[ Maruki weathers those few steps where Akechi isn't in his peripheral view, a presence behind his back that has never once failed to raise the hairs on his neck, no matter how close they became. All it took was one instance of Akechi's mind being tampered with for the possibility to be a constant threat – and Maruki has learned well enough since then that Akechi will still attack him unprovoked even when his mind is entirely his own.
But it doesn't last. It never does. Even if it takes a few seconds longer than he's comfortable with, eventually Akechi always falls in step beside him.
His gaze shifts sidelong, warm relief flooding his chest all over again to see his familiar irritable expression. ]
I was lying before, when I told you that I didn't take your goal from you.
[ What happened with Shido was entirely outside of his influence. The Maruki Takuto who changed all of reality had no idea just what a catastrophic loss that was for the boy he dragged back from an uncertain fate. ]
And now you're without a goal, just like I am.
[ Impossible dreams that never could have been achieved. Isn't it better to give up and start over?
[ It's a far off memory that's not impossible to pull up, but it takes a moment, two, three for him to recall a somber bathhouse conversation after Maruki's sudden return. The departure. The-
He wasn't upset. He was never upset. He isn't upset now and-
The scope of what happened to that man was impossible to comprehend. Maybe he didn't want to. Akechi had been so fixated on only Shido that the struggles of a wannabe villain meant nothing to him. The after even less.
But Maruki's in his after, Akechi's in limbo. I took away your goal and he knows it's a shallow confession.
This Maruki knows him. He doesn't know-
That agony, the realization, that a puppetmaster was just a puppet. A years long goal was a fool's errand. That Akechi had been played from the moment he first locked eyes with his father and started this dangerous dance.
So he scoffs at the confession. A huffed out, petulant mockery of something that might have bothered Maruki.
Akechi doesn't care to explain the intricies of it. It doesn't matter. The thieves changed Shido's heart. Akechi is dead.
Akechi is dead and Maruki asks how he'll move forward.
He must know. He must know. Akechi turns a sideways glance his way - stares him down as they move down a path tread from an unconcious recollection of years spent in this place.
He stares and- ]
I don't have to answer you. That's my business and mine alone.
[ He must know and if he doesn't know-
How funny. Truly funny. Akechi almost laughs. ]
All you need to know is that I won't stop until this madness is over. If you decide to get in the way-
[ There's only so much Akechi is obligated to follow without that Kurusu Akira at the helm. ]
Let's simply hope that your path forward doesn't conflict with mine.
[ Did he really expect a straight answer? Akechi so rarely gives them, especially to Maruki, especially on matters concerning himself and himself alone. No, he asked it knowing the most he would receive would be careless flippancy, as if Akechi Goro being granted yet another chance at life is small potatoes.
Of course he doesn't foresee a future beyond this reality. The truth is that neither of them know what fate awaited him after the dissolution of Maruki's perfect world, but he has to believe– he has to believe that there is still a way to change fate, to give him a real shot at freedom. Outside of the cage of Tokyo, outside of anyone's influence but his own.
Akechi will never understand that that is what Maruki is working toward. Was working toward even before they both left and returned. Will always continue working toward.
And it doesn't matter. Good works don't need to be witnessed to be true. Maruki will keep trying for him, whether Akechi sees it or not. ]
Not that I would anyway, but don't you think I've learned my lesson about getting in your way?
[ The memories clash at odd angles in his head. Every time he faced off against Akechi in this reality, closer to death than he ever came until he was dangling over the edge of a crystal clear sky, so different than the battle that took place in the true reality.
A part of him is curious to see what will transpire the next time they come to blows here. Will he see Hereward? Will Akechi still aim to kill?
The answer will come in time, inevitably. He's sure of that, if nothing else. ]
We're still allies. [ A statement, not a question. He knows Akechi will accept it, even after all of that. ] That hasn't changed.
[ There's a limit - Akechi's seen in his peripheral vision, directly behind a rotting, festering corpse.
He's toed the line more times than he hasn't. Pushed it further despite every attempt to keep it close. A delusional child wanting to be a hero turned murderer. A desire to blackmail and have a woman's name acknowledged turned to slaughter. He would only harm the worst of the worst and his first major target was a single mother with a child a foot away.
