[It rings out - a reinvigorating cry, proof that an untouchable man isn't the golden idol he appears. Wet spots on his arm - a splatter, drip, soaking wet blood growing larger, and larger with each dig into Maruki's leg.
Akechi drags himself out from the rot -
Like always.
As always.
Pulled away from prey. Knife dislodged, still in his grip. Wrapped tight in his palm, wet with drying blood. One knee dislocated. Dragged. Keep going - he keeps going. He'll stop when he's dead and he's not dead life flowing through him with every pained noise and gasp from -
A man he hates with every fiber of his being
and himself, as he tries to keep weight off a too still leg. Nauseous. Sick. Head-
poundingslammingrippingshreeding
Loki wanting more. Akechi wanting more.
He gets back up - as always.
There's no stopping.
He's struck back down again-
and again
And again.
With piercing strike. The bad leg buckles - so does he. Back to the ground, forced back up with crimson coated arms. Debilitate at the ready - no more stamina. Loki doesn't do it. No more stamina. It doesn't go through. No more stamina. Piercing Strike continues to pummel, Maruki moves away.
He got him. He'll get him. Injured and backed into a corner. Akechi's been stuck at the back of that cage his whole life.
He'll kill him.
Prove a point.
Gets up again - again and again. Call of Chaos a force of adrenaline when his own supply has run dry and even that -
Is depleted. The rush of energy weak. A force propelling him up, barely, all his weight on the good leg, he-
Slams the bad one against the ground. Force it back. Force it in. Piece himself back together, over and over, until that man is dead. Until Shido is dead.
He laughs - erratic and wild through pained exhales. Nothing snaps together. It doesn't work. Bile crawling up his throat, head light and free, but he isn't done.
One final Riot Gun - he has nothing left. It won't take down Maruki. It never does, but it distracts, it gives him seconds.
He only needs seconds.
onlysecondsonlyseconds seconds is all it takes to slit a throat and it's only seconds
To watch eyes bulge out of a skull
And only seconds to press a gun to a skull and watch fragments splinter with sticky viscous rot against wall, table, and-
Akechi shoots. Gun in hand. Gun at the ready. Gun pressed into his side for emergencies and-
He shoots. Aims for Maruki's chest and shoots - the kickback a kick forward. A stumble back to the ground. A piercing shot numbing to a buzzing head coated and twisting around static and wrath. High pitched. He can't hear - smells smoke and ash and the metallic tang of blood everywhere.]
You're so stupid. You're so stupid. You're so goddamn STUPID!
Debilitate falters, fails. Riot Gun barely glances off them before it fizzles out. He can hardly stand up straight, one leg at a sickening angle, holding himself together through sheer fury. The swirling vortex of Call of Chaos is dulled, its lifespan shortened. He's going fast. Maruki doesn't have to hold out much longer; one more good hit ought to do it, and he has that ready to go, and then they can call this off, be done with it, he can heal Akechi with the last of the energy that he has left and head back inside for the night.
A decent plan, a solid one. A plan not unlike one that would follow most other nights they've fought a little too hard.
Then the gun comes out.
There's no time. The shot fires even before Maruki's fully registered what's happening, dizzy from blood loss and pain. Akechi is too fast.
Azathoth is faster.
It all happens at once: The shot, the wall of tentacles rising up between them to tank the bullet, the boosted Raining Seeds striking down at Akechi as Maruki loses his balance and falls back onto the ground, breathing hard and panicked, hands wrapping around the blood pouring from his leg. ]
Shit–
[ Pain lances through every cell of his body, disjointed burning half-thoughts to get the gun away from Akechi as the mass of tentacles swarm him to do just that. Knock the gun away, the knife. Hold him down. Force him to break his limbs again and again to fight himself down to nothing.
Maruki staggers up to one knee. Watches. Feels faint, sickened. Feels crazed. Azathoth grows as something inside him builds. ]
If you kill me, Akechi, do you know what you'll have?
[ He stands fully then, shifting all of his weight onto his good leg, the Tentacle of Healing doing its level best. The words practically spit out of him, barbed and acidic. ]
You'll have nothing here. Nothing. There is no one who will put up with your shit the way I do. But that's what you want, isn't it? To be alone again?
[ Fuck it, have another Piercing Strike for good measure! ]
Too bad. I won't allow it. You're stuck with me, and it's exactly what you deserve.
