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]

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.

[lakebrat]

His hands work on Ren's for another moment. It's not enough; he pauses. "Mind if I come around?"

[willowandoak]

Ren aches for Akechi to come around the counter, actually.

"Do what you want," he says.

[lakebrat]

They're in trouble; no, he's in trouble. He's known it since before he got here, long before Ren's confession. But he comes all the same, to slip an arm around Ren's waist, and another around a shoulder as he leans against Ren. Help with the hallucinations. Sure.

"Do you think maybe that's a decision best made after whatever happens, happens? After the Palace. Or do you not trust what you'll become?"

[willowandoak]

He leans against Akechi in turn and lets out a long breath. If he closes his eyes, for a moment it's almost like nothing is horribly wrong.

But that's just for a moment, before the whispers start again. "You think I'll change," he says. "Like, in a way that matters. You stopped talking to me about stuff because you want to do my Palace instead, so that afterwards, when I'm different, you can... save me or whatever then. I see how you look at me every fucking day."

He doesn't want to believe Akechi's right, but he's more than a little afraid that he is.

[lakebrat]

Goro sighs against the back of his neck. "I was going to talk to you about this tomorrow," he says, tightening his grip a little. "Ren, I want you to come into the Palace with us. From the start. I want you on the team."

[willowandoak]

...What.

"What the fuck," he mumbles against Akechi's shoulder. "Did you miss the part where I don't have any Personas?"

If he sticks to practical concerns, he doesn't have to address the way his stomach has dropped through the floor at just the idea of going back in there.

[lakebrat]

"Well, that's the idea." His arms are close and tight around Ren, reassurance and shield. "All of us began in the Metaverse without Personas, right? And we have a good group, a solid team. We can take down the Palace. We can take down your Shadow. But that's not what I want to do here."

He knows Ren doesn't want to go back in.

[willowandoak]

"What do you want to do, then?"

[lakebrat]

"I told you about Oracle's Palace. And you know about the Shadows in the TV world." The ones that talked, that could lead to reconciliation—or rejection. His hand moves gently on Ren's shoulder.

"A change of heart... do you think I don't know what it means? Some people have to be stopped. They deserve to be stopped. Are you one of those people?"

[willowandoak]

Aren't you the one who decides that? he nearly snaps, but he hasn't forgotten Akechi's troubled expression earlier when he talked about how he sees himself. So he swallows it back down. "Probably," he says instead. "I mean. I think I've stopped already? Mostly? But do I deserve it, yeah."

[lakebrat]

"Then let me ask differently." He lowers his head, so his nose is within touching distance of Ren's unhealthy tangle of hair; he doesn't flinch. "Do you need it?"

[willowandoak]

"I don't know," he sighs. "I just want it to go away. It's all I can think about. But it's not more important than you."

Probably he should've said something more like, It's not more important than your survival. Oh, well.