all your mother's weaves and your father's threads

[flightpen]

Ren hasn't seen the Velvet Room in a while.

There was at time when he was in here every week, fusing Personas to Caroline's acerbic commentary or listening to Yaldabaoth mutter ominous words of praise. It was different in January, like a lot of things, but the point is that it's gone now. He's not even sure Lavenza and Igor survived what happened.

And yet here he is, in what's recognizably the Velvet Room. But it's changed. It's not a prison anymore, even though this would be the best time for it; Ren's heart is in chains. What was it Akechi said to him? Your heart is free. Maybe back then.

Never mind that. Igor, if it is Igor, is unforthcoming. Make bonds—as if Ren can make bonds when people can't even have a meaningful conversation. He'll be returned to the moment he left—as if he wants to go there. His friends are happy, Akechi is alive, and Ren, like Maruki himself, stands outside the world. When he tries to press, Igor gets cryptic and nonsensical, and that's so fucking familiar lately that Ren doesn't bother to keep trying.

You might find him in the following situations:


1: the rockrose and the thistle will whistle as you moan

Maruki has left him alone, mostly. God's favorite. As far as Ren can figure, it's because he knows perfectly damn well that Ren finds his reality repulsive, and he wants Ren to accept it on his own. The implication there is that Maruki also knows deep down that people aren't themselves once he changes their cognition, but that's not a surprise. Maruki talks a big game, but on some level he must know what he's doing. Surely.

Anyway, like we were saying, he's left Ren mostly alone. But he loses time, comes back to himself with the coffee cold or the sun at a different angle or an awful TV show at the end of its saccharine episode. And although he never remembers feeling what preceded it, he knows. Too much despair, too much bleak hopelessness, and Maruki turns him off like a lightbulb until it's gone again. Can't accept the new world if he's too depressed. The stupid self-defeating hypocrisy of it is annoying as hell—is he meant to accept the new reality of his own accord or isn't he? But there was a time when it would've pissed him off a lot more.

He stands in front of Igor's desk, in a place he doesn't recognize, unsure where he is or what's going to happen to him, or where his friends are, or whether this is a new stage of Maruki's reality or something entirely different, and despair swallows him whole. He waits to be shut down.

And waits. And waits, saturated in misery like he hasn't in weeks. For a split second he almost finds himself grateful to Maruki for taking it away, but he flinches back from going down that road. Like this, frozen, waiting to blink and find that his legs hurt from standing too long, he's barely aware of his surroundings.


2: all the pins inside your fretted head and your muttered whens and hows

Having pulled himself together (and not lost any time, as far as he can tell?), Ren decides that the obvious first stop is the conspicuous board that stands in the strange Velvet Room. It doesn't look... Velvet Room-y. It looks like it was brought in from outside, and as he scans its bizarre contents, he realizes he's right.

The business about Akechis and Rens being fated to be together makes him feel a little sick, so he skims it quickly and moves on. Demons, vampires, okay, that's... he'll deal with that when he has to. But as he reads the list of Akechi codenames, his eyes land on one in particular. In the middle of the corvids and the predators, there's Sparrow.

The description leaves him without any doubt. His stomach sinks. Is Akechi okay? Can he even survive in a place like this? How is Ren going to find him?


3: you gently gift it to me 'cause you've no clue how to sew

In a first, helpless attempt to locate his Akechi (different enough from other Akechis, apparently, to be identified on sight... well, that's true enough), Ren decides to head into Tokyo and go looking for places Akechi still enjoys. Kichijoji is an obvious one, with the jazz bar and Inokashira Park and his apartment, the location of which he kept behind his lips the entire time Ren knew him, only to immediately invite him over in February. But instead of taking the train, Ren walks. Travel is strangely quick, and it gives him time to look at the cognitions, which the board claimed were eerie.

The board wasn't wrong. They don't even seem like the brainwashed people Ren is used to—cognitions is definitely the better term. At least the people back home have some variability in how they act, and at least they have some kind of mild reaction if you inconvenience them. Ren steps in front of them once or twice, sticks out his leg to trip one of them even, and they don't even frown at him.

Maruki's reality is still new. Maybe this is where everyone is going to end up; automatons, puppets, walking around like video game NPCs. His skin crawls. He stands to the side of a busy road in Shibuya and watches, stomach churning.


[[ooc: This is the Ren from pheasantboy's universe.]]

Comments

[flightpen]

"Uh. The... the board, in the Velvet Room?" Kind of hard to miss, Ren thinks. "Has a lot of info on it, but never mind the board, what's wrong?"

[pheasantboy]

And there's the Akechi Ren will remember, because the board might never have been mentioned, as soon as he's prompted elsewhere. "That's, um. A long story.

"More to the point, Ren, are you all right? You don't look well." He hesitates, because not everything he was is lost. "Come to that, are you even you? Let me see your phone."

[flightpen]

"Good fucking question," Ren mutters, perhaps cryptically, or perhaps not after everything Akechi has learned. He pulls out his phone and goes to unlock it, and that's when he sees the date.

All the blood drains from his face. He fumbles his phone, nearly dropping it on the ground. February 2.

[pheasantboy]

"Hey. Hey!" He grabs Ren's arm, to pull him close so he doesn't fall. "It's all right. It's fine."

What did he see? He can't think of anything that would be so alarming.

[flightpen]

"I."

His voice cracks. He sways against Akechi and clutches his Detective Prince sweater vest, trying not to panic. February 2nd again, he can't live through another one, the first one was bad enough and he doesn't even know if he—no, he did, he did make the right choice, he can't have made the wrong choice, but—

"Why is it. That date?"

[pheasantboy]

"What, the 2nd?" All right, this is a little more physical contact than he's used to even from Ren, but he lets it pass, pulling him closer again. What could there possibly be about that date to distress Ren so tremendously? He still can't think of anything at all.

