stealhearted | are you hurting the one you love?

[He squirms in place for a moment, and he's very... Akechi, despite still being in the Loki cognition costume.] I-- is it something I have to decide now immediately, or can I think on it.

[ Akira glances at Lavenza, and Lavenza nods. ]

「 Your access to the Velvet Room will be restored at all the familiar points, so you needn't make any rash decisions -- 」

[ As she says it, there's a vague blur as Akira summons several persona in a row, Igor laughing vaguely at his desk as the shadow of Satanael fills literally the entire room before dispersing. ]

「 ...of course, you're also welcome to do that. 」

[Akechi is dully horrified right now,]

[His expression pinches and he moves-- crawls, because fuck trying to stand right now --to sit closer to him and set a hand on his knee without hesitation.] Will you chill, we don't need every high-artillery Persona you have access to, we don't even know what we're dealing with. And we'll tell the others, you'll have plenty of firepower.

[ Akira looks vaguely wounded. ]

I didn't get a chance to use them much last time. [ He says, like he's a child being denied his favorite toy. It's not like he's worried about them getting lonely or anything, but -- come on, Satanael is cool as heck and he barely got to use him at all.

In part because Akechi was busy mowing through the entirety of Maruki's palace powered by rage and spite. ]

It's better to be prepared, right?

「 ... that might be so. However, I... 」 [ Lavenza trails off, then looks at Akechi helplessly. Wild cards, man. ] 「 ...at any rate, I believe we should both return to gathering what information we can on the situation. You'll know where to find me. 」

[It's like he realizes he's touched Akira only after the fact, and he recoils suddenly. He turns to look at Lavenza's shoes, nodding and making an affirmative sound, standing and putting a few paces between himself and Akira.]

[It's easy enough to assume it's because Igor and Lavenza are watching. He'll ride that for as long as he can.]

Okay. I'll see you guys around. [ Akira looks at Akechi, and gives him a slightly odd look, like he's been tipped off that something isn't right but he can't put his finger on what. His third eye doesn't help him with boy problems, unfortunately. ]

C'mon, it's different when we're not dreaming. [ Akira offers, before he steps through the threshold --

-- and into the evening twilight of the real world, his uniform still crisp and the air warm around him. ]

[He's cold again, but he thinks it's just anxiety, not his body actually slowly shutting down from lack of contact with Akira. Surely, not after...]

[He can't explain why, but as he follows after him to leave, he turns the briefest of looks over his shoulder at Lavenza, like he's asking her what he's supposed to do. If she even sees the look, she has nothing for him, because this is all on him-- it always has been. Stepping through the threshold back to the real world draws a startled gasp from Akechi, and he spins himself in a quick circle that he pointedly stops so he's facing away from Akira. His posture sags, and it's like he's never been to the Metaverse at all, like this was the first time all over again, exhaustion pulling heavy on his limbs.]

[He looks back to where they came from, but he can't see the glowing blue doorway like Akira can. He might sometimes be able to find Lavenza, and she might sometimes guide him through it without seeing it, but this isn't one of those times.]

Hey. [ Akira's voice is soft and a little tense. He reaches out -- hesitates -- and then keeps going, letting his fingers tug at the edge of Akechi's sleeve, concern clear on his face even behind the glasses he still tends to wear in his day to day life. He never went back home, after all; he's still wearing masks in Tokyo. ]

Are you okay? [ Akira's fingers reach out to try and find bare skin, seeking it out automatically, like it's something he can fix through contact. So many of Akechi's moods go deeper than that, but Akira never stops trying.

Truthfully, he just wants to feel the warmth of Akechi's skin under his own fingers. ]

[He nods, moving just enough to look down at their hands where Akira touches him, suddenly very lacking in approximately everything. He nods, a slow and careful gesture, and looks up briefly to just close his eyes and then angle his head away again.]

[It communicates that he's tired wordlessly, at least.]

Okay. [ Akira gives a surreptitious glance around, but in the real world, filled with real people with their real lives, no one is giving them a second glance, so he just entangles their fingers for a long moment and then shrugs the groceries back up onto his wrist. ]

Let's go home. [ Akira starts walking again, heading to Leblanc. ] Do you want everyone to come over today, or tomorrow?

