If only they'd been friends earlier, then maybe...
Friends is a loaded word, one that fills his stomach with weights and puts a coppery tang of guilt in his mouth. Allies is safer. Indicative, as well, even if Akechi hadn't meant to give away that he's likely from a time that's after he blackmailed the Phantom Thieves. He's almost certain Akechi wouldn't have called them friends before that, with the yawning gap of distance between them, but Akira's surprised that he'd even use the word now.
It's not a word that Akira ever deserves to have applied to Akechi Goro.
Akechi, who understood how his mind worked better than even his most trusted friends, that wore masks in such a familiar way that it felt like a reflection of Akira's own self. Akechi, who betrayed him and dealt the worst kind of pain, even if Akira had expected it from the beginning of their arrangement. Akechi, who was a regular guest star in all of Akira's reoccurring nightmares, drenched up to his arms in blood and worse as he tried to staunch the flow from a bullet wound he couldn't stop.
The nightmares have never ended, but at least they're less than they were right after it happened. Sometimes he wonders what it means, to hope that he'll have nightmares that exaggerate everything that happened in the interrogation room - enough of the truth serum injected into his veins to make them burn, hallucinations dancing across his eyes, every limb dislocated and useless as he's beaten within in an inch of his life... to hope for that instead of seeing Akechi's death, when Akechi is the one who put him there, surely must mean there's something wrong with him.
He'd almost forgotten. He'd almost learned how to breathe around the emptiness in his chest. He'd almost been able to pretend that he was a happy person.
And now he can face it, all of it, all over again.
It's an alliance that Akira again has to accept, because it's too precarious to refuse. The guilt of it will scald him, and that's alright, because it's just an extension of what he still has to live with every day.
Maybe it's simply that his penance has finally come to collect.]
They aren't words that I hate. [Because it's true.] I'm glad you think of us that way. [Because it's what Akira would wish for, if anyone would answer his prayers bent at the glass of a Tokyo toy store.] Let's make it official, then.
[It's a forgotten key clicked back into place, the pages of an old well-loved book crinkling through his soul. It's the whisper of a bond, of a red string of fate snapped in half but stitched back together. It's the threads of wants and wishes and likes, masks and La Justice and regret, gossamer silk wrapped around his heart and wrists and throat.
It's Metatron humming in his chest, impossible to reach or to feel more than the ghost sensation of, because all must return to zero before it reaches the end.]
Rather than just an agreement... Let's make a deal.
[A ghost of words Akira wasn't the one to say, because he'll be haunted until the day he dies.]
For as long as I'm here, I'm an ally to both you and Maruki-san.
[He takes Akechi's hand in his to shake, firm and nostalgic.
For as long as I'm here, I'll bleed myself dry if that's what it takes to do what I should have.
In a world where the impossible is meant to make sense... maybe he can claw and fight his way to steal Akechi's life back with his own two hands.]
:) :) :) i get to do it now too :) cw: nightmares, blood, physical assault
Akechi said he didn't need friends.
Friends is a loaded word, one that fills his stomach with weights and puts a coppery tang of guilt in his mouth. Allies is safer. Indicative, as well, even if Akechi hadn't meant to give away that he's likely from a time that's after he blackmailed the Phantom Thieves. He's almost certain Akechi wouldn't have called them friends before that, with the yawning gap of distance between them, but Akira's surprised that he'd even use the word now.
It's not a word that Akira ever deserves to have applied to Akechi Goro.
Akechi, who understood how his mind worked better than even his most trusted friends, that wore masks in such a familiar way that it felt like a reflection of Akira's own self. Akechi, who betrayed him and dealt the worst kind of pain, even if Akira had expected it from the beginning of their arrangement. Akechi, who was a regular guest star in all of Akira's reoccurring nightmares, drenched up to his arms in blood and worse as he tried to staunch the flow from a bullet wound he couldn't stop.
The nightmares have never ended, but at least they're less than they were right after it happened. Sometimes he wonders what it means, to hope that he'll have nightmares that exaggerate everything that happened in the interrogation room - enough of the truth serum injected into his veins to make them burn, hallucinations dancing across his eyes, every limb dislocated and useless as he's beaten within in an inch of his life... to hope for that instead of seeing Akechi's death, when Akechi is the one who put him there, surely must mean there's something wrong with him.
He'd almost forgotten. He'd almost learned how to breathe around the emptiness in his chest. He'd almost been able to pretend that he was a happy person.
It's an alliance that Akira again has to accept, because it's too precarious to refuse. The guilt of it will scald him, and that's alright, because it's just an extension of what he still has to live with every day.
Maybe it's simply that his penance has finally come to collect.]
They aren't words that I hate. [Because it's true.] I'm glad you think of us that way. [Because it's what Akira would wish for, if anyone would answer his prayers bent at the glass of a Tokyo toy store.] Let's make it official, then.
[It's a forgotten key clicked back into place, the pages of an old well-loved book crinkling through his soul. It's the whisper of a bond, of a red string of fate snapped in half but stitched back together. It's the threads of wants and wishes and likes, masks and La Justice and regret, gossamer silk wrapped around his heart and wrists and throat.
It's Metatron humming in his chest, impossible to reach or to feel more than the ghost sensation of, because all must return to zero before it reaches the end.]
Rather than just an agreement... Let's make a deal.
[A ghost of words Akira wasn't the one to say, because he'll be haunted until the day he dies.]
For as long as I'm here, I'm an ally to both you and Maruki-san.
[He takes Akechi's hand in his to shake, firm and nostalgic.
In a world where the impossible is meant to make sense... maybe he can claw and fight his way to steal Akechi's life back with his own two hands.]