stealhearted | after me comes the flood;

[It's rattled his brain, but even in a false reality that paints him happy and adjusted, he's good at hiding things. Something feels wrong, like he's forgotten something important, but Akira being stressed doesn't strike him as odd, only tiring. It's the fact that he's bending to being asked that makes his tongue feel too broad for his mouth.]

Don't waste your time bringing me coffee if you have things to do. [He reaches for the thermos anyway.]

Maybe making you coffee is one of those things. [ It's nicer, at least, than his other options: telling Morgana he's not a human, telling Haru her father should be dead, trying desperately not to meet Wakaba's gaze because she shouldn't even be alive. He'll have to go deal with all of that once he leaves the warmth of Akechi's apartment, and he... doesn't like that.

Doesn't want to, even though he knows he'll make himself. ]

Don't stay up too late with it.

[He sighs, shaking his head with a smile.] I'll be better once I'm more sure of my university pool. You don't have to take care of me in the meantime.

I like taking care of people. [ Which is kind of what's getting them deeper into this whole mess -- Akira wants to take care of Akechi; Akira wants Akechi to be happy; Akira can't work up the nerve to break his reality down and remind him that his mother is dead, that he's a murderer, that he managed to destroy his entire life and hasn't yet managed to pick up the pieces.

Really, Akira wonders at the fact that the real Akechi hasn't turned to anything even more self destructive, now that the murder isn't an option. ]

Especially the ones important to me.

That, I have noticed.

[He claims his offered thermos of coffee, holding it between his hands as if he can feel the warmth through the heat protective walls of the thing, and the smile on his face is startlingly fond.] Don't forget to take care of yourself, too, okay? You're important to people as well.

...Yeah. I will. [ Akira stands up to leave, because he suddenly feels like if he stays any longer he's going to combust. It's -- it's too much. It's too much for him to deal with.

An Akechi that likes him -- an Akechi that's happy -- in a world where no one else needs him. Where Sojiro wants him to stay; where his parents have already moved on; where people are alive when they shouldn't be and everyone is happy.

Akira wonders what it says about him that Maruki couldn't change anything for him. That he's still so aware of everything, that he has to see it and know that it's wrong.

It's wrong. Isn't it? Isn't it? Akira has never felt quite so rotten inside as he does whenever he thinks of turning it back at the cost of the happiness of everyone he cares for. ]

Just text me if you need anything.

The same goes for you. I know you prefer to text than talk.

[That is an invitation to talk to him via text instead of in person, because he wants to know what the fuck your damage is because you are obviously damaged, sir. He is worried. He doesn't even know the half of what he's about to get into.]

I'll keep it in mind. [ Akira doesn't mind texting or talking, so long as it's with someone who doesn't mind carrying the conversation -- but he engages a lot more with Akechi as a general rule, so he's had to get used to talking more.

Which was fine, until his entire world got changed into a bizarre alternate dimension and now he barely knows how to talk to Futaba, much less anyone else. Which becomes rapidly apparent when he goes home and completely fails to function, just a little -- enough for Sojiro to tell him to head to bed early; enough for Morgana to offer to take the couch.

Which. Akira's still not used to the fact that even Morgana's voice is different. He tries bringing up the fact that Morgana should be a cat, and watches the way Morgana gets a vague, distant look in his eyes before laughing it off.

Akira doesn't push the subject. But he does stay awake far later than he should, that night and most other nights, playing around on his phone and reading through an endless amount of news articles, trying to right himself in a world that seems drastically upside down, trying to find what's the same and what isn't.

He feels like there's a ticking clock making him decide on this reality. He should probably talk to Maruki again. He doesn't want to. ]

[He doesn't usually remember his dreams, if he has them.]

[So being nearly trapped in one was so many kinds of unsettling. Everything was strangely blurred at the edges, in a way that alerted him to it being a dream, but it still felt unbearably real. Unbearably so, to the point that when he felt himself point a strangely familiar gun between Wakaba Isshiki's eyebrows, with her staring up at him in something that wasn't quite defiance but wasn't fear, he was confused when he didn't jerk away from the gesture in alarm. That when he pulled the trigger the angle changed, and suddenly he was watching Wakaba abruptly "throw" herself in front of a moving vehicle from somewhere behind a horrified Futaba, he was confused he didn't lurch forward to try and pull her back.]

[He echoed the scream in his head that was Futaba's voice.]

[And then his mother was in his room, had him by the shoulders and was shaking him gently, even though he was sitting up and drenched in a cold sweat. She asked him things, was he all right, could she get him anything, you should really be getting more sleep and stop working yourself so hard, Goro, and her voice sounded strange. Tinny, like a recording in a phone. He didn't remember what her voice sounded like, anymore.]

