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

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

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.]]

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Ren doesn't react like someone who's toying with cognitions for fun. His head jerks round toward the source of the shouting and he freezes, red-faced and mortified. Seeing her doesn't help—because that's Ann, Ann like she used to be, quick to righteous anger. He hasn't seen her in months.

He isn't seeing her now, either, but the image of the girl he used to know is still so clear. His mouth opens, but for a second or two no words come out.

"It's weird," he says at last. "And sad. That they don't—care what you do, at all. I wanted to see if they even cared when you." He gestures at the ground, where the cognition stumbled a moment ago. "Sorry."

For a moment, Ann can only stare.

It's Akira--or Ren, fuck, who cares--but smaller than she's ever seen...any of them, pale and unable to meet her eyes as he curls in on himself, a pleading in the--the pathetic defense he offers her, because what the fuck?

She thinks of the cognitions she's seen in Palaces; of the students and herself in Kamoshida's. They weren't people, they weren't real, but that doesn't mean it's okay to just--treat them like nothing. Even if he wasn't having fun with it, what was he thinking?

"They don't care," Ann says, struck dumb. "They don't care?" She can't fathom the logic. She doesn't understand it at all.

"What happened to you," she breathes.

"Me?" His laugh catches in his throat. "Nothing. I'm fine. It's..." It's the whole rest of the world. Every single person, and every single thing that those people care about. All of it.

He glances around at the endless stream of cognitions. "They remind me of the people at home," he says quietly. "But they're—worse. Someone at home would at least get kinda annoyed if you cut them off, much less stuck out your leg to trip them. And home is getting worse, so I wanted to know more about the cognitions here. How similar they are. But I don't want to. I don't know. Punch them or anything."

They remind me of the people at home.

Automatically, Ann takes a step back. She doesn't decide to do it; it just sort of happens, as mix of pity and revulsion flows through her. She thinks of the first Goro she had encountered here; sweet but creepy and sad in a kicked puppy kind of way--thinks of what the others had told her about him, and his circumstances.

She's pretty sure she knows who the Ren standing in front of her is.

It makes the anger in her flare hotter, incandescent. "Oh, so you don't want to be violent," Ann says, bright with sarcasm, "so that makes it okay? You can decide to do whatever you want, and it's okay, as long as it's not causing anyone physical pain?"

Even as she says the words, though--chasing her rage is something far more...exhausted.

"Just...stop," she says. "You've figured it out now, haven't you? They're not going to react. So you don't need to keep doing it. You're not going to get a different outcome. You get it?"

He stares at her, pale and silent, as her accusations find their mark. He doesn't cringe again, but his eyes go a little glassy as he thinks about everything that...

...god. Okay, no. At home he could check out and people would just forget he was there, but if he does that here, people might actually notice. He swallows and pulls himself back into the present. "I haven't been, like. Standing here for ten minutes tripping cognitions," he says, subdued. "I wasn't going to keep trying. You just. Showed up when I did it."

Ann's...already exhausted. Something heartsore and weighty drags at her limbs; her flash of anger cools as fast as it burned as her shoulders slumped.

"Right, I--" She sighs. "It's just. A sensitive thing, for me. I'm sorry for yelling at you out of nowhere, when we don't even know each other, just...yeah. I'm not going to give you a lecture about not doing it again; if you say you're not going to, I guess I'll believe you." For now goes unsaid. Ann doesn't think he's lying, though--he looks a little too pathetic for that.

Why the hell would he bully cognitions for no reason, he wants to ask, but he doesn't. Instead, as he looks at her, his brow knits with concern.

"Hey, um. Are you." ...There's a chance this could go badly. She obviously doesn't like him. But she's so tired, and so sad. He'd forgotten about that feeling when you look at your friend and their pain makes you hurt, too. "Are you okay?"

For a long, long moment, Ann just stares at him.

"No," she admits eventually; quiet, but frank. "But there's nothing to be done about it really--not by you, at least." A little derision slips back into her tone there without meaning, and she pinches the bridge of her nose. She--she really doesn't want to pick a fight; she doesn't know what's got her so suddenly bitchy. She doesn't need to needle this guy, she could just leave.

But she doesn't. Hugging herself, she says: "I guess I could have given you more benefit of the doubt, instead of just flying off the handle like that. My fuse is...shorter than it used to be, these days."

"It's fine." It stung, but compared to everything else, someone yelling justified accusations at him doesn't seem that important.

