But he can understand Maruki above a piercing, high pitched sound.
You'll see her soon and he won't. He doesn't want to. He wants to. He wants to go home - Maruki's home. He doesn't want to do this anymore.
He can't feel-
But he's warm. So warm.
It's a daydream he can't escape, while he rests in an onsen next to the only person that may have ever loved him.
It's warm. He can't stop shaking. It's warm - he doesn't understand why.
His arms feel numb.
It doesn't matter.
Akechi tries to take more and more and more. Curls his fingers into whatever fabric he can grasp - against Maruki's back, the front of his shirt. He doesn't know. Everything hurts and nothing does. He can't breathe and-
He can't speak.
He can't breathe.
He can breathe.
There's foam creeping up his throat like vines and he can breathe. He's breathing, so he tries to speak and he can't speak. Maybe he is speaking. He can feel his lips moving, the hoarseness scraping his throat, can't hear whatever's spewing out, if anything. Maybe nothing.
He wants to go on a trip. He wants to leave. He doesn't want to do this anymore. He wants to stop. He can't stop. He can never stop. It's too late to stop.
But he talks like he can stop. Another trip he thinks. He says. His mouth is full of liquid.
Maruki's annoying, so Akechi will be saved. It hurts now. It might hurt later. He'll wake up in a familiar bed in a home that felt like his. Music will hum from the record player, low and quiet to accommodate a volatile sleep schedule.
He will wake up later, annoyed at that unwanted salvation because Maruki will never let him die.
It was a promise. He said it. Akechi will not die.
It was a promise. Maruki has never broken one. Akechi will not die.
They'll eat lunch.
Akechi will try to force something down - he'll be too nauseous for more than mushrooms and rice.
They're going to have a meal. Akechi will wake up. He'll be coddled for days afterwards.
It annoys him.
He wants to wake up.
He wants his mom.
He wants Maruki.
He wants to wake up.
His eyes might be shut. He can't tell - can't see. Can't think. He'll wake up later - maybe he's awake now. It's tiring. Exhausting.
He's warm.
He's in bed now.
At home.
They'll have lunch.
There's a city his mom wanted to visit.
Somewhere in Hokkaido.
He hates the cold.
They can move. They should move. He wonders if Maruki would move with him.
Not to Hokkaido.
After a nap. After they rest. There's a whole world waiting-
There's no air - he can't think. Struggles, somehow, he can't think. He can't move. He tries to move and he can't move and he can't think he can't breathe and he's-
scared.
Happy.
When he wakes up, they can visit-
His mom, somewhere in Hokkaido.
Rumi, somewhere in Tokyo.
They should see. Akechi can see. Akechi can't see. It's a biological, primal fear that makes struggle against-
It's warm. So warm. Maybe the warmest he's ever felt - he wonders if Maruki's still there. They should go on a trip.
When he wakes up, they can go to Hokkaido and-
He's choking. He'll wake up. They'll get lunch and-]
[ Of course Akechi doesn't go gently, peacefully into whatever awaits him next. He struggles until his body loses all ability, tries to speak, tries to look–
What does he see, Maruki wonders. Is his mother the one holding him in her arms, or is it him, or can se he see anything at all? Can he hear?
There's no way of knowing. Akechi doesn't respond to anything he says, but Maruki can't let him go in silence. The conversations they've had could fill a book; the conversations they'll never get to now could fill libraries. He woke up in the middle of every night, no matter the circumstances, just to be able to chat with him more. He isn't about to stop talking to Akechi now.
Every word is soft, deliberate. Every motion of fingers soothing through hair the same. Akechi is dying, and Maruki won't let him feel any of his own fear or sorrow in this moment. He will leave this earth getting only from Maruki what has always been given: unconditional love and care. ]
You don't have to be afraid of anything now. You don't have to keep going. You can rest.
[ And: ]
We've already proven that we'll know one another in more than one life, haven't we? The next one is waiting. I'll meet you earlier in it. I promise.
[ And: ]
I was never lonely when I was with you.
[ And then, when there's nothing more that breaks the silence but the occasional soft, wet choking noise: ]
You're alright. You're alright. You're alright.
[ You're alright,
you're alright,
you're alright.
A canticle repeating, softer and softer, until his head bows down to rest his cheek against Akechi's crown.
It's quiet.
So quiet.
A cognitive ship doesn't creak on the water. Metal pipes don't hiss, waves don't lap at the sides. There's only stillness all around them, stillness when he presses a blood-streaked palm over Akechi's chest to try to seek out a heartbeat, stillness when he raises it higher to feel for any breath still puffing labored past his lips. Only stillness, and silence, and–
Maruki waits. Strains to hear footsteps and voices where there are none. Maybe Akira will return, with or without the rest of the Thieves, to see what became of that voice on the other side of a thick steel wall. Maybe neither of them will have to bear this untenable grief alone.
Akechi doesn't feel as heavy as he should in his arms. More like the weight of a sleepy child who refused to walk on his own through a castle. Maruki can't let him go. Holds him there, holds him closer to rest an unhearing ear against his own chest, where an unkillable heart stubbornly hammers away.
He only cried in front of Akechi once, and just barely. Chin tipped up toward the ceiling of the bathhouse, heat stinging behind his eyes, six words ringing in his mind and leaving an echo that he can still hear: ]
[ Barely above a whisper, a spot of Akechi's hair dampening against his cheek.
It isn't fair.