[He honestly feels like he can't speak. It's a sudden and bizarre side effect of his existentialism, but falling into step trailing behind Akira, he opens his mouth and just... can't make his voice leave his throat.]

[So he just shakes his head to the question-- tomorrow, he might be able to handle the group tomorrow. Not today. Today he's... not sure what he is, now that the gravity of the last hour is piledriving him into the Yongen-Jaya streets.]

[ Akira waits until they hit closer to Leblanc before he takes Akechi's hand again. He steps into the cafe and it's just them and Sojiro, and if Sojiro doesn't already know they're dating Akira will eat Sojiro's hat, so he doesn't even think to unlink their hands. ]

Sorry, we're running a little late. [ Sojiro waves them off, and Akira steps over to the fridge to put away the perishables. He doesn't think they're up to making dinner tonight after all, but he might do it later if he finds he can't sleep. For now, he practically drags Akechi upstairs, small tugs on his hand until they're in the attic proper. A sweeping glance tells him that Morgana is at Futaba's again, so Akira can look at Akechi, clearly concerned. ]

...is there anything I can do? [ Because he knows that sometimes, Akechi has to be the one to get himself out of his own head. ]

[Akira's worry hurts. He thinks it's always hurt, but now especially, for some reason it's like being stabbed with a bread knife, slowly sawing the wound open in a terrible back and forth motion. Looking at him makes it harder, so he doesn't, just shakes his head again slowly at the question. He wants to apologize, but he fucking can't, he just can't. It's infuriating.]

[He does manage a short, wobbly sort of smile, raising the hand Akira isn't holding to wave it in front of his face like he's trying to brush away the concern. It's fine. He's fine, Akira. Please, let him pretend he's fine.]

[ Akira is clearly hesitant about this, because Akechi not speaking at all -- that's pretty worrisome. But he doesn't know what he can do about it if Akechi won't talk; they're past the point of Akechi's crying fits on a daily basis, they've resolved most things as well as they can be without time healing them --

So he just leans in and presses a kiss to Akechi's forehead, gentle and careful. ]

Okay. I'm going to go make dinner. [ He's going to text Futaba to send Morgana over, too, because he's not sure what's wrong with Akechi but he doesn't want him to be completely alone. ]

[He looks up, then, his whole body sort of lurching forward, and he wants to go with him, follow him downstairs and watch him cook, sit at the bar like things were even remotely normal. Fill out a fucking crossword puzzle, maybe.]

[He balls his hands into fists at his sides, raises them and presses the heels of them into his forehead, taps them a few times. He paces away, making a frustrated gasp of sound, creaks oddly, and sits on the couch, dropping his head back onto the wall with a thud. He's at least... animated, to a degree, he's still moving like Akechi. A frustrated, tired Akechi. He opens his eyes to glare at the ceiling, and then manages a wry sort of crooked smile, curling his hand into a thumbs up.]

[Go make dinner, you domestic fool. He's going to continue to be angry with himself for the fact that he's literally developed selective mutism over his own neuroses. It's fine. He's fine.]

[ Akira watches this entire exhibit with open worry, and idly wishes that any of their bruises from the MetaVerse had carried over, because there's nothing either of them can press on to ground Akechi and they just have to wait it out. Akira feels like punching Akechi now would be -- bad? For reasons he can't quite get to, can't quite unlock. ]

Okay. You can text me if you need anything. [ Since... it seems like talking is hard for him right now, which. Is seriously alarming.

Akira heads downstairs and fires off several texts immediately -- to Futaba, about Morgana; to Ann, because she's the one closest to Akechi besides him; to Takemi, asking if she has a researcher login so he can read the full studies on pscience-based PTSD.

He does this all standing in front of the fridge, Sojiro watching in bemusement, before he finally starts cooking dinner. ]

[He cycles through a few attempts, a few various methods, goes as far as to pick up Akira's pillow and try to scream into it. Nothing happens, so he's just flustered and red-faced, so he stomps down the stairs with his bag of toiletries from Sae and locks himself in the bathroom for a while.]

[He does actually wash his face, about three times, and when he leaves the bathroom he stands outside the closed door for a moment, looking into the cafe for a while. It's empty, apart from Akira and Sojiro, the latter of whom he offers a short bow to to be polite, since he completely forgot to even acknowledge him on their way in. He walks up to Akira like a scolded cat, then, reaches out and very carefully places one finger against the back of his palm.]

