A merciless tide of need crashed through him, leaving a raging tempest of lust burning in its wake.
He had to get out of here before he did something rash, something idiotic and reckless that could shatter the fragile rapture between you two. Steeling himself, he wrenched his gaze from the door and turned on his heel to flee.
That's when the distinct sound of your breathy moan ghosted through the thin barrier, freezing Akutagawa in his tracks as if he'd been struck by lightning.
It was a barely-there whisper of sound, carried on the heavy air. But there was no mistaking the raw vein of pleasure and need that single exhalation conveyed. Akutagawa's pulse kicked up several notches as his mind instantly rebelled against him, conjuring up images he suddenly couldn't seem to banish no matter how hard he tried.
You, sprawled out naked and wanton on your bed mere feet away. One of your hands stroking teasingly over the soft curves and planes of newly exposed flesh as the other drifted lower to caress at the juncture between your thighs...
A strangled groan very nearly tore itself free from Akutagawa's throat as his arousal spiked so violently it nearly whited out his vision. He could feel his cock rapidly swelling, growing painfully hard beneath the constraint of his clothing.
Another breathy keen reached his ears, followed by the unmistakable rhythmic creak of bedsprings shifting under a rocking motion. Akutagawa's mouth went dry as cotton as he pieced together what had to be happening just on the other side of that door.
You were touching yourself. Right there, so very close by, putting on an unwitting performance just for him as your gasps and muffled mewls of pleasure carried through to tease his senses into a fever pitch.
His feet seemed to move of their own volition, carrying him those last few steps until he was pressed up against the door - drawn in like a moth to a flame despite his mind screaming at him to turn back. He leaned his weight into the solid wood, hands splaying out as if to brace himself against the torrent of need crashing through his body.
From here, he could hear every punched-out breath, every tiny whimper as you pleasured yourself just on the other side. He squeezed his eyes shut, jaw clenching until he tasted blood as he tried in vain to block out the mental images...
You, back arched in ecstasy off the bed as your hand worked between your legs with increasing urgency. Soft panted cries spilling shamelessly from your lips as you chased that blissful peak, completely oblivious to your unintended audience straining to maintain his unraveling composure.
Coherent thought was rapidly becoming an impossibility as Akutagawa was swiftly overwhelmed by the full force of his need for you. His hips jerked helplessly, rutting against the solid plane of the door as another strangled whine filled the air. He couldn't tell if it came from you or was torn from his own throat.
Everything felt scorching hot, heavy with the unmistakable musk of arousal. He was drowning in it, going under the roiling tsunami of pure lust with no chance of salvation. Only one thought seemed to cut through the fevered haze - the all-consuming urge to claim you as his own finally made manifest.
He found himself shakily gripping the door handle, every muscle in his body tensed and thrumming with electric anticipation. One twist of his wrist was all it would take to throw the door open and end this aching torment in a single blazing collision of want and need finally being indulged.
His hand trembled there, hovering over that last razor's edge keeping you both separated. Just one push, one burning leap across that yawning chasm, and everything between you would be shattered and remade into something primal and new...
Akutagawa's hand remained frozen on the door handle, suspended in that breathless moment of indecision. Every nerve ending in his body seemed to be firing on overdrive, screaming at him to throw caution aside and finally satisfy this relentless, smoldering want that had been steadily consuming him.
Just one push was all it would take to irrevocably shatter the fragile tension thrumming between you - to finally act on the undeniable, molten undercurrent of desire that had been simmering for far too long. He could already vividly envision the scene that would instantly unfurl:
The door crashing open, disrupting your intimate moment. Your eyes going wide with shock and vulnerability before quickly narrowing with a mixture of challenge and dark promise as you registered his presence. No words would be exchanged, only a heated collision of bared souls laid out for stark honesty at last.
Akutagawa's restraint had started to fray into gauzy threads barely tethering his control in place. He could feel the muscles in his arm tensing, straining against the decision to finally make that fateful move and breach all remaining barriers. Just one indrawn breath, one purposeful twist of his wrist, and there would be no going back...
Then, a harsh sound like tearing fabric rent through the charged air - the distinct noise of something being knocked over in the room beyond. It was abruptly followed by a guttural groan that most certainly did not sound born of pleasure this time.
