(you can pm me here or on plurk if you'd like to beforehand, but also if you'd just like to drop something at my doorstep with no preamble please do!!)
Another discussion, another argument. Akechi's resolve matching Maruki's own. The man uttering out a desperate offer in the throes of vicious verbal altercation that didn't need personas to escalate. Akechi took it because he knew Maruki would struggle. An acquiesce both would regret, but only one part of this pair would suffer more.
Akechi is an actor. Maruki is too. In terms of being able to play a part long enough to leave-
Akechi will undoubtedly win.
And they arrive within weeks - Akechi waiting every day prior for Maruki to pull back, give Akechi that same out. Continue with their routine that hasn't stopped in months. Years, when counting a false world.
The man doesn't stop. Fills out paperwork, makes calls. Akechi doesn't comment a single time about it.
Even as they step foot into that facility for the first time, Akechi knows he'll win because old habits die hard and a bright smile that was never real, can never wane. The Detective Prince is less known outside of Tokyo, but a few staff recognize him. Kind, generous, sweet and giving - he wastes no time in falling into an old routine. Play a part. Act how he should because if they're worth fucking anything, they'll see through it.
They don't - not the first week, or the second.]
I often don't care how my meals taste, but this certainly-
[Chopsticks dip too dry rice into bland sauce. He gaze raises up to Maruki right after.]
Is an experience. Perhaps you should offer your services.
[ After so much time spent together across multiple realities, Maruki should have known that a deal made in desperation would only come back to haunt him, and swiftly. Akechi agreed to it only to see him suffer, and he certainly won't be the first to back out, no matter how badly he might want to. He'll wait for Maruki to crack, and as they have established, nothing stops Maruki.
Not even this, his own personal hell, the tables turned on him daily as his own soul is excavated in the way he made so many others do. Worse than that, actually, because those they work with are trained and effective. Good at their jobs.
Akechi has spent two weeks playing his part perfectly, but Maruki has spent two weeks scrubbed raw. It's a waste of time and money to pretend to be anything other than himself here, and they only have one of those things in surplus.
He raises his eyebrows at Akechi, expression mild with disinterest. He refuses to cater to the Detective Prince ruse. He won't call Akechi out in front of others, won't push him to a breaking point, but he won't help him along either. He's on his own in this little one-man show. ]
Are you actually beginning to develop a preference of your own? Don't let anyone hear that, they might think you're making progress.
[ If it's possible for his eyebrows to raise higher, they do. Maruki hums in something like surprise, picks at his own food as he pretends to roll that around in his mind. ]
That's certainly an interesting take on our situation. I guess I benefit from insider knowledge that you wouldn't have, but I can tell you that someone actively working on their issues makes more progress toward discharge than someone insisting everything about them is perfectly fine.
Oh, that's where you're mistaken. I thought long and hard about this our first night here. I've provided some information, so they can feel as if I'm making progress. I've planned out when to have 'breakthroughs' and give somewhat more intimate details about my life that would naturally coincide with the original complaints. From what I've seen of my notes, they accept it.
[How'd he see the notes? lmao, step off and get on his level. He's a nosy bitch that goes All Over. People really don't lock their computers when they leave for lunch sometimes.
Another. Bite. Of. Rice.]
My issues are ones any normal teenager would have in a stressful environment caused by being a celebrity. You, on the other hand, have some deep rooted problems.
[Maruki's welcome to - in fact, Akechi hopes he does. It'll add a challenge and all he has to do is flip it back around to a lying man trying to find a new place in this world.
An attendant walks by - Akechi offers a smile, a polite inquiry about their day and after they wander off to do whatever-
His voice lowers - remains quiet. ]
Did you think I would go into one of those little rooms and cry? Tell my whole life story? Let them pat themselves on the back and feel like saviors? Don't make me laugh. I'm not you. It's not a waste of time to watch you grovel at their feet though. You're just letting them win. It's pathetic.
You're grasping at straws. I don't care about you. I have no stake in your life, nor do I want it. You can rot in your bed waiting for accolades that will only come after you pay enough money.
[Wow, there is someone behind him writing something down VERY FAST. He notices out of the corner of his eye, tries to play it off with a smile and wave.
Stares them down until they leave so normal like and-]
[ Like the asshole he truly can be sometimes deep down, Maruki gives a slightly concerned, mostly sympathetic smile to the attending taking notes with one eye on Akechi. As if to say, I know, right?
Then his eyes are back on Akechi, nothing less than mildly pleasant in the face of his acidic words. ]
That doesn't sound like something the former Detective Prince would say, Akechi-kun. Are you sure you aren't harboring some feelings you need to discuss?
The facility isn't strict enough to monitor them 24/7 or keep them from wandering around the property. They're allowed to come and go on the small expanse of land, around the garden, into the parking lot, and-
To the side of the building, like a couple of teenage delinquents.
The Detective Prince can't be seen in a facility like this. Can't be caught on camera or in sight of a passing car. Akechi squats against the side of a large air conditioning unit, fully hidden from one angle. Oversized red sweatshirt covering him, the hood almost reaching his eyelashes when he tugs it down. Bright gold stars decorate the side.
And a cigarette in hand, right between pointer and middle finger. Two drags in, and all his murderous intent is gone. Three drags, and he doesn't care what happens to them in this shithole anymore.]
I plan to stay until they discharge you, at least. When are you going to confirm they 'cured' you? I would like a general idea of how much longer this might last.
[ Funny, how Akechi decried him for a disgusting habit when they first returned to this reality and wound up falling into it himself.
Maruki pulls a pack from his own pocket, taps one out. Doesn't light it yet, just in case this does end up turning into a fight. Only leans back against the wall next to Akechi, one ankle crossing over the other in front of him as he sighs. ]
I'm making a good faith effort to genuinely follow a treatment plan. I think it could benefit me. I'm not going to waste this time and rush anything, so I suggest you settle in.
The plan is longer than necessary to drain your bank account. If you need to whine to someone, do at a local office. You can't be enjoying this.
[No matter how many times Maruki says he wants to do this, that it's helpful, that it's useful, it goes in one ear and out the other. It's heard. Not accepted.
Akechi watches from the corner of his eye, position hunched against an AC unit, cigarette at his lips.]
Whatever point you were trying to make, it's gotten lost in this foolishness.
[ The bargain was that he would do this is Akechi did it. And Akechi has yet to do anything but lie and obfuscate. Maruki won't even think of relenting until he sees Akechi give in just once, because the snowball effect from there will be one for the ages. He just knows it.
He sighs, lights his own cigarette and crouches down too, knees cracking. ]
Why not leave me here, then? I don't understand why you're going to force yourself to stay without getting anything out of it.
You don't need to understand my rationale. It's for me and me alone.
[Enjoy a puff of smoke to the face, Maruki.]
Your schedule isn't so different from mine. We have the same counselors, for the most part. I don't understand how you can trust them the way you do. You're only a paycheck. They could easily take this information and ruin your life behind the scenes.
Fame is irrelevant. My mother was a nobody, yet her life was ruined. Many assume it was because of her career choice, but it was word of mouth and the ostracization that followed more than all else, I imagine.
[He's irritated. His mother isn't an unknown or uncommon topic between them now. It slips out - he can't fathom why. Her name, life, and death the only pieces of his increasingly small world he doesn't weaponize.]
The next time you get a job, your employer may note your stay here. Call this place. Bribe someone to send your file, your confessions. Find out why you checked yourself in and punish you for it.
[He ends the rant with a too long inhale. Holds the smoke in his mouth until it feels like he'll suffocate. Lets a steady stream flow from his lips when he needs to breathe - slow, intentional, calming. His eyes follow the gray line up to the sky.]
Rumors spread fast and reach corners you could never imagine. Any weakness is exploitable, even if it's a 'secret.'
Akechi isn't wrong. Maruki knows well how people can be punished by society for a crime no greater than attempting to get help for themselves. They live in an imperfect, painful reality, after all. It could all easily happen.
He just can't bring himself to care.
It's difficult to imagine his life moving on enough for something like that to occur. Sometimes Maruki feels as if he outlived something he wasn't meant to and has been cut adrift, purposeless and hollowed out. All the more reason for him to be here, really, and something he's been speaking to the doctors about.
He takes a long drag, studies the ground beneath them as he speaks. ]
What's the alternative? Say we leave tomorrow. What sort of life awaits us if we're entrenched in the same problems we've had for years, and now without our own avenues to cope with them?
[ He shakes his head, ashes the cigarette next to Akechi's shoe. ]
I don't want to return to the way I was. I want to change.
[Maruki wants to change. Is. Strides forward into this unknown with a desire to hurt, be hurt, get hurt and heal.
Akechi inhales Maruki's words with another gulp of smoke. Doesn't bite back. Doesn't say anything. Wonders why he waited this long to try smoking, knows it's because that was the final few barrier between him and them in those smoke filled rooms. Every time they offered, he declined. It was only back in this reality that he took Maruki up on it and ended up hunched up on the patio coughing his lungs up, but feeling better all the same.
Maruki wants to change, so he does.
Akechi feels like a leash was removed too soon - a vicious dog given freedom only to wander in the same circles he always has. He doesn't want to change because there's nothing to change.
The AC makes a noise - kicks on and turns off a second later.
Maruki wants to change. Akechi doesn't think it will happen within these off-white walls. With a bed too stiff to sleep in. With a world closed off and limited while he's supposed to heal with a random person. A nobody. Nothing.
He puts the cigarette out on wall behind him and drops the smooshed filter into his pocket.]
Frankly, I should be in jail or dead. [But he's not.] If I speak to them about other worlds, a prime minister with a hitlist, and years spent fighting for him, they'll commit me to a different kind of establishment. It may as well be a prison.
[Not that he needs to talk about that. He doesn't want to talk about anything. There's little else to bring up - a dead mother, a celebrity life, foster homes that barely hold a place in his memory. They ask about his life, he obliges with vague comments. They ask about his feelings, he tells the truth. They ask about a future, and he lies.]
Barring that, what else is there? I'm not unhappy. I don't feel anything. This seems to be the ideal and what people like you are striving for.
[ There's a bit left of Maruki's cigarette. He considers Akechi's words carefully, because again, he isn't wrong, so many of the things they both need to talk about are the ones that they can't–
But then, at the end, he veers off course.
Maruki's brows furrow together at once. ]
You think I'm striving for you to feel nothing? That couldn't be farther from the truth.
[ A beat. Another drag. There's maybe one left. They need to get back inside.
[Completely, utterly impossible. Freedom doesn't exist. That thought solidified in his youth, while he pulled from home to home. Put on a leash. Controlled because he allowed it.]
There are consequences to what I've done and the way I've lived over the years. While I hesitate to call it atonement, there's no reality that ends in freedom for me. If not a literal cage, then I should be in one of my own making.
[Those who died deserved it - Akechi, to this day, will never think otherwise. They were rotten, like Shido. Like him.
But he still took lives. Broke minds. Lived with vicious intent meant to ruin. He knew the day Wakaba's body fell to his feet and vanished in a wisp of smoke that he wouldn't attain peace. Not until Shido died.
And then he did, and-]
Does a serial killer deserve to live with the same freedom that those he killed will never get to experience? Does someone who broke the minds and hearts of others deserve to have a calm one? I think not.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
[NEW] COPE AU
Another discussion, another argument. Akechi's resolve matching Maruki's own. The man uttering out a desperate offer in the throes of vicious verbal altercation that didn't need personas to escalate. Akechi took it because he knew Maruki would struggle. An acquiesce both would regret, but only one part of this pair would suffer more.
Akechi is an actor. Maruki is too. In terms of being able to play a part long enough to leave-
Akechi will undoubtedly win.
And they arrive within weeks - Akechi waiting every day prior for Maruki to pull back, give Akechi that same out. Continue with their routine that hasn't stopped in months. Years, when counting a false world.
The man doesn't stop. Fills out paperwork, makes calls. Akechi doesn't comment a single time about it.
Even as they step foot into that facility for the first time, Akechi knows he'll win because old habits die hard and a bright smile that was never real, can never wane. The Detective Prince is less known outside of Tokyo, but a few staff recognize him. Kind, generous, sweet and giving - he wastes no time in falling into an old routine. Play a part. Act how he should because if they're worth fucking anything, they'll see through it.
They don't - not the first week, or the second.]
I often don't care how my meals taste, but this certainly-
[Chopsticks dip too dry rice into bland sauce. He gaze raises up to Maruki right after.]
Is an experience. Perhaps you should offer your services.
YOU'RE SICK FOR THIS ONE SPICYPILLOW
Not even this, his own personal hell, the tables turned on him daily as his own soul is excavated in the way he made so many others do. Worse than that, actually, because those they work with are trained and effective. Good at their jobs.
Akechi has spent two weeks playing his part perfectly, but Maruki has spent two weeks scrubbed raw. It's a waste of time and money to pretend to be anything other than himself here, and they only have one of those things in surplus.
He raises his eyebrows at Akechi, expression mild with disinterest. He refuses to cater to the Detective Prince ruse. He won't call Akechi out in front of others, won't push him to a breaking point, but he won't help him along either. He's on his own in this little one-man show. ]
Are you actually beginning to develop a preference of your own? Don't let anyone hear that, they might think you're making progress.
ME???? NANI
[Another small bite of rice because they watch. It tastes like shit, but he doesn't care anyway. It's edible. It's calories. It works.]
It's a good thing you checked yourself in.
no subject
That's certainly an interesting take on our situation. I guess I benefit from insider knowledge that you wouldn't have, but I can tell you that someone actively working on their issues makes more progress toward discharge than someone insisting everything about them is perfectly fine.
[ Pointed. Bite. Of Rice. ]
Just some food for thought.
no subject
[How'd he see the notes? lmao, step off and get on his level. He's a nosy bitch that goes All Over. People really don't lock their computers when they leave for lunch sometimes.
Another. Bite. Of. Rice.]
My issues are ones any normal teenager would have in a stressful environment caused by being a celebrity. You, on the other hand, have some deep rooted problems.
no subject
You trust me enough to tell me this without worrying I'll pass it along? I'm flattered, Akechi-kun.
[ It could not possibly sound flatter. ]
It just seems like a waste of time for you. You don't usually cater to those.
no subject
An attendant walks by - Akechi offers a smile, a polite inquiry about their day and after they wander off to do whatever-
His voice lowers - remains quiet. ]
Did you think I would go into one of those little rooms and cry? Tell my whole life story? Let them pat themselves on the back and feel like saviors? Don't make me laugh. I'm not you. It's not a waste of time to watch you grovel at their feet though. You're just letting them win. It's pathetic.
no subject
No, I don't think you'll do anything. As always, I expect nothing from you.
[ He sets the chopsticks down, picks up a bowl of subpar miso soup. Tips a little into his mouth, swallows, looks at Akechi over the rim. ]
I just hope you get something out of this, even if it isn't healing. I care about you, after all.
no subject
Did they tell you to say that in your little session? Relay to those around you how much you truly care?
[He's sick of eating. Hates this food - soup, rice and all. It tastes like shit. The rest of his meal pushed forward to be taken away.]
Do you think I'm stupid?
no subject
[ To the contrary, this food now tastes wonderful to Maruki. He takes another bite of rice and bonito with a contented hum. ]
You're doing the same thing right now. Aren't you? Trying to wheedle me into not giving in, because you care about me.
[ : ) ]
no subject
You're grasping at straws. I don't care about you. I have no stake in your life, nor do I want it. You can rot in your bed waiting for accolades that will only come after you pay enough money.
[Wow, there is someone behind him writing something down VERY FAST. He notices out of the corner of his eye, tries to play it off with a smile and wave.
Stares them down until they leave so normal like and-]
Everyone here is pathetic. You among them.
no subject
Then his eyes are back on Akechi, nothing less than mildly pleasant in the face of his acidic words. ]
That doesn't sound like something the former Detective Prince would say, Akechi-kun. Are you sure you aren't harboring some feelings you need to discuss?
no subject
[Under his breath, volatility at the edge.
He raises a hand, imaginary cigarette held between his fingers. A gun would be better.]
In fact, I would highly suggest we do.
no subject
[ He probably won't. He hasn't in the past. ]
no subject
The facility isn't strict enough to monitor them 24/7 or keep them from wandering around the property. They're allowed to come and go on the small expanse of land, around the garden, into the parking lot, and-
To the side of the building, like a couple of teenage delinquents.
The Detective Prince can't be seen in a facility like this. Can't be caught on camera or in sight of a passing car. Akechi squats against the side of a large air conditioning unit, fully hidden from one angle. Oversized red sweatshirt covering him, the hood almost reaching his eyelashes when he tugs it down. Bright gold stars decorate the side.
And a cigarette in hand, right between pointer and middle finger. Two drags in, and all his murderous intent is gone. Three drags, and he doesn't care what happens to them in this shithole anymore.]
I plan to stay until they discharge you, at least. When are you going to confirm they 'cured' you? I would like a general idea of how much longer this might last.
you're evil for this one spicypillow
Maruki pulls a pack from his own pocket, taps one out. Doesn't light it yet, just in case this does end up turning into a fight. Only leans back against the wall next to Akechi, one ankle crossing over the other in front of him as he sighs. ]
I'm making a good faith effort to genuinely follow a treatment plan. I think it could benefit me. I'm not going to waste this time and rush anything, so I suggest you settle in.
u aint seen nothin
[No matter how many times Maruki says he wants to do this, that it's helpful, that it's useful, it goes in one ear and out the other. It's heard. Not accepted.
Akechi watches from the corner of his eye, position hunched against an AC unit, cigarette at his lips.]
Whatever point you were trying to make, it's gotten lost in this foolishness.
no subject
[ The bargain was that he would do this is Akechi did it. And Akechi has yet to do anything but lie and obfuscate. Maruki won't even think of relenting until he sees Akechi give in just once, because the snowball effect from there will be one for the ages. He just knows it.