[What?]

[He allowed himself to curl sideways into her shoulder, letting her voice filter back to sounding normal and only breathing properly again then, letting her hand stroke his hair, between his shoulders, down his spine. The amount of time it took for the sensations to feel like they were actually happening and not a strange, distant memory unsettled him more than he could verbalize. He let her make him tea, sipped it carefully, and urged her to go back to sleep, that he was all right now. He was sorry he woke her.]

[He was sorry he failed her.]

[The back of his tongue tasted sour when he picked up his phone.]

Sorry to text you so late
I

[...]

[...]

[...]

I think I had a nightmare about killing someone.

Edited 2021-06-29 01:51 (UTC)

[ Akira is only half asleep when the text comes in. His phone is still in his hand, so the buzzing wakes him up after the second text rolls in too quickly after the first. He waits, feeling the tell-tale feeling of his blood going too cold and then too hot, flushing through his body with worry and an anxiety he's not used to feeling at all.

Then Akechi admits what the dream was about, and Akira feels his stomach roll so alarmingly he sits up in bed and has to swallow several times before he trusts himself to not be sick.

He opens the messaging app and types and deletes several times --]

~~Who~~

~~Was it~~

~~Are you~~

~~Do you rem~~

Are you okay?

[ It's not enough -- it isn't enough in the slightest. But Akira doesn't know what else is safe to say right now. So -- concern. He shows concern. Because he is concerned. ]

Edited (html and i are feuding) 2021-06-29 02:05 (UTC)

Truthfully I'm not sure.
I don't idis;;u

[His fingers were in the wrong places. He tries again.]

Usually*, I'm sorry
I don't usually remember when I dream.

[He winds up pulled inward in his bed, setting his phone down to take several breaths to try and calm down, but it isn't working. His hands are shaking too much to keep texting without another stupid mistake like before.]

[It was just a slip of his finger, why was that stupid?]

[He swipes Akira's chat ID to the side and calls him.]

[ Akira doesn't answer immediately -- he slips out of bed and locks himself in the less than spacious Leblanc bathroom before he picks up on the third ring. He's pretty sure Futaba has the cafe bugged, and he doesn't want Morgana to hear anything from the couch, and so he's left to trace the patterns on the extremely ancient wallpaper. ]

Sometimes I have these dreams that I'm in prison. [ Akira offers, automatically, as soon as he picks up, like an anecdote can help calm down Akechi. It feels like it isn't enough, given that he knows Akechi is dreaming about real life instead of what-if's; he's dreaming about things he's actually done, hiding behind a thin veneer. ]

Like, fantasy prison. Everything's blue.

[He laughs, sort of-- it's a fragile sound, thick in his throat but there's still some degree of humor to it, and there's shifting as he lays on his side and curls around the phone, putting Akira on speaker.]

Isn't there an English pop song called Blue? Perhaps you should stop listening to strange streaming music.

I feel like that's the kind of thing that would inspire Yusuke. [ Akira knows why he dreams of prison, knows why it's blue -- he wonders if Akechi ever dreamed of the Velvet Room; wonders if it was different for him. Wonders if it would be different now.

Wonders if Akechi could even summon his persona at all, without that anger at an unjust world. ]

Ann said sometimes she dreams about eating food and then right before she bites down she wakes up, so it could be worse. [ It's a joke. He's joking. ]

Ah, then I've claimed the market for dreaming about murder. You've assuaged all my worries, thank you.

[He tries to laugh again, but it hitches and he gets very quiet, shifting and turning off the speaker phone. It muffles him, because the phone is still about at his ribs, but the way his breath shakes is unmistakable. His voice is very small when he speaks again.]

Why would I dream about something like that, Akira?

[ Akira is quiet for a long moment. What does he say? What is he supposed to say to that, when he knows the answer and he can't give it? When he can't be the one to break this fragile illusion? ]

Maybe it's just stress. [ Akira wonders who it was. It couldn't have been the dream of killing him, but he knows Akechi has killed dozens of other people before that -- it could have been anyone.

Any one of those deaths would be upsetting to this Akechi. Akira wonders how upset Akechi was the first time he killed someone. How upset he let himself be. ] Like dreaming that you're naked, but instead it's murder.

[He manages to laugh, this time, even if it's a little damp, and shuffles until the phone is up between his ear and the pillow. It lets him speak quieter, his voice lower.]

Embarrassing as it may be, I'd much rather have nightmares about public indecency than murder. I hope it's just stress-- I don't know what else it would be, it just... It felt so real. [He closes his eyes, sees Wakaba falling in front of Futaba again, hears her screaming, and flinches, sucking in a startled breath.]