If this were his own Ann, back before everything, he could've drawn the story out of her. Whatever's so wrong, why there's nothing that can be done, why she's short-tempered. But this isn't his Ann, and he's not who he was. He's just a collection of the few recognizable shards of the person he used to be, after that person shattered on the floor of Leblanc.

And, again, Ann doesn't like him. But he has to at least try. He tilts his head. "What happened?"

"You fought Yaldabaoth, right?" Ann says, gaze distant as she stares into nothing. "Did he offer you a deal? In the Velvet Room, after Mementos and reality became one? Because...it's a long story. But for me, it all started when my Akira--or Ren, I guess--took that deal."

(If she sounds a little accusing...oops?)

He flinches at her tone. "Um," he says faintly. "Yeah. He. ...Yeah. He tried." And it was agonizing to turn it down, with the memory of all his friends vanishing into smoke just moments behind him. It was maybe the hardest thing he's ever done, and he doesn't think he'd have ever recovered from it even if everything hadn't gone weird afterwards.

If he hadn't had to do it then, maybe he could have let Akechi die. He wonders about that sometimes.

What he's getting from all these interactions, also, is that he should just assume everyone knows his Akechi and can figure out from there what he did.

After a long moment of staring at how Ren curls in on himself, Ann sighs. "Lavenza pulled me into what was left of the Velvet Room, before Yaldabaoth rewrote reality entirely. She used the last of her strength to send me back--to the start of the year, in hopes that I could find a different answer than Akira did."

A hesitation, and then: "I don't like what you did," Ann says quietly. "I don't like what Akira did, and I think that's probably always going to colour how I see you...I can't be unbiased about it, sorry. But. I do understand what drove you to do it. If it had been me..." She trails off, and shrugs. "I guess we'll never know. But--it's not you I'm angry at, and I shouldn't have yelled. You mostly just...make me sad, I guess."

"You don't have to keep apologizing. It's fine. It was actually, um. Pretty tame? Compared to what some people have said." He tries to laugh. It's possible he doesn't manage a good one. His nerves feel scraped raw on a day-to-day basis, and right now they're screaming.

He wishes Lavenza had pulled one of his friends back at the last minute, so they could undo everything from the past year and make a better version instead. Maybe Akechi wouldn't even have to die. "I hope you find your answer," he says quietly. "I'm sorry it's so hard on you." Her Akira would probably hate what his choice was doing to her, if he knew. If he still existed. Ren envies him.

"I guess it's the nature of things," Ann says. "You give this power and responsibility to teenagers, and they're going to come out of it traumatised. And making poor decisions." It's about all the grace she can extend; she might have gone through something similar enough to make her angry, but that same thing just also makes her sympathise a little more--because she knows her Akira made that choice out of love. With Sparrow having been here for longer and being...himself, it's a little harder to remember that this Ren probably made his choice for the same.

Ann shakes her head. "It's hard because it's worth it," she says. "It could be easy, if I just gave up." Hits home, doesn't it?

He flinches again; but that strikes him as unfair enough that he protests quietly. "I didn't just..."

Didn't just give up? Well, maybe not, maybe he was threatened into it, but the effect is the same in the end. So does it matter? His voice fades.

Ugh. Ann considers him for a moment; talking to this Ren is like walking through a minefield. A tightly wound, highly strung minefield that hates itself.

"I didn't mean it as an accusation," Ann says. "More of just...an observation." Not a comment on what he did, but on what he's doing. Ann can understand the choice he made, sincerely--but if he's so miserable with the outcome, she's not sure why he's still living in it? It's antithetical, to her. She's not going to say it aloud, though; she's pretty sure he's been beat up enough.

He bites his lip. Has he just given up? I could defeat Maruki with these Personas, probably. Maybe. If I trained, he thinks, almost as a test. He's not sure why he's never thought anything at all about confronting Maruki before, with how miserable he's been, and how angry he sometimes gets...

...oh. Actually, no, it's obvious, isn't it.

Too much pain, and he loses time. He thought Maruki didn't like it when he got too mad, either, but he only sometimes loses time due to anger, and if he never remembers having a single rebellious thought—

He laughs humorlessly under his breath. "I didn't give up," he tells Ann grimly, because she's there and because she's helped him figure it out, kind of. "He just. Turns me off. When I think about trying to confront him. Same way he does when I get sad. Until now, I just kind of figured I'd never thought about it for some reason."