He saw Akechi's power for himself. Felt it, even, that warm blue light calling him back after he teetered over the brink of death. He had it. Why couldn't he have used it? Stubbornness against summoning Robin Hood, or genuine inability in the moment?
Why hasn't Maruki developed that same ability? If anyone should be able to raise the dead, it's the two of them, isn't it?
He tries. Focuses inward. Grief and outrage and rebellion awakened a god from his soul, after all – he searches every last corner of it now, desperately pawing through the ashes of a home for twisted, half-burnt remains of valued goods, but there's nothing. Some things must be beyond will power and conviction after all, because if that was all it would take to resurrect Akechi Goro in a burst of bright blue vines and flowers, he would have done so ten times over.
It isn't fair, and–
Nothing is, in the end, least of all for men like them. Akechi would tell him this is all deserved. The price you pay for forming bonds. Pain to be learned from and then discarded. Don't hang onto sentimental shit. Don't grieve. Move forward. Don't stop. Don't ever stop.
If I die, then I'm dead. Ignore it or remember a corpse.
Even back then, Akechi had to have known Maruki wouldn't be able to do either.
He can't carry a body out of the Metaverse, even though leaving one there is worse in every conceivable way. When he stumbles back into reality outside the Diet Building, Akechi's lifeless form is still burned into his eyelids as he doubles over and dry-heaves on the ground.
He doesn't know how he manages to get home. Everything is blank, a blur.
Doesn't remember pulling the futon out from beneath his bed.
Doesn't remember laying down on it to bury his face in a pillow that still smells of whatever designer shampoo his stylists told him to use, and–
Doesn't know how long he lays there in the dark, breathing, furious at himself for being the one still breathing.
It's late. So late.
Doesn't think as he pulls his phone from his pocket, opens up his message chain with Akira, types out I hope you know that even though I'm no longer your counselor, I'm still here for you if you need it and hits send. Doesn't worry that Akira might find the timing oddly suspicious. Doesn't care if it raises questions that can't be brushed off with Maruki's general altruistic nature.
Doesn't think as he opens Akechi's next. Stares at it, the only square of light in the darkness of his shoebox apartment, worsening the headache he's already given himself tonight. Doesn't type anything. Just stares until his battery dies.
He should sleep. He should figure out what to do next. He should visit a shrine. He should make a butsudan. He should–
Bury himself beneath the blankets on the futon. Extra thick, meant for winter but used no matter the season, piled up in layers so high the shape of a body underneath them could never be seen.
It's warm. So warm.
The light of the conbini across the street filters in through parted curtains, illuminates the space beneath his bed. Ten specks of dust. He counts them again and again until sleep takes him. ]
Edited (wakes up hours later sees a typo thats the caitlin special babeyyy) 2025-04-19 10:04 (UTC)
[ He sleeps on the futon, because the bed is occupied.
Wounds from the Metaverse don't persist in the true reality, even if they're fatal– but exhaustion does, and there's surely nothing more exhausting than what Akechi's been through.
It's alright. He can sleep as long as he needs. He can rest. It's alright. He's alright.
The window is cracked even though it's too cold outside, because Maruki likes the fresh air. He sits on the edge of the bed, fingers easing lank fringe away from Akechi's eyes as they finally, finally flutter open.
He pulls his hand back before it can get snapped at. Smiles down at the person for whom he'll keep every promise, no matter how unbelievable. Even if it takes dragging a bleeding, choking body out of the bowels of a ship. Even if it takes a miracle, a faint blue light that he follows all the way until they stumble back into the true reality. Even if he has to carry an unconscious but fully intact, breathing body all the way– ]
It doesn't surprise him - Maruki's voice still in the backdrop of his ebbing delirium. I won't let you die a curse during the worst fight they ever had. One that stuck. A promise kept. Akechi is alive and he shouldn't be.
Akechi is annoyed and he shouldn't be.
Akechi is warm and he shouldn't be with the open window only an arm's length away.
'Welcome back' only a breath away. I won't let you die rings still.
There's no chance he can sit up - his body almost numb from shock slow to wear off. He's tired. It's not a miracle that kept him alive, after all. It was Maruki. It was a promise. It's a burden to keep living.
But he's not unhappy. It feels like nothing in the wake of a purpose lost, his life goal given to another to enact.]
We're moving.
[He agrees. He repeats. It's soft, as if learning to speak again. It takes a second to realize what those words mean. Takes two more for his eyebrows to scrunch together and his hand to raise up to rub and muss his face and hair.]
What?
[There's no point. If Maruki moves, they'll find him. If Akechi moves, they'll find him. They would have to leave the city, go beyond the borders of Tokyo, make themselves inconvenient to dispose of and even then, it's not guaranteed.
He removes the hand from his own face to slap at Maruki, wherever he is.]
Don't be stupid. We-
[We.
We.
Maruki never stopped thinking of Akechi. We.
He clears his throat. It's incredibly bright in this room - he blinks through it. Tries to find Maruki in it all.]
[ Maruki moves just a few inches sideways to avoid the slap, smile widening, a wry tick up at the corners. ]
I do understand that, yes.
[ Difficult is probably an understatement, but it hardly matters. They've both done difficult things their whole lives. Difficult is not impossible.
He clasps his hands together in his lap, right thumb rubbing over left knuckles as he considers every obstacle laid out before them. ]
It's up to you if you think I could risk going to your apartment on my own to get some of your things. If not, I'll need to to go buy you some basic essentials – unless you'd like to wear my clothes, of course. [ It could be a little funny if he did. ] I'll have to pare down my own belongings and decide what little I'd take with me. And break my lease, which will be a pain, but once that's done...