Akutagawa felt the fever-pitch tension within him dissipating like a doused flame as reality reasserted itself. You weren't...you had been engaged in something entirely different based on those sounds, something likely related to treating an injury or other discomfort judging by the tone.
Shame and embarrassment came crashing down on him in equal measure, his arousal quickly wilting under the sobering realization of just how indecently his mind had run away with him over mere assumptions. He ripped his hand away from the door handle as if it had become searing hot, stumbling back a few paces with harsh, shuddering breaths.
What in the hell had he been about to do? Violate your privacy, your trust, all because he couldn't master his own base impulses and urges? The thought made him feel vaguely nauseous, disgusted with himself for allowing his wants to supersede all rationality and decorum.
Pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes, Akutagawa turned and hurried away from your door - desperate to put as much distance between him and the source of this unsettling incident as possible. He needed space to regain his composure, to lock away the raging tempest of desire that seemed determined to pull him under every time you came within a certain radius.
As he fled into the night, one horrible truth continued gnawing at his consciousness like an ineradicable parasite:
This deepening obsession, this spiral into depravity...it had to be brought to heel immediately before he did something even worse than merely entertain indecent thoughts and assumptions. If he couldn't regain control over his weakness soon, he risked utterly shattering the precious bond you two had been sustaining against all odds.
And that outcome was quite simply...unacceptable.
No matter how intense this fire raged within him, he could not - would not - lose sight of what truly mattered. Even if it ultimately consumed him from the inside out, he vowed he would find the strength to keep you from getting burned as well.
He had to... for both of your sakes.
The weeks following that charged encounter outside your door were a spiraling descent into barely-restrained torment for Akutagawa. No matter how vigorously he attempted to regain control over his wayward thoughts and urges, they always managed to blaze wilfully back to life the second you entered his vicinity.
Your mere presence seemed to act like a match singeing the tinder of his deepest desires these days. The slightest motion or murmur from you was enough to rekindle the raging want simmering beneath Akutagawa's rigorously enforced surface composure. He found his eyes hungrily tracing the curves of your body whenever you moved, his gaze lingering perhaps a fraction too long whenever you bent or stretched.
It was becoming progressively harder to play off his distraction or attribute the heightened heat in his stare to anything other than naked longing. You began shooting him quizzical looks whenever you'd catch him openly drinking in the sight of you. A slight furrow would crease your brow, lips parting ever-so-slightly as if on the precipice of giving voice to a probing question.
But Akutagawa would simply look away, jaw clenched until he was sure he had mastered himself enough to meet your searching gaze without betraying the inferno of hunger consuming him from the inside out. He took to avoiding extended periods of being alone with you, worried that even his formidable restraint might inevitably shatter if left too long subjected to the temptation of your presence.
This maddening dance could not be sustained indefinitely though, and you both knew it. The tension showed no signs of dissipating, only furthering ratcheting tighter and tighter like a steadily tightening vice grip. Until finally, something gave way with an Earth-shattering jolt.
It happened during a routine sparring session, one of the relatively rare instances where Akutagawa could no longer excuse avoiding you with other matters. You moved together in that deadly, hypnotic tango of give-and-take, strike-and-counter, that had become as natural as breathing long ago.
But this time, every collision of bodies, every heated exchange seemed to be supercharged by the thick undercurrents roiling just beneath. Akutagawa bit the inside of his cheek hard enough to taste copper in an effort to maintain focus, but his gaze kept flickering to the sheen of sweat glistening along the exposed column of your throat.
He wanted nothing more than to chase the path of those dewy beads trailing downward with his tongue, to drink in the taste of your overheated skin and subtle musk of exertion. The muscle memory of your bodies moving in tandem took on an insidious new tenor as baser wants began bleeding into every brush of contact.
Then it happened -- some minute misstep or fleeting lapse of concentration leaving just enough of an opening. Akutagawa felt his world pivot and suddenly he found himself pinned underneath you, torsos pressed flush and legs tangled as you straddled his hips. The position seemed to rob all remaining oxygen from the room as your heated proximity overwhelmed his senses.
You were so close, he could trace the patterns of your pulse hammering away just beneath the thin sheen of sweat along your neck. Could feel the warmth of your rapid breaths ghosting across his face as you both froze in the sudden shocked stillness. Your eyes had gone wide, lips parted around a ragged inhalation as your gazes crashed together with unavoidable intensity.
