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sickficideas · 2 months ago

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gotta hear me out || sick Akutagawa w/ caretaker Atsushi - chapter 1 of 3

ao3! 5.5k/??? - please refer to the tags in the link for content + warnings! sicktember 2024, day 30: past prompt (2022, day 27: sleepless night)

Atsushi is on edge.

Breaking into anyone’s apartment is a nerve-wracking activity, and especially when Atsushi is doing so in an apartment that belongs to the Port Mafia’s so-called Hell Hound, without his knowledge. He wonders why Dazai couldn't have just done this himself, if it's really just a wellness check, like he says.

Initially, he was tempted to take the easy way out. He still has the phone number of the blonde woman he works with - Higuchi - and calling her to ask if he's still alive probably would have been the easiest way to go about this, but he's not sure involving other people is a good idea, especially if Dazai really is concerned about his well-being. All Atsushi has heard about the situation is that Dazai hasn’t heard from him in over a week, and there's a storm on the horizon too from a hurricane that's battering the shore of a nearby city. He’s just asked Atsushi to make sure he isn’t dead in his apartment before the storm comes in.

Miraculously, he's made it inside without tripping off any sort of alarm, at least not to his knowledge. The lock was easy enough to pick.

Now the hard part. Finding Akutagawa in the apartment without getting killed first.

Akutagawa's apartment is fairly large. It looks about as fancy and regal as he would expect of him, complete with taller-than-average ceilings and bookshelves filled with leather-back and gold foil editions making it look way more expensive than necessary. The decorations outside of the book shelving are minimal, like he hasn't been living here long at all.

The view from the tall, floor-to-ceiling windows is nice, he imagines, if the near-blackout curtains weren’t covering the windows. It’s a fairly high penthouse overlooking the city of Yokohama. He’s not sure why Akutagawa would want it covered. This is the kind of view he imagines tourists would pay money to see.

He wanders over to the window, out of curiosity. Even if Akutagawa realizes he’s here before Atsushi finds him, he won’t kill him. He promised not to.

Atsushi pulled back the curtain far enough to let some light in. He’s forgotten it’s storming outside, and the sky is a splotchy gray and black, spilling rain out onto the port city for the last few hours. His hair is still a little damp from his walk over here as proof. Still, it’s better than sitting in near darkness. He pulls the blinds open all the way, illuminating the entire living room, and revealing a figure standing in the doorway of a room just past the couch.

Akutagawa.

Akutagawa stands there, a cardigan wrapped defensively around himself, several long shards of fabric floating over his shoulders. Atsushi figured he wouldn’t be happy to see him no matter which way he approached this, but at least this way, he wouldn’t have been able to barricade himself in.

He looks absolutely terrible, though. His hair is completely unkempt, stuck up in all sorts of directions like he just woke up, and his skin is awfully pale. He’s certainly sick, Atsushi concludes, but not sick enough to not threaten Atsushi, it seems.

Akutagawa doesn’t need to approach him, the fabric of his cardigan pinning Atsushi’s back against the window, and not allowing him to come any further.

“I have no reservations against throwing you out of that window,” Akutagawa mumbles, his voice hoarse like he hasn’t used it in days, or it’s been damaged from several hours of coughing. Either way, it hurts Atsushi to listen to. His eyes squint, trying to adjust to the light.

“I’d definitely die if I fell from this height,” Atsushi reminds him, his shoulders tensing up at the roaring thunder overhead.

“You’ll find a way to survive. You roach,” he hisses, turning his head and coughing into his hands a few times, and the fabric holding Atsushi against the wall even loosens. Painful, Atsushi thinks, worse than usual. He’s not well, that’s for sure.

“That doesn’t mean you’re allowed to try to kill me, Akutagawa,” Atsushi reminds him, but Akutagawa knows that. He said himself that he keeps his promises, and truly has no intention of killing him. That being said, he’s certainly not thrilled to see Atsushi uninvited in his apartment.

“What do you want?” Akutagawa growls at him, the fabric now at his neck, evidently not happy with the condescending tone he’s being spoken to with.

