they're just shadows searching for light

[flightpen]

CONTENT WARNINGS: character death, character being eaten


Ren's been here for weeks now, wandering Tokyo like a ghost, poking his head cautiously through doors into other places. The people are... well, anyway, most of them treat him better than he deserves. He can talk to them, and they can see him no matter how he feels. It's good. It should be good. But no matter how hard Ren tries to put on a brave face for Akechi, he's so worried all the time.

It's just, whenever Ren walks the streets of Tokyo, he can't help but think of what's beneath him. Akechi's Shadow, everything that was torn out of him, anger and betrayal and seething hatred. Hatred of Ren. Ren deserves it, he brought it on himself, he's the reason that Shadow even exists, but he can't—he can't just let it stay there, unacknowledged. He can't ignore it. He ignored Akechi once before, and look what happened.

The Shadow is dangerous, people have said. Deadly. But Ren has all his Personas again, the ones that were meant to take on Maruki; there's a chance he'll survive. And even if he doesn't, even if he dies... no one can honestly say that would be a great loss. And he'll have died showing Akechi, all of Akechi, that he matters enough to take the risk. Because he does matter. More than anything.

Still, he doesn't want to leave the Akechi in the real world without a word. Just in case it does go wrong. So he sits through an afternoon with Akechi, quiet and distracted, and when the time comes for him to leave and find food (or at least that's what he says), he turns back at the door of Akechi's apartment.

"Hey, um. Can I tell you something?"

Comments

[flightpen]

At first, it's like waking from a too-long sleep. He doesn't know where he is, or what the time is, and his head is stuffed with cotton. He stirs discontentedly. Whatever he's lying on, it's not comfortable. He's not in a bed. So what...

It all hits him at once. His eyes snap open and he stares at the Velvet Room ceiling in disbelief and horror. He—he died. He remembers it; the split second of agony, his mind going dark like the wick of a candle pinched between two fingers. He thinks he remembers not being allowed to pass on to the Sea of Souls. A wall, a trap, panicked claustrophobia and then a blanketing nothingness.

His overwhelming instinct is to roll onto his side and curl in on himself like a dying bug, so that's what he does. He doesn't even notice Akechi.

[pheasantboy]

That's okay; Akechi will come to him. At Ren's side, he takes his shoulder without hesitation, needing to do something, anything.

"Ren? Ren, it's me. I'm here. You're safe." Again, he thinks of that mysterious counterpart Crow mentioned. "It's just me, Ren."

[flightpen]

Ren gasps and flinches at the hand on his shoulder, but Akechi's voice, so distinct from his Shadow's even without the distorted reverberation of a Shadow's speech, soothes him. He looks up. Behind his glasses, his eyelashes are spiky with unshed tears.

After a second spent processing Akechi's presence, he grabs Akechi's hand like a lifeline. But he can't stand to look Akechi in the face for long, not after everything he and Akechi's Shadow said to each other. He fumbles with his glasses with his free hand, tossing them to the side, and presses his face against Akechi's legs. It's ridiculous that Akechi, of all people, should offer safety, but it helps anyway.

[pheasantboy]

"Oh, Ren." Uncertainly, he rests a hand on Ren's tumble of hair, clinging to his hand with the other. It hurts to see him this way, more than Akechi thinks it's natural for anything to hurt.

He can't look away from those unshed tears. He can't bear to see Ren cry.

[flightpen]

He doesn't cry like he did the day he got here. Instead, tears seep silently into the cloth of Akechi's pants. It feels like the Shadow's anguish is part of him now, ever since he breathed it in, making a home for itself at the hollow center of his heart.

"I'm sorry," he says. It's probably too muffled to make out; he tilts his head, just barely, and tries again. "I'm sorry."

[pheasantboy]

"Don't apologise." His fingers play in Ren's hair, drawing him closer. "I'm sorry you felt so bad you had to do this. I'm sorry I didn't stop you."

More to the point, he's sorry he wasn't good enough to save Ren. But it's unnecessary to bring that up.

[flightpen]

"No, it wasn't—"

He does turn, then, to stare pleadingly up at Akechi with reddened eyes. "I didn't do it on purpose. I tried not to." Until the end, anyway. "It wasn't like..."

It wasn't like Akechi's mother. He can't say it, even if it might not hit Akechi the same way anymore.

