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]

...And Ren sets down his soup spoon and stares at Akechi in incredulous silence.

That's essentially what Shido does. For a moment, he's so utterly flabbergasted that he can't even think about a response.

[lakebrat]

But Goro doesn't back down, just looks into Ren's eyes, believing he sees himself clearly. His voice drops briefly to a growl. "Obviously Shido does things I'd never dream of doing. I look forward to taking him down more than I can say. But it is, in the end, a matter of scale."

Surely Ren understands that?....

[willowandoak]

"Wow," Ren says at last. "You really think that."

He pushes his near-empty soup bowl away and props his elbows on the counter, trying to marshal his thoughts through the fog that's existed in his head for weeks.

"Did someone, like. Tell you this? Or did you decide on your own that helping people makes you a mini-Shido?"

[lakebrat]

"It's not about what I do." Quickly, he finishes the last of his soup.

[willowandoak]

"It is, dude. That's the only thing it's about."

His tone isn't harsh, but he's not backing down any more than Akechi is.

"Everyone has opinions about how the world should be. Everyone would make them real if they could. Sorry, but you're not, like, special for wanting stuff to be different. What matters is what you want to change, and what you do if you somehow get that power.

"Shido wants to rule the fucking world. He wants to burn it down, just because he gets off on being able to. You want to save people from monsters and see the monsters face justice. Are you really telling me there's no moral distinction there?"

[lakebrat]

"Of course there's a moral distinction!" Elbows on the counter, he starts to gesture, a bit wide-eyed in the way he gets when he's got his teeth into something. "Actions matter. What we choose to do, in and of itself, matters. I've chosen to change the world because I believe it needs changing, that it's better off with our targets dealt with. The others agree."

He trails off a bit. "Though then again, maybe I've just led them down a blind alley. Let them follow me to destruction. Shit, I hope it doesn't end up like that."

[willowandoak]

"It won't." Ren itches to take Akechi's hand. His fingers curl into loose fists. "You'd never have let that happen anyway, but it definitely won't now that you've come here and learned all this."

And now that Ren has broken under the pressure and defected from Shido, as well. But they both know that was only one of several problems.

[lakebrat]

But, watching Ren's eye drop to his hands and his fingers curl, Goro moves his own bowl aside and reaches across the counter.

[willowandoak]

Ren hesitates for a second, as a series of emotions flit past—humiliation, wistfulness, anticipation. Then, ignoring them all, he takes Akechi's hand and squeezes it.

"I'm not saying it won't suck. But you'll all be fine."

[lakebrat]

"You're right," he says, feeling Ren's hand take his own. They hold hands a lot these days, but usually it's the the other way around. "Coming here has given us an advantage I could never have dreamed of."

And he's including Ren in that, though he doesn't say it. "I suppose what I'm saying is simply... good people don't change the world. They know themselves too well for that. But, of course, most people don't change the world for other reasons. There really aren't many good people out there."

[willowandoak]

"Those aren't good people," he says, dismissive. "Those are cowards who want to believe they're not taking action because they're too good." Unlike Ren, who can at least see his cowardice perfectly well.

"You're right about the other part, though," he adds. His expression clouds as he thinks of True Calling, which he might never be able to use again. When he was younger, he kind of figured he'd eventually find one or two people who it wouldn't work on. Like, real fuckups, cult members or fanatics who threw everything on the pyre to do what they believed was right, whatever that meant for them. But he's never once found someone who wasn't held back from something. Some True Callings have bigger effects than others, for sure, but still.

[lakebrat]

"Oh?" Ren's hand is warm on his. Goro could argue, but he wants to know where that was going.

[willowandoak]

At the question, his expression closes a bit—though not much, compared to how it might have once. For a moment, he thinks about how to respond.

"I told you about the thing I do," he says at last. "Where I make people do what they think they should? You'd think I'd eventually find someone who it wouldn't work on, because they were already doing everything they thought was the right thing. Like, I wouldn't want to meet that guy on the street, but you'd think he was out there giving people nightmares. But I've never found a Shadow like that. Not once. Everyone has something they think they should do, that they're not doing. And they always have some kind of reason for it."

Ren didn't, in fact, go into nearly this much detail the only other time he mentioned True Calling to Akechi.

[lakebrat]

He didn't. Goro's fingers idly stroke the side of Ren's hand, as he listens. "This is the skill you called True Calling?"

[willowandoak]

He nods silently. The movement of Akechi's fingers against his hand is soothing, which is less annoying than it was a month ago.

[lakebrat]

A skill that makes people do what they believe to be right? That's quite... Goro glances away for a moment, visibly organising the case in his head. The attempted career changes and whistleblowings, the religious obsessions, even the suicides, sure—but the murders? The marina bombing?

He looks back to Ren without condemnation. "So, in fact, you have a far better understanding of this than I do."

[willowandoak]

"Maybe you should listen to me when I tell you stuff, then."

But he looks kind of pleased.

[lakebrat]

"Please. I always listen when you tell me stuff." His mouth turns up at one corner.

[willowandoak]

Ren's face falls. But you don't, he thinks. You don't.

Akechi hasn't listened to him one time since he got here. Ren's told him over and over to cut his losses, to protect himself, and he won't fucking listen. Ren made the choice to die if it meant Akechi would survive, but Akechi is determined to make it not matter. The one good thing Ren has ever done, and it's pointless.

God, what if doing his Palace changes him? Like, obviously it'll change him, but what if Akechi tries to talk to him again afterwards, and this time Ren listens, and he agrees not to keep his distance when they go home, and then Akechi dies with him? After all this, has Ren killed him anyway with his cowardice?

The bloodied corpse flickers in and out, overlaying the living Akechi. Ren swallows hard and stares at the counter, pressing the fingers of his free hand against Akechi's pulse.

[lakebrat]

And Goro's face falls in turn, as Ren's collapses like a pane of broken glass; as his eyes develop the telltale sheen Goro's learning to recognise—the one that says Ren's seeing something else, and not him. Or both something else and him.

"You don't think I listen?" He brings his free hand around, to press firmly against Ren's own, cradling it, safety and security.

[willowandoak]

Ren shakes his head no, because Akechi obviously doesn't. But there are more important issues at hand.

"Maybe, um." God. He doesn't know if he can say this... Yes, he fucking can. They're just words. Just say it. "Maybe it would be better to leave my Palace alone."

He presses his lips together against the laughter that wants to follow, the nervous Just kidding! He feels like he's going to throw up.

[lakebrat]

He turns his hand, so now he's holding Ren's; he runs the other hand over the back, laces their fingers, strokes absently down and around to the back. This is all part of a pattern, of one picture.

"Because I won't be safe, if we do?" See, Ren? He listens.

[willowandoak]

He nods mutely.

[lakebrat]

He pulls Ren's hand a little closer, almost absently. "Because it's the one good thing you've done, saving my life. And if your heart is changed, if you change your mind, then I'll be in danger again?"

Over and over, skin against skin. Callouses and scars. He's come to know each one intimately.

[willowandoak]

He nods again. This time, his eyes dart up to Akechi's face for a brief, distrustful moment. But there's no blood, no slack dead expression; there's just Akechi, serious and intent. Somehow, that's not much better. Ren looks back down rather than face him.