“Dazai told me to check on you,” Atsushi stammers, his tiger paws up at the side of his head, eyes crossing and making his head hurt as they stare down the shards of fabric aimed at his neck.

“Dazai…” Akutagawa mumbles, pressing a hand to his forehead. “Dazai told you…”

The fabric shards at Atsushi’s neck starts to fall as the tension leaves Akutagawa’s shoulders. For a second, maybe he accepts the reason, but Atsushi thinks it's because he's about to pass out. And he's right. Akutagawa doesn't even make it a few seconds before his eyes roll back, and he loses control of all of the muscles in his body - falling forward face first.

The thunder rumbles overhead once again, but this time, Atsushi ignores it in favor of rushing over to the unconscious body on the living room carpet.

Atsushi kneels beside Akutagawa, who twitches in some unconscious attempt to wake himself up. Atsushi is tempted to just pick him up and put him on the couch here, but just because Akutagawa made a vow not to kill him, doesn’t mean he won’t hurt him. Maybe he just slow down here first.

Should he contact Dazai? Akutagawa clearly isn’t in shape enough to look after himself, and really, Atsushi was only told to make sure he was alive. Maybe he can contact someone Akutagawa works with to come look after him, but does he trust anyone to do something like that?

No, he doesn’t. He doesn’t trust anyone, so really, Atsushi taking care of this situation is no different than anyone else doing so.

Atsushi lays a hand on Akuatagwa’s upper arm, but he tenses up at the touch. He’s not unconscious anymore, at least.

“Leave,” Akutagawa croaks. That sudden burst of energy to attempt to kill Atsushi must have been all that he had left in him, because he makes no other attempts even shoo Atsushi away from him. His voice really sounds awful, and he coughs a few times into the carpet, not having the breath force them back. Atsushi takes that moment of weakness to scoop him off of the floor and to the couch, at the very least, which he doesn;t bother fighting against.

“You look like shit, Akutagawa,” Atsushi tells him, genuinely concerned when he gets a better look at him. The circles under his eyes are too dark to suggest he’s slept at all in the past several days, and Atsushi is even concerned that he’s lost weight with how his cheekbones jut out even more than usual. “How long have you been sick for?”

“Don’t talk to me,” Akutagawa groans, bringing up his arm to cover his face, painfully aware of how Atsushi is studying it.

“Don't you live with your sister? Where is she?” Atsushi asks. He doesn’t see any sign of her having been around, but he’s hoping he’s wrong.

“I don't know,” he barely manages, “haven't heard from her.”

“What do you mean?” Atsushi asks.

“She’s working,” Akutagawa murmurs as Atsushi tries to sneak a hand onto his forehead to get a general read of his temperature. Not awful, but definitely a fever, he realizes. He wonders how long he’s been like this.

Atsushi’s not aware enough of the inner workings of the mafia to know if that means they should be concerned about his sister or not, but Akutagawa doesn’t seem too concerned - maybe it’s normal, then. He can’t imagine he would go out of his way to concern his sister about his well-being either, though.

Atsushi sits back on the coffee table, peering out of Akutagawa’s high-rise view for just a moment, deciding on how he should proceed. He thinks he should stay. Clearly, Akutagawa is not capable of caring for himself, whatever it is that’s plaguing him. He wonders if Dazai was hoping for this outcome.

“You need a shower,” Atsushi tells him. Akutagawa is still covering his face. He knows Akutagawa generally doesn’t wash himself as often as he should, and he can tell just by his hair that he hasn’t showered in a while - he’s sure it would help him feel better regardless.

“No,” Akutagawa huffs.

“Don't no me,” Atsushi groans. “How long have you been here for, by yourself? Do I even wanna know?”

“I’d imagine not,” Akutagawa grumbles. “What’s the date?”

“The twenty-fifth,” Atsushi tells him.

Akutagawa groans, and it’s answer enough that Atsushi probably does not want to know how long he’s been alone for. That’s fine, as long as he’s compliant enough to let someone else look after him.

Atsushi realizes he’s already made that decision for himself, then.