[ He shrugs, keeps watching Akechi. ]
We get in my car and go. Not that difficult, is it?
[Get in my car and go - it's not difficult at all.
Akechi is used to uprooting his life. Used to sitting in the backseat of a car, seatbelt tight against a worn bag from a home he can't remember. It's easy.
It's appealing.
It's an escape he wants to take more than ever, so he doesn't say no.
It's a path to freedom he shouldn't be allowed to walk - he made his own bed and was content to lie in it. Now there's a new bed, new choices, and an indeterminable fate that will end in death no matter what they do.
He watches Maruki - listens to every word like a madman is rambling unprompted. They. We. Get your things and I'll need to go buy you.]
I can take care of my own needs. [His apartment will remain empty - he can't go back. He has no money without Shido's card. It's likely active in the hopes Akechi can be traced through purchases and cameras.
He can't think about it. His arm rests over his eyes. It's a fucking mess.]
Even if they find out I was here -
[They might kill him. May not. Akechi doesn't think they would waste time murdering someone who housed a traitor for an evening if Maruki can feign ignorance about the ordeal.]
Wouldn't you rather part ways? Of all the options before us, doesn't that make the most sense?
Not because his answer requires any thought at all – it doesn't, it forms instantly in his mind, a mass of emotions and experiences coalescing into simple, unconditional devotion.
He just hopes that in the silence that hangs heavily after Akechi's questions, he realizes how stupid he sounds.
Finally: ]
In a vacuum, maybe. If we took your situation now and divorced it from all other context, then yes, going our separate ways might be the best option.
[ If he cared about his own self-preservation at all, then yes. Absolutely. It would make the most sense.
But that's never been the case for Maruki.
His fingers drum against the blankets rumpled at the edge of the bed, and he watches Akechi carefully, even with his face hidden beneath his arm. ]
But when you think about everything you and I have been through, you can't seriously believe that I'd even entertain the idea of walking away from you now. I didn't drag you out of that world just to throw you to the dogs in this one.
[ There's no telling if he means Visium, the cognitive world, or both, and his tone is too even and measured to give any hint as to the answer. ]
[There's a small gap between Akechi's chest, the arm shielding his eyes and when he looks towards Maruki's voice-
He can see him sitting there. Hear it. 'I didn't drag you out of that world just to throw you to the dogs in this one' turns into static in his ears. He could. He should. Akechi wouldn't hesitate to toss him to the wolves to save his own skin in a world where Shido's heart beats.
If he moves his leg, he can touch Maruki's back. He stretches so it does. It's an accident. Maybe he'll push him off and-
'I didn't drag you out of that world just to throw you to the dogs in this one' makes his pulsating, pounding headache worse. Of course he would. Of course he would. He'll want nothing for it - the only request for this salvation is to leave together. No other payment. Nothing.
His eyes stay on the folds of Maruki's shirt, the movement of it and-]
There's no going back - do you get what I'm saying, Maruki?
[Leaving Tokyo is dangerous. Coming back will be suicidal. There's a singular, otherworldly bond that ties Akechi to one boy that perpetually haunts his every waking moment, an undying wrath that chains him to another.
Maruki-
Has more. Has a ghost haunting the streets, a friend hidden in the crowds, the same otherworldly bond to a teenager whose lot in life has been unjust in every way.]
You will never see Rumi again. You will never see-
[Akira. Akira. Akira.]
Your students again. You will never see your former coworkers and research associates. If you're lucky, they'll be left alone after your gone. There's a chance all could be harassed and questioned.
Perhaps even tortured, beaten, or killed if they think someone's withholding. Cleaners have done more for far less.
[He lets the reality of this grand request settle between. Quiet and harsh, he continues-]
Any contact is a risk.
[Maruki may not throw him to the dogs, but there are others who might be easy prey in their absence.
Akechi's throat feels numb and sore.]
You're an accomplice to a murderer that knows too much. That's the life you're choosing.
surprise bitch bet you thought you'd seen the last of pain
About any of it. All of it. He isn't wrong, not at all. As much as they both feel they have nothing in this city, there is at least one person they'll both leave behind, and a handful more for Maruki. Even if one still wouldn't know him from any other face in the crowd.
If he leaves, there is danger for those left behind, but–
No one will know. He's certain of it. For all intents and purposes, Akechi Goro is dead. He died alone, unknown, in a cognitive world, where evidence gets erased and bodies turn to ash when a palace is destroyed. They'll be careful, and then they'll be gone, and Akechi Goro will be dead, and Maruki Takuto will be just another nobody in Tokyo who fell through the cracks, off the face of the planet.
Akira is the only one who might look for him. Would he manage to put two and two together?
It's doubtful, and that stings.
The idea of never seeing him again stings infinitely more.
He'll make it right. One day, when enough time has passed, when those in power no longer have eyes on people like them, he will find Akira, and he will make this all right.
Maruki draws a breath, fingers smoothing over the lines in the sheets. ]
It isn't a perfect solution, but a perfect solution doesn't exist. I can't think of any other option I'd entertain.
[ The risks have to be acceptable. The losses have to be acceptable.
A life without Akechi Goro would not have been acceptable.
Therein lies the difference. ]
There's no going back. I understand. I agree. [ His voice is quiet, firm. The decision has already been made.
