deercountry | [OPEN] January Catchall

Akechi came to the Red with one specific thing in mind: gather information. Sounds simple, right?

Wrong. Akechi has had horrible luck all evening. Clubs are usually fine places to gather information and make friends, but not this time. Everyone is too much all at once - too eager to talk to him, too drunk to help, and too touchy for his liking. It's not long before Akechi breaks away from the crowd at large and slips into what he assumes is an empty booth.

It isn't. Someone else is there, because of course they are. Akechi gives Akira an unimpressed, dead-eyed stare. Despite that, he slides into the seat across from him with a weary sigh.

"What are you doing here?"

Akira isn't exactly surprised to see Akechi, but it's still pleasantly unexpected. Akira's pretty sure being excited to see Akechi proves that he has some form of massive brain damage, but, well, here he is anyway, brightening slightly and scooting his flute of champagne over by way of explanation.

"Sumire was considering being a Night Walker, so I thought I'd come see them all in action. Then they gave me drinks," Akira offers. He's not drunk, at least -- he's still bright eyed and unflushed, entirely too focused on the surroundings like they're the most interesting thing he's ever seen.

"It's nice to relax without things trying to kill me," Akira offers, because he's had quite a lot of near death experiences already, both back home and here, and he's. He's a little tired of it.

Akechi has long since diagnosed Akira with brain damage, so at least this is nothing surprising. The news of Sumire's potential career path of choice is also nothing surprising, but it is one of those subjects Akechi can never just dismiss out of hand.

"And what's your assessment so far?"

Though the ever-present edge of gentle contempt is still there in Akechi's tone, it's softer than usual. This is something he completely and unequivocally trusts Akira's judgement on - though it's not like he'll admit that out loud. Instead he eyes the 'offered' champagne flute and, after a moment of thought, reaches out and snag it for himself. He doesn't care much for alcohol, but the prospect of taking it when he's sure Akira wanted to keep drinking it himself is too good to pass up.

Akira considers it for a minute. He stretches out a little, giving another look around the room -- for all that he can see bits and pieces of a lot of different people doing a lot of different things, and it's...

Kind of nice, actually. Except...

"I'm still waiting for another shoe to drop," Akira says. It's a little like a confession, and he offers Akechi a smile when he says it, like it'll make it better. "But I think Sumire could pull off things pretty well, if she wants to work here and get information. It could be useful."

He's echoing Morgana a little without even meaning to. To be fair, Morgana had often echoed what Akira had thought himself on a normal basis, but without a particularly chatty maybe-cat at his side, Akira's trying to pick up the slack for the sake of his conversations.

"I'm used to danger, but it'd be nice to have some safe rooms around."

'Waiting for the other shoe to drop' is... a good way of looking at it, actually. Smart. Which means it's exactly what he should have expected from Akira.

Still, that next comment of his is an interesting one.

"You want this place to be like a safe room?" Akechi sounds a little skeptical, though he can see it. It's relaxing enough when it isn't completely packed and halfway converted into a nightclub. Add in the possibility of Sumire having insider information and perks...

Yeah, Akechi can see how that might work.

"It's no Jazz Jin," Akira offers, "but it's got the same kind of familiar anonymity."

There's no Muhen behind the bar and the cocktails pack considerably more of a punch, but Akira doesn't think this is the kind of place where he has to worry about being attacked -- by shadows or whatever this place tends to throw out.

"It'll do until we have a better option," Akira says, because in his experience it's best to make due until something else presents itself, which is probably why he once considered a crowded Shibuya walkway a valid secret hideout spot for a group of Phantom Thieves.

He scratches at his wrist a little vaguely. The skin seems a little red, but he's trying to ignore it in favor of, like, literally anything else.

Akira tries to ignore the reddened skin around his wrist, but Akechi doesn't bother. He slides his gaze towards Akira's hands for a moment and doesn't look away until he lifts the flute of champagne to his lips. He probably shouldn't risk drinking given how he knows this place can be but...

Fuck it. Why not? The past couple months have sucked and if they were home he'd be nineteen by now. That's almost twenty - and it's not like anyone here cares.

"Nowhere here is like the Jazz Jin." It's probably silly to feel some sense of loyalty to a business that he's never going to see again, but he does. He doesn't disagree with the Red as a possible alternative, though... "The Raccoon Room isn't bad, either."