"What? Ann spits, voice cracking like a whip. The bitter resignation in Ren's voice stings like salt in a wound. She'd already figured out that Maruki was full of bullshit, but hearing this, it...

She speaks without thinking: "If I could, I'd kill him for you." She really, really means it, because what the fuck. She can't blame Ren for making the choice he did--ask a traumatised teenager something fucked up like that on a deadline and it's a 50/50 they'll give you a bad answer--and apparently she can't blame him for letting things stay as they are, either. "Does anyone else here know about that?" At the very least, this information should make Ren's time here a little less...hostile. He really seems like he needs support, not scorn, actually.

Ren doesn't even blink at the I'd kill him for you. He remembers Ann struggling with Kamoshida, and this Ann has been alone like Ren's been alone. Surrounded by people, but the only one who knows and remembers.

In answer to her question, he shakes his head. "I just noticed now. At home it's like—if I start to get really sad, I blink, and time's passed, and I don't feel as bad anymore, right. So, okay, Maruki doesn't want me too depressed, whatever."

Whatever is not an accurate summary of how he feels about it, and it shows in his face.

"But then sometimes I get mad and it happens, so I thought he doesn't want me mad, either, but it's. Not consistent? Like, sometimes I'll be really pissed off and I don't lose time, but sometimes I'll just get a little annoyed and then an hour's gone. And I couldn't figure out why until now, because I couldn't. Think about fighting back against Maruki, even just to realize I was losing time when I thought about it. I thought it just now and it was like. Like stretching a muscle you haven't used in ages. If that makes sense? I don't know. I think I'm rambling. Sorry."

The talking is helping him put his thoughts in order, but this poor Ann doesn't deserve to bear the brunt of it.

Ann waves him off, brow furrowed with concern. "Hey, I get it," she says gently. "It's not like I had people to talk to about my circumstances either--not until I got here. If it helps at all, I'm glad to listen."

She frowns, thinking. "If you're asking me...it sounds like Maruki is scared of you. Not just of the idea that you could fight back and wrest control from him...but scared of what you represent. Because as long as you're not happy, everything he's created is a lie, and he knows it."

Cynically, Ann wonders how long it would have taken for Maruki to decide that Akira needed more of a permanent fix. Sure, he apparently wants him to be 'happy,' but given the weighing of one individual against his dreaming masses...eventually, something would have to give.

"I know." He sighs. "He wants me to decide everything's good. He can't do it himself. So why the hell did he do all this in the first place, if he's not even sure it's... He's such a fucking..."

He doesn't even know how to end the sentence. Maruki is a lot of things. "We're kind of in the same situation," he says instead. He wouldn't have dared to say that to her before, but maybe now that she's less hostile, she'll understand? "I mean. You're not the one who fucked everything up." He lets out a breath. Almost, it could be a self-deprecating laugh, but it doesn't quite get there. "But. You remember stuff no one else does. No one else knows what's going on. It's just you." He hesitates, gathering the shreds of his courage. "So, um. I can listen too. If you want."

She probably doesn't want that. She probably has other people here she'd rather confide in, who don't remind her of the guy who did this to her. But he can't not make the offer, after she said what she did. And he misses being there for people. No one needs him in Maruki's reality. It's such a selfish thing to get upset over, given everything else, but that doesn't stop him.

Ren's whole story is making her extraordinarily sad, but at his offer she smiles--and for once, the sweet drowns out the bitter. Even beaten down and wary, even broken...it seems Ren really is still himself. Deep down.

"Thank you," Ann says, genuinely. "I'll definitely keep that in mind...even if there are people here who don't think I'm crazy for saying I'm a time traveler, the list of people who get it are way smaller."

She doesn't really know how to touch the first part of what he said, because Maruki is clearly a hot button issue, but... "Here, put yourself in my contacts." She holds out her phone. "That way, if we ever want to chat, it's easy for us to reach each other. Even if it's not easy to meet in person."

...That went okay, actually. He blinks, surprised, then takes her phone and types out his number. When it saves, a few digits are added to the beginning of it, which is weird, but this whole damn place is weird.

"Yeah," he says. "Text me whenever." It's weird to say that and mean it; at home, he dreads getting texts.

Smiling, firm in a way that says haha you have fallen for my trap and now will never be rid of me, Ann tells him: "I will!"

(she saves his number under the contact '):')

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

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