[pheasantboy]

He understands; he looks down, unable to bear the misery on Ren's face. "Crow said there was something down there that wanted to kill us. A counterpart, he called it. He said more, but..."

But Akechi forgot it, because of course he did.

[flightpen]

"...Yeah." He goes quiet, remembering. His body curls around Akechi's legs, as though he can find protection that way, or solace.

"I knew it might happen," he continues after a moment. "But I didn't... go there wanting to die, or anything. I just. I had to meet him. It was important."

[pheasantboy]

"You knew him." Awkwardly, he tries to lift Ren's head into his lap. He has no idea the "counterpart" is even an Akechi.

[flightpen]

It is awkward, but Ren goes anyway. The warmth of Akechi's body is comforting. He feels like a little kid, but he doesn't have it in him to try to be better.

"Yeah. It was important," he says again, like that'll clarify anything for Akechi when Ren can't even tell him what a Shadow is, much less whose Shadow is down there. "He's important. His—his pain. It matters."

[pheasantboy]

It's a better position, awkward or not. Akechi slides his hands around Ren's neck and shoulders, cradling him. "You matter. You're important. Whoever this was, surely he can't be so important that you'd do this to yourself? Put yourself in such danger, I mean."

[flightpen]

Ren shudders, at the touch and at the words. You matter. You're important. That's never been true, except when the fate of the whole fucking world hung on his decisions. Brief flares of significance, unfortunately for everyone.

"He is," is all Ren can say. "I don't even matter, compared to him. I'd do... I've done so much worse than this. For him."

He can't even say, He matters more than anything. Because Akechi will hear, He matters more than you, when Ren would be saying the opposite.

[pheasantboy]

Summoning his nerve, he strokes Ren's hair with exquisite care. "This is the mysterious thing you did. He didn't appreciate it either, clearly."

He can just see this ungrateful ingrate in his mind.

[flightpen]

At the feeling of a hand in his hair, Ren sighs and lets his eyes slip shut. The comment could almost be funny, if not for what Ren just saw of Akechi's shadow.

"No."

[pheasantboy]

His thumb plays through Ren's hair, above his ear. "Then he was unworthy of you. Like all the rest of them. Whatever you did, I know you meant it for the best.

"But that doesn't help, does it?" Or Ren would just feel better.

[flightpen]

"Don't say that." It's quiet, barely above a whisper, and lacks any particular tone of censure. But Ren doesn't like it.

[pheasantboy]

"All right," he acquiesces at once, still stroking Ren's hair, his shoulder. He's forgotten that Igor is behind the desk, that he's even in the room; he's just so glad to be able to comfort Ren like this.

He pulls Ren a little closer, reaching for something better to talk about. "You know, my mother used to hold me just like this."

[flightpen]

Maybe it shouldn't be a surprise that Akechi's mother is on his mind. Ren makes a quiet, inquisitive noise, inviting him to continue. He doesn't want to think about anything; he just wants to stay where he is, and breathe, and listen.

[pheasantboy]

"Mm." He makes a quiet, affirmative noise in response. "When I was very small. Long before she died."

In other words, before they moved to Yonchome, and she sickened.

[flightpen]

" 's nice."

He wishes he could fall asleep and never wake up. Like that other Akechi's Ren. But then Akechi would be sad. Even if it wouldn't be forever, he's sadder now than Ren knew he could be.

[pheasantboy]

His hands play lightly in Ren's hair, and against his back. "I can lie down, if you want. I'm not very good at all this, but I could try."

He still hasn't forgotten Ren flinching from him in the kitchen. From his wrongness. He thinks he'd do anything if it could help. "Come to that, we should probably get you home. You need food. Medicine. Sleep, I'm sure."

[flightpen]

He doesn't want Akechi to let go of him. But even now, in this state, he knows he can't take advantage of Akechi's malleability. If he wants to go home, all Ren can do is agree, because if he doesn't, Akechi will just do whatever he wants.

When Akechi mentions food, though, he starts to laugh. Just quiet, barely-there giggles against Akechi's chest, but once he's started, he can't stop.

[pheasantboy]

It's harrowing. Akechi clings to him, first trying to hush him, then giving him a little shake. "Ren? What's wrong?"

[flightpen]

God, he can't tell Akechi he was eaten, at least in a manner of speaking. Akechi's already so upset. But he doesn't have the brainpower to think of a lie, so between his near-voiceless but increasingly hysterical laughter he just gasps out, "Food."