Gently but firmly, he manhandles Ren over to the bench. "Here, sit down. I know it's a lot. Come on, take deep breaths."

They've done this before. Rather often, in fact.

[flightpen]

He collapses onto the bench and does the fucking breathing exercises that Maruki taught him. He feels Maruki's chain around his neck every time but that doesn't change the fact that they work, so he does them anyway every time, like a metaphor. He holds his phone in a white-knuckled grip.

"Yeah," he manages finally. "February... February 2nd."

He can't say it without his voice shaking.

[pheasantboy]

"Come on. Deep breaths, now." And he cranes his neck down to squint worriedly into Ren's face. This is not confusion over the dates. Surely he can't have forgotten this too?

"You don't have to think about it now," he promises, so softly. "Just breathe for me. I'm here. Down from ten..." And he starts to count, waiting for Ren's response. His hand has come to rest gently on Ren's shoulder, where he thinks it belongs.

If he had to choose a best friend, he'd probably demur, and then name Haru. But Ren is the world.

[flightpen]

Helplessly, hopelessly, Ren follows Akechi's instructions, breathing in time. There's nothing else he can do; there never is.

[pheasantboy]

And Akechi does his best to hold Ren's eyes with his own, breathing in time, trying to see through the uncanny misery to the happy boy he's sure must be beneath.

His hand moves gently on Ren's shoulder. "What's so bad about today? You don't have to tell me, if you'd rather not."

[flightpen]

"...So it is today. Today is February 2nd." He manages to say it without his voice trembling this time, so he's making progress. "It's just, it was April when I went to sleep."

[pheasantboy]

So that's how it was. Akechi doesn't question his word for a moment, just rubs Ren's shoulder trying to soothe him.

"Yes. It was the same for me. I left on April 1st, but the date here when I arrived, by my phone, was September 6th." He remembers the dates so precisely that it's haunting. "So I've been here quite a while. It's one of the tricks this place has. Like so many of them, it can be disorienting."

Something about the way he says that last part is grittier, somehow. Something here has disoriented him.

[flightpen]

Ren looks up, eyes narrow. "Like what?"

[pheasantboy]

Oh, that's better. He brightens, reclaiming his hand and sitting back, still quite close. While it's not a dramatic improvement, Ren's still showing interest in something outside him, and Akechi will accept it. "Ah, there you are. I knew you couldn't resist a puzzle."

But his face falls. "It's things like... I need to tell you, because the strong likelihood is it will be the same for you. But can I see your phone?"

He hasn't forgotten what he wanted to check, either, that started all of this off.

[flightpen]

Fuck, his phone. His phone, which has the date. Looking at it as little as possible, he quickly types in his password and hands it off to Akechi.

[pheasantboy]

Akechi doesn't even look at the date. Instead, he hits the blue Nav button, with the gold letters VR emblazoned on it—the Nav, which he shouldn't be able to see. To him, it looks just the same as his own, nothing but a list of contacts. He swipes to his own name...

*NEW* Goro Akechi. +5418-xxxx-...

...and then turns to Ren, radiant. "It is you. Look, here. See the code at the start?"

He has his thumb over the date.

[flightpen]

Ren peeks over at his phone, relaxing a little when he sees the date is covered. He studies the code for a second.

"It's an identifier?" But it's not identifying him, it's identifying Akechi, so something is weird.

[pheasantboy]

"That's right." He pulls out his own phone, the same red one he had when he left, and opens his own Nav, still with the date covered; this time, Ren will see the icon. He scrolls down.

*NEW* Ren Amamiya. +5418-xxxx-...

"See? That's you. Same world code. And if I click..." He touches the name. "There are our messages. Yesterday, I suppose, for you." Inane on his end, noncommittal on Ren's, they certainly are the same messages. But Akechi is so relieved. "You see, the place is kind in that way at least."

[flightpen]

"I already knew it was you," he says. "You were the only Akechi that sounded right on... oh."

The board.

[pheasantboy]

"Yes, that board you mentioned. You'll have to show it to me." There's no way he can not have seen it, as will be obvious; not if he passes through the Velvet Room at all. And he knows something like that must have happened; he wilts.

"What did it say about me? Though I suppose it would be funny, if you read some dreadful description and thought ah, yes, I know him."

[flightpen]

"Uh." Hm. He hesitates.

"It wasn't bad. It's just. I talked to another one of you, and he mentioned you kind of. Check out sometimes? When it comes to certain things. And the description brought up something that was kind of related to that stuff, so I don't know if I can..."

God, this is awkward. At least at home, he could say whatever, and then Akechi would just forget about it. He seems to retain some memory now, which is... good. It's good. Of course it's good, why was Ren even questioning that? Fuck. But it's hurting him.

[pheasantboy]

"I see." It hurts. He manages to wilt further, looking down, tucking away his phone with the joy of moments before forgotten. "Yes, that's, um. It seems it only happens to me, here. But you aren't saying it's only me, are you, Ren?"

Because what would that imply? If Akechi has these episodes that have disturbed everyone so much, and Ren, who is from his same world, who has these same episodes at home—what would it mean if he's just fine?

[flightpen]

Ren's heart drops. If Akechi has to be like this, the least he could be is happy, and Ren always ruins that too.

"Sorry. I shouldn't have brought it up."

[pheasantboy]

"No!" He sits up, a bit too fast. "I have to—I mean, you have to know. Who did you speak to? Was it Crow?"

He can't think of another of him who's taken such a consistent interest in—well, everything. Even Magpie still just glares at him in the corridors.

[flightpen]

"Yeah." He glances at Akechi. "Why did you cut yourself off? Just then?"

I have to know.