He reaches back, rests one hand on the leg Akechi's nudged against him. Brief, fleeting contact, and then he pulls it away again. ]
There is no forward. There is no 'together' - Akechi knew that after crossing the doorframe of his fourth, fifth, sixth family that opened their world up to him.
They're better than a group home, so he turns grief into indifference and anger into something far more vile and every time he returns back to that group home to see the same old group of kids watch a clock, look out a window, stare at a CRT TV decades older than any of them who get older every time he returns and he ends up watching a clock, looking out a window, staring at a CRT TV decades older than any of them because his time is running around and he sees kids who reach of age begin and end their lives unwanted and unloved and shoved out of the only place they knew and-
His fingers twitch against soft, unfamiliar fabric. More comfortable than anything he's ever bothered to own. He knows it must be cheap - it's how worn in it is that's preferable. Nothing in Akechi's house ever felt his. This doesn't either, but-
It feels like Maruki was prepared to be together and that effortless comfort he always tries to exude has incorporated into every part of this room, down to the smallest thread.
They'll go together-
And a social worker holds his hand until he's too old to warrant it. We'll walk together they say until he's old enough to figure out directions and streets on his own.
And they'll go together from Maruki is an undeniable truth. He never held his hand on a streetcorner or welcomed him back to a home cramped with children after another temporary foster.
But he placed a palm between his shoulder blades. Left him a note on his birthday. Put extra mushrooms on his plate. Spoke quietly as they both wore Maruki's blood in thick splatters across their skin.
In a world Akechi was always meant to die in, Maruki found him him and they left together. Dragged him out without a Navigator and hid him a small room built for one, but fits two all the same.
Maruki could have saved his mother. It's a fleeting, passing realization that dies with a blink and buries itself into the depths of his heart as he pushes himself up. ]
To think such a rebellious spirit was just under the surface all this time.
[ Hoarse, harsh - he lets himself rest against the backboard. ]
We'll leave in three days. Say whatever goodbyes you need to and find a new place to live. I'll take care of some loose ends and secure funds.
[ Akechi sits up, and it takes every last ounce of self-control Maruki has to stop himself from leaning over to steady him. His hands do nothing more than twitch where they lay, desperate to raise and hover, to help– and he doesn't let himself.
Akechi can sit upright on his own.
He's alright.
He's not the bleeding, fading thing he was in hidden passage ways of a cognitive ocean liner. He's nothing like broken, barely conscious body that staggered against Maruki's side until they found an exit point.
He's alright.
An exhale, slow, and then Maruki smiles. ]
Three days, huh? Okay.
[ If he ever gave Akechi reason to doubt his conviction, his rebellious spirit, then what they do from here on out will put that to rest. Maruki has always been dedicated to his cause. Akechi just hasn't realized that the cause became him long ago.
He extends a hand. To shake. To help him up out of the bed so Maruki can feed him, show him how to work the bath, sit down with him at a laptop and begin to hunt. ]
[ Akechi always thought he would hold the world in the palm of his hand. That the last vicious beats of Shido's heart between his fingers would give him something back.
He let that dream die with his body against a cold, steel door.
It's incredible how it returns with the touch of another's hand. A world always just out of reach handed back to him without a second thought.
For once, it's easy to feel a future. For once, it's simple to see beyond a revenge that's rotted his body for years.
The World puts him at peace for only a single second.
But it's that single second that gets him out bed, into a bath, put food in his stomach and water down his throat. It's what holds him up to hover over Maruki's shoulder as he looks through rural shithole after rural shithole for a rental in a rundown home that costs as much as a pair of sneakers.
A passing world in the corner of his vision, separated only by the glass his face is pressed against, ignites it again. Three days later, in a worn down car, a radio that's static more than music, but he doesn't care enough to turn it off. A cityscape long behind them, a car packed to brim with boxes 'they don't need', 'yes they do!' Akechi's loose threads would've funded a new kitchen at a minimum. Shido had everyone on a leash, but there were those who owed Akechi Goro alone - those debts fill his pocket. He didn't tell Maruki how much.
It's hard to restart.
Difficult in ways beyond a hanko that stamps down on every new piece of paperwork. A shocking amount of it exists in a town whose name Akechi has to remind himself of.
Neither of them know what to do with lives stuck in limbo. Not on the run enough to hide in full, not free enough to do whatever they wish. Akechi's paranoia takes a full year to wane - for danger to fade from every little noise outside of their home. Maruki once stumbled on him waiting in the dark, curtain parted with the slightest motion of his hand, a gun he said he got rid of in the other. Maruki flipped on the porch light and a fox darted out of their trash. Neither said a word, but Akechi never forgot the exasperated look tossed his way. They stayed up awhile longer to watch late night reruns of a show they've seen five times over until his finger fell from the trigger.
Maruki is better at settling down. Better at acting like this life is one he always wanted, even though Akechi knows it must be a far cry of a world meant for a woman still in Tokyo's depths. He doesn't care about it. Maruki made his foolish choice, but he watches -
Often. Listens more. Reacts less. Finds new routines and settles into a schedule that doesn't wear him thin at the end of every day. He isn't sure how Maruki feels. Doesn't bother asking. It's his choice. It was his choice.
Akechi can't stand he made this choice and-
Wonders about the disparity of The World in their eyes. It's large - so large, for Akechi without Tokyo's boundary and Shido's hold and-
Sometimes he wonders if it feels smaller than ever for a man who could have made reality his and-
He doesn't ask. Never asks. It doesn't matter if he asks.
