stealhearted | are you hurting the one you love?

[ Akira eyes Akechi over his water glass, because he knows that whatever Akechi is thinking isn't the kind of thing he wants him to be thinking. That kind of laughter is usually a thing when Akechi is throwing all caution to the wind and overcompensating in an attempt to make Akira dislike him, which --

Historically, has not worked. ]

Yeah, I really wish I could just drag you into Mementos and fight for awhile. [ That would definitely help. ]

[He chitters a high-pitched little sound, dropping his hand from his face and just smiling at him, even if the expression is really more of a grimace.] Yeah? Since I'm such a masochist, I'm sure I'd just love that. Perhaps we should talk to Lavenza about it! Hey Lavenza! Can you give him a place to wail on me a bit, kick me around so I put up less of a fight? He's so desperate to love me, it'd be so much easier if I didn't fight back. [Yeah, he's. Absolutely trying to piss him off. Akechi please.]

[He brings both his hands to his body, one to the fading bruise on his jaw and the other to the one that hasn't quite formed on his stomach, pressing the flat of his hand into each.] But it's good-- this is great! All this time I've wondered what my purpose was to you, what you were possibly keeping me around for so long for. All this "bringing me back" nonsense. I want to think you're smart enough to have known longer than this, but maybe you only just figured it out yourself.

[ Akira takes a breath. Slowly. Inhales. Exhales. Then he slides off his chair, steps over to Akechi, grabs him by the front of the hoodie, fists his hand in the fabric, raises his other hand--

And slides it back into Akechi's hair to kiss him. It's not exactly tender; Akira bites at his lips, this time, and practically holds Akechi's head in place with the hand in his hair, demanding his attention, demanding to be allowed this.

When he finally pulls back, he looks at Akechi, speculatively. ]

The trauma was because I lost you. [ His hand goes down to the scar on Akechi's chest, presses into the bullet hole he can still feel, even through thick fabric. ]

My ideal world was always one with you in it. [ His voice is strangely level and almost... annoyed? ]

[He's still smiling when Akira paces over to him, thinking he's really made him mad-- maybe he'll hit him again. Maybe he'll kick him out. Maybe he'll find the exact distance he can travel, and sit there until morning, and get so cold he freezes partway. Maybe he'll die of hypothermia, this time, and Yongen-Jaya will get publicity and be overrun with reporters and cops because the former Detective Prince was found frozen to death down an alleyway and no one can figure out why. So he laughs when Akira grabs him by the front of his borrowed hoodie-- oh, maybe he'd even take that. Maybe he'd--]

[--the kiss isn't what he was angling for.]

[It fries something connected to the motherboard in his brain, he thinks, because he can't really react. He considers a multitude of responses-- reciprocating, to play along, pushing him away to continue to be difficult, but... Nothing happens. He's just slack, wide-eyed even if he can't actually see anything with Akira connected to his mouth like a leech, until he lets him go and gives him a critical look. Akechi's lips are probably red from the assault, but he's otherwise just startled and blank.]

[The words don't make it better, but he didn't really think they would. Instead they pierce directly into him through the scar Akira lays his hand over, tearing into him and making his legs drop out from under him, unless Akira holds him up.]

...but-- I'll just. You'll get sick of me. After you-- once you've... figured out, whatever it is that bothers you so much about my, my... abandoning you, maybe, why you can't just... let go of something you never should have taken hold of--

[ Akira catches him at the last minute, because this isn't the kind of conversation Akira wants to have with Akechi on the floor and him standing. It's not about power imbalance; it's not about either of them being higher than the either. So he catches him, wraps an arm securely around his waist and then rotates them until he can press Akechi into the bar counter. It's probably not comfortable, the hard corner of the wood cutting into his back, but the hoodie probably softens it enough.

Akira's not aiming for pain, anymore, but if it gives Akechi another bruise to remember this conversation -- good. Maybe it'll sink in. Maybe it'll stick. ]

What bothered me was that you died. I was upset you betrayed us, yeah, I was mad, but I dreamed about you bleeding out in that fucking ship. I slept with your glove a few times, because I remembered the promise I'd made you. Then you were back except not really. You were back because of my ideal reality, because my world was always meant to have you in it.

He brought you back for me. Not a fake you that agrees to everything I want, not a cognitive Akechi that smiles and lies and never fucks up. You.