[Keep going, if Akira remembers correctly. What it means in this context is hard to say, but the contact is oddly plaintive.]

[He looks from his finger against his hand to the food he's making, back, and eventually to his face, opening his mouth and finally reclaiming his finger. He points to dinner, smiling apologetically, and shakes his head, holding his hand up to wave off the prospect. It takes him a few tries to figure out how to pantomime "sleep", going from holding his hand in front of his mouth, partially open like a yawn, to the more childish version of putting his hands flat together and then sideways, setting his cheek against them. When he's through with that, and sort of embarrassed about the bizarre game of charades he's playing, he haltingly reaches back out and taps one finger squarely on the middle of the back of his hand again.]

[Keep going. It could mean keep making dinner? It could mean... a lot of things, really.]

It's okay. [ Akira leans in again, and because Sojiro is there, doesn't do anything else -- just grabs at Akechi's hand and holds onto it for a moment, squeezing before he releases. ]

I'll bring you food, but it's alright if you want to sleep instead of eating. [ Akira doesn't understand the selective mutism, but he wants to help; he doesn't think there's anything he can do, so he just. Has to support Akechi until Akechi can get where he needs to be. ]

Morgana's coming over, so he'll eat your leftovers. [ With minimal complaining, probably. ]

[Akechi doesn't understand it, either, and it's frustrating beyond belief, but it's... Well, it should be good that Akira is tolerant of it, but it isn't, in the long run, because it'll just make things harder when the inevitable bubble of anxious impending doom behind Akechi's ribs finally pops. He nods, because Morgana can have his leftovers, even if they aren't really leftovers if he never ate anything to begin with, but food is very far from something Akechi even wants to think about. As is, the smell of whatever Akira's cooking (probably curry, when is it ever anything but curry) is turning his stomach, so he takes a step backward and-- bows.]

[He bows. To Akira.]

[It's just a short thing, almost more of a curtsy, but he doesn't realize how weird it must have looked until he's turned heel and is halfway up the stairs to the attic again. He sinks, sitting there for a moment with his bag of toiletries, and when he gets up again he runs to the other side of the attic, throwing himself onto the mattress as carefully as he can consciously manage in the state he's in, and tries again to scream into Akira's pillow.]

[It still doesn't work, so he just continues to lay face-down on the mattress, hands bunched up in it until whenever Akira comes back upstairs. He's probably asleep whenever that happens, or whenever Morgana shows up, but he is tired. Who cares if it's barely sundown.]

[ When Akira peers up to check, Akechi is, for all appearances, asleep -- so Akira just wraps the food up and puts it in the fridge. He eats curry, instead, and Sojiro watches but doesn't say anything, and Akira feels weird about it all but it was a meal he and Akechi had planned out together and it feels weird not to eat it with him.

He goes into the attic again, finally, slipping into his loungewear. It's early, but the Metaverse is tiring. He sends off a message to everyone that they'll need to meet up tomorrow, watches the way everyone replies automatically. They don't even know the Metaverse is back and they're already so ready to follow his lead; it'd be overwhelming if he wasn't used to it.

He sits down on the bed, slipping in alongside Akechi. He leans down, presses a kiss to his temple. Akechi's too light of a sleeper for Akira to get in without waking him up, but it's really 50/50 on if Akechi pretends to still be sleeping or not. ]

Sleep well. I love you. [ It's almost automatic to say it, now; Akira says it so often because it's true, and he doesn't mind that Akechi can't say it back, but this once -- just this once -- Akira's own anxiety twists Akechi's silence into something he can use to wound himself. ]

[He wakes up enough to roll onto his side, to scoot the pillow out from where he'd claimed the whole thing to try screaming into so Akira can use it, too. He does it tentatively, and at first he stays stiff on his side like he's afraid of touching him, until Akira is-- so sweet it hurts. Again.]

[He reaches out carefully, then, touches him once and recoils, touches him again and walks his fingers along the back of his hand until he takes hold of the end of Akira's fingers. It's a light hold, tentative like he's afraid of it, but after a moment he reaches out and taps him with his index finger again, just once.]