Akutagawa tries to sit himself up, but the effort is too much pressure on his lungs, it seems. He’s propped up on an elbow and coughing so hard into his hand he nearly gags. Atsushi is hesitant to reach out a hand on his back to give him some comfort, he’s never sure how Akutagawa will react to that sort of thing, but he doesn’t fight it. Atsushi tries to be careful, gentle, not cross too many lines.

There’s no blood, though, when he lowers his hand. That’s a good sign, maybe it’s not too serious, then.

Akutagawa manages to pull himself up and off the couch, but clearly without enough strength to stand on his own without a hand supporting him on the end of the couch. He’s hesitant to walk forward. Atsushi stands and walks beside him, taking his arm and surprised to see no bite back from him. He leads him back to his bedroom, where evidently, he’s been spending the past several days.

“Why are you here?” Akutagawa murmurs quietly, whisking his arm away once he makes it to the bed. The curtains in his bedroom are closed too, lights off, dark aside from the light spilling in through the open door. There’s pillows on the floor and sheets strewn across the bed. There’s a trash bin over near the left side of the bed. Atsushi’s sure that’s a sign he’s been sick to his stomach, too.

“I told you already,” Atsushi murmurs. Akutagawa sits on the edge of the bed, arms crossed over his chest.

“You've confirmed I haven't bit the dust, so leave,” he mumbles, averting his eyes from Atsushi. “Tell Dazai to mind his own business.”

“You’re sick,” Atsushi reminds him.

“I’m always sick,” Akutagawa huffs.

“Okay, but not like this. You have a fever,” Atsushi reminds him, planting his hands on his hips. “And you just passed out a minute ago. You can’t walk by yourself.”

“And why does that matter to you? It should -” he coughs into his hand, scooting further back on the bed and crossing his legs, “it should make no difference to you. I’m not your friend. I’ve been ill before and I don’t need anyone’s help.”

“I’m not gonna let you suffer by yourself, though,” Atsushi tells him. He couldn’t really give him a further explanation why, he just thinks that he should take this opportunity now to look after him for a little bit if he can. He’s sure no one else would be able to sneak into his apartment and leave alive, other than his sister.

Akutagawa’s eyes trace the folds in the sheets underneath him, studying anything but the figure in front of them, probably hoping that if he doesn’t look, Atsushi will go away. Unfortunately for him, he’s just as stubborn - if not worse.

“Have you taken anything? Medicine? Water?” Atsushi asks, tilting his head to the side, trying to force eye contact.

“Leave me alone, Weretiger,” Akutagawa groans, throwing himself onto the bed and pulling the sheets over his thin form as he curls on his side, but Atsushi won’t take that for an answer. He walks over to the side of the bed, sits on it, and pulls the sheet up to look at Akutagawa’s face.

He glares up at him, trying to pull the sheet back over his face, but he’s too weak right now to win the fight. He’s almost pouting.

“Answer me,” Atsushi tells him.

“I can’t - I can’t keep anything down,” Akutagawa admits in a low grumble, He sounds like a child. Atsushi sighs.

“Since how long?” Atsushi asks him.

“I don’t know. I haven’t been keeping track,” Akutagawa huffs, and Atsushi lets go of the sheet, letting it fall back over his face. That confirms that he’s been throwing up then, which adds a whole new angle to his problems. He can’t take any medicine, drink water or eat - he probably needs to see a doctor, but Atsushi has to take this one thing at a time.

Akutagawa coughs under the sheets, curling in on himself, and Atsushi watches his frame shiver underneath. His eyes catch a few spots of blood on the comforter and the sheets underneath, even parts of the pillows - some larger, some smaller, but all in the same relative shape. It looks like a print, almost - some of it is older and some of it fresher, like it’s from this morning - it’s from an injury.

Atsushi realizes there’s many more problems here than he was expecting. He’s just going to have to tackle each thing one by one. Taking Akutagawa to a legally practicing doctor or hospital is simply not an option - not that he would even allow for that, anyway.

“I’m gonna start a shower for you. I’ll be back in a minute,” Atsushi tells him. That’s a good place to start. He can check him for injuries without physically prying the information out of him. Keeping the water lukewarm might help lower his fever too, and he’s sure feeling clean will help him feel better. He looks like he hasn’t showered in weeks.

