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]

...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.

[lakebrat]

It's not more important than you. The words lodge in his stomach, behind his breastbone between them, and high in his head as high as birds fly. His hands don't still for more than a split second.

"Then can you trust that I'll abide by whatever decision you make, after the Palace?" Look at that, his voice doesn't even shake. "I mean for you to come out of this as yourself, Ren. Reconciled with your Shadow. With your Personas again. And if you say it then—if you freely choose it, not from fear or a distorted view of the world, but—"

He takes a deep breath. Drake belongs with them. With him. "If you still think it's what's necessary, then I'll respect your choice."

[willowandoak]

Ren stays quiet, closing his eyes against the threat of hallucinations and trying to force his brain to work. It's like trying to swim through syrup.

He doesn't know what he'll be like without his distortion, because he still can't grasp its nature. He remembers what Akechi told him, but it still feels screechingly, gratingly wrong to think that's a distortion. That anything about it could ever change. But. In order to protect Akechi, all that has to stay is Ren wanting to protect him. More than anything, more than his own life. And he remembers accepting that desire, months before the disappearance of Owain. So if it came before the Palace, it should stay after it as well, right...?

And he trusts Akechi, to an extent, at least in this. Akechi has had plenty of time to fuck him over in the past weeks, and he hasn't. Hesitantly, he nods. One arm wraps around Akechi's back and pulls him closer.

[lakebrat]

All his breath escapes him. His arms go further around Ren, pulling him closer. He stays like that for a moment—then he blinks.

"I hope nobody walks in." It's a joke. "Then again, if they do, they'll probably walk out again."

[willowandoak]

"They can fuck themselves," Ren mutters. He's given more creative insults in the past, for sure, but he had more energy then.

[lakebrat]

With a bit of a laugh, he lets his hand rest on the back of Ren's head. "I don't even want to picture Morgana doing that."

[willowandoak]

Ren wrinkles his nose. "I bet he does, though. The way he was talking about Takamaki."

Yeah, he's bitter about Morgana.

[lakebrat]

"Maybe. I hope he doesn't really understand it. If he does... well, we still don't know what he really is."

The Morgana here is still walking about as a cat. But what does that mean?

[willowandoak]

"What do you think he is?"

Ren's stated answer to this changes depending on how mad he is at Morgana and how much he wants to annoy the person he's talking to. He doesn't have a real answer.