The corpse affixed to his feet. The line got further away. Akechi pushed and fought and crawled and dragged his body to it again and again and again and again and again-
But he sees the limit - so clear, bright. It's the shattered edge of a mirror world, a metal door slamming down. 'We're still allies' and he repeats it, quiet, under his breath. He can't take it. 'We're still allies' as if Maruki hadn't ripped him from the grave to play with. 'We're still allies' and he's in the warm embrace of someone that loved him longer than anyone ever had outside of a home built for two. 'We're still allies' and it's a thousand realities where he lays in a man's bed, on his couch, rests under a tree in a bright blue room, leans against a couch staring up at a pristine globe that never stops snowing. 'We're still allies' and he's being pulled up from a bathroom floor, covered in a warm jacket, dragging a man through a city's ruins surrounded by monsters.
'We're still allies' and he wants to puke, so he swallows, and thinks and blinks and walks at the same pace he always has with another line an inch away and pulling back and an inch away and pulling back and an inch away -
'We're still allies'
And Akechi had dug his hands into his chest to rip out every part of Maruki Takuto.
'We're still allies'
And there's a message from a birthday long gone by nestled against his thigh, texts on his phone. ]
We're still allies.
[ He repeats again. Bile coating his tongue, but he couldn't puke if he tried. ]
[ Akechi is done talking, so that's the last word spoken between them.
It's quite the trek back to the machiya. Snow crunches underfoot, sticks snapping as they go off the beaten trail and into familiar woods. Sometimes Maruki wonders if he could find the exact place where Akechi first tried to attack him so long ago – but the forest was different then, dark and twisting, and they've both lived their own lifetimes since.
Still. He thinks if he stood in that spot, he would know it. Forgetting everything about his time with Akechi Goro once was enough. He'll never allow those memories to slip away again, no matter how insignificant.
Side by side, their breath puffs out into small clouds that hang in the frigid air before dissipating. His mind is quiet for the first time in a week. All that he thought he would say to Akechi when he saw him again, all he thought he would do– it goes dormant. Later. There will be plenty of time later.
Perhaps not as much time as he hopes there will be.
Perhaps more.
For now, he gives Akechi the gift of companionate silence.
His steps don't falter once, not even slightly. Just as Maruki remembered the way back home as if he never left, Akechi does too. They both move instinctually to take a sharp turn and cut through a dense thicket of trees with a frozen creek running between, a time saver despite the difficult terrain. Wordlessly, Maruki holds back a particularly annoying overgrown branch that's always been the perfect height to cold clock them in the face, lets Akechi move past it before falling back in step beside him.
And as the warm, welcoming light of the machiya comes into view–
He says nothing. Welcome home dies on the tip of his tongue as he unlocks the front door and watches Akechi toe off his shoes in the entryway.
No one else is home, a small miracle. Maruki gestures to the couch as if to say it's yours for the taking, but Akechi is already on the move. He turns away, lets him get settled in. Busies himself with hanging up coats and scarves, pawing through the kitchen to see what he can make for dinner, pulling out all the extra mushrooms. He goes upstairs only to ensure Akechi's room is still pristine, any trace of rumpled blankets from him and Akira laying motionless on his bed smoothed out, and he comes back down–
To soft breaths, deep and even. The familiar shape of a body curled into the cushions, arms folded over his chest, hair falling lank over his eyes.
Maruki stands behind the couch and watches. Every time Akechi was a child, they never slept apart, so he hasn't experienced it himself, but– he has to imagine it would be the same feeling as sneaking into his room to watch over him as he slept, tiny head and heart filled with heroic dreams.
It's easy to drape a quilt over him, tuck it in so it doesn't slip away if he moves. It's easy to lean down and brush his hair back off his forehead once, twice, to feel that this is real just as much to soothe.
It's easy to settle down at the other end of the long couch, just out of reach of socked feet that love to kick, and to lean his head back and let his own eyes slip shut.
It's easy to breathe, for the first time in a week, that gouged out pit in the center of his sternum finally filled once more. ]
[ There wasn't ten scattered notches on his ceiling. There never was. He saw them anyway, everywhere, no matter what room he was in.
The whole apartment was pristine, perfect and new. There weren't ten broken splinters ripping his room apart. Maruki made an ideal world for a few and Akechi knew he wasn't among the special group considered when he threw himself across his bed, looked up. There were no splinters and God would have created at least one from his heart. God played favorites and he wasn't among them. Akechi knew that long before that nobody came into power. Thought he beat it when Loki formed behind his beating heart.
The room was perfect. Akechi didn't have it in him to brew more anger. He was full of it already - that's another grievance to tack on as he-
Doesn't really sleep. He can't sleep. He should be dead and he can't sleep. He filled afternoons and evenings and early mornings with researching a man that didn't exist outside off hand remarks in academic papers and wandering town to find people who shouldn't be alive acting as if the world was still theirs for the taking and watching the thieves fill a groupchat constantly constantly they constantly spoke about nothing, everything, yapped about a future they didn't see until Akira snapped each one out of dream.