[ Tyrant Chaos is ready on deck if he manages to make it out of all of that still psychotic and ready to kill! ]
Edited (In a world where people only see black, white, and Grey, shrek begins to see a colourful room after his dare to kiss sonic at a party. But he was convinced that he loves his wife so he brushes it off and lies saying he still sees black and white. But wha) 2024-09-03 05:07 (UTC)
[It doesn't hit. It doesn't hit. It doesn't hit. It never hits. It doesn't hit. It doesn't hit. It never hits. It doesn't hit. Something hits. Something hits. Something hits and hits and hits and hits.
Slamming into the ground doesn't register - a sudden loss of view does. Maruki gone from his line of sight, both hands empty, dragged back into the muck and rot because it doesn't hit, it doesn't hit, it doesn't hit and-
'If you kill me, Akechi, do you know what you'll have?'
A life set in stone, a life free of bonds.
He has no bonds. Lacks them. It doesn't exist and it's not a lifeline through barbs and twined wire wrapping again and again and again and again around his heart.
It doesn't exist. Not in the fading vision of a swinging corpse hung from a rafter. He can see her face. Hear her voice. Disappointment in the gnarled, warped body of a son that resembles the man she despised most. But Akechi has him - has Shido, who utters false praise with a barrier between them. Always between them. They don't stand together - they're always apart, ten splintered ■■■■■, and desks and it's all split between them. It's split between them.
Maruki stands beside him.
Words come in, and leave. And return, and leave. Repeat against a skull pounding, ripping, shattering apart - every splintered edge grating, dragging, digging, etching too quiet, too loud, too many words in a million little notches. Crippling. A noose around his neck that only he and Maruki can see and-
'But that's what you want, isn't it? To be alone again?'
He's alone. Has been. Will be. Exploitation isn't friendship. Exchanges aren't bonds. He's alone. He'll be alone. Even though the grasping, grappling hands and weight against his body make it seem like he's not alone. Doesn't feel like he's ■■■■■ and he's wondering what it would be like to be alone-
In a dark alleyway, the edge of Tokyo, intestines pooling from his body and-
Put the pulsing wet organs back in. Scoop them with his hand and think about the bodies he took down with him. Maybe one, maybe two, enough of a warning and a loss for loss.
He wouldn't try to struggle for air or stagger to a hospital.
He would wish for-
'Nothing. You'll have nothing here. Nothing. You'll have nothing here. Nothing.'
He has hands forcing him to the ground, bile in his throat, a shuddering breath that hasn't been choked out with-
Staged suicide in the Detective Prince's home, no split rafter because his unit is new. He isn't that far up. Blood will stain the apartment. He won't go down with a fight. He never does. Always does. More bodies than Akechi's littering that untouched carpet. Police take an easy way out from a man they'll never see with their own two eyes.
Akechi will dangle - bloated and blue. No one left for Akechi Goro, no one left to shake a corpse's hand.
He'll have nothing. You'll have nothing. 'If you kill me, Akechi, do you know what you'll have?' Nothing. It always becomes nothing - rot sinks into dirt. Maruki stinks of it. They'll sink together. They'll be alone. Akechi's alone. He's alone. There's no difference if they're alone. Who gives a shit if they're alone and -
'Too bad. I won't allow it. You're stuck with me, and it's exactly what you deserve.'
He knows what comes next when Maruki's voice loses its veneer. Poison and venom over empathy and kindness. The part he likes best. Most. It's vicious and unyielding.
A consequence welcomed from someone who has nothing because that voice is something.
Akechi knows what will happen when he forces his hands under his chest. Push up. Push up. Get up. Get up. And up. and up and up and up andupandup and again and again andagainandagainand again..
When Shido knocks him down-
He has to get up. Every time. Every attempt. Can't leave the cognitive world until he's ripped apart. Can't do the same in reality. Has to slice him. Shred. Destroy.
By all means, any means, no matter what.
Can't breathe and move. Moves anyway. Can't move his leg. Moves anyway. Chest tight, throat tighter, eyes screwed shut under beads of sweat and blood.
Moves anyway. Up anyway.
He can't win. It doesn't matter. He knows what coming and
wants it.