It won't ever matter if he asks because someone who will ask-
Eventually finds his way to this grotesquely small town, in the middle of nowhere, on some meaningless day in a week that felt colder than normal. Ironic, really, that Akechi was stocking a deck of cards from just delivered box, a Joker plastered on a bright red cover. ]
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no subject
But he can understand Maruki above a piercing, high pitched sound.
He can't feel-You'll see her soon and he won't. He doesn't want to. He wants to. He wants to go home - Maruki's home. He doesn't want to do this anymore.
But he's warm. So warm.
It doesn't matter.It's a daydream he can't escape, while he rests in an onsen next to the only person that may have ever loved him.
It's warm. He can't stop shaking. It's warm - he doesn't understand why.
His arms feel numb.
Akechi tries to take more and more and more. Curls his fingers into whatever fabric he can grasp - against Maruki's back, the front of his shirt. He doesn't know. Everything hurts and nothing does. He can't breathe and-
He can't speak.
He can't breathe.
But he talks like he can stop. Another trip he thinks. He says. His mouth is full of liquid.He can breathe.
There's foam creeping up his throat like vines and he can breathe. He's breathing, so he tries to speak and he can't speak. Maybe he is speaking. He can feel his lips moving, the hoarseness scraping his throat, can't hear whatever's spewing out, if anything. Maybe nothing.
He wants to go on a trip. He wants to leave. He doesn't want to do this anymore. He wants to stop. He can't stop. He can never stop. It's too late to stop.
Maruki's annoying, so Akechi will be saved. It hurts now. It might hurt later. He'll wake up in a familiar bed in a home that felt like his. Music will hum from the record player, low and quiet to accommodate a volatile sleep schedule.
He will wake up later, annoyed at that unwanted salvation because Maruki will never let him die.
It was a promise. He said it. Akechi will not die.
It was a promise. Maruki has never broken one. Akechi will not die.
They'll eat lunch.
Akechi will try to force something down - he'll be too nauseous for more than mushrooms and rice.
He wants his mom.
His eyes might be shut. He can't tell - can't see. Can't think. He'll wake up later - maybe he's awake now. It's tiring. Exhausting.
He's in bed now.
There's a city his mom wanted to visit.
Somewhere in Hokkaido.They can move. They should move. He wonders if Maruki would move with him.
Not to Hokkaido.
There's no air - he can't think. Struggles, somehow, he can't think. He can't move. He tries to move and he can't move and he can't think he can't breathe and he's-
scared.
When he wakes up, they can visit-
His mom, somewhere in Hokkaido.
They should see. Akechi can see. Akechi can't see. It's a biological, primal fear that makes struggle against-
It's warm. So warm. Maybe the warmest he's ever felt - he wonders if Maruki's still there. They should go on a trip.
When he wakes up, they can go to Hokkaido and-
He's choking. He'll wake up. They'll get lunch and-]
no subject
What does he see, Maruki wonders. Is his mother the one holding him in her arms, or is it him, or can se he see anything at all? Can he hear?
There's no way of knowing. Akechi doesn't respond to anything he says, but Maruki can't let him go in silence. The conversations they've had could fill a book; the conversations they'll never get to now could fill libraries. He woke up in the middle of every night, no matter the circumstances, just to be able to chat with him more. He isn't about to stop talking to Akechi now.
Every word is soft, deliberate. Every motion of fingers soothing through hair the same. Akechi is dying, and Maruki won't let him feel any of his own fear or sorrow in this moment. He will leave this earth getting only from Maruki what has always been given: unconditional love and care. ]
You don't have to be afraid of anything now. You don't have to keep going. You can rest.
[ And: ]
We've already proven that we'll know one another in more than one life, haven't we? The next one is waiting. I'll meet you earlier in it. I promise.
[ And: ]
I was never lonely when I was with you.
[ And then, when there's nothing more that breaks the silence but the occasional soft, wet choking noise: ]
You're alright. You're alright. You're alright.
[ You're alright,
you're alright.
A canticle repeating, softer and softer, until his head bows down to rest his cheek against Akechi's crown.
It's quiet.
So quiet.
A cognitive ship doesn't creak on the water. Metal pipes don't hiss, waves don't lap at the sides. There's only stillness all around them, stillness when he presses a blood-streaked palm over Akechi's chest to try to seek out a heartbeat, stillness when he raises it higher to feel for any breath still puffing labored past his lips. Only stillness, and silence, and–
Maruki waits. Strains to hear footsteps and voices where there are none. Maybe Akira will return, with or without the rest of the Thieves, to see what became of that voice on the other side of a thick steel wall. Maybe neither of them will have to bear this untenable grief alone.
Akechi doesn't feel as heavy as he should in his arms. More like the weight of a sleepy child who refused to walk on his own through a castle. Maruki can't let him go. Holds him there, holds him closer to rest an unhearing ear against his own chest, where an unkillable heart stubbornly hammers away.
He only cried in front of Akechi once, and just barely. Chin tipped up toward the ceiling of the bathhouse, heat stinging behind his eyes, six words ringing in his mind and leaving an echo that he can still hear: ]
You did the best you could.
[ Barely above a whisper, a spot of Akechi's hair dampening against his cheek.
It isn't fair.
He saw Akechi's power for himself. Felt it, even, that warm blue light calling him back after he teetered over the brink of death. He had it. Why couldn't he have used it? Stubbornness against summoning Robin Hood, or genuine inability in the moment?