He sighs, lights his own cigarette and crouches down too, knees cracking. ]
Why not leave me here, then? I don't understand why you're going to force yourself to stay without getting anything out of it.
no subject
[Enjoy a puff of smoke to the face, Maruki.]
Your schedule isn't so different from mine. We have the same counselors, for the most part. I don't understand how you can trust them the way you do. You're only a paycheck. They could easily take this information and ruin your life behind the scenes.
no subject
What is there to ruin? Neither of us have reputations to protect anymore. You're as much of a nobody as I am now.
no subject
[He's irritated. His mother isn't an unknown or uncommon topic between them now. It slips out - he can't fathom why. Her name, life, and death the only pieces of his increasingly small world he doesn't weaponize.]
The next time you get a job, your employer may note your stay here. Call this place. Bribe someone to send your file, your confessions. Find out why you checked yourself in and punish you for it.
[He ends the rant with a too long inhale. Holds the smoke in his mouth until it feels like he'll suffocate. Lets a steady stream flow from his lips when he needs to breathe - slow, intentional, calming. His eyes follow the gray line up to the sky.]
Rumors spread fast and reach corners you could never imagine. Any weakness is exploitable, even if it's a 'secret.'
no subject
Akechi isn't wrong. Maruki knows well how people can be punished by society for a crime no greater than attempting to get help for themselves. They live in an imperfect, painful reality, after all. It could all easily happen.
He just can't bring himself to care.
It's difficult to imagine his life moving on enough for something like that to occur. Sometimes Maruki feels as if he outlived something he wasn't meant to and has been cut adrift, purposeless and hollowed out. All the more reason for him to be here, really, and something he's been speaking to the doctors about.
He takes a long drag, studies the ground beneath them as he speaks. ]
What's the alternative? Say we leave tomorrow. What sort of life awaits us if we're entrenched in the same problems we've had for years, and now without our own avenues to cope with them?
[ He shakes his head, ashes the cigarette next to Akechi's shoe. ]
I don't want to return to the way I was. I want to change.
no subject
Akechi inhales Maruki's words with another gulp of smoke. Doesn't bite back. Doesn't say anything. Wonders why he waited this long to try smoking, knows it's because that was the final few barrier between him and them in those smoke filled rooms. Every time they offered, he declined. It was only back in this reality that he took Maruki up on it and ended up hunched up on the patio coughing his lungs up, but feeling better all the same.
Maruki wants to change, so he does.
Akechi feels like a leash was removed too soon - a vicious dog given freedom only to wander in the same circles he always has. He doesn't want to change because there's nothing to change.
The AC makes a noise - kicks on and turns off a second later.
Maruki wants to change. Akechi doesn't think it will happen within these off-white walls. With a bed too stiff to sleep in. With a world closed off and limited while he's supposed to heal with a random person. A nobody. Nothing.
He puts the cigarette out on wall behind him and drops the smooshed filter into his pocket.]
Frankly, I should be in jail or dead. [But he's not.] If I speak to them about other worlds, a prime minister with a hitlist, and years spent fighting for him, they'll commit me to a different kind of establishment. It may as well be a prison.
[Not that he needs to talk about that. He doesn't want to talk about anything. There's little else to bring up - a dead mother, a celebrity life, foster homes that barely hold a place in his memory. They ask about his life, he obliges with vague comments. They ask about his feelings, he tells the truth. They ask about a future, and he lies.]
Barring that, what else is there? I'm not unhappy. I don't feel anything. This seems to be the ideal and what people like you are striving for.
no subject
But then, at the end, he veers off course.
Maruki's brows furrow together at once. ]
You think I'm striving for you to feel nothing? That couldn't be farther from the truth.
[ A beat. Another drag. There's maybe one left. They need to get back inside.
Another beat. Maruki sighs. ]
I want you to be free.
no subject
That's impossible.
[Completely, utterly impossible. Freedom doesn't exist. That thought solidified in his youth, while he pulled from home to home. Put on a leash. Controlled because he allowed it.]
There are consequences to what I've done and the way I've lived over the years. While I hesitate to call it atonement, there's no reality that ends in freedom for me. If not a literal cage, then I should be in one of my own making.
[Those who died deserved it - Akechi, to this day, will never think otherwise. They were rotten, like Shido. Like him.
But he still took lives. Broke minds. Lived with vicious intent meant to ruin. He knew the day Wakaba's body fell to his feet and vanished in a wisp of smoke that he wouldn't attain peace. Not until Shido died.
And then he did, and-]
Does a serial killer deserve to live with the same freedom that those he killed will never get to experience? Does someone who broke the minds and hearts of others deserve to have a calm one? I think not.
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