He slept-
For a minute, maybe, when that sense of nothing consumed everything and-
He sleeps for far longer now, more comfortable than he's ever been. There aren't ten notches in the machiya ceiling, but there isn't supposed to be. Here, there shouldn't be. Here, it's a home that doesn't have it and-
His eyes are open. Of course they are, but they don't burn hot with weeks of exhaustion trying to force his eyes shut and a mind incapable of rest fighting against it every second.
No, his eyes are open because he did sleep. He was comfortable. Tucked in with a quilt he didn't pull over himself and the offender that did it inches away from his extended body.
Maruki's asleep. Of course he is.
He's asleep and it's a weak point. Akechi's said it time and time again. Azathoth may protect him, but someone could do extensive damage before it activates. They're enemies-
Allies. They're allies. They're still allies and Maruki proves it by sleeping next to a man who would have done anything to slit his throat less than a day ago.
Akechi watches. Considers it. Thinks and listens to a near silent snore that's as familiar as his own heartbeat. He counts how long it takes for Maruki's chest to rise, fall and realizes a second too late his own breath matches it.
He didn't miss this. Didn't miss him.
But he might have missed the sensation of waking up warm - covered in a multitude of blankets instead of the single thin comforter that came with his apartment. He might have missed the clarity that comes with a night of actual rest - it only happened here. Only sometimes. Only next to a man whose dangling hand would smooth his hair, only next to someone that cover him with his arms all night long. This quilt doesn't rival it.
So he doesn't move. Doesn't get up to try his hand at slitting a throat with the nothing he carried with him to that final battle. A phone with a train pass and nothing else. It's not like he needed a way back on home.
So he keeps watching Maruki breathe and breathe and breathe and assess the uncomfortable way he's pressed into the smallest corner of the couch. Backache - he can hear the complaint and he can't recall what world it stems from.
He can't remember if Maruki is a heavy sleeper. Memories too fluid, too mobile. It was here, somewhere else, everywhere else and not there.
But he doesn't care if that man wakes up anyway.
So he pulls himself off the couch in the pitch black machiya. It must be midnight, one, maybe two and-
He lays the quilt loose over Maruki's body. Mindlessly thrown, of course. Tossed to the side and it so happened to get on him and-
He pushes that slumped over head back so Maruki's chin no longer touches his chest. Just a little, with the palm of his hand, so he won't need to hear him complain about a neck ache too.
And he watches and listens and tries to stop his own breath from mimicking a man who found him on New Years and watches and listens to the sounds of a familiar home and watches and listens until Maruki stirs and he finds something else to occupy his time one level up, back in an untouched room. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
But it doesn't last. It never does. Even if it takes a few seconds longer than he's comfortable with, eventually Akechi always falls in step beside him.
His gaze shifts sidelong, warm relief flooding his chest all over again to see his familiar irritable expression. ]
I was lying before, when I told you that I didn't take your goal from you.
[ What happened with Shido was entirely outside of his influence. The Maruki Takuto who changed all of reality had no idea just what a catastrophic loss that was for the boy he dragged back from an uncertain fate. ]
And now you're without a goal, just like I am.
[ Impossible dreams that never could have been achieved. Isn't it better to give up and start over?
Isn't that what they're being forced to do now? ]
How will you move forward?
no subject
He wasn't upset. He was never upset. He isn't upset now and-
The scope of what happened to that man was impossible to comprehend. Maybe he didn't want to. Akechi had been so fixated on only Shido that the struggles of a wannabe villain meant nothing to him. The after even less.
But Maruki's in his after, Akechi's in limbo. I took away your goal and he knows it's a shallow confession.
This Maruki knows him. He doesn't know-
That agony, the realization, that a puppetmaster was just a puppet. A years long goal was a fool's errand. That Akechi had been played from the moment he first locked eyes with his father and started this dangerous dance.
So he scoffs at the confession. A huffed out, petulant mockery of something that might have bothered Maruki.
Akechi doesn't care to explain the intricies of it. It doesn't matter. The thieves changed Shido's heart. Akechi is dead.
Akechi is dead and Maruki asks how he'll move forward.
He must know. He must know. Akechi turns a sideways glance his way - stares him down as they move down a path tread from an unconcious recollection of years spent in this place.
He stares and- ]
I don't have to answer you. That's my business and mine alone.