Won't stop. Won't end it. Won't need Loki, who no longer heeds his call, gone. Lost. No stamina, no health. Akechi can't win, but he doesn't care. Feels copper in his mouth - bites it back, bites it down. No more words, no time, only up. Pushes up. Feels shoulder coming apart, maybe it's his head. Thinks it's split open and moves fingers up to his forehead, to top of his skull, to ensure it doesn't stick into thick viscera and brain matter. It hurts and it doesn't.
He gets up. Can't feel leg, can't feel arm. Gets up and keeps his gaze level to Maruki's as best he can when the edges of his vision get darker, and darker.
Maruki remains a light in the center.] Screw you, you high and mighty piece of shit.
Edited (sorry forgot ur quote the mans name was george washington, who had a wig of ecelllence and hot-tery "thans wanna bang" "ok" and then they banged) 2024-09-04 02:51 (UTC)
cw suicidal ideation and a short tag for a thread like this
He's broken down, his limbs useless, consciousness wavering, blood everywhere, everywhere. He's slow to do so, every minuscule motion painstaking, staggering. But in the end, he stands, and in that moment Maruki wants nothing more than this. The two of them facing one another down, torn to shreds by themselves and one another, refusing to give in.
There is no future in which he and Akechi both live, yet they both refuse to die.
They both refuse to die, yet they both accept that they must – yet they both want to, on some level.
Blood-soaked, exhausted, rotten, Maruki smiles at him.
There has never been a person more worthy of how very much he cares for them. ]
You'll live.
[ A promise, a threat. A wave of his left hand.
The Tentacle of Healing spends the last of its energy on Akechi: Dislocated limbs jarring back into place, blood staunching, wounds patching, vision returning. He will live. Akechi Goro will live. Here, and in a memory, and nowhere else.
It only takes a few seconds for the worst of the damage to be reversed, to give him just enough strength to endure one last hit.
Maruki snaps his fingers, and all those tentacles return to Azathoth at once. It's only the two of them in reddened grass and dirt.
In the farthest, darkest corner of his peripheral vision, Azathoth grows, shifts, ascends, bursts forth as a blinding dome of light engulfs them both.
Maruki doesn't need to sacrifice himself this time, but he does anyway. It's only the two of them. It will only ever be the two of them.
Tyrant Chaos hits.
They're done. ]
Edited (A love story The blush and winking aswell as the Obama and Shrek images in the cover being put together is by me. Shrek having muscles and Obama's feminine body is not by me (lost whoever made them). Obvi I don't own Obama) 2024-09-04 03:45 (UTC)
It's over in a single flash of luminescent light. Maruki's smiling face illuminated from behind with a resolve manifest. They don't guard.
They never guard - not at this point.
And it's
quiet.
And it's
quiet.
And it's
quiet.
It's empty. Quiet. Peaceful. Quiet. No barbed edges of his heart keeping chaos and law in check. There's no justice in a silent mind, no need to pull threads up and together. Nothing to tie, nothing but
peace.
It's nothing he's accustomed to. Doesn't matter if he isn't. It is what is is and he's in the throes of matters beyond him and-
Then he's n̸̡̨͇̼͙͖̜͎͖̬̗̆͋̊͊̀̅̅̿̈̏̉̈́̀͗̕͘͝ȍ̴̢̯͉̫͍͆́t̷̰̞͇͈̳̺̼̔̓ͅ.]
He's tired. It hurts. He doesn't care. The sensation of serene peace
ripped away
As always.
Can't remember. It's gone with a crack of his eyes, a body turning on instinct, a skull-
Full of a thousand nails all being hit at the same time. Hand to head - both. It's painful - he doesn't care. It doesn't matter. He can't think and it doesn't matter. Fragments of bone in his eyes - it feels like it. Splintering and shattering.
He breathes.
Exhausted. Spent. Experimental movements to check his body for missing parts, missing limbs.
He breathes. Endures. Alive with every spike of agony from a movement too quick, too much.
'You're alright.' And he swallows down bile.
'You're alright.' And he peels fingers out of his hair.
'You're alright' And he can't even sit up. It's so goddamn stupid.
He breathes - fingers against sopping wet grass, chunks of it charred.] Get up.
[To Maruki. To him. He doesn't move - can't. Throat hurts - voice hoarse, choked out. Every word pushed. Forced. His head hurts. Pounding, aching, a thousand nails in, ten thousand to go.
'You're alright.'