[ Akira shouldn't ask. He shouldn't, because it upsets Akechi -- but more accurately, because anything he asks offers a chance for Akechi to wake up out of this fake reality.

Does Akira want that? He thinks he does. He thinks he does, but he can't quantify why, except that he feels like he's completely, utterly alone in a way that he hasn't felt since he first arrived into the city, with the bustle of a thousand people around him and no one that believed in him. ]

...Was it someone you knew? I'm not really a dream interpreter, but it might mean something.

[ Akira keeps his tone careful; level; doesn't let anything in to betray that he knows the kinds of things Akechi must be dreaming about. ]

[He's quiet for a long time, apart from the way his breathing gets stilted again. He leaves his eyes closed, lets Wakaba's expression burn itself into the backs of his eyelids, and only opens them to make Futaba's scream stop echoing in his mind.]

--Wakaba Isshiki. [He knows her full name, obviously, but his tone is-- harsh. It's almost like normal, for a moment, and then he's quiet again, taking ragged little gasps as he amends the statement, less severely.] ...Futaba's mother.

[ The first one, then, if what Akira knows is correct. Wakaba was the first, Akira thinks; the first one Akechi killed and now the first one he remembers having killed. Wakaba is alive and well, in this reality, and Akira knows it -- he saw her earlier; watched the way she and Sojiro and Futaba all seemed to fit together seamlessly into a family unit -- and Akira wonders if it's better or worse.

The people they are now -- isn't it because of the things they've all gone through? Is Futaba the same person; is Akechi; is Ryuji? If it's so easy to break through Maruki's reality, then everyone is bound to do it eventually. Maybe they don't need Akira at all. ]

If it helps, she'd probably have an in-depth cognitive psience explanation for the psychology of dreams, if you've got about an hour to spare. [ Akira keeps his tone light, because he's taking it seriously, but he's still afraid to engage too deeply. He doesn't want to be in another house when Akechi finally remembers. ]

I don't know her nearly well enough to approach her asking her to explain the psychology of a dream in which I killed her, and that is not how I plan to change that.

[He sounds tired again.] ...thank you, for talking to me. I'm... I woke mom up, but I told her to go back to bed. I feel like a child, being so rattled, but... My arm hurts, from the recoil of the Nambu. [He goes quiet again. Why does he know the name of the gun he used? And...] ...Nambu? Those ceased production in the 90s, only the police use them now. Why did I...?

Didn't you watch sentai when you were younger? [ Akira does not point out, graciously, that he is absolutely certain this Akechi also still watches it now. ]

They probably used old guns in those. [ It's a weird thing to do, to reassure Akechi without outright lying to him. Akira knows better than to do that more than he has to, because he knows Akechi is going to remember all of this when he snaps out of it, and "I wanted you to be happy without worry for a little longer" is just going to make Akechi want to throttle Akira.

Which Akira might deserve, he thinks. ]

If you can't sleep, you can stop by for a morning cup of coffee. [ Akira maneuvers through the conversation like he's in a black ocean filled with sharks. ] Being around people usually helps.

I still watch Featherman with Futaba, you know that. [But it's a reasonable statement, even if he can't think of an instance in which a Nambu is specifically used. They're mostly fantastical-looking laser guns and things. The visual of a particular, gold-colored gun flashes across his mind's eye and he flinches, startled by it, curling further into his sheets.]

[He's absolutely going to punch Akira once he wakes up from this, but... There will eventually be a degree of understanding. He did want this enough that Maruki was able to cherry-pick it from his subconscious and present it to him on a platter, after all. Akira was only displaying misguided kindness in trying to let him keep it.]

[He makes a vaguely disquieted sound and sits up, taking his phone with him.] ...Leblanc won't be open for another three hours, Akira.

I'll make an exception to our hours for you. [ Sojiro won't mind -- Sojiro in this world seems to like Akechi. Wakaba and Sojiro both speak highly of him, even if they don't really know him, and why wouldn't they? An upstanding member of society who befriended both Futaba and Akira, polite and intelligent to a fault...

God, Futaba's going to be pissed as hell too, isn't he? She's going to cry. Akira tears his thoughts away from it, because he still hasn't really made his mind up. If he helped Maruki, then this reality -- ]

It's not like Boss minds if he comes in and everything is already done for him.

There are no trains running at this hour, [He's quiet, knowing his argument is largely moot. He could bike to Leblanc in the same amount of time it would take him to take the trains, had done it a number of times in cooler months. He just had a strange reluctance for Akira to see him the way he currently was.]

[What way was that?]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject