my montage of lost things, my shining trinkets of grief

[willowandoak]

((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.

Comments

[willowandoak]

Akechi's warmth bleeds in through their layers of clothes. Ren swallows.

"That's not a distortion. That's just a fact...?"

His voice trails up at the end, an accidental question. He winces.

[lakebrat]

"Which?" They can warm each other all night in this alley, if it's what it takes. "That you belong in Mementos? That there are no people there?"

He takes a breath. "Or that nobody could value you for what you are?"

[willowandoak]

"Yes?" All of them...?

[lakebrat]

His lower hand tightens further on Ren's, almost to a claw. If any of those gods out there are trustworthy, let one hear him right now. "You said it back when we were fighting all the time. Just don't climb up the tree. Stay in the lowlands where I belong. Shit, maybe it's even why you're sitting in this alley, I don't know."

One more breath. One god to hear him, if Ren still can't. "That's your distortion, Ren. Your worthlessness. Your lack of belonging. It's not real."

[willowandoak]

For a long moment, Ren just looks at him.

"Akechi," he says at last. His tone is almost gentle. "I'm a murderer. I think if I hadn't come here, I'd have tried to kill you. Not to mention all the other shit I've done. I'm not, like, an abuse victim or something that someone's been lying to. It's just really like that for me."

Even his parents knew. They were onto something, getting him out of their house.

[lakebrat]

And finally, Goro turns his head, to see Ren's shadow looking back. Words escape before he knows it, sharp and intense, burning with the fire he usually keeps hidden without his mask. "Bullshit. That's bullshit, Ren."

Well. That won't have helped, he thinks, lifting one hand to rub his eyes. "You mind if I refer to something I saw in your Palace? It's just that... I really want to know."

Because he cares. Because Ren has value to him; he has worth.

[willowandoak]

The outburst doesn't do much harm. Ren didn't expect Akechi, of all people, to agree. Akechi is so determined to save him that he's destroying himself for it, and nothing Ren says will make him stop.

He's less happy about the Palace mention, but he doesn't have the heart to tell Akechi no. "Sure."

[lakebrat]

Okay, then. A little calmer, both reassured and not by Ren's lack of response, he squeezes his hand. "Okay. It's just... You told me you were a murderer before you ever ran into Shido. You did it for yourself, you said. Well, I know a bit about your background, and you must have been a kid." A chill enters his voice, not directed at Ren. "I can imagine one or two things that might drive a child to murder. And more than one way it might happen accidentally, if you put one in the Metaverse with no knowledge of what they were doing. But that's besides the point."

His question is softer. "Who told you you were a murderer, Ren? I saw that in there. One of the things you kept deepest in your heart. Was it Shido?"

[willowandoak]

Akechi really is desperate to know why he first killed someone, huh? Ren can tell from the way he talks about it, all the thought and speculation. But he hasn't asked, so it's not Ren's problem right now.

Unfortunately, the question he has asked is almost as bad. Ren curls in on himself a little tighter. "Yeah."

[lakebrat]

"I thought so." Despite his growl, he moves closer, following Ren; he'll put that arm he reclaimed around him, if he can, here in the dark outside the place they first met.

"But why did he need to tell you? Surely you knew what you had done? Or did you?" No, Shido will have done it to control him, to turn a boy into a weapon, or Goro knows nothing about him and his kind.

[willowandoak]

Ren leans against Akechi. For a moment, he lets himself exist silently in the moment; then he sighs.

"I knew something happened to them. I didn't know about the fucking... brain death. And drowning, or whatever. All I'd ever heard was they got sick."

His orphanage director had still been alive when he escaped, after all. In a bad state, apparently, with blood coming out of the orifices and so on, but people were freaking out for that reason. Not because he'd died.

[lakebrat]

His hand plays gently against Ren's hair, holding him close, catching on mats and tangles with no trace of judgement.

"So why'd you keep doing it? If you did, I mean." Gentle curiosity, no more; perhaps a little sad.

[willowandoak]

"After I knew it killed people? Because he had me by the balls. He said that as part of his whole... thing. Kill people for me, or else."

His voice is hollow. His parents have gone relatively quiet, but because they're quiet, he's not thinking about them to notice it.

[lakebrat]

His hand comes to rest on Ren's shoulder, the fingertips almost brushing Ren's heart. "But you say you're not a victim?"

[willowandoak]

"I mean. I could've said no. I'd have been fucked, but I'm just one person. So that would've been the right thing to do, right?" He huffs a sigh. "I already had this conversation today."

[lakebrat]

"With Magpie, right?" Actually, shit, he should elaborate on that. "I had to find out about you from somewhere."

[willowandoak]

"...No, with a Makoto, actually. Magpie would just agree with me." He squints at Akechi. "No way did Magpie contact you after all that."

After all what, Ren...?

[lakebrat]

"What the..." No, okay, he expected it of Magpie. But this is too much. "You're telling me two people just left you here?"

He sits back down, snuggling—there's no other word for it—back down next to Ren. "This could shake my faith in human nature. Shit."

[willowandoak]

He shakes his head. "Makoto took me to a diner. I stayed there for a while. Just, when I left again..." He doesn't want to think about it.

"It was weird. He doesn't even like me."

[lakebrat]

"Maybe he thought you had inherent value." Goro grins in the dark, there and gone again, missing his friend as he does a dozen and more times each day, still.

"Do you know there were two Makoto-kuns in my old homeroom, and it still seems weird now that... well, it's weird she isn't here." Though he thinks he knows why. If Makoto was here, the two of them would have had this place sewn up inside of a week. Probably.

[willowandoak]

"She'd agree with me." He doesn't sound mad about it. "Remember when she got mad because I wouldn't give you Kaneshiro for free?"

[lakebrat]

"Vividly." His voice darkens, becomes further away. "But she'll be fair to you. More fair than you are to yourself. What you've done won't go away, but... Makoto knows the difference between you and, as it turns out, Shido, as well as I do. I'd put money on it."

[willowandoak]

"Yeah? How much?"

Because Ren is happy to take that bet.

[lakebrat]

It's a good question. He thinks about it, and then answers, softer than anything he's said yet. "All I have."

After all, if Ren slips through his fingers, if Goro fails him... what life would he have left worth living?

[willowandoak]

...Ren shifts a little, not pulling away but turning so he can see Akechi's face better. For a second, the closeness of it robs him of words; then he collects himself.

"I'm worried about you."