He's alright.
Maruki's alright. Akechi doesn't have to see a breathing body to confirm it.]
He tries. Manages to prop himself up halfway, just enough to see Akechi, before slowly easing himself back down. His concentration was so split between the two of them that the Tentacle of Healing's done a hack job on them both; wounds patched up enough to not be mortal, dislocations and fractures and breaks healed but deep gouges turned shallow cuts still bleeding, tears turned aches still searing.
They're both a mess.
Maruki tries it once more. Manages to heave himself over to lie parallel next to Akechi, head landing in a blessedly dry patch of grass.
The stars overhead, the same ones he looked at with Vash on the night he tried to convince him to return to the castle.
It hurts. Everything does.
A few moments of silence punctuated only by their heavy, labored breathing, and then: ]
Yeah. We're fine.
[ He doesn't turn his head to look at Akechi. Lets his eyes go half-lidded with exhaustion, body doing its best to melt down into the sodden earth and rot away. He can't move. Won't move. He's so tired. They're spent. ]
[There's an irritated, almost amused, snort at the comment. The offer feels less like a choice and more like a necessity spoken aloud.
They fight - often. Brutal, vicious and in a way that stains all they touch. Castle walls, grassy knolls in a backyard.
It's nice out.
He doesn't care to move, so he doesn't. In a few minutes -
He'll get up.]
If you manage to get something comparable, I'll consider it. Otherwise, I see no need to leave. You're welcome to go wherever you desire at any point though.
I might use it as an excuse to experiment with the crystal. I'll let you know what turns up.
[ He has shards to spare. He can try again and again. What's the worst that could happen? Aspects of their Tokyo begin to merge with this reality? Oh, no. That would be horrible. It certainly wouldn't provide a welcome challenge on a more even playing ground.
And then–
Silence.
Warm breeze through nearby trees. Bugs, the kind that don't make him want to tear his hair out. Quiet, even breathing, familiar from so many nights on a makeshift futon.
He'll make sure that all the rooms come already furnished with beds, of course.
Thinks to make a jab about it. Almost tries to, but the effort required for the words sinks like a stone into the depths of his exhausted mind.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cw: violent thoughts, graphic violence, attempted murder, gore, self harm (???)
Akechi drags himself out from the rot -
Like always.
Pulled away from prey. Knife dislodged, still in his grip. Wrapped tight in his palm, wet with drying blood. One knee dislocated. Dragged. Keep going - he keeps going. He'll stop when he's dead and he's not dead life flowing through him with every pained noise and gasp from -
A man he hates with every fiber of his being
and himself, as he tries to keep weight off a too still leg. Nauseous. Sick. Head-Loki wanting more. Akechi wanting more.
He gets back up - as always.There's no stopping.
He's struck back down again-
And again.
With piercing strike. The bad leg buckles - so does he. Back to the ground, forced back up with crimson coated arms. Debilitate at the ready - no more stamina. Loki doesn't do it. No more stamina. It doesn't go through. No more stamina. Piercing Strike continues to pummel, Maruki moves away.He got him. He'll get him. Injured and backed into a corner. Akechi's been stuck at the back of that cage his whole life.
He'll kill him.
Prove a point.Gets up again - again and again. Call of Chaos a force of adrenaline when his own supply has run dry and even that -
Is depleted. The rush of energy weak. A force propelling him up, barely, all his weight on the good leg, he-
Slams the bad one against the ground. Force it back. Force it in. Piece himself back together, over and over, until that man is dead. Until Shido is dead.
He laughs - erratic and wild through pained exhales. Nothing snaps together. It doesn't work. Bile crawling up his throat, head light and free, but he isn't done.
One final Riot Gun - he has nothing left. It won't take down Maruki. It never does, but it distracts, it gives him seconds.
He only needs seconds.
To watch eyes bulge out of a skull
And only seconds to press a gun to a skull and watch fragments splinter with sticky viscous rot against wall, table, and-Akechi shoots. Gun in hand. Gun at the ready. Gun pressed into his side for emergencies and-
He shoots. Aims for Maruki's chest and shoots - the kickback a kick forward. A stumble back to the ground. A piercing shot numbing to a buzzing head coated and twisting around static and wrath. High pitched. He can't hear - smells smoke and ash and the metallic tang of blood everywhere.]