“Not a shower,” Akutagawa grumbles from under the sheets.

“Okay, a bath then,” Atsushi insists as he wanders into Akutagawa’s bathroom. It won’t get him as clean as a shower would, but it’s better than nothing.

Another culture shock he experiences as he enters Akutagawa’s master bathroom - it’s larger than Atsushi’s entire bedroom, he’s almost certain of it. Long, marble counters and more sinks than he needs, a walk-in shower and a separate bathtub. He was almost expecting a chandelier on the ceiling when he looked up. The ceiling is certainly tall enough for one.

He starts running the water after deciding on a temperature, not too warm but not cold enough to make him feel worse, surprised at how quickly he gets warm water from the faucet. There’s little jets in there too, like some kind of jacuzzi - Atsushi decides to get those running at a low setting too. He adds some body soap at the end of the tub to simulate a bubble bath - he’s sure Akutagawa isn’t that kind of guy, but if it were his own bath, he’d want that.

He finds towels in one of the cabinets - thick, fluffy, more expensive than Atsushi wants to know, probably, and sets them on the side of the tub.

Atsushi wanders back into Akutagawa’s bedroom, where the latter is sitting at the end of his bed, facing Atsushi, to his surprise. He thought he was going to have to drag him out with his teeth.

“The bath is ready,” Atsushi tells him, standing in the doorway. Akutagawa squints at the light coming in from the bathroom. He realizes he’s going to have to help Akutagawa through this, he likely doesn’t have the energy to bathe himself at all - Atsushi is fine with that, but he’s not sure Akutagawa is.

“I don’t want your help,” Akutagawa mumbles to himself.

“You passed out earlier, when you tried to throw me out your window,” Atsushi reminds him. He’s not sure he’ll make the walk over, let alone wash his own hair.

“I did not attempt such a thing. Separate actions from threats,” he huffs, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Yeah, yeah,” Atsushi huffs, “c’mon.”

Akutagawa looks at him for a second, and then dips his head away in shame.

Atsushi's heart sinks. Of course he’s not thrilled about this. Taking off his clothes would leave him completely defenseless, and even though Atsushi truly means no harm in this moment, he can’t know Akutagawa’s inner thoughts. He’s surprised to see him so defeated. He thinks it’s telling of how he’s feeling if he’s not putting up much of a fight.

“Here. I have an idea. We can do them separately,” Atsushi suggests.

Akutagawa's head lifts.

“Undress, but, you can keep something on your head, like…a towel or a hair cap or something so you can still use your ability if you need to. And then, we can wash your hair after you're done with the bath,” Atsushi suggests enthusiastically. He thinks it's a good idea, but Akutagawa makes a face at him, like he thinks it's ridiculous. “That…that’d work, right?”

“Technically…yes,” Akutagawa mumbles, “only you would come up with something like that.”

“Well, you got a better idea?” Atsushi huffs, his cheeks heating up, a little embarrassed.

“Help me into the bathroom and let me undress privately,” Akutagawa says, more of a demand, really, but Atsushi is in no position to refuse him. It’s either this or nothing.

Atsushi frowns, though, because this will make it a lot harder to see if he’s injured somewhere. “You know I don’t care if I see - “

“Please.”

Atsushi shrinks a little. It’s a desperate plea. Atsushi can’t place the look in his eyes.

“Okay, fine,” Atsushi tells him, “but you have to show me where you’re injured. I see the blood on your sheets.”

“You’ll see the wound,” Akutagawa insists, standing off the bed with Atsushi’s support as he takes his arm, “it’s on my shoulder.”

Atsushi makes sure he’s a little more careful taking his arm then, walking him into the bathroom. Atsushi realizes now just how dizzy he is, how weak his legs are. He can’t easily walk without help. He suspects that he used his ability to keep himself stable when he first arrived here, but he’s not doing that now, Atsushi taking that place instead.

Atsushi sits him down at the little step beside the tub and Atsushi reluctantly walks back in the bedroom, closing the door. It takes Akutagawa a little longer than Atsushi would expect to undress. He’s not sure if he’s just slower than he expected, even with how weak he is right now, or maybe he’s just working up the nerve to take his clothes off. Atsushi vaguely remembers his aversion to bathing or taking off his clothes - he’s sure there’s good reason for him to do that, but he’s not sure he’s in any position to ask why.