[ He must know and if he doesn't know-
How funny. Truly funny. Akechi almost laughs. ]
All you need to know is that I won't stop until this madness is over. If you decide to get in the way-
[ There's only so much Akechi is obligated to follow without that Kurusu Akira at the helm. ]
Let's simply hope that your path forward doesn't conflict with mine.
turns away from my freudian slip i'm still mad
Of course he doesn't foresee a future beyond this reality. The truth is that neither of them know what fate awaited him after the dissolution of Maruki's perfect world, but he has to believe– he has to believe that there is still a way to change fate, to give him a real shot at freedom. Outside of the cage of Tokyo, outside of anyone's influence but his own.
Akechi will never understand that that is what Maruki is working toward. Was working toward even before they both left and returned. Will always continue working toward.
And it doesn't matter. Good works don't need to be witnessed to be true. Maruki will keep trying for him, whether Akechi sees it or not. ]
Not that I would anyway, but don't you think I've learned my lesson about getting in your way?
[ The memories clash at odd angles in his head. Every time he faced off against Akechi in this reality, closer to death than he ever came until he was dangling over the edge of a crystal clear sky, so different than the battle that took place in the true reality.
A part of him is curious to see what will transpire the next time they come to blows here. Will he see Hereward? Will Akechi still aim to kill?
The answer will come in time, inevitably. He's sure of that, if nothing else. ]
We're still allies. [ A statement, not a question. He knows Akechi will accept it, even after all of that. ] That hasn't changed.
no subject
He's toed the line more times than he hasn't. Pushed it further despite every attempt to keep it close. A delusional child wanting to be a hero turned murderer. A desire to blackmail and have a woman's name acknowledged turned to slaughter. He would only harm the worst of the worst and his first major target was a single mother with a child a foot away.
The corpse affixed to his feet. The line got further away. Akechi pushed and fought and crawled and dragged his body to it again and again and again and again and again-
But he sees the limit - so clear, bright. It's the shattered edge of a mirror world, a metal door slamming down. 'We're still allies' and he repeats it, quiet, under his breath. He can't take it. 'We're still allies' as if Maruki hadn't ripped him from the grave to play with. 'We're still allies' and he's in the warm embrace of someone that loved him longer than anyone ever had outside of a home built for two. 'We're still allies' and it's a thousand realities where he lays in a man's bed, on his couch, rests under a tree in a bright blue room, leans against a couch staring up at a pristine globe that never stops snowing. 'We're still allies' and he's being pulled up from a bathroom floor, covered in a warm jacket, dragging a man through a city's ruins surrounded by monsters.
'We're still allies' and he wants to puke, so he swallows, and thinks and blinks and walks at the same pace he always has with another line an inch away and pulling back and an inch away and pulling back and an inch away -
'We're still allies'
And Akechi had dug his hands into his chest to rip out every part of Maruki Takuto.
'We're still allies'
And there's a message from a birthday long gone by nestled against his thigh, texts on his phone. ]
We're still allies.
[ He repeats again. Bile coating his tongue, but he couldn't puke if he tried. ]
I'm done talking.
[ He wants to lie down. ]
absolutely sickening. wrapt. i hope you die.
It's quite the trek back to the machiya. Snow crunches underfoot, sticks snapping as they go off the beaten trail and into familiar woods. Sometimes Maruki wonders if he could find the exact place where Akechi first tried to attack him so long ago – but the forest was different then, dark and twisting, and they've both lived their own lifetimes since.
Still. He thinks if he stood in that spot, he would know it. Forgetting everything about his time with Akechi Goro once was enough. He'll never allow those memories to slip away again, no matter how insignificant.
Side by side, their breath puffs out into small clouds that hang in the frigid air before dissipating. His mind is quiet for the first time in a week. All that he thought he would say to Akechi when he saw him again, all he thought he would do– it goes dormant. Later. There will be plenty of time later.
Perhaps not as much time as he hopes there will be.
Perhaps more.
For now, he gives Akechi the gift of companionate silence.
His steps don't falter once, not even slightly. Just as Maruki remembered the way back home as if he never left, Akechi does too. They both move instinctually to take a sharp turn and cut through a dense thicket of trees with a frozen creek running between, a time saver despite the difficult terrain. Wordlessly, Maruki holds back a particularly annoying overgrown branch that's always been the perfect height to cold clock them in the face, lets Akechi move past it before falling back in step beside him.
And as the warm, welcoming light of the machiya comes into view–
He says nothing. Welcome home dies on the tip of his tongue as he unlocks the front door and watches Akechi toe off his shoes in the entryway.