For a suspended heartbeat, the world seemed to halt its spinning as that same molten question hung unvoiced between you: What now?
The unstoppable force had finally met the immovable object in this loaded tangle of limbs and Want. Every nerve in Akutagawa's body was straining, crying out to finally seize this precipice and resolve the unbearable tension thrumming like a livewire between you once and for all.
All it would take was simply leaning up those last few instants to seal his mouth over yours in a searing confession. To finally put voice to the screaming desperation that had been slowly tearing him apart from the inside for far too long. This was the breaking point, he could feel it reverberating through his very marrow....
But just as Akutagawa felt his resolve starting to splinter and disintegrate, you seemed to reach some internal decision. Your expression transmuted in an instant - eyes hardening into that achingly familiar look of determination and focus he knew so well as you forcibly mastered control over yourself.
In a single, sinuous movement you had disentangled and rolled off of him, leaving Akutagawa reeling and bereft in the empty space where your body's welcomed weight had been mere moments before. You stood and brushed off your clothes, not quite able to meet his eyes as you muttered something about calling an end to sparring for today.
Then you turned on your heel and left without another word, every line of your body radiating a tension so tightly strung it seemed one errant motion might cause the whole thing to unravel entirely.
Akutagawa could only remain sprawled there for several dazed moments, staring sightlessly at the point where you'd disappeared as the flames of his craving slowly banked back into smoldering embers. Another miss timed breath away from detonation, narrowly skirted at the last possible instant.
He wasn't sure how much longer he could keep weathering these bone-rattling reprieves, these fragmenting shards of control they both appeared to be clinging to by a single diminishing thread. The hungers clearly would not be starved or denied forever. At this accelerating pace, the dam seemed fated to burst sooner rather than later.
When it finally did...Akutagawa could scarcely begin to fathom just how cataclysmic the torrent would prove to be.
In the days and weeks following that fateful sparring session, the air seemed to thicken with a heavy, charged tension unlike anything Akutagawa had experienced before. No matter where he went or what tasks occupied his time, he could feel the weight of it surrounding him - an omnipresent force drawing his thoughts inexorably back towards you.
You, for your part, seemed to be maintaining a studied distance and aloofness that did little to soothe Akutagawa's furiously burning need. If anything, your avoidance and sudden emotional remove only stoked the smoldering embers into an inferno of sorts. He found himself actively seeking you out, hungry for even the smallest interaction or exchange like a man being teased with mere droplets of relief after wandering the desert.
Lingering looks, brushes of contact that lasted perhaps a second too long, the barest hint of your unique scent carrying on the air - any tiny crumb of your presence was instantly snatched up and hungrily devoured. Akutagawa realized with some dim sort of dawning horror that he was rapidly losing whatever remained of his tattered restraint and control where you were concerned.
This singular, all-consuming obsession was quickly metastasizing into the sole driving force propelling him through each day. Trivial matters like eating, sleeping, carrying out orders - all of it became stunningly inconsequential when compared to simply laying eyes on you or catching the barest hint of your presence nearby. An ache, both physical and psychological, seemed to take root - throbbing incessantly until it grew into the only constant in Akutagawa's world.
He knew, logically, that this degree of unhealthy fixation could not be allowed to persist. It represented an unforgivable weakness, a crack in his steadily reinforced emotional armor that could easily be exploited by anyone wise enough to notice. The fact that you appeared to be the sole vector causing this crumbling deterioration only seemed to make the vice squeezing his heart clench tighter.
Because despite how erratic and unbalancing this maelstrom of want raging through him had become, some deeply buried part of Akutagawa was terrified of what it might mean to actually sate this howling need - or worse, to have it rejected entirely. To finally act on the wildfire convulsing through his veins only to be met with revulsion or disgust from the one person whose regard he found himself violently craving above all others.
So he attempted to regain control through stubborn avoidance and sheer force of will, doubling down on the emotional barriers he'd erected over years of conditioning his mind and body to remain indifferent to such human vulnerabilities. If he could not extinguish this undignified hunger, he would take rein in with an iron fist until it withered away into irrelevance once more.
