Insomnia • Akutagawa x Reader x Atsushi

2

"Ryunosuke!"

The screams of children are heard all around, but there is no one else in sight, the voice of a young girl yelling out his name echoing in his ears. You see in his perspective, though you know it isn't your body. It's Akutagawa's experiences; or part of his mind.

The fear is overwhelming.

"This way!"

Your vision flashes and sometimes he's running while his hand is held by his sister's, other times he's sitting still, crouched in a forest all alone with blood all over him. It's hard to concentrate on the scenery, the memories switching too often, but before it's completely still, he looks up and sees an older boy sitting in front of him under the moonlight from the opening in the trees, his hair dark, framing his bandages face and moving gently in the chilling breeze, eyes gleaming with malice though he poses no visible danger. 

You can't breathe.

"Dazai!"

Shifting memories, someone hits Akutagawa hard as he takes blows all over, his body slowly breaking under the agony. You feel it too, under the yells only getting louder in your ears and the bruises that aren't yours. It's sickening, the changing of views but the pain constant.

"You're weak."

Even worse is the mental torture. Physically, all you feel is how Akutagawa's health has deteriorated, how the same man from before hurts him without hesitation, but emotionally...you have never felt so much suffering in a person.

There's a point when the visions become so horrifying you no longer know what you're seeing, bodies everywhere, a monstrous figure all around, a man in the centre of it all frozen in time.

Nothing makes sense, but it hurts.

However, it's not your nightmare to interrupt...

Or to scream in...

Or resolve.

All you can do is watch.

•••

You wake up in cold sweat, gasping for air as you sit up, your hands grasping the mattress under you as if your life depended on it. Your head hurts, your eyes strained as everything is blurry.

Ryunosuke.

Pain shoots through your body as you double over and quickly grab a bucket you always leave out cleaned beside your mattress, throwing up as tears fall down your face. You can hardly feel your limbs, you feel as if you've been run over multiple times and no one tried to help. Cleaning yourself up while you shake all over, the moon is still high in the sky when you look out one if your apartment windows, confirming the assumption that you hadn't been sleeping for long before the nightmare struck you from using your ability on Akutagawa.

Glancing back to your mattress, your eyes heavy and your body begging to be put back to rest, fear freezes you in place, hand holding the frame of the window tightly as flashes of the dream return. Head searing in pain suddenly along with your breath being taken away, you cough heavily and drop down to your knees on the floor, no tears left in you to spill from the terrible pain.