Akira's drink is safely in Akechi's hands -- but it's not long before someone slides another one to Akira with a smile and a wink and then vanishes back into the area before Akira can manage much more than a vague thanks.

Bad decisions are probably best made in pairs, at any rate.

"Yeah. Between those and the house, it's a start," Akira offers. As much as Akechi attempted to keep Akira from staking claim in the house, he's largely given up these days, with the lure of coffee proving more tempting than the idea of having an Akira-free space. It does mean that Akechi's house has wound up being the base of operations, even if the "Phantom Thieves" is mostly just... the three of them.

"It feels like most things here are dangerous, but I don't want to be on guard all the time," Akira says. He isn't quite sure Akechi can relate -- Akechi breathes paranoia like it's oxygen -- but he's seen Akechi relatively relaxed, too. It's nice, when it happens.

"You should be on guard all the time."

Akechi's tone is flat, cold. His expression matches, all aloof indifference and cool boredom. But the chill doesn't reach everywhere. His back is too straight to come off as natural. He idly spins the stem of the champagne flute between his fingers. Beneath the table he bounces one foot impatiently.

"We can't just avoid danger by avoiding the Metaverse. You think the monsters here are going to ignore us because we're in a nightclub? That those zealots will respect a locked door?"

Already more cracks are starting to show; by the time he's done Akechi's tone has grown brittle and a shade aggressive.

"I can't be on guard all the time," Akira says, simply, like it's just that easy for him to admit. "If I try, I won't be able to predict when I stop paying as much attention as I need to. If there's space to be safe in, it's easier to focus when I need to."

It's a strategy that has worked relatively well for him in the past, which is largely because even while Akira isn't on guard at all times, he's not exactly unaware, either. Not that it helped him when it came to getting kidnapped and strung up, but -- well.

It could have been worse.

"Besides. If there's two of us, it's easier to take turns being super aware," Akira says, aware that he is treading extremely dangerous territory under the guise of tactical conversation. "I can't watch your back if I'm too exhausted from watching my own."

Of course Akira has a response to that, and of course it's so.... logically sound. Reasonable. Hard to argue against. Which only, of course, serves to make Akechi even more irritated than a flippant dismissive answer would have. He huffs out a sharp sigh and lifts the champagne class to drain it the rest of the way.

"I don't recall asking you to 'watch my back'."

Which is part of the problem, but not really the point. And normally Akechi is touchy at best about discussing how he really feels about a situation, but right now...

Fuck it. Why not? He may as well try to figure this out.

"I don't understand you." He pushes his glass aside. "The agreement we had was temporary - it was always temporary. You knew that from the start. Why bother pretending like anything's changed just because we're here now?"

"Um," Akira says, delicately. He surveys his drink. Rotates it on the table and watches the little trail of condensation it leaves in its wake. Considers it for a moment.

Drains it in its entirety and then exhales, because it kind of burns a little but he doesn't want to admit that something as minor as champagne is still a little much for his delicate coffee-only palate.

"Because I like you, mostly," Akira offers. "I was really upset when you died. I know you think it's because it was a competition or something, or... I don't know. But mostly I really just liked you. The real you, before you say something about how it was fake."

"You don't actually like me."

He doesn't mean to say it, but what do you know! Akira's a Paleblood. Withholding information from him is difficult, and outright lying to him is pretty much impossible. He could just stand up and leave, remove himself from the source of this honestly. Not continuing now that he's started is basically out of the question, however.

"You were upset because you're sentimental. You'd get upset over a complete stranger if you thought there was something you could do to stop it."

Which isn't really news. Akechi's always known that about him, always despised that about him. There's nothing he can do to change that, so all he can do is resent it.

"So you don't like me. You can't like someone if you don't know them, and if you really knew me you wouldn't like me."

"I do know you? I mean, I don't know everything about you, but I've seen you when you're lying in two different directions, and I liked both of those, and I like you now," Akira says. It's a slightly convoluted sentence with entirely too many repeated words, but it also helps carry the emphasis.

"I'm sad when other people die, but it's not like it is with you," Akira says, and pushes his glass to the edge of the table so he stops clenching the glass and risking it shattering in his hand. That would be the worst way to continue this conversation. "I know I said it wasn't a competition, but if I have to prove you wrong about liking you, I'll win."