Except...every attempt at willful suppression only led to eventual eruptions of need that left him shaken and weakened in their wake. Like an ailing dam failing to contain the relentless torrent surging against its crumbling barriers.
It all finally came to a head one sultry summer evening, when Akutagawa's usual practiced avoidance faltered at the worst possible moment. He had ducked into the Port Mafia's training rooms, desperate to lose himself in the rote physicality of conditioning exercises. Anything to force his mind into blissful emptiness and respite from YOUR inescapable presence ricocheting through his psyche.
Except when he rounded the corner into the large open area, you were already there - standing in a loose ready stance before one of the heavy punching bags, your back turned towards the entrance. Akutagawa's steps faltered instantly as his gaze hungrily drank in the flex and glide of sinewy muscles visible beneath your sweat-sheened tank top.
He watched, utterly transfixed, as you twisted your hips and launched into a devastating combination - your entire body a lithe, coiled force temporarily given form before exploding into controlled violence. The punching bag rattled dangerously in its chain with each bone-jarring impact, but you never broke rhythm.
A thin sheen of sweat rapidly emerged along your skin, your breath coming in sharp exhalations that Akutagawa could hear even from his position frozen in the entryway. Heat blazed to life low in his belly as he shamelessly allowed his hungry stare to roam over every inch of you - taking in the way your wild hair stuck to the back of your neck, the graceful arch of your spine as you twisted and struck in an endless loop of sinuous, predatory movements.
Akutagawa felt his mouth go dry as a fresh bead of sweat trailed down the side of your neck, disappearing tantalizingly beneath the collar of your top. He felt an overwhelming urge to stride across the room, crowd up behind you and chase that errant droplet's path with his tongue. To finally indulge in tasting the saltiness of your overheated skin and feel your rapid pulse fluttering against his lips.
His hands clenched into white-knuckled fists at his sides as he fought against the compulsion to close the distance between you. From this angle, he could make out the flexing ropes of muscle in your arms and shoulders with each punishing strike thrown - palpable strength harnessed in a form that sang to something primal low in his core.
Rational thought was rapidly becoming an impossibility as Akutagawa surrendered to the singular focus of simply...watching you. Drinking in every minute detail and storing it away to savor like a lifeline anchoring his sanity against the raging tempest. The way your chest heaved with each rasping inhalation, the tiny furrow of concentration between your brows, the sheer coiled power lying in wait beneath your sweat-slicked skin just begging to be unleashed.
He wasn't sure how long he stood there, rooted to that spot and utterly entranced. But suddenly you were twisting around, shooting him a look over your shoulder that had all the air forcibly expelling from Akutagawa's lungs in a harsh exhale. Your eyes had gone molten and heavy-lidded, lips parted enticingly as you wordlessly held his sidelong stare.
It was a challenge as much as it was an unspoken question - that same weighted tension crackling through the space between you like profane static. Akutagawa forgot how to breathe, mesmerized under the heat of your regard and the sudden realization that you were fully aware of the effect you were having on him.
And worse...you didn't seem to mind it in the slightest.
In that suspended moment, every nerve ending in Akutagawa's body felt electrified and over-sensitized - like the smallest shift in the world around him might make the taut line he'd been walking towards oblivion suddenly fray and snap entirely. He couldn't tear his eyes away from yours, utterly paralyzed yet still straining towards you with every fiber of his being.
It was too much and not nearly enough all at once. The Pandora's box of want laid out in searing clarity between you, mere inches from finally being torn open once and for all. He could see the rapid flutter of your pulse beating just beneath the hollow of your throat, smell the musky ozone of your exertion surrounding him like a physical force.
Then, just as Akutagawa felt his restraint beginning to slip entirely, you broke the loaded tableau with a sharp indrawn breath. Your gaze drifted away from his as you reached up to swipe away the sheen of sweat from your brow. When you looked back, your expression had shifted back towards its usual cool inscrutability.
"I need to clean up," you murmured, turning away to gather your things without a backwards glance. "Don't wear yourself out too much."
The tension shattered like a broken spell as you brushed past Akutagawa without another word, leaving him to experience the metaphorical whiplash of having the coiled vice around his heart both tighten and loosen in the same staggering instant. He could only stand there, chest heaving as if he'd just run for miles, trying to process what had just occurred.