You told me that if I was serious, I wouldn't let you go. That I wouldn't be content with you being happy without me. So I'm not letting you go. I'm not ever letting you go.

[He brackets his arms against Akira's as an afterthought, since if Akira is this determined to keep hold of him he should at least consider holding himself up, but-- Well, he's pressed into the counter, he probably couldn't be positioned much differently if he tried. It won't stick-- he doesn't think it'll ever make sense, not really. Even years down the line he'll still have episodes like this, where he won't be able to convince himself this is real, or true, that he's just waiting for the other shoe to drop. It's laughable that he allowed himself to drift so far away from that fear in a mere three days.]

[He holds his breath while Akira talks, like he's too afraid to inhale or exhale because he might miss something. He might miss where Akira says what he's expecting him to, says anything about getting rid of him. But he doesn't, it's all about wanting him, about keeping him. About never letting him go. And he wants to be upset about it, be apologetic for it never clicking into place and making sense, but that doesn't happen, either. His lungs burn well before Akira stops talking, but he still holds his breath, until the counter behind him digs into his ribs enough that it feels like it's cutting into him, even through the hoodie.]

[He draws in a breath that's too shallow for having held his breath for that long, and his vision swims a little with it, the grip he has on Akira's arms slackening. He shakes his head slowly.] I don't... think there's anything I can say to that.

I'll reassure you as many times as it takes. [ When Akira reaches up this time, his touch is more gentle; a ghost of heat across the bruise on Akechi's jawline that's still an ugly color, the green starting to rise to the surface as it heals. ]

I'm not gentle with you because I think you'll break, and I'm not rough with you because I'm mad. I just think... you need both of those things, sometimes. You get so caught in your head. [ They both do, Akira thinks, but he doesn't say. Focusing on Akechi helps drag Akira out of his head, and he thinks it might be similar for Akechi, even if Akechi never thought of himself as a helpful person or a worrier. ]

I just want you to come back to me, sometimes. [ Not literally. ]

[He's pretty sure he's mostly run out of words, or the motor skills to speak them, because he just picks his head up enough to look at him briefly, the action slow and uncoordinated, and then closes his eyes, letting his head drop with his shoulders as he goes mostly limp. He shifts his grip on Akira's arms, now more at the insides of his elbows, walking them to the outer edges of them to brace himself and try to shift them both so he can sit back in the chair again.]

...you're exhausting to argue with.

Okay. [ Akira lets Akechi sit, and then sits himself. He doesn't get too tender with Akechi, because he doesn't think he needs that, and he doesn't want to trigger another emotional breakdown at three in the morning. ]

I'm not saying it because I want you to sleep there, but when we go back, would you feel better on the couch? [ Akira wants Akechi in bed with him, but he thinks -- pushing that right now might be the worse of the two options. He just wants to make sure it isn't taken as a rejection.

He isn't pushing him away, but he knows Akechi probably needs space. ]

[He goes not quite boneless, but absolutely sags in the chair like he can't quite hold himself up, just for a moment before he reaches back and braces himself on the back of the chair like he had been with Akira's arms.]

...you'll be cold without the extra blanket, [He tries, because he would prefer to be on the couch, and to specifically not touch Akira until he gets cold and shaky again, just to let his warmth flood his body again for a more necessary reason.] I'm... not sure I'll sleep again, tonight. [Not with Akira present, at least. He'll be too keyed up and tense, trying to be consciously aware of every part of himself and every part of Akira and not touching him at all despite the circumstances.]

It's up to you. I'll be fine either way, blanket or no. I usually run hot. [ To say the least; Akira is a furnace at the best of times and absolutely intolerable to be next to in the summer, honestly. He'll make sure they have another futon before the humidity really hits or he's pretty sure Akechi really would choose death. ]

I'll go back to sleep, but if you want to hang out down here and read or something, Sojiro won't mind. [ A beat, and then: ] Just show me how to apply concealer in the morning, maybe.

[He nods, curling himself into his bar chair again to put pressure against the bruise on his stomach.]

A bit late in the year to still be wearing turtlenecks to cover that, I suppose... [He reaches out, pulling the sleeve of Akira's hoodie down his arm enough to expose his wrist and trying to compare their skin. It's nothing doing, in the lack of proper lighting, so he just shakes his head and curls away again.] It'll have to do for tomorrow, and I'll get you a better shade. [He looks over Akira's neck briefly, and even in the darkness he can see the beginnings of mottled bruising around his throat.] ...I think I'll stay down here.