“Ready yet?” Atsushi asks, just barely opening the door.

“Yes,” he answers quietly, far enough to sound like he’s already in the tub.

His hair is covered in a towel, turned away when Atsushi walks in, facing the frosted windows. Atsushi approaches, sitting on the step beside the tub, seeing the wound on his shoulder right away.

It’s open, but it’s been there for several days, over a week. It starts just over his collarbone and ends at his shoulder blade - a good, clean cut, though he’s not sure what could have caused this.

Atsushi’s hand gently lands beside it, moving his skin to the side to get a feeling of how deep it is, and it’s deeper than it looks.

His skin is so hot, he realizes too. Atsushi should really get a reading on his temperature, but it can’t be as high as it feels it is, because he’s still coherent. Then again, Atsushi has seen him with high fevers before, and been relatively impressed with how sound he was in those moments.

Right now, though, the injury on his shoulder is what needs attention first. He’s surprised Akutagawa even managed to get injured on this part of his body - he tends to protect himself pretty well, it’s usually his limbs that end up taking hits he can’t avoid, so it makes him wonder if he was dealing with this illness before he was injured.

“That looks really bad, Akutagawa,” Atsushi mumbles. He’s sure it’s infected, as has been for several days, and it still bleeds every now and then too, the dried blood covering his shoulder. It makes him a little nauseous to look at. “I think I need to clean that before we do anything.”

“Do as you wish,” Akutagawa murmurs with a quiet sigh. He’s given up fighting back, finally, but it’s a little sad to see him so dejected.

“Where do you keep that kind of stuff?” Atsushi asks, hoping he has anything for it at all, but he’s sure that he does.

“There’s disinfectant in the cabinet under the sink,” Akutagawa tells him.

Atsushi fetches it quickly, taking some cotton rounds from the counter to gently dab it with. He’s not sure how much this will help, he never really has to treat injuries like this, but it’s better than nothing.

He’s as careful as he can be, dripping the disinfectant onto the cotton rounds and gently dabbing it on the edges of the wound first. Akutagawa’s still stiff. He can’t see much of him through the bubbles, but can gather that his knees are at his chest, arms wrapped around them defensively. He was hoping he’s relax a little bit, that maybe the jets would help him do that, but he’s too tense. He’s so defensive that he hardly reacts to the disinfectant on his wound, which should surely burn, or sting at the very least.

“Does it hurt?” Atsushi asks, moving in more towards the center, trying to clean off some of the blood and what looks like pus forming in the middle.

“No, it’s fine,” Akutagawa says quietly.

“When was the last time you took any medicine? For your fever, or anything?” Atsushi asks him, finishing up cleaning the wound.

“A few days ago,” Akutagawa answers, not seeming to have an exact answer for him. Getting him to take any medication is probably not going to happen, but Atsushi thinks he would honestly prioritize getting him to eat something or drink some water. He’ll make that his next objective.

Atsushi takes a washcloth and cleans the blood around the wound, discarding that and using another to scrub his arms, which he surprisingly allows. He tenses up quite a bit when Atsushi reaches his hand, holding gently and scrubbing between his fingers. He’s got nice hands, he thinks, his cheeks reddening at the sudden random thought.

“You can take the towel off,” Akutagawa murmurs feverishly.

“You…you sure?” Atsushi asks. He’s surprised to hear that from him unprompted.

Akutagawa just nods his head once.

Atsushi unwraps the towel, gently tossing it to the side.

He hands Akutagawa a washcloth, urging him to scrub himself where he can while Atsushi works on washing his hair, which could certainly use some work. It’s greasy but stiff from dried sweat, too, and he’s certain he sees dried blood in certain parts, too, especially in the white tips on the side where his wound is.

He takes a cup that he’d grabbed from the sink when preparing the bath, fills it with water and gently pours it over Akutagawa’s hair, tilting his head to avoid the water dripping into his wound, saturating his hair with water with just a few pours.