Okay. [ Akira says, his voice a little thick -- with exhaustion; with emotions he can't quite identify; with the voice in his head chanting that this wasn't how it was supposed to go -- and he reaches out. He doesn't quite wrap an arm around Akechi, but just rests an arm lightly on Akechi's side, a not-quite embrace that Akira tries to use to convey that he's there.

He's there, he's not going anywhere, and Akechi can take as long as he needs. Even if Akira hopes that it isn't very long at all.

He's vaguely aware of Morgana settling down half on both of them, and he thinks, idly, that the cat was definitely a good decision, because Morgana can talk enough for all three of them when he really gets going.

Then Akira falls asleep. ]

[He knows it's a problem when as he drifts off the last distinct thought in his head is that he sort of hopes he doesn't wake up. If this is the last thing he gets, this simple, gentle contact, falling asleep after Akira has drifted off, Morgana's weight evenly distributed across them both, he might just be okay.]

[Fortunately, or unfortunately in the sourest corner of his mind, he does wake up.]

[And he rationalizes, immediately. He argues with himself. If Akira was going to discard him, why hadn't he done it already? It took too much effort, probably. He was tired from the Metaverse, as well. He was only human. But he's sure of it, he's so sure of it, that the other shoe is falling slowly, and it'll hit the ground and everything he's tried so hard to not enjoy these past few weeks is about to blow up in his face. Like it always does.]

[He pets Morgana a lot, through the day. He manages little sounds, but he still doesn't figure out how to make words. He slept, he thinks-- not well, but he's rested enough to be aware that he's in a fog. He realizes that the single-tap on Akira's hand from the day before had been a silent plea, not telling him to make dinner anyway. It had been his way of imploring Akira to keep going, with whatever they were working toward. Imploring him to keep him, and it makes him want to go back to bed. Makes him climb back onto the mental ledge of not wanting to wake up again, crouch there and stay, oddly patient.]

[He picks up a notebook and writes short phrases in it. First and foremost, he writes 'I'm sorry', and sets it in Akira's lap. He doesn't write anything else for a while after that. Later, he adds 'I'm fine, I promise', but he's not sure who he's fooling. When the rest of the Thieves show up, he's prepared, having written on a few pages. 'Akira will explain, but we entered what appears to be a fake Metaverse yesterday. I think my lack of ability to speak is just a side effect of the exhaustion of it.' And it doesn't feel entirely like a lie. It's a decent enough story, even if he knows Akira doesn't buy it even for a second.]

[ Akira, for lack of any better option, keeps going. He takes that one tap and holds it close as a sign that Akechi will be okay, at some point, and he uses that to keep himself from worrying too much.

So he gets up and he kisses Akechi good morning, and he makes them breakfast, and he tells Akechi there's leftovers in the fridge and no, Morgana, you can't have all of them. He sends messages to the Phantom Thieves individually, telling them there's a new metaverse and he'll fill them in, but he and Akechi were stuck there and Akechi isn't feeling so great because of it. He tells Akechi he can skip the meeting, if he wants; he knows Akechi won't.

Almost absentmindedly, Akira fusses. He makes Akechi carrots cooked in miso and chicken broth and serves it to him with soft boiled eggs and rice; he offers to make him tea instead of coffee if his throat hurts and then immediately makes him coffee when Akechi looks like he was just punched.

When Akechi apologizes, Akira just looks at it for a long moment. Then he smiles, a little unsure, and leans in to push their foreheads together, to let his eyelashes brush against Akechi's. ]

It's okay. I can still hear you even when you aren't saying anything.

[From there time passes in odd smears that he doesn't fully remember. Everyone dotes on him and he wants to push them away, but doesn't waste his energy on it. Haru leaves them some tea, Yusuke leaves a book of strange artwork he claims helps him when he isn't doing well, and Akechi isn't sure he wants to understand that. Ryuji bugs Akira to go with him to the arcade the following day, and Ann decides she and Goro will get crepes while the boys play in the arcade. Makoto is insistent that Akechi take care of himself in a way that is so much like her sister he almost has to leave the room-- Futaba excitedly suggests they go check out the new Metaverse, and he does leave.]

[Morgana sits in front of the bathroom door when he locks himself in it, like he's guarding him, and Akechi tries to feel less wretched. It doesn't work.]

are you hurting the one you love?

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