[ Their skin tone is nowhere near similar enough for the concealer to really obscure anything, but if Akira wears the right shirt he might manage to get away with it until they can get something closer to his color. He doesn't know a thing about applying makeup (though maybe it's time for him to ask Lala-chan for some tips), but Akechi seems to know enough for the both of them.

So Akira just nods. He leans forward, dropping a careful kiss to the top of Akechi's head. ]

You can come up if you need anything. There's some ice packs in the freezer if you want them. [ He doesn't get one for Akechi, not because he doesn't care but because he thinks this is a bruise that Akechi might want to keep. It isn't like the one on his jaw, where being practical took precedence; Akira can see the way Akechi presses on the bruise like a reminder.

It's probably a pretty fucked up way to get Akechi to believe he cares, but Akira thinks they've both got a lot of ground to cover before they'll be anywhere near well adjusted. ]

[He takes hold of his wrist carefully, then squeezes at the kiss to his head, breathing out in a way that sounds strained, but releases him a moment later.]

I've had worse, [He keeps his voice barely above a whisper so there's no strain to it. He starts to tell him to rest well, sleep well, something, but nothing sounds right, even in his mind, so he stops short and just smiles at the floor.] I'll see you.

[He won't, but he can't shake the way he wants to just disappear while Akira sleeps.]

You'll be down here when I wake up, right? [ Akira asks, gently. He takes a step backwards -- he should go to sleep, he knows he should, he knows Akechi would protest to no end if he just sat there and went to sleep in one of the Leblanc booths, nevermind what Futaba would say when she inevitably checked the cafe footage.

But that kind of trust -- that Akechi will be there, that he won't decide he's the broken part of the equation -- isn't something that can come so easily in just a few days. ]

[He already has decided he's the broken part of the equation, really, but he's trying to not inflict that on Akira anymore than he has to. He closes his eyes at the question, because he has every right to ask it, and it turns his stomach that he knows well enough to ask. He draws in a careful breath and opens his eyes as he exhales, chewing on the inside of his lip.]

...I won't lie to you, I don't feel like I should be. But it's... counterintuitive, to send you to bed only to leave, because I know you'll just run around trying to find me. [His voice gets quiet, tone getting simultaneously flat and choked. Even still, he laughs shortly.] Even if I wish you wouldn't.

I'd get Futaba to survey every camera in this city looking for you. [ Maybe, if things were different, he'd let Akechi run -- but not when he could die from merely being away. Akira isn't willing to risk that, even if Akechi is.

Akira offers him a small, half-hearted sort of smile. ]

Okay. I'll see you in the morning, then. [ He's slow to move away, like he's unwilling to turn his back on Akechi, but he finally takes a breath, inhales and heads up the stairs. He has to trust he'll be there. He can't have Akechi right next to him all the time. ]

[It's the mention of Futaba and the reminder that she has the cafe bugged, as well as his fucking phone that keeps him stationary for a while, listening to the stairs creak slightly as Akira walks back up them. When he hears the dull thwump of him getting back in bed, on those creaky crates that aren't honestly very comfortable, he closes his eyes and slides out of the bar chair and onto the floor. He sits there a while, his brain too full of static and cotton, until he makes his way slowly back to his feet, putting the chairs back.]

[He stands in the cafe and looks everything over, unable to shake how absolutely and completely out of place he feels, but wanders to the kitchen and squints in the darkness until he finds a rag and a spray bottle of surface cleaner. He wanders around and wipes down surfaces to keep occupied for a long time, cleaning the grooves in the wood of the booths even though he can't see if they're dirty to begin with. That keeps him moving for close to an hour, just wiping things down mindlessly and trying to not think, finally replacing the bottle of cleaner and folding the rag over the corner of the sink. He crawls into the far booth by the wall, then, folding himself so his knees are bracketed against the table and his thighs put pressure on the bruise on his stomach again, and the static in his brain encompasses him enough that he sleeps there for a little while. At least if he's largely immobile, an entire level below Akira and across the building to boot, there's a significantly lower risk of him causing anymore harm.]

