personavelvetroomdr | my montage of lost things, my shining trinkets of grief

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my montage of lost things, my shining trinkets of grief

((cw: hallucinations, panic, the general poor mental state of someone with a Palace))

Ren is not exactly at his most presentable. Like, yeah, he's clean and dressed, but that's about all you can say for him. His hair is a snarl of tangles, his skin is unhealthily pale, he holds himself rigidly, and the shadows under his eyes are so dark that it looks like they might never leave. And he knows he looks bad, but by now he's beyond caring. With everything that's happening to him, someone judging his hair is the least of his fucking concerns.

He doesn't usually like to go out, these days. A lot can happen when he's out of his apartment. Too many things he can't control, and too many places that remind him of home, which lately is to be avoided at all costs. But his apartment isn't much better. There's nowhere he can look where he hasn't seen Shido, or Akechi, or Shido and Akechi, or his parents or his orphanage directors or fuck knows who else. There's nowhere he can sit where he hasn't heard their voices. And when he's not hallucinating, he's alone with his thoughts, which is worse.

All that is to say, there was a whole thing earlier where he felt like he couldn't breathe, and it sucked, but it's over now! He's fine. Still, it made him want to get out of his apartment. So here he is, out in Shibuya. And outside has turned out to be as vertiginous and full of danger as he was afraid of, but, well. At least it's different.

1. all the things that i ran from i now bring as close to me as i can

He stands with his back to the wall of a storefront and searches the constant stream of passing cognitions. His expression is fraught. He knows he hasn't really been seeing people from his past, he's not stupid, but the idea of being blindsided by a hallucinatory Shido or orphanage director amidst the crowd is terrifying enough to keep him rooted in place, watching endlessly.

2. gripping hotel sheets with gritted teeth

He's finally escaped the crowds. Curled up on the grimy concrete in a Shibuya alleyway, his knees to his chest and his back once again pressed to the wall, he tries to calm down. Akechi made him breathe, that time when he freaked out in his Palace. He tries to match the rhythm he remembers, but it just makes him think about the Palace, so he abandons that plan almost at once and goes back to waiting out the terror. He'll be fine if he just grits his teeth and endures it. That... usually works, anyway.

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"No actually, and if you're seeing things it's possible that your friends told each other because they're worried about you." How this kid couldn't see the most glaringly obvious explanation was beyond Makoto, unless of course, he's convinced that his friends don't worry about him. Perhaps that was part of the reason Makoto was so calm using his Evoker at first.

"Bunch of fucking busybodies," he mumbles. The instant the words are out of his mouth, he feels sick with shame; his face crumples, and he opens his mouth to apologize. But he's not sorry to Makoto, he's sorry to people who aren't even here, so what's the point?

Makoto would make a comment about his friends sticking out their necks for him but. It dies on his tongue. Friends weren't common in his younger years because he pushed them away when they needed help too. "If they didn't want to help you, they wouldn't." He doubts that this guy will believe him but it's worth saying.

"Yes, they would." He curls up in a tighter ball, feeling like a child but too tired to care much. "He helps everyone. That's his whole, like... thing. He couldn't not help, he'd have a stroke."

Makoto is silent for several long moments before sitting beside the boy. "And? Doesn't mean that whoever you're talking about doesn't care about you." Makoto certainly didn't like this guy by any means, but he cared enough to make sure that he was alright. It would have been easy to turn the other way.

And Makoto hates to admit, but even just a few months ago he probably would have turned the other way.

Ren flinches hard. Maybe Akechi thought he cared once, but that was before he got here, before Ren opened his fucking mouth and—

Akechi steps out from behind a nearby vending machine. He gives Ren a single glance, not even contemptuous but just dismissive, before he turns and leaves without a word. The Akechi cognition loves to fucking walk away—and it's obviously a hallucination of a cognition; he wasn't even there a second ago. But Ren still looks desolate as he watches Akechi vanish around a corner.

"Did you know I'm a murderer?" he asks Makoto distantly, staring at the spot where he last saw Akechi's cognition. "I don't even know how many people I've killed. You were probably picking up on some kind of vibe when we met."

Makoto looks to the spot where Ren was just looking. There's nothing there, so it must be something Ren was seeing. However...he does have to stifle a little bit of laughter when Ren mentions Makoto picking up murderer vibes from him. "You were trying to flatten a building. I don't really think it was vibes," he points out.

His face settles into something more serious. "Though you did remind me of someone I know that was using the Dark Hour to carry out hits. If it makes you feel better you're much more torn up about the whole thing than Takaya," at least, now that Makoto is getting to know him better.

"God, everyone keeps saying that. Who even cares. They're still dead whether I'm sad about it or not." When is someone going to fucking listen to him when he says he's killed people. Everyone here is insane.