Why hasn't Maruki developed that same ability? If anyone should be able to raise the dead, it's the two of them, isn't it?
He tries. Focuses inward. Grief and outrage and rebellion awakened a god from his soul, after all – he searches every last corner of it now, desperately pawing through the ashes of a home for twisted, half-burnt remains of valued goods, but there's nothing. Some things must be beyond will power and conviction after all, because if that was all it would take to resurrect Akechi Goro in a burst of bright blue vines and flowers, he would have done so ten times over.
It isn't fair, and–
Nothing is, in the end, least of all for men like them. Akechi would tell him this is all deserved. The price you pay for forming bonds. Pain to be learned from and then discarded. Don't hang onto sentimental shit. Don't grieve. Move forward. Don't stop. Don't ever stop.
If I die, then I'm dead. Ignore it or remember a corpse.
Even back then, Akechi had to have known Maruki wouldn't be able to do either.
He can't carry a body out of the Metaverse, even though leaving one there is worse in every conceivable way. When he stumbles back into reality outside the Diet Building, Akechi's lifeless form is still burned into his eyelids as he doubles over and dry-heaves on the ground.
He doesn't know how he manages to get home. Everything is blank, a blur.
Doesn't remember pulling the futon out from beneath his bed.
Doesn't remember laying down on it to bury his face in a pillow that still smells of whatever designer shampoo his stylists told him to use, and–
Doesn't know how long he lays there in the dark, breathing, furious at himself for being the one still breathing.
It's late. So late.
Doesn't think as he pulls his phone from his pocket, opens up his message chain with Akira, types out I hope you know that even though I'm no longer your counselor, I'm still here for you if you need it and hits send. Doesn't worry that Akira might find the timing oddly suspicious. Doesn't care if it raises questions that can't be brushed off with Maruki's general altruistic nature.
Doesn't think as he opens Akechi's next. Stares at it, the only square of light in the darkness of his shoebox apartment, worsening the headache he's already given himself tonight. Doesn't type anything. Just stares until his battery dies.
He should sleep. He should figure out what to do next. He should visit a shrine. He should make a butsudan. He should–
Bury himself beneath the blankets on the futon. Extra thick, meant for winter but used no matter the season, piled up in layers so high the shape of a body underneath them could never be seen.
It's warm. So warm.
The light of the conbini across the street filters in through parted curtains, illuminates the space beneath his bed. Ten specks of dust. He counts them again and again until sleep takes him. ]
no subject
[ He sleeps on the futon, because the bed is occupied.
Wounds from the Metaverse don't persist in the true reality, even if they're fatal– but exhaustion does, and there's surely nothing more exhausting than what Akechi's been through.
It's alright. He can sleep as long as he needs. He can rest. It's alright. He's alright.
The window is cracked even though it's too cold outside, because Maruki likes the fresh air. He sits on the edge of the bed, fingers easing lank fringe away from Akechi's eyes as they finally, finally flutter open.
He pulls his hand back before it can get snapped at. Smiles down at the person for whom he'll keep every promise, no matter how unbelievable. Even if it takes dragging a bleeding, choking body out of the bowels of a ship. Even if it takes a miracle, a faint blue light that he follows all the way until they stumble back into the true reality. Even if he has to carry an unconscious but fully intact, breathing body all the way– ]
Welcome back.
[ – home. ]
We're moving, after you rest.
[ There's a whole world waiting. ]
no subject
It doesn't surprise him - Maruki's voice still in the backdrop of his ebbing delirium. I won't let you die a curse during the worst fight they ever had. One that stuck. A promise kept. Akechi is alive and he shouldn't be.
Akechi is annoyed and he shouldn't be.
Akechi is warm and he shouldn't be with the open window only an arm's length away.
'Welcome back' only a breath away. I won't let you die rings still.
There's no chance he can sit up - his body almost numb from shock slow to wear off. He's tired. It's not a miracle that kept him alive, after all. It was Maruki. It was a promise. It's a burden to keep living.
But he's not unhappy. It feels like nothing in the wake of a purpose lost, his life goal given to another to enact.]
We're moving.
[He agrees. He repeats. It's soft, as if learning to speak again. It takes a second to realize what those words mean. Takes two more for his eyebrows to scrunch together and his hand to raise up to rub and muss his face and hair.]
What?
[There's no point. If Maruki moves, they'll find him. If Akechi moves, they'll find him. They would have to leave the city, go beyond the borders of Tokyo, make themselves inconvenient to dispose of and even then, it's not guaranteed.
He removes the hand from his own face to slap at Maruki, wherever he is.]
Don't be stupid. We-
[We.
We.
Maruki never stopped thinking of Akechi. We.
He clears his throat. It's incredibly bright in this room - he blinks through it. Tries to find Maruki in it all.]
Do you understand how difficult that would be?
[He-
Could. Maybe he could.]
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I do understand that, yes.
[ Difficult is probably an understatement, but it hardly matters. They've both done difficult things their whole lives. Difficult is not impossible.
He clasps his hands together in his lap, right thumb rubbing over left knuckles as he considers every obstacle laid out before them. ]
It's up to you if you think I could risk going to your apartment on my own to get some of your things. If not, I'll need to to go buy you some basic essentials – unless you'd like to wear my clothes, of course. [ It could be a little funny if he did. ] I'll have to pare down my own belongings and decide what little I'd take with me. And break my lease, which will be a pain, but once that's done...