It's not a competition, and if it was it would be the dumbest competition imaginable - but Akechi doesn't want to just let Akira think he's right. So he rises to the bait just like he always does - and just like he always does, he tells himself it isn't.

"And what was it like with me?" He thinks he might not actually want to know the answer to that question, but he presses on all the same. "I can tell you what it was like for me when you died. I 'killed' you myself, after all."

That reminder won't be enough, though. Not by a long shot. Akira is an idiot so he'll try to wave it off like it doesn't matter, just like he always does.

"Okay," Akira says. "What was it like?"

Because he doesn't know. Not really. Akira knows what he felt, sitting in an interrogation room, bruised and sore, shaking off the after effects of whatever drug he'd been given. He'd been anxious; he'd been confident; he'd refused to let himself feel anything like fear and had drowned it out in the easy to access well of Joker that was always present within him.

He doesn't know what happened. He doesn't know what Akechi said, or did -- if he was confident or brazen or remorseful or exasperated. He's put a lot of things together, and he doesn't imagine Akechi was particularly honest in that moment, either, largely because Akechi isn't honest with himself, but --

"I didn't kill you, but I watched you die once. The second time I didn't even get to see it," Akira says. He'd turned to look and all he'd seen was a jail cell, after all. "Maruki knew you were the only thing that had a chance of making me waver."

The comment about Maruki's attempt to blackmail Akira with Akechi's continued well-being has something dark and almost murderous flickering across Akechi's expression. Being resurrected against his will had been bad enough, but having his importance centered entirely around Akira, being reduced to nothing more than a small part of someone else's life--

He wants to lash out, but Akira asked him a question. Trench's magic won't let him address anything else.

"I didn't feel anything." But at least he can say something that he means, something that he's sure what Akira doesn't want to hear. "I wasn't sad. I didn't hesitate. There was no regret or remorse."

Akechi leans back in his chair, expression less murderous but no less cold. He's said enough.

And then, entirely against his will, he keeps going.

"I wasn't happy, either. I should have been satisfied, delighted, relieved, anything - but there was nothing there."

Edited 2022-02-01 05:53 (UTC)

"Well," Akira says, and the smile he offers is a little awkward, because they're treading such dangerous waters with this conversation, but neither of them seem like they can stop. "I'm glad you weren't happy about killing me."

There's a pause, where he drags his fingers through the evaporating condensation on the empty champagne glass. Then he seems to decide something, shifting closer to Akechi and turning his gaze on him -- the full intensity of his gaze when he's really looking at someone without trying to hide anything.

"I was determined, when you killed me. I was determined to win. And then you died, and it felt like a mistake," Akira says. "Like it was an error that happened too quickly. I hadn't managed to do anything. I hadn't told you anything. And then I didn't tell you anything when you were back, because I didn't want you to think I was trying to make you stay when you were so determined not to."

Akira inhales. "But I like you. I want to keep getting to know you, and I'll keep liking you, even if you're angry and sarcastic and keep trying to make me stop."

'Dangerous waters' is correct. As the reality of what he just said, what he just admitted to, settles in Akechi's expression shifts to something halfway between 'aghast' and 'infuriated'. He didn't mean to say that much - and worse, he didn't realize how true it was. He's never let himself stop and think about just how hollow and dissatisfied he felt in the wake, or even let himself stop to think about Akira at all. By the time he finally did he was too consumed with frustrated rage for anything else.

And if what he says is true for him, doesn't that mean that what Akira's saying is true for Akira? That thought is almost too much to bear. Once again, he tries to sidestep it. It's hard when he feels stuck to the spot by Akira's gaze, like he's been seen in a way he so rarely is.

"So what is it, then? Sympathy? Pity? I don't need either of those." Again, he means to leave it at that - and again he says more than he means. "If you're not here to be selfish then I want nothing to do with it."

"It's not any of those," Akira says, and he sounds a little annoyed, for once. He didn't expect his words to be able to get through to Akechi, not really -- not when Akechi is so deftly capable at making words into whatever he wants them to be, weapons and insults and barriers alike. "Fine. You want me to be selfish?"

Akira would like to blame it on the champagne, but he doesn't really think that's it. It's more that it's going on two years of attraction, grief, and a lot of adrenaline has pushed this particular situation to its absolute limit, and Akira isn't going to try to hold it back anymore.