He starts to work the shampoo into his hair with both hands, down to the roots, making sure his hair will clean up as good as possible. Akutagawa even relaxes a bit when Atsushi massages his scalp. He’s sure it feels nice.

“It’s starting to feel cold,” Akutagawa says through a shiver.

“Okay, yeah, it wasn’t super warm to begin with,” Atsushi remembers as he starts to rinse the shampoo out of his hair. He’d really like him to rinse off in the shower, but that seemed to have been a boundary he wasn’t willing to cross, and he’s lucky he got him this far anyway. He’s not coughing a much anymore, that’s a good sign.

“Can you bring me a change of clothes?” Akutagawa asks.

“Oh - yeah, sure. Just something comfortable? To sleep in?” Atsushi asks.

“That’s fine.”

Atsushi walks out and heads for the door in Akutagawa’s bedroom that he assumes is his closet - another room far larger than necessary, but with not much filling it. He doesn’t really have many clothes at all, so Atsushi doesn’t have a hard time deciding.

He takes an oversized t-shirt, and a sweater, in case he prefers one over the other, a pair of boxers and sweatpants. Both tops have low necklines, so Atsushi can easily peak at his wound. He thinks that needs to be covered for a while to avoid the blood seeping through.

He opens the door back into the bathroom, catching Akutagawa off guard, it seems - he’s already out of the tub, standing on the bathmat outside of it, scrambling to cover himself with a towel.

“Just leave them here. Let me change privately,” he requests, eyes averted from Atsushi. He’s embarrassed. Atsushi respects his wishes, though, and steps back outside of the bathroom to let him change.

Atsushi leans against the door, waiting on a signal from Akutagawa, hoping he can dress himself without falling over. Really, Atsushi wouldn’t mind helping. He almost wonders if he can dress himself easily with his ability, but maybe he’s avoiding doing that to conserve energy.

He hears him fall, though.

Atsushi rushes in, wanting to respect his privacy but also wanting to make sure that he’s safe, too. Akutagawa’s already trying to get himself back up when Atsushi opens the door, clothed, but pressing a hand up to his head. He decided on the sweatshirt, the t-shirt still lying on the floor.

“I’m fine,” he mumbles as Atsushi kneels next to him, worried he hit his head, “just dizzy.”

“Stay there. There’s an outlet right here, I’ll dry your hair,” Atsushi insists, standing and heading for the cabinet where he saw the hair dryer earlier.

Akutagawa leans against the side of the tub, eyes shut and in clear discomfort, head leaning back. He attempted to dry his hair, Atsushi thinks, but having his arms over his head to do the job was too much for him. It’s still fairly wet, dripping onto the hem of his sweater.

Atsushi takes a dry washcloth, tucking it underneath Akutagawa’s sweater and over the wound, deciding he’ll work on covering that later, but he needs to get his hair dry first. He towel dries it the best he can, as gently as possible to avoid jostling his sensitive head around, before he flips the switch on the hair dryer.

Akutagawa coughs a few times, covering his mouth. Atsushi reaches over to lay a hand against his neck, trying to get a feel for his temperature to see if it changed after the bath, but he still feels warm - in fact, Akutagawa even shivers a bit at the touch, and Atsushi knows he generally runs warm.

Akutagawa’s hair is thinner than it looks, and doesn't take long to try. Atsushi makes sure to not leave any of it damp, running his hands through it to make sure he didn't miss a single strand of hair.

Atsushi unplugs the hair dryer and puts it back where he found it before coming back to pull the drain up for the bath water, and he's surprised at how docile Akutagawa is being. He doesn't really move at all, just turning so that he's leaning against the tub again, not making any effort to stand up.

He's more deflated, really like he's given up. Atsushi is glad he's being compliant, but it's a little sad to see him like this.

“Where can I find something to bandage that wound?” Atsushi asks him, and Akutagawa just uses a hand to vaguely gesture at the cabinet where he found the disinfectant.

Atsushi gathers a few things - an antibiotic ointment he finds, a non-adherent pad and two large bandages to lay over each other and make sure the whole thing is covered. He kneels down beside Akutagawa's wounded shoulder and pulls the neckline of his sweater down, removing the washcloth he'd left over the wound. Akutagawa tenses up as he peels it off, stuck in a few places from the blood, but thankfully it's not bleeding much.

