willowandoak: (14)
ren amamiya (au) ([personal profile] willowandoak) wrote in [community profile] personavelvetroomdr2024-06-01 06:38 pm

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.
pancakeboy: ([1+2] [secret] neutral)

[personal profile] pancakeboy 2024-06-04 11:57 pm (UTC)(link)
Fair. He tilts his head, not quite acknowledging it. "So—what? You do it to please him, to win his favour? Why would you ever sulk in front of him, if you could avoid it?"

In fact, how did this guy even end up working for Shido? Magpie's wondered. Not that he expects to learn today.
pancakeboy: ([1+2] [secret] shan't)

[personal profile] pancakeboy 2024-06-05 12:00 am (UTC)(link)
Ugh. Whatever. He turns to go. "Fine," he says as he goes. "Rot there."
pancakeboy: ([1+2] [secret] wistful)

[personal profile] pancakeboy 2024-06-05 12:11 am (UTC)(link)
It does; and that gravity reaches him. Just for a second, he pauses in his tracks, the lines of his back like iron still. Maybe he ought to do something. Maybe he should be forgiving. Maybe this is, in fact, important information for Crow's latest windmill.

Then he keeps walking, and leaves.