[Whether he's awoken by Sojiro unlocking the door or Akira coming back downstairs is a toss-up.]

[ It's kind of both at the same time. Akira sends Sojiro a text first -- Akechi's not going to be awake early enough to cover the bruises, Akira can tell when he first peers downstairs, avoiding the worst of the creaky stairs -- telling him to pretend nothing's unusual, and Sojiro, bless him, does, for the most part.

Sojiro opens the door, takes in the sleeping teenager in one booth, the teenager peering around the wall, and then sighs heavily and goes to open.

So it's the sounds of the cafe coming to life that will wake Akechi up -- Akira in his normal clothing already, laughing quietly as something Sojiro has quipped while he sets up two cups of coffee.

If Akechi waits, he'll receive one of those cups pretty quickly. ]

[He's a light enough sleeper that the key turning in the lock rouses him, but he's still exhausted in just about every possible way that his body doesn't quite wake up until there is more sound, and finally Sojiro's voice, making some kind of fondly disgruntled quip he can't quite understand, which makes Akira laugh. His heart seizes painfully in his chest for a moment at the sound of it, and he shifts to stretch his arms forward and then unfold his legs, letting his feet regain feeling from having been trapped at such an angle for a while.]

Apologies for sleeping in your cafe, Sakura-san, [He offers, slurred and groggy. He doesn't have the time to find his way out of the booth before he's presented with coffee, and he reaches out to set two fingers on the inside of Akira's wrist. His fingers are cold.] ...concealer.

I know. [ Akira slips into the booth alongside Akechi, making sure they're pressed flush, but not uncomfortably, next to each other. Akechi doesn't seem much worse for the wear for having slept downstairs -- a little chilly, maybe, but it's hard to tell if that's because he slept in a booth with no blanket or because he was apart from Akira.

It's a good sign, at any rate. ]

Sojiro... Won't say anything. [ Sojiro had looked at the marks, flicked his eyes up to Akira's face, and went, 'You good, kid?' and Akira had responded as earnestly as possible that he was, so that was it: the case was closed. Given what other hijinks Akira had been up to the past year, Sojiro's trust in him was astounding. ]

I thought it might be better to go to the store for something that matched. That's a thing, right?

[He pulls taut like a spring but doesn't fully recoil, going for his coffee instead, and it does wonders to soothe the ache in his bones and the scratch to his throat. He's fine, sure, nowhere near as cold as he had been from the laundry debacle, and mostly due to sleeping downstairs anyway, but he's still tense, like he doesn't trust himself to be touching Akira.]

That's... helpful. And yes, your undertone is wildly different from mine, so it... would be far more effective to get you your own.

Please teach me well. [ Akira says, a little joking as he drinks his coffee. He hadn't slept well -- there's bags under his eyes now, dark spots that give away that he's not quite at 100% (they match the bruises on his neck, which would be neat if it wasn't so dire) -- but by virtue of sitting awake for 20 minutes on the stairs debating waking Akechi up, he's fully functional despite the fact that this is his first cup.

He might have, in desperation, downed the last of the ice coffee he'd made them last night, but he won't acknowledge that (in part because he drank Akechi's, too, and got distracted thinking about indirect kisses despite the fact that he can literally get direct kisses now). ]

I was going to offer to let you go on your own, but you probably need my skin there, huh? [ Because Akira wants Akechi to have freedom.

Also that's the worst possible way to have phrased that, Akira. ]

[He rolls his eyes at first, startled by how easy it is for the gesture to be fond. It makes a cube of ice drop into his stomach and he hunches forward, pressing his free hand against the bruise Akira left. He'll be doing that for a while.] You'll need it for your eyes, too, you look like a raccoon. Which likely means I look like a corpse, but I suppose that's fitting.

[He grimaces at Akira's chosen way of expressing his need to be present to match concealer, turning toward him and shaking his head slightly.] But, not the rest of you? Do you expect me to just take a skin graft?

You're a pretty corpse. [ Akira doesn't say "cute", but he's obviously thinking it very loudly. There are some battles Akechi will never hope to win. ]

Well, I'm attached to my skin, so I'd be there. I thought we could try that thing today where you try staying away for shorter periods to see if it's easier, but we can go to the store first.

[ Akira can pull off a gay scarf like he's an old rich dude for the duration of shopping for makeup. ]

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