“Sorry,” Atsushi says, laying the washcloth off to the side.

“It's fine,” Akutagawa tells him. He sounds like he's getting really tired, and Atsushi realizes he can see it in his eyes, too. He'll get him to bed once they're done here.

Atsushi dresses the wound the best he can. It's not something he's used to doing at all. His own wounds usually heal up fast enough for him to just tough through them and hope for the best, but he imagines Akutagawa's body heals even slower than the average person with how sick he is.

His stomach twists, trying to keep that out of his head. He's not dying now. He'll be okay. Atsushi will take care of him and he'll be fine.

He finishes up, surprised with how still Akutagawa stayed throughout the whole process of Atsushi figuring out the angles of the bandages and such, but he realizes that his eyes are shut, his head leaned against the tub.

Atsushi stands up, picking up the ointment and trash to dispose if everything properly, and Akutagawa tries to follow - using the tub as support to stand himself up.

“Wait, stay here, alright? I'll go change your sheets. I think I saw backups in your closet.”

“You don't need to do that,” he mumbles.

“What?” Atsushi teases, already out of the bathroom. He's pretty fast at changing sheets but Akutagawa's western-style king size mattress proves a bit of a challenge for him. He just hopes that he's fast enough to get back to Akutagawa in time to make sure he doesn't fall again.

But of course, Akutagawa has already tried to walk back. He's leaned against the tub, very clearly struggling to keep himself standing. He's paler than before. Clearly it's taking far too much effort for him to even just stand there.

“I can help you, you know. There's no reason to force yourself to walk if you can't do it,” Atsushi huffs.

“I won't let you carry me,” he growls, all of a sudden deciding he doesn't want any help - even after Atsushi helped him walk in here to begin with. He knows Akutagawa hates to have anyone help him with anything, but maybe he’s just trying to save face right now.

“I don't need to carry you,” Atsushi tells him. “We’ll just do what we did the way in here, okay?”

Akutagawa refuses eye contact, but his shoulders sink in defeat, realizing he can’t do it himself.

Atsushi helps him back to his bed, and this time, it take shim longer. Atsushi is well aware of how dizzy he is. He’s not sure if that’s due to his fever, a head injury, headache or something else, but right now it’s pretty bad. He must be sore, too.

Akutagawa closes his eyes as soon as he’s laying on his back, not entirely to go to sleep, it seems, because he sighs like he’s just experienced too tough of an ordeal. Atsushi almost wants to smile. He knows he’s pretty sick, but he seems more exhausted by something as simple as taking a bath than he was after any of the near-death fights he’s experienced.

“Feeling clean helps, right?” Atsushi asks. Akutagawa looks strangely peaceful, lying there like that, his clean, fluffy hair falling against the pillow, his eyes still closed. Maybe he is falling asleep. He coughs a few times, and lays a hand on his chest. Atsushi wonders if it hurts, but thankfully, the coughing doesn’t continue.

Akutagawa just nods. He’s surprised to see him admit it, but he thinks that’s a far as he’ll go.

“I forgot, I wanted to take your temperature…” Atsushi remembers, turning back towards the bathroom, figuring it’s probably in one of the many drawers there.

“Are you staying?” Akutagawa suddenly asks. He sounds half asleep, like he didn’t hear Atsushi’s mumbling at all. His eyelids part just enough to look at Atsushi’s form.

“Yeah, I'll stay,” Atsushi tells him. He’s not sure what to make of this. Does he want him to stay? Is he asking him to leave? He can’t do that, he’s still very clearly sick and that injury needs to be regularly tended to. But if he wants him to stay - can he even know that Atsushi just genuinely wants to help him? “Dazai - Dazai asked me to.”

Absolutely not true, but the only thing he could say to satisfy both concerns.

“When did…” Akutagawa starts, but without the energy to continue the conversation. His eyes start to fall shut again, and his breaths start to change again, slow, quiet.

Atsushi wonders how long it's been since he slept.

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