[ He shrugs, keeps watching Akechi. ]
We get in my car and go. Not that difficult, is it?
no subject
Akechi is used to uprooting his life. Used to sitting in the backseat of a car, seatbelt tight against a worn bag from a home he can't remember. It's easy.
It's appealing.
It's an escape he wants to take more than ever, so he doesn't say no.
It's a path to freedom he shouldn't be allowed to walk - he made his own bed and was content to lie in it. Now there's a new bed, new choices, and an indeterminable fate that will end in death no matter what they do.
He watches Maruki - listens to every word like a madman is rambling unprompted. They. We. Get your things and I'll need to go buy you.]
I can take care of my own needs. [His apartment will remain empty - he can't go back. He has no money without Shido's card. It's likely active in the hopes Akechi can be traced through purchases and cameras.
He can't think about it. His arm rests over his eyes. It's a fucking mess.]
Even if they find out I was here -
[They might kill him. May not. Akechi doesn't think they would waste time murdering someone who housed a traitor for an evening if Maruki can feign ignorance about the ordeal.]
Wouldn't you rather part ways? Of all the options before us, doesn't that make the most sense?
no subject
Not because his answer requires any thought at all – it doesn't, it forms instantly in his mind, a mass of emotions and experiences coalescing into simple, unconditional devotion.
He just hopes that in the silence that hangs heavily after Akechi's questions, he realizes how stupid he sounds.
Finally: ]
In a vacuum, maybe. If we took your situation now and divorced it from all other context, then yes, going our separate ways might be the best option.
[ If he cared about his own self-preservation at all, then yes. Absolutely. It would make the most sense.
But that's never been the case for Maruki.
His fingers drum against the blankets rumpled at the edge of the bed, and he watches Akechi carefully, even with his face hidden beneath his arm. ]
But when you think about everything you and I have been through, you can't seriously believe that I'd even entertain the idea of walking away from you now. I didn't drag you out of that world just to throw you to the dogs in this one.
[ There's no telling if he means Visium, the cognitive world, or both, and his tone is too even and measured to give any hint as to the answer. ]
Get what I'm saying, Akechi?
no subject
He can see him sitting there. Hear it. 'I didn't drag you out of that world just to throw you to the dogs in this one' turns into static in his ears. He could. He should. Akechi wouldn't hesitate to toss him to the wolves to save his own skin in a world where Shido's heart beats.
If he moves his leg, he can touch Maruki's back. He stretches so it does. It's an accident. Maybe he'll push him off and-
'I didn't drag you out of that world just to throw you to the dogs in this one' makes his pulsating, pounding headache worse. Of course he would. Of course he would. He'll want nothing for it - the only request for this salvation is to leave together. No other payment. Nothing.
His eyes stay on the folds of Maruki's shirt, the movement of it and-]
There's no going back - do you get what I'm saying, Maruki?
[Leaving Tokyo is dangerous. Coming back will be suicidal. There's a singular, otherworldly bond that ties Akechi to one boy that perpetually haunts his every waking moment, an undying wrath that chains him to another.
Maruki-
Has more. Has a ghost haunting the streets, a friend hidden in the crowds, the same otherworldly bond to a teenager whose lot in life has been unjust in every way.]
You will never see Rumi again. You will never see-
[Akira. Akira. Akira.]
Your students again. You will never see your former coworkers and research associates. If you're lucky, they'll be left alone after your gone. There's a chance all could be harassed and questioned.
Perhaps even tortured, beaten, or killed if they think someone's withholding. Cleaners have done more for far less.
[He lets the reality of this grand request settle between. Quiet and harsh, he continues-]
Any contact is a risk.
[Maruki may not throw him to the dogs, but there are others who might be easy prey in their absence.
Akechi's throat feels numb and sore.]
You're an accomplice to a murderer that knows too much. That's the life you're choosing.
surprise bitch bet you thought you'd seen the last of pain
About any of it. All of it. He isn't wrong, not at all. As much as they both feel they have nothing in this city, there is at least one person they'll both leave behind, and a handful more for Maruki. Even if one still wouldn't know him from any other face in the crowd.
If he leaves, there is danger for those left behind, but–
No one will know. He's certain of it. For all intents and purposes, Akechi Goro is dead. He died alone, unknown, in a cognitive world, where evidence gets erased and bodies turn to ash when a palace is destroyed. They'll be careful, and then they'll be gone, and Akechi Goro will be dead, and Maruki Takuto will be just another nobody in Tokyo who fell through the cracks, off the face of the planet.
Akira is the only one who might look for him. Would he manage to put two and two together?
It's doubtful, and that stings.
The idea of never seeing him again stings infinitely more.
He'll make it right. One day, when enough time has passed, when those in power no longer have eyes on people like them, he will find Akira, and he will make this all right.
Maruki draws a breath, fingers smoothing over the lines in the sheets. ]
It isn't a perfect solution, but a perfect solution doesn't exist. I can't think of any other option I'd entertain.
[ The risks have to be acceptable. The losses have to be acceptable.
A life without Akechi Goro would not have been acceptable.
Therein lies the difference. ]
There's no going back. I understand. I agree. [ His voice is quiet, firm. The decision has already been made.
He reaches back, rests one hand on the leg Akechi's nudged against him. Brief, fleeting contact, and then he pulls it away again. ]
So we'll go forward instead. Together. Deal?
oh die ill kill you
There is no forward. There is no 'together' - Akechi knew that after crossing the doorframe of his fourth, fifth, sixth family that opened their world up to him.