But the momentary spark of animation, such as it is, dies out as soon as it appeared. "People did this before the Metaverse...? I guess that makes sense."

"Yeah they are," Makoto isn't going to deny that by any means. "That said I think that you seeing things about it means you're willing to change, and that counts for something." Takaya would have happily kept living, and killing in the moment up until the world ends but Ren seems like he'd take it back if he could.

"Takaya was mostly carrying out hits for the kicks of it," he explains. "Whether the asker had a petty disagreement or something serious didn't matter, since he thinks that persona users ought to prey on those without that power. If Ren was asking he didn't see the hurt in explaining.

Either way. "You on the other hand, seem to have serious survivor's guilt about it. I would know." He was still struggling with that after what happened to Shinji.

"Shit." He drops his head down to rest against his knees again. "He's like if my boss got a Persona. Not that it even matters that he doesn't have one." Since he has Ren to do all the dirty work for him.

"Someone made you kill people?" That was somehow worse than Makoto had thought. "And you're acting like you should go to hell for it?" Makoto had carried pretty awful survivor's guilt after losing his family and Shinji too, but Ren is ascribing himself agency in a situation where it sounds like he has none.

"I could've said no."

It would have ended badly for him, but they couldn't physically force him to call his Persona and kill Shadows in the Metaverse.

"Could you?" If he's around Makoto's age now he's still some kid with very little power compared to someone able to make a child do such a thing. So, Makoto has his doubts that Ren could have said no and survived.

"Sure. What were they gonna do about it, make me go in the Metaverse and summon my Persona?"

He turns his head to the side to regard Makoto. "Is this fun for you? Watching me be a pathetic piece of shit. I'd think it was fun, if it was someone I didn't like." And it would be a good explanation for why Makoto is still around.

"And would you be alive if you didn't?" He points out.

Ren asks if this is fun for him and he shakes his head. "Not particularly. I don't like you very much but I'm not letting you suffer here alone...I lost a friend that way." Letting Shinji and Ken suffer alone because he was too wrapped up in other things cost him Shinji's life. He will not make that mistake again.

He makes a discontented noise. "You're like Akechi. Bleeding fucking heart. You need to know when it's not worth it, dude.

"Probably not," he adds. "My corpse would've been been cut into little pieces and fed to an incinerator years ago. Or maybe I'd have been sold to some foreigner, I don't know. I'm sorry about your friend."

"I get to make that choice, not you." Makoto can't help but assert back.

His face falls into something of shock when Ren mentions the terrible things that would have happened to him if he didn't obey. "You- you realize that you're acting like you had a choice when the alternative was that." He's not worried about the apology for Shinji's death when Ren is admitting to a total lack of agency in his situation.

"I think Akechi would've said no." His eyes go distant. "Like. That's what you're supposed to do, right? You're just one person. Not important compared to a hundred plus people, or something. ...Fuck, you really are just like him, you know? He sits there and asks one question and everyone spills their damn guts."

"It's really easy to say that, but when you're in the situation..." He remembers when he was little and in that wreck, reaching out to Aigis for help. He hadn't recognized her then. "Nobody wants to suffer when they die." And if Ren was going to suffer it was like being asked to throw yourself on the hypothetical trolley tracks.

He can't talk Ren out of hating himself though. "Curling up in a dirty alley isn't gonna unkill those people either. Would you be up for going somewhere to eat?" Ren looked pale, and like he hadn't left his own apartment until now, so Makoto had an obligation to make sure he was alright physically even if he couldn't fix Ren's problem.

"Even with the food," he mumbles, perhaps cryptically. But he doesn't actually like huddling in a back alley like this. "I... Yeah, if you really... I just hate being around all the cognitions at once."

Makoto nods, holding out his hand so that Ren doesn't get lost among cognitions. That Big Bang Burger place is close he's pretty sure.

It feels weird. But Ren hasn't forgotten standing paralyzed in the street. That's the whole reason he ended up in this alley where Makoto could find him. He obviously can't be trusted to wander around by himself, so, wordlessly, he takes Makoto's hand.

Makoto makes it clear he's just keeping Ren at arm's length when he practically drags the other down to the Shibuya Central Street. He figures that Ren is done talking, so he isn't going to worry about filling the silence.

Ren half-follows, half lets himself be dragged. Most of his attention is on the endless river of cognitions around them; his wide, nervous eyes dart back and forth, waiting for more hallucinations to emerge from the crowd.

Makoto seems to notice the look and gets them to that burger place a little faster. Maybe he should try and fill the silence, which he was never very good at. "The place back home has this stupid burger challenge where you try to eat as many as you can in like a minute." No, that was a stupid thing to say, but it was something at least.

my montage of lost things, my shining trinkets of grief

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human trafficking mention

Re: human trafficking mention

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