You're so stupid. You're so stupid. You're so goddamn STUPID!
cw violence i guess
Debilitate falters, fails. Riot Gun barely glances off them before it fizzles out. He can hardly stand up straight, one leg at a sickening angle, holding himself together through sheer fury. The swirling vortex of Call of Chaos is dulled, its lifespan shortened. He's going fast. Maruki doesn't have to hold out much longer; one more good hit ought to do it, and he has that ready to go, and then they can call this off, be done with it, he can heal Akechi with the last of the energy that he has left and head back inside for the night.
A decent plan, a solid one. A plan not unlike one that would follow most other nights they've fought a little too hard.
Then the gun comes out.
There's no time. The shot fires even before Maruki's fully registered what's happening, dizzy from blood loss and pain. Akechi is too fast.
Azathoth is faster.
It all happens at once: The shot, the wall of tentacles rising up between them to tank the bullet, the boosted Raining Seeds striking down at Akechi as Maruki loses his balance and falls back onto the ground, breathing hard and panicked, hands wrapping around the blood pouring from his leg. ]
Shit–
[ Pain lances through every cell of his body, disjointed burning half-thoughts to get the gun away from Akechi as the mass of tentacles swarm him to do just that. Knock the gun away, the knife. Hold him down. Force him to break his limbs again and again to fight himself down to nothing.
Maruki staggers up to one knee. Watches. Feels faint, sickened. Feels crazed. Azathoth grows as something inside him builds. ]
If you kill me, Akechi, do you know what you'll have?
[ He stands fully then, shifting all of his weight onto his good leg, the Tentacle of Healing doing its level best. The words practically spit out of him, barbed and acidic. ]
You'll have nothing here. Nothing. There is no one who will put up with your shit the way I do. But that's what you want, isn't it? To be alone again?
[ Fuck it, have another Piercing Strike for good measure! ]
Too bad. I won't allow it. You're stuck with me, and it's exactly what you deserve.
[ Tyrant Chaos is ready on deck if he manages to make it out of all of that still psychotic and ready to kill! ]
cw: violent thoughts, violence, gore, murder, suicide, suicidal ideation sorta kinda
Slamming into the ground doesn't register - a sudden loss of view does. Maruki gone from his line of sight, both hands empty, dragged back into the muck and rot because it doesn't hit, it doesn't hit, it doesn't hit and-
A life set in stone, a life free of bonds.
Maruki stands beside him.He has no bonds. Lacks them. It doesn't exist and it's not a lifeline through barbs and twined wire wrapping again and again and again and again around his heart.
It doesn't exist. Not in the fading vision of a swinging corpse hung from a rafter. He can see her face. Hear her voice. Disappointment in the gnarled, warped body of a son that resembles the man she despised most. But Akechi has him - has Shido, who utters false praise with a barrier between them. Always between them. They don't stand together - they're always apart, ten splintered ■■■■■, and desks and it's all split between them. It's split between them.
Words come in, and leave. And return, and leave. Repeat against a skull pounding, ripping, shattering apart - every splintered edge grating, dragging, digging, etching too quiet, too loud, too many words in a million little notches. Crippling. A noose around his neck that only he and Maruki can see and-
He's alone. Has been. Will be. Exploitation isn't friendship. Exchanges aren't bonds. He's alone. He'll be alone. Even though the grasping, grappling hands and weight against his body make it seem like he's not alone. Doesn't feel like he's ■■■■■ and he's wondering what it would be like to be alone-
Put the pulsing wet organs back in. Scoop them with his hand and think about the bodies he took down with him. Maybe one, maybe two, enough of a warning and a loss for loss.In a dark alleyway, the edge of Tokyo, intestines pooling from his body and-
He wouldn't try to struggle for air or stagger to a hospital.
He would wish for-He has hands forcing him to the ground, bile in his throat, a shuddering breath that hasn't been choked out with-
Staged suicide in the Detective Prince's home, no split rafter because his unit is new. He isn't that far up. Blood will stain the apartment. He won't go down with a fight. He never does. Always does. More bodies than Akechi's littering that untouched carpet. Police take an easy way out from a man they'll never see with their own two eyes.