This...this could not continue in such a maddening vortex. Not if he wanted to maintain even a semblance of his battered sanity and self-restraint. One way or another, something was going to have to finally give way before the precarious threads holding this fragile rapture between you both frayed beyond repair.
He wasn't sure how much longer he could withstand feeling like a man being tortured within an inch of his life, only to be callously yanked back from the sweet release of oblivion at the last possible instant. The hungers already threatened to reduce him into something primal and uncontrolled - a danger to you as much as himself.
As your lingering scent slowly dissipated around him, Akutagawa came to a decision. This cyclical game could not be permitted to persist unchecked any longer. He would take matters into his own hands, one way or another, and seek a resolution...
...before one of them wound up getting irreparably burned by the inferno raging ever hotter between you.
The following days found Akutagawa increasingly consumed by his singleminded determination to force a confrontation - to finally shatter the fragile stalemate you had both been treading and either purge these relentless hungers entirely or have them violently sated once and for all.
He pushed himself to utter distraction during training sessions and missions, operating at a ferocious new peak of intensity. As if by purging every ounce of his formidable darkness onto his surroundings, he could temporarily slake the insatiable thirst driving him ever nearer to the edge of control when it came to you.
But it was a temporary balm at best. Because the second you materialized anywhere in his vicinity, it was like all the air was sucked from the room in a searing vacuum. Akutagawa's entire universe seemed to grind down to that singular point of gravity he couldn't tear himself away from no matter how he willed it.
The scorching path of your movements, every subtle shift of muscle and flutter of pulse - he catalogued it all with the razor focus of a starving man who has caught the barest whiff of sustenance. His body practically hummed with unrealized tension, thrumming like a livewire about to arc violently in any direction it was provoked.
You had to feel the molten weight of his stare flickering over you at all times now, yet you carried on with maddening nonchalance. As if you were blissfully unaware of the roiling tsunami of need crashing against Akutagawa's weakening restraints every time you were near.
The facade of indifference you projected cut him deeper than any blade. He saw it for what it truly was - a final test, a gauntlet thrown down challenging him to be the one to shatter propriety and give voice to the pleas hammering for freedom inside his ribcage.
The desperation burned hotter and brighter until Akutagawa could scarcely see anything else beyond the bonfire of his obsession. It took every ounce of white-knuckled composure not to simply slam you up against the nearest surface and put his mouth on yours in a searing brand of possession.
This dance was going to reach its feverish climax soon whether either of you willed it or not. The wanting, the ravenous ache roaring through his veins, had grown into an insatiable force of nature unto itself. And Akutagawa could feel his weakening grip on the reins as it slowly started to drag him under those turbulent waters entirely.
Which is why he finally took the drastic step of luring you into his space under the barest veneer of decorum, scarcely clinging to one last strand of protocol. He requested your presence under the guise of needing to discuss an upcoming assignment, using the thinnest thread of plausible deniability as his cover.
When you arrived with that inscrutable look etched across your features, he could feel the thunderous pounding of his pulse spike in anticipation. This would be it - the final line drawn, demanding you both confront what had been simmering between you for far too long.
Akutagawa wasted no time in pleasantries once you settled in across from him. He simply fixed you with a look of searing intensity, worrying his bottom lip as if wrestling with where to even begin addressing the massive rift that had cracked wide open in the space between them.
"We cannot continue on like this," he finally grated out, the muscle in his jaw ticking visibly with tension. "This...situation, between us. It's becoming untenable at best. Dangerous at worst."
You regarded him coolly from beneath hooded lids, betraying not a flicker of reaction beyond a slight tightening around your eyes. "Is that so?" came your measured reply.
Akutagawa nearly growled out loud at your apparent indifference despite the maelstrom raging within him. "You cannot tell me you haven't felt the escalating tension as well. That you haven't noticed..." He trailed off, pulse spiking as his throat suddenly went dry with the enormity of what he was about to give breath to.
You remained utterly inscrutable and maddeningly silent in the wake of his unfinished confession. The weight of that weighted pause seemed to swell around Akutagawa until he felt utterly unmoored, drifting without an anchor as everything finally came hurtling towards him.
"I'm drowning in wanting you," he rasped out in a harsh undertone, the words escaping like shrapnel tearing through the steel bands of propriety. "I can hardly look at you without feeling consumed by this scorching need clawing at me constantly."