Something something true desires inside your heart, probably.

He shifts closer to Akechi and turns his upper body -- it's a slightly awkward angle, but it allows him to grab onto Akechi's shirt in a way that probably seems like it's a threat of violence, up until he leans in and kisses Akechi.

Retrospectively, he should have removed his glasses.

Akechi has learned to expect all sorts of strange and unexpected behavior from Akira, but this is unexpected in a way that's totally unprecedented. The hand grabbing his shirt does read like a threat of violence, a threat that sends a delighted thrill through him--

--a thrill that translates into something more normal, though no less intense, once he fully processes that Akira is kissing him. Akechi is utterly still for a moment, frozen in shock and completely unsure of how to react.

In the end he doesn't make a conscious decision. He fumbles until he's curled one hand into Akira's hair and the other into the front of his shirt. He pulls at both, desperate and eager in a way that takes him totally off guard. Or rather, that would take him totally off guard if he could spare a thought for that sort of thing. Instead he is thinking about how the table is in the way and that he'd like to shove it aside, and about how he's pretty sure Akira's glasses are digging into both of their faces and he'd like to throw those aside, too. And, really, about how there are far too many things between the two of them and he wants them all gone, until there's nothing left but he and Akira and the heat between them.

Akira should have kissed Akechi forever ago. When he first arrived and Akechi was alive; before Akechi died the second time; before he died the first time. He didn't realize quite how much he wanted this until he was doing it, and now the idea of not doing it is something that automatically makes him shift closer. He shifts enough to grab his glasses and pull those off -- he opens his eyes enough to see the blur of Akechi's bangs before he discards the glasses onto the table without any particular care to where they land -- and then he's shifting forward more.

It's definitely awkward with the table between them, but Akira is not exactly opposed to literally climbing on top of it if it means he can get closer to Akechi without actually separating from him.

Akira's always been more of a doer than a talker, and he really wants to know why it took him so long to do it in this situation. He was never going to resolve things with words, not with someone like Akechi--

But Akechi isn't pulling back. Akechi is pulling them closer just as much as Akira is, and it's a sigh of relief that he doesn't let escape from his chest, because it's been months and months of wanting something compounded in his chest while convinced he wouldn't get it.

They should probably stop making out if they're going to continue this exchange. There's not just the actual, physical difficulty of attempting to do anything else when he's passionately kissing someone, there's also the muddled, hazy mess it's making of his thoughts. There are no longer any coherent directives in his mind; he doesn't want to pull Akira closer or shove a particular article of clothing aside or touch a particular part of him. He just wants more - more of all of it, more of all of him.

But there's an obstacle more pressing that his muddled mental state or Akira himself: the table. After several moments have passed Akechi finally breaks off the kiss and pulls back, cheeks flushed and eyes bright. He stares for a moment, suddenly uncertain of what exactly he wants.

Then he turns, presses his palms against the table, and shoves. Before they do anything else he wants this stupid thing out of the way.

Akira's eyes are equally bright and his cheeks just as flushed when Akechi breaks away, and for a split second Akira thinks Akechi is going to shove him away -- but instead it's just the table, the sound of it scraping across the floor rapidly drowned out by the sound of everyone else that's in the building.

As far as Akira is concerned, none of them exist. There's nothing except Akechi.

Akira moves closer, almost automatically, leaning in to replace the space where the table was before. He doesn't think he can actually get away with climbing into Akechi's lap, but it's a really tempting thought.

"Okay," Akira offers, more as filler than anything else, and then reaches out again, a little slower, to twine a bit of Akechi's hair around his fingertip.

For a moment Akechi thinks that pushing the table away might have been a mistake, because no matter how brief it's still a moment of respite, a moment where they have room to think instead of merely act.

Fortunately, active and conscious thought isn't exactly on the agenda right now. Akira reaches out and Akechi lets him, reminded of Akira's impulsive to muss up his hair to avoid some nosy fans. Somehow he doesn't think they're about to have a repeat, but he kind of wants to find his glasses and toss them onto the dance floor, never to be recovered.

But he does none of that. Instead he slides himself closer to Akira, reaching out to finally give into a long held indulgence and sink his hand into Akira's hair.

[OPEN] January Catchall

( for akira )

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