He'll have nothing. You'll have nothing. 'If you kill me, Akechi, do you know what you'll have?' Nothing. It always becomes nothing - rot sinks into dirt. Maruki stinks of it. They'll sink together. They'll be alone. Akechi's alone. He's alone. There's no difference if they're alone. Who gives a shit if they're alone and -Akechi will dangle - bloated and blue. No one left for Akechi Goro, no one left to shake a corpse's hand.
He knows what comes next when Maruki's voice loses its veneer. Poison and venom over empathy and kindness. The part he likes best. Most. It's vicious and unyielding.
A consequence welcomed from someone who has nothing because that voice is something.
Akechi knows what will happen when he forces his hands under his chest. Push up. Push up. Get up. Get up. And up. and up and up and up andupandup and again and again andagainandagainand again..
When Shido knocks him down-
He has to get up. Every time. Every attempt. Can't leave the cognitive world until he's ripped apart. Can't do the same in reality. Has to slice him. Shred. Destroy.
By all means, any means, no matter what.
Can't breathe and move. Moves anyway. Can't move his leg. Moves anyway. Chest tight, throat tighter, eyes screwed shut under beads of sweat and blood.
Moves anyway. Up anyway.
He can't win. It doesn't matter. He knows what coming and
wants it.
Won't stop. Won't end it. Won't need Loki, who no longer heeds his call, gone. Lost. No stamina, no health. Akechi can't win, but he doesn't care. Feels copper in his mouth - bites it back, bites it down. No more words, no time, only up. Pushes up. Feels shoulder coming apart, maybe it's his head. Thinks it's split open and moves fingers up to his forehead, to top of his skull, to ensure it doesn't stick into thick viscera and brain matter. It hurts and it doesn't.He gets up. Can't feel leg, can't feel arm. Gets up and keeps his gaze level to Maruki's as best he can when the edges of his vision get darker, and darker.
Maruki remains a light in the center.] Screw you, you high and mighty piece of shit.
cw suicidal ideation and a short tag for a thread like this
He's broken down, his limbs useless, consciousness wavering, blood everywhere, everywhere. He's slow to do so, every minuscule motion painstaking, staggering. But in the end, he stands, and in that moment Maruki wants nothing more than this. The two of them facing one another down, torn to shreds by themselves and one another, refusing to give in.
There is no future in which he and Akechi both live, yet they both refuse to die.
They both refuse to die, yet they both accept that they must – yet they both want to, on some level.
Blood-soaked, exhausted, rotten, Maruki smiles at him.
There has never been a person more worthy of how very much he cares for them. ]
You'll live.
[ A promise, a threat. A wave of his left hand.
The Tentacle of Healing spends the last of its energy on Akechi: Dislocated limbs jarring back into place, blood staunching, wounds patching, vision returning. He will live. Akechi Goro will live. Here, and in a memory, and nowhere else.
It only takes a few seconds for the worst of the damage to be reversed, to give him just enough strength to endure one last hit.
Maruki snaps his fingers, and all those tentacles return to Azathoth at once. It's only the two of them in reddened grass and dirt.
In the farthest, darkest corner of his peripheral vision, Azathoth grows, shifts, ascends, bursts forth as a blinding dome of light engulfs them both.
Maruki doesn't need to sacrifice himself this time, but he does anyway. It's only the two of them. It will only ever be the two of them.
Tyrant Chaos hits.
They're done. ]
cw suicidal ideation ???? 1/2
It's over in a single flash of luminescent light. Maruki's smiling face illuminated from behind with a resolve manifest. They don't guard.
They never guard - not at this point.
And it's
quiet.
And it'squiet.
And it'squiet.
It's empty. Quiet. Peaceful. Quiet. No barbed edges of his heart keeping chaos and law in check. There's no justice in a silent mind, no need to pull threads up and together. Nothing to tie, nothing butpeace.
It's nothing he's accustomed to. Doesn't matter if he isn't. It is what is is and he's in the throes of matters beyond him and-Then he's n̸̡̨͇̼͙͖̜͎͖̬̗̆͋̊͊̀̅̅̿̈̏̉̈́̀͗̕͘͝ȍ̴̢̯͉̫͍͆́t̷̰̞͇͈̳̺̼̔̓ͅ.]
2/2
He's awake. He's awake.
Awake.
He's awake.
Get upIt hurts.