His fingers twitch against soft, unfamiliar fabric. More comfortable than anything he's ever bothered to own. He knows it must be cheap - it's how worn in it is that's preferable. Nothing in Akechi's house ever felt his. This doesn't either, but-They're better than a group home, so he turns grief into indifference and anger into something far more vile and every time he returns back to that group home to see the same old group of kids watch a clock, look out a window, stare at a CRT TV decades older than any of them who get older every time he returns and he ends up watching a clock, looking out a window, staring at a CRT TV decades older than any of them because his time is running around and he sees kids who reach of age begin and end their lives unwanted and unloved and shoved out of the only place they knew and-
It feels like Maruki was prepared to be together and that effortless comfort he always tries to exude has incorporated into every part of this room, down to the smallest thread.
They'll go together-
And a social worker holds his hand until he's too old to warrant it. We'll walk together they say until he's old enough to figure out directions and streets on his own.
And they'll go together from Maruki is an undeniable truth. He never held his hand on a streetcorner or welcomed him back to a home cramped with children after another temporary foster.But he placed a palm between his shoulder blades. Left him a note on his birthday. Put extra mushrooms on his plate. Spoke quietly as they both wore Maruki's blood in thick splatters across their skin.
In a world Akechi was always meant to die in, Maruki found him him and they left together. Dragged him out without a Navigator and hid him a small room built for one, but fits two all the same.
Maruki could have saved his mother. It's a fleeting, passing realization that dies with a blink and buries itself into the depths of his heart as he pushes himself up. ]
To think such a rebellious spirit was just under the surface all this time.
[ Hoarse, harsh - he lets himself rest against the backboard. ]
We'll leave in three days. Say whatever goodbyes you need to and find a new place to live. I'll take care of some loose ends and secure funds.
if you put an evil wrap on this i'll kill you
Akechi can sit upright on his own.
He's alright.
He's not the bleeding, fading thing he was in hidden passage ways of a cognitive ocean liner. He's nothing like broken, barely conscious body that staggered against Maruki's side until they found an exit point.
He's alright.
An exhale, slow, and then Maruki smiles. ]
Three days, huh? Okay.
[ If he ever gave Akechi reason to doubt his conviction, his rebellious spirit, then what they do from here on out will put that to rest. Maruki has always been dedicated to his cause. Akechi just hasn't realized that the cause became him long ago.
He extends a hand. To shake. To help him up out of the bed so Maruki can feed him, show him how to work the bath, sit down with him at a laptop and begin to hunt. ]
We have a deal.
? then wow i would never (heheh kitten)
He let that dream die with his body against a cold, steel door.
It's incredible how it returns with the touch of another's hand. A world always just out of reach handed back to him without a second thought.
For once, it's easy to feel a future. For once, it's simple to see beyond a revenge that's rotted his body for years.
The World puts him at peace for only a single second.
But it's that single second that gets him out bed, into a bath, put food in his stomach and water down his throat. It's what holds him up to hover over Maruki's shoulder as he looks through rural shithole after rural shithole for a rental in a rundown home that costs as much as a pair of sneakers.
A passing world in the corner of his vision, separated only by the glass his face is pressed against, ignites it again. Three days later, in a worn down car, a radio that's static more than music, but he doesn't care enough to turn it off. A cityscape long behind them, a car packed to brim with boxes 'they don't need', 'yes they do!' Akechi's loose threads would've funded a new kitchen at a minimum. Shido had everyone on a leash, but there were those who owed Akechi Goro alone - those debts fill his pocket. He didn't tell Maruki how much.
It's hard to restart.
Difficult in ways beyond a hanko that stamps down on every new piece of paperwork. A shocking amount of it exists in a town whose name Akechi has to remind himself of.
Neither of them know what to do with lives stuck in limbo. Not on the run enough to hide in full, not free enough to do whatever they wish. Akechi's paranoia takes a full year to wane - for danger to fade from every little noise outside of their home. Maruki once stumbled on him waiting in the dark, curtain parted with the slightest motion of his hand, a gun he said he got rid of in the other. Maruki flipped on the porch light and a fox darted out of their trash. Neither said a word, but Akechi never forgot the exasperated look tossed his way. They stayed up awhile longer to watch late night reruns of a show they've seen five times over until his finger fell from the trigger.
Maruki is better at settling down. Better at acting like this life is one he always wanted, even though Akechi knows it must be a far cry of a world meant for a woman still in Tokyo's depths. He doesn't care about it. Maruki made his foolish choice, but he watches -
Often. Listens more. Reacts less. Finds new routines and settles into a schedule that doesn't wear him thin at the end of every day. He isn't sure how Maruki feels. Doesn't bother asking. It's his choice. It was his choice.
Akechi can't stand he made this choice and-
Wonders about the disparity of The World in their eyes. It's large - so large, for Akechi without Tokyo's boundary and Shido's hold and-
Sometimes he wonders if it feels smaller than ever for a man who could have made reality his and-
He doesn't ask. Never asks. It doesn't matter if he asks.
It won't ever matter if he asks because someone who will ask-
Eventually finds his way to this grotesquely small town, in the middle of nowhere, on some meaningless day in a week that felt colder than normal. Ironic, really, that Akechi was stocking a deck of cards from just delivered box, a Joker plastered on a bright red cover. ]