No one else is home, a small miracle. Maruki gestures to the couch as if to say it's yours for the taking, but Akechi is already on the move. He turns away, lets him get settled in. Busies himself with hanging up coats and scarves, pawing through the kitchen to see what he can make for dinner, pulling out all the extra mushrooms. He goes upstairs only to ensure Akechi's room is still pristine, any trace of rumpled blankets from him and Akira laying motionless on his bed smoothed out, and he comes back down–
To soft breaths, deep and even. The familiar shape of a body curled into the cushions, arms folded over his chest, hair falling lank over his eyes.
Maruki stands behind the couch and watches. Every time Akechi was a child, they never slept apart, so he hasn't experienced it himself, but– he has to imagine it would be the same feeling as sneaking into his room to watch over him as he slept, tiny head and heart filled with heroic dreams.
It's easy to drape a quilt over him, tuck it in so it doesn't slip away if he moves. It's easy to lean down and brush his hair back off his forehead once, twice, to feel that this is real just as much to soothe.
It's easy to settle down at the other end of the long couch, just out of reach of socked feet that love to kick, and to lean his head back and let his own eyes slip shut.
It's easy to breathe, for the first time in a week, that gouged out pit in the center of his sternum finally filled once more. ]
we wrap when i say we wrap. NOW WRAPT. YOU DIE.
The whole apartment was pristine, perfect and new. There weren't ten broken splinters ripping his room apart. Maruki made an ideal world for a few and Akechi knew he wasn't among the special group considered when he threw himself across his bed, looked up. There were no splinters and God would have created at least one from his heart. God played favorites and he wasn't among them. Akechi knew that long before that nobody came into power. Thought he beat it when Loki formed behind his beating heart.
The room was perfect. Akechi didn't have it in him to brew more anger. He was full of it already - that's another grievance to tack on as he-
Doesn't really sleep. He can't sleep. He should be dead and he can't sleep. He filled afternoons and evenings and early mornings with researching a man that didn't exist outside off hand remarks in academic papers and wandering town to find people who shouldn't be alive acting as if the world was still theirs for the taking and watching the thieves fill a groupchat constantly constantly they constantly spoke about nothing, everything, yapped about a future they didn't see until Akira snapped each one out of dream.
He slept-
For a minute, maybe, when that sense of nothing consumed everything and-
He sleeps for far longer now, more comfortable than he's ever been. There aren't ten notches in the machiya ceiling, but there isn't supposed to be. Here, there shouldn't be. Here, it's a home that doesn't have it and-
His eyes are open. Of course they are, but they don't burn hot with weeks of exhaustion trying to force his eyes shut and a mind incapable of rest fighting against it every second.
No, his eyes are open because he did sleep. He was comfortable. Tucked in with a quilt he didn't pull over himself and the offender that did it inches away from his extended body.
Maruki's asleep. Of course he is.
He's asleep and it's a weak point. Akechi's said it time and time again. Azathoth may protect him, but someone could do extensive damage before it activates. They're enemies-
Allies. They're allies. They're still allies and Maruki proves it by sleeping next to a man who would have done anything to slit his throat less than a day ago.
Akechi watches. Considers it. Thinks and listens to a near silent snore that's as familiar as his own heartbeat. He counts how long it takes for Maruki's chest to rise, fall and realizes a second too late his own breath matches it.
He didn't miss this. Didn't miss him.
But he might have missed the sensation of waking up warm - covered in a multitude of blankets instead of the single thin comforter that came with his apartment. He might have missed the clarity that comes with a night of actual rest - it only happened here. Only sometimes. Only next to a man whose dangling hand would smooth his hair, only next to someone that cover him with his arms all night long. This quilt doesn't rival it.
So he doesn't move. Doesn't get up to try his hand at slitting a throat with the nothing he carried with him to that final battle. A phone with a train pass and nothing else. It's not like he needed a way back on home.
So he keeps watching Maruki breathe and breathe and breathe and assess the uncomfortable way he's pressed into the smallest corner of the couch. Backache - he can hear the complaint and he can't recall what world it stems from.
He can't remember if Maruki is a heavy sleeper. Memories too fluid, too mobile. It was here, somewhere else, everywhere else and not there.
But he doesn't care if that man wakes up anyway.
So he pulls himself off the couch in the pitch black machiya. It must be midnight, one, maybe two and-
He lays the quilt loose over Maruki's body. Mindlessly thrown, of course. Tossed to the side and it so happened to get on him and-
He pushes that slumped over head back so Maruki's chin no longer touches his chest. Just a little, with the palm of his hand, so he won't need to hear him complain about a neck ache too.
And he watches and listens and tries to stop his own breath from mimicking a man who found him on New Years and watches and listens to the sounds of a familiar home and watches and listens until Maruki stirs and he finds something else to occupy his time one level up, back in an untouched room. ]