He's tired. It hurts. He doesn't care. The sensation of serene peaceripped away
As always.Can't remember. It's gone with a crack of his eyes, a body turning on instinct, a skull-
Full of a thousand nails all being hit at the same time. Hand to head - both. It's painful - he doesn't care. It doesn't matter. He can't think and it doesn't matter. Fragments of bone in his eyes - it feels like it. Splintering and shattering.
He breathes.
Exhausted. Spent. Experimental movements to check his body for missing parts, missing limbs.
He breathes. Endures. Alive with every spike of agony from a movement too quick, too much.
'You're alright.' And he swallows down bile.
'You're alright.' And he peels fingers out of his hair.
'You're alright' And he can't even sit up. It's so goddamn stupid.
He breathes - fingers against sopping wet grass, chunks of it charred.] Get up.
[To Maruki. To him. He doesn't move - can't. Throat hurts - voice hoarse, choked out. Every word pushed. Forced. His head hurts. Pounding, aching, a thousand nails in, ten thousand to go.
'You're alright.'
He's alright.
Maruki's alright. Akechi doesn't have to see a breathing body to confirm it.]
We're fine.
[As always.]
no subject
He tries. Manages to prop himself up halfway, just enough to see Akechi, before slowly easing himself back down. His concentration was so split between the two of them that the Tentacle of Healing's done a hack job on them both; wounds patched up enough to not be mortal, dislocations and fractures and breaks healed but deep gouges turned shallow cuts still bleeding, tears turned aches still searing.
They're both a mess.
Maruki tries it once more. Manages to heave himself over to lie parallel next to Akechi, head landing in a blessedly dry patch of grass.
The stars overhead, the same ones he looked at with Vash on the night he tried to convince him to return to the castle.
It hurts. Everything does.
A few moments of silence punctuated only by their heavy, labored breathing, and then: ]
Yeah. We're fine.
[ He doesn't turn his head to look at Akechi. Lets his eyes go half-lidded with exhaustion, body doing its best to melt down into the sodden earth and rot away. He can't move. Won't move. He's so tired. They're spent. ]
We can't keep doing this here.
no subject
They won't stop.
He can't move - only feels and hears the shifting body struggling to lay beside him. It's so pointless to do and it goes unacknowledged.]
Why? Are you getting bored of the backdrop? I didn't take you to be that picky.
[It's a struggle to get out - words slower, tone quiet and marred with a harsh edge from a sore throat instead of anger.]
What are you implying?
no subject
No, but I'm a conscientious guy and aware that our behavior probably isn't suited for housemates.
[ It's certainly not like it will stop. He invited this one on himself. Wanted it, egged it on. So... ]
I can secure housing for us.
[ A beat, and then he manages to work up just enough energy for the teasing grin to be evident in his voice. ]
I'm also aware of how poor you are.
no subject
They fight - often. Brutal, vicious and in a way that stains all they touch. Castle walls, grassy knolls in a backyard.
It's nice out.
He doesn't care to move, so he doesn't. In a few minutes -
He'll get up.]
If you manage to get something comparable, I'll consider it. Otherwise, I see no need to leave. You're welcome to go wherever you desire at any point though.
[And Akechi will follow despite it all.]
no subject
I might use it as an excuse to experiment with the crystal. I'll let you know what turns up.
[ He has shards to spare. He can try again and again. What's the worst that could happen? Aspects of their Tokyo begin to merge with this reality? Oh, no. That would be horrible. It certainly wouldn't provide a welcome challenge on a more even playing ground.
And then–
Silence.
Warm breeze through nearby trees. Bugs, the kind that don't make him want to tear his hair out. Quiet, even breathing, familiar from so many nights on a makeshift futon.
He'll make sure that all the rooms come already furnished with beds, of course.
Thinks to make a jab about it. Almost tries to, but the effort required for the words sinks like a stone into the depths of his exhausted mind.
He'll get up. Eventually. ]
cw: suicidal ideation SORTA
And it's quiet.
And Akechi is quiet. Maruki is quiet. A world stilled outside of nature - Akechi doesn't want to be outside like this.And it's quiet.
And it's quiet.
Doesn't move outside of a tentative push upwards that ends in failure with every creaking bone and aching limb.
Back to the earth again.
He doesn't say anything. Maruki's own breath leveling out -
They really will kill each other someday.
It doesn't upset him to recognize it.
He'll get up in a minute.In a second.
In one more moment he'll force his eyes open and-
It's quiet.
He's out.]