deercountry | (closed) blow a kiss

Who: Akira & Akechi.
What: Akira is having nightmares. Akechi is tired in more ways than one.
When: Mid-June.
Where: Persona House, the Living Room.

Content Warnings: Dream violence/murder and graphic descriptions thereof.

Akira isn't sleeping.

This is unusual largely because Akira normally keeps to a relatively normal schedule, like there's still a cat telling him to go to bed constantly. (There isn't, but he's caught Maurice giving him some smugly judgemental looks a few times.) Lately, though, Akira's been going to bed earlier and earlier -- and waking up earlier, too, downstairs making coffee before anyone else gets up. Before the sun. Looking steadily more and more tired, until there's bags under his eyes and he wears his glasses to try to make them less noticeable.

It categorically does not work.

He seems to drift off into micronaps every so often before he jerks back awake, rubbing his eyes and making more endless amounts of coffee, going through his stash more quickly than he would usually.

It culminates in him sitting in the living room, reading, until he suddenly isn't reading anymore. He's sleeping. It's not an unfamiliar dream, now: it's the interrogation cell, except this time Akira has the gun, holding it in bruised and shaking hands, and he's the one who shoots a surprised looking Akechi, except the pain wraps back around until Akira feels a gaping hole in his own head and then everything after that is an incoherent, adrenaline-filled blur of blood on a ship floor and the smell of metal against metal against metal, the feeling of handcuffs, the chill of a February day and reaching out for someone that's disappearing before his eyes--

Akira wakes up with a yell, this time, on his feet before he even fully processes what's happening, heart pounding in his chest and his skull aching like he really was shot, heat filling spots on his ribs -- on his wrists -- on his cheek, bruises blossoming back out into the memory of former injuries that should have healed months ago.

That did heal, until the nightmare brought them back.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Akechi acts as though he hasn't noticed the early hours, the dark circles, the increased caffeine intake, all while remaining keenly aware of each. Maurice spends an increased amount of time around Akira - knocking his things off the shelves, begging for treats, forcing himself into his lap, all while silently reporting back to Akechi. Akechi can tell it's all building up to something, even if he can't yet tell what that something is.

A sudden yell from the downstairs living room isn't exactly on his list of possibilities, however. The shout has him on his feet and slinking towards the stair in an instant, though the lack of follow up noise takes the edge off the tension at least. He doesn't relax, though, not even when he sees Akira standing alone in the living room. Instead he notes the bruises and the harried expression and fully steps out of the shadows of the stairwell and into the light of the living room.

"You look terrible."

Akira doesn't reply right away, staring at his wrists like maybe he's just seeing the imprints of a dream that haven't faded yet. But the marks don't vanish as he stares at them, and when he traces them with fingers he wishes weren't shaking, they hurt.

He clenches his fists together to try and push away the shaking and finally looks at Akechi. He just looks -- exhausted, but he tries for a smile anyway, because he doesn't know what's going on and he doubts Akechi does either, and he knows enough about this place to know that getting angry about it won't fix much.

"I feel pretty terrible," Akira offers, because he doesn't really know what else to say. He supposes he should ask for help, but ugh, that's about the worst thing ever.

On the other hand his nightmares becoming reality could turn deadly pretty quick, so... there's merit to the idea of not killing his housemates.

The smile is probably supposed to be reassuring, but to Akechi it just looked strained and ghastly, like the rictus of a corpse. He crinkles his nose in distaste as he finally steps off the landing of the stairs. A distant, mechanical part of himself reflects that he should probably try to help, while a more pronounced part flinches back from the very idea. No, better to try to understand the situation before he does anything so rash as try to help.

"I assume you weren't silently assaulted in our living room," he how he decides to start. Despite his earlier commitment to not jumping right into trying to help, he makes his way towards the kitchen where the first aid kit is stored. "What happened?"

"Nightmares," Akira says. He can tell where Akechi is going, so he follows after, in part because it's easier to ignore his dreams when he's with someone else, even if Akechi might be part of the reason for the nightmares to begin with. Hard to say, really. Couldn't have been brought up by anything recently, not at all.

He glances at the coffee supplies, but decides to pass; the last thing he needs right now is to be jittery on top of everything else.

"Or memories, I guess?" It's sort of both, but the injuries Akira largely remembers rather than being a nebulous phantom pain that never totally happened. Dream injuries are kind of like metaverse injuries. You can think yourself out of them if you try hard enough.

Not so much interrogation bruises.

Akechi would very much like to be glib and sarcastic right now. He could make some comment or another about how apparently Akira's memories are pretty terrible, and then they could either start a fight about it or Akira could shrug it off, and Akechi can be left wondering which option he would have preferred.

But he has an idea of what's going on, and after having his own memories blasted across the network earlier this month he's not really in the mood for jokes. So instead he simply rummages through the cabinet for the first aid kit.

"This place certainly likes dragging the past into focus, doesn't it?" Like some sort of overbearing therapist.

"At least it's not shoving us in a perfect alternate reality," Akira says, dryly, because he also feels like he's stuck in a magical overbearing therapist's office, but instead of one with a minor god complex it's one that's having fun pressing all the trauma buttons Akira didn't even realize he had.

Akira carefully takes stock of the worst of the injuries, the ones that need actual attention versus the ones he just needs to be aware of so he doesn't hurt himself further. He's not exactly good at taking it easy, but he can probably get away with not slamming his face into anything for a few... uh, however long it takes them to heal. He's not sure if dream-memory bruises heal on the same schedule as normal ones.

"Probably too much to hope it's just coincidence," Akira says, because while he'd love to think his trauma and Akechi's trauma are totally separate beasts that they're both doing a great, splendid job of ignoring -- the timing doesn't really make sense.

Akira's a little jealous, though; Akechi didn't wind up with any weird dream bruises.

"That's not much of an 'at least', you know."

He manages to sound a little annoyed this time. Why does Akira always have to give credit even when it's not even slightly due? Akechi makes a note to grouse at him about it later. He finally locates and withdraws the first aid kit, though he doesn't get right to work. Instead he eyes Akira up and down for a moment, and then:

"Is there even any point in trying this, or should we just send you straight to a healer?"

"You think that'd work?" Akira asks, sounding a little skeptical. Healing dream bruises seems way too straightforward for what he's experienced in this place -- he's still got a few thin, razor-sharp scars from that time someone tried to flay him alive, after all, because that was a whole ordeal.

"If it's from a dream, I probably have to go fight a dream monster to make it stop or something," Akira offers, as further explanation. He doesn't really know if it's dream injuries, memory injuries, injuries from some alternate reality where he has a mustache -- literally who knows. It could be anything. "So first aid until we figure it out."

He says it like it's a definite answer, but it's tilted a little at the end: he's... fine with being a leader, he's fine with making decisions for a group, but it's a little different when it's just him and Akechi; it's a little different when he values Akechi's input, even if neither of them can really navigate the situation.

Which, to be fair, Akira has never in his life claimed to be a good navigator: he got so lost on his first day of school that he wound up in the metaverse.

"It has to be better than standing here and wondering."

But Akira's made his point - if the first aid kit doesn't help, then it's not likely anything will. So Akechi takes a seat at their kitchen table, gives Akira a chance to sit down as well, and then reaches out to take his wrist and get to work. Akechi's touch is surprisingly gentle, and while he's no expert he works with the confidence and skill of someone who's not really a stranger to this process.

"If it's from your dream it's more likely someone else will have to go fight it for you, actually."

(closed) blow a kiss

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