There, he'd said it - given horrifying life to the admission that had been threatening to immolate him from the inside out. Now nothing could halt the flood of pent-up feeling once the gates had finally been opened.
"I'm haunted by thoughts of you no matter where I go or what I do. It's a relentless cycle of craving that has pushed me to the very brink of control. And I can no longer escape the suspicion that you've felt the same...yet you continually seem to dangle the prospect of reprieve before me, only to snatch it away at the last instant."
His hands were fisted tightly on the desktop, body taut as an overdrawn bowstring as he struggled to maintain whatever tattered shreds of composure remained. "So tell me, once and for all - am I deluding myself here? Or have you been stringing me along in this torment in silence? I need to know...before I well and truly snap beyond the point of no return."
The silence that fell between you then was utterly deafening, ringing through the space like Akutagawa had uttered something truly obscene rather than admitted to one of the most viscerally human conditions. He watched you, chest heaving, as you seemed to study him through narrowed eyes.
Then, almost infinitesimally slow and deliberate, the corners of your lips curved upwards into the barest semblance of a smirk.
The smirk playing across your lips sent a cascading shiver down Akutagawa's spine, though from trepidation or dark anticipation he couldn't be sure. You leaned back in your chair, regarding him with a heady look that made his pulse spike traitorously.
"Well, well..." you murmured, voice taking on a low, sultry timbre that immediately flooded Akutagawa's veins with molten heat. "Isn't this an...unexpected development."
You let the weighted pause linger for a beat, eyes roving over him in an almost palpable caress that had his throat turning to sandpaper. "Though I can't say I'm entirely surprised you've finally reached the breaking point, Akutagawa. A man can only deprive himself of what he craves for so long before the hunger becomes...insatiable."
The last word was practically purred, laden with undisguised promise that made his arousal surge almost painfully. You seemed to revel in his poorly contained reaction, gaze darkening with an intensity he'd never seen from you before as the true depth of your feelings was laid bare.
"Did you think I was oblivious to the smoldering looks? The physical restraint simmering just beneath that implacable exterior every time we were in proximity?" You tsked softly, shaking your head in a subtly chiding manner. "I'm not so blind, nor as unaffected as I may have led you to believe."
Your gaze grew hooded, a spark of something wild and feral glinting through as you continued in a low purr. "There were times where I could practically feel the weight of your stare caressing over me like a physical touch. Do you have any idea how intoxicating that is? To be so ravenously desired by a man of your intensity, yet have that razor's edge of control preventing anything from being sated..."
Akutagawa swallowed hard, feeling like the air had been forcibly expelled from his lungs as the first slivers of satisfaction at having his torment finally acknowledged made themselves known. You weren't untouched by the torrential undercurrents, you had simply been the immovable object against which his overwhelming tide crashed repeatedly in vain.
Until now, it seemed. Now that he had finally shattered the flimsy dam of propriety through sheer desperation, allowing everything to spill forth in a cataclysmic rush of truth. That feral glint in your gaze only seemed to intensify as you clearly picked up on his sharp inhalation and visible reaction.
"So tell me," you practically purred, leaning forward over the desk in a sinuous movement that had Akutagawa's mouth going dry with want. "Now that the floodgates have opened and you've admitted to the all-consuming thirst you've been harboring for me...what comes next? What does a man like you do when the object of his devastatingly intense desire is no longer kept at arm's length by invisible barriers?"
The undisguised challenge - no, blatant invitation - laden in your words obliterated what little remained of Akutagawa's restraint in a blinding supernova. Before conscious thought could even reassert itself, he had risen from his seat in a blindingly swift movement, rounding the obstruction between you.
You regarded him with heavy-lidded eyes and a quirk of your lips as he advanced, apparently not at all put off by his sudden proximity or the scorching intensity radiating off him in waves. If anything, your expression only seemed to sharpen further with undisguised hunger at having provoked this uncaged reaction at last.
"Well?" You breathed out as Akutagawa suddenly cupped the back of your neck in one large palm, fingertips brushing over your thundering pulse point. "Are you going to take what you've been starving for? Or was this just the feverish ramblings of a man who can't back up his smoldering bravado when finally conf-"
The rest of your taunting words were abruptly swallowed by Akutagawa's searing kiss as he finally bridged the last scant distance in a crashing wave of possession and unleashed obsession...
