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]

And in the Velvet Room, suspended in midair before Igor's desk, a dark-haired figure lies unconscious. His skin is bloodlessly pale, his breathing slow and shallow, and he's missing most of his fingers and the end of his nose. Those areas are blanketed in glowing blue light, which shimmers and changes as his body finishes its regrowth. In a few places, a faint blue glow shines out through his clothes, as concealed parts of his body regenerate.

Igor looks up somberly as they enter, but Ren doesn't stir.

[unfoggedlotus]

"Welcome. It appears," Igor begins, peering at them over his desk, "that you've discovered what occurs when someone meets their end in this place." A quick wave to the floating, unconscious Ren. "Death...such a thing is highly inconvenient for the formation of new bonds, I believe you'll agree. At least, of the permanent sort." Igor rubs his hands together with a chuckle. "There is nothing of that nature here. Those who encounter such unfortunate circumstances as would warrant permanent death will simply return to the Velvet Room and be...restored to the state they were previously."

"So he's alive," Ren sums up.

"The body can be remade without issue. The soul remains intact as it was. But the memory of death may or may not linger in the mind..." Another handrub and chuckle. "I leave these matters to you."

[fogbornphantom]

Crow should be elated. If that Ren is alive, that means the tragedy's been undone. It should be okay. It should be fine. It should...

But he can't help but stare aimlessly as Sparrow's Ren reforms. As Igor said, the mind may yet bear wounds.

"...I'm glad this isn't the end for you," he says to Sparrow, still numb.

[pheasantboy]

Sparrow has already flown forward and dropped to his knees before Ren, momentarily elated—then wilting, as he examines Ren's closed eyes, the blue light around his nose, and his half-formed hands. As Igor speaks.

The memory of death... what does that mean, with Ren's memory as strange as it is? He looks up at Igor, eyes flashing; that chuckle got on his last nerve. "It's not funny! Don't laugh at him!"

[unfoggedlotus]

Igor simply grins. "Your loyalty to him is admirable. He will return to you once his restoration is complete."

"Sparrow, you won't get anything out of him," Ren grunts, then angles both himself and Crow towards the door. "Wanna come with us or stay here?"

[fogbornphantom]

"It's up to you. If you'd rather stay by his side, I understand. I'm... sorry I couldn't be of more help."

He already apologized, but he still can't help it. He feels so numb inside. Like he could fall on the floor at any second.

[pheasantboy]

He looks up at Crow. The exhaustion, and all of the misery—he wants so much to tell him it's fine. It would be so easy. But no, no. None of this is down to Crow.

"I'll stay, if you don't mind. It wasn't your fault." No, he knows whose fault it was. "You did everything you could."

[unfoggedlotus]

"See? Not your fault," Ren gentles his boyfriend, nudging him towards their door. "C'mon. Home's waiting."

[fogbornphantom]

"...Tell him I'm sorry, too." With another heavy sigh, Crow just resigns himself to being nudged through the door. He doesn't have the energy to protest.

[flightpen]

Just a few moments after Crow and his Ren leave the Velvet Room, the tips of Ren's fingers form themselves out of blue light. All at once, the light dissipates in sparkles from his hands, his face, his arms and legs and feet. Fully remade, and with a bit more color in his cheeks, he floats down to lie on the floor.

His eyelashes flutter as he starts to wake.

[pheasantboy]

Akechi scuttles forward at once, from where he's been kneeling on the floor. If Ren wakes, and is himself, he'll never... well, perhaps he'll ask for one other thing.

He watches Ren's face with desperate yearning.

[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.