Akutagawa's kiss was utterly overwhelming in its intensity - an explosive collision born of too much pent-up desperation and volcanic want finally being released. There was no coyness or tentative exploration, only an unrestrained claiming as months of smoldering obsession poured forth in a searing brand.
You immediately melted into his bruising embrace with a muffled sound of approval, seemingly savoring the unadulterated ferocity he brought to bear. Your fingers threaded roughly through his hair, blunt nails scoring lines of delicious friction against his scalp as you eagerly matched his fervid passion.
There was an undercurrent of wildness, of two predators finally giving in to their primal urges and indulging in the gloves-off battle for dominance they had both been silently spoiling for. Teeth nipped at swollen lips, throats arched wantonly to offer better access as roaming hands grew increasingly emboldened in their exploration.
Akutagawa couldn't get enough of the taste of you flooding across his senses - the unique notes of lust and power and sheer unapologetic hunger all combining into an intoxicating blend he knew he would forever be chasing. He swallowed down your breathy keens and growled imprecations like they were the very air allowing him to keep surviving this maddening cycle of want and need spiraling ever tighter.
Finally, your nails raked over a sensitive cluster of nerves at the nape of his neck, causing his hips to shamelessly grind forward in a blatant demand for more friction. You hummed deep approval against his lips at the undisguised proof of what you did to him, allowing one long leg to casually hook around his as you pulled his weight flush against you.
"Insatiable," you murmured thickly between heated kisses, "I could feel your lust burning me from across rooms, begging to be indulged."
Something low in Akutagawa's abdomen clenched violently at the unapologetic words tumbling from your thoroughly ravaged lips. He growled deep in his chest, teeth scraping over the racing pulse point at your neck in a pointed reminder of just how utterly feral and uncaged his want for you had become.
"Say it again," he rumbled in a low rasp, the demand unmistakable as his hand went to fist in your hair. He punctuated his words by subtly rocking his hardness against you, relishing your full-bodied shudder and skittering exhale.
You seemed to instinctively know what he was after - that final taunting acknowledgment that you recognized the rapturous extent of his depravity where you were concerned. Your dazed gaze locked onto his, eyes molten with banked challenge before your lips curved in a ghost of a smirk.
"So eager for me," you husked out before surging up to seal your mouth over his once more in a searing, needful dance. As if speaking the truth out loud could do nothing to slake your own flames from finally being stoked as well.
Akutagawa practically snarled with gratification, his final tattered restraints violently unwinding under the full validation of his ferocious appetite being recognized and matched by your own. He gathered you up in his arms without breaking the frantic give-and-take, spinning to hoist you up onto the desk and step between your splayed thighs without missing a beat.
The hard line of his cock was now flush, almost painfully insistent, against your heated pussy. You undulated against the unrelenting friction like a woman possessed, seeming to egg him on towards claiming the sating reprieve you had both been hurtling inevitably towards all along.
It was all a dizzying rush of sensation, of hands greedily mapping over overheated skin and hungry mouths devouring each other. Akutagawa could not recall the last time he'd ever experienced a release so overwhelmingly euphoric and bone-rattling as when he finally claimed the ultimate prize.
As he sank into your impossibly tight heat, surrounded by your scent and enveloped in your welcoming heat, Akutagawa knew that the world had fundamentally changed. It had been irreparably altered on the fundamental level where a man can no longer imagine a time before the object of his deepest wants and hungers was there, surrounding him, sating his every carnal need and more.
As your hips ground together and your fingernails dug into his biceps in a wordless plea for harder, deeper, faster, Akutagawa felt a new hunger awaken. One that would be all the more insatiable for having been denied the satisfaction of satiating it for so long.
One that would likely drive him to the brink of madness, and perhaps over the edge entirely, if ever given the chance to truly sate it.
And judging by the way your eyes were glittering with equal measures of awe and wanton desire as your gazes crashed together in the hazy glow, Akutagawa suspected that the sentiment was more than mutual.
After all...there was no denying the danger lurking within a man who could not escape the pull of the object of his deepest, darkest, most undeniably human desire.
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