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[Fine. He steps to the genkan, into his shoes on the small tiled space, and then right onto the floorboards to where other-him's twitching on the ground, because fuck you, that's why.

He drops into a crouch. This is going to be fun. "Fun".]

All right, Akechi. I'm going to lift you. Try to relax, and—[What the fuck ever, honestly]—think light thoughts. Calm thoughts, please.

[And with that, as Loki's howling redoubles in his blood and he grits his teeth, he takes the kid under his arms and throws him up into a fireman's lift.

He gets to his feet with the kid around his neck, pausing to catch his breath. It's not the awkwardness, or the weight. It's the screaming.]

I'll try.

[It's all he can say as his counterpart scoops him up and carries him off. He's here. They're close. It's okay. He's not leaving. It's fine.

Goro, please. You have to breathe. In and out, nice and slow. Can you do that?

He's... he's trying, but his breathing's still shaky.]

[It should be easy enough. Down in the elevator, out of the door into the street. He's always wanted to wreck that street a little. It has it coming. Yeah.

He elbows the button, praying idiot-him won't choose this moment to put in an appearance. It's lucky he boulders; he's got the strength to pull off the lift.

If Loki would only shut the fuck up for—] two minutes! Come on!

[It comes out through gritted teeth, as they leave the elevator and head out into the street. Where the park entrance is just ahead. Okay, he can make it a bit further. Maybe they'll wreck the park. Start a little typhoon on the boating-lake.

Well inside the gates of Inokashira Park, he lowers younger-him to the grass. Then stamps on it with both feet. Let's all not walk on the grass together, his entire ass.]

Akechi? Are you awake? [Honestly, he hopes he's not. He doesn't want him to be awake for this. But how would that even work? In the back of his mind, he can see Ren, daring him to try something with his eyes alone.]

...yes. Just...

[Guh. He digs his fingers into the grass, and his hands tremble. Part of him just wants to rip it up. He growls at the ground, as if this is a threat.]

What now?

I have something in mind that might help you. At least... I hope it will. [Explanations? Him?

Loki is still screaming in his head. Because part of Akechi... part of him, a large part, has always liked this just a little too much, this ultimate exercise of power. The part of him that preens when Shido pats him on the head. What if he steals the guard's gun and kills himself while in custody? How would that be?

In one satin-smooth motion, he drops to one knee beside the boy and draws the Evoker. Double-checks that he hasn't got the real gun by mistake, and then checks again, because he isn't quite beyond hope.

Without a word, he places the muzzle in the centre of the boy's forehead. High as a kite, doing what he was born for, the only thing he wants to do, he gives the target just long enough to register what's happening, for his fear to build—then pulls the trigger.

The look on his face looks like wonder might look, if it was cracked and warped irreparably.]

[It's frightening. The feeling of a gun's barrel on his head, cold. It can't be. Magpie wouldn't-

The shock. The recoil. The unyielding fear.

The Evoker does its job.

Maybe a little too well, as a burning, red aura overtakes the young Akechi. It's dizzying. So dizzying.

Loki bursts to life above him, howling with maddeningly joyous laughter. Equal parts mirthful and malicious.]

FINALLY! Finally, you can feel me, Goro Akechi, my little trickster!

[The world is wobbling. Everything feels so light. So hazy. So-]

Let go, little Raven. Don't despair. Break your chains. Be free.

[Akechi may notice a sudden spark, a sudden surge of power, something unsettlingly familiar...

Call of Chaos.

But "Magpie" isn't the target at all. It's the boy before him, still rocking from the Evoker's release, too dazed to fully comprehend.]

[The recoil pounds through him. His eyes are round as crazed stars; his grin is wide as the moon. The perfect moment closes around him as he sits back in silence—

—and then yeah, shit, that sure is a thing that's happening. He leaps back like a cat, landing still crouched, one hand poised on its bare fingertips against the floor. Already, he feels the power building, sees the swirl of toxic red; he knows it like he knows his own name. He's pissed that kid off, and like an oncoming train, Loki is coming.

Stop sitting around on the fucking floor like you just got off safe in your bed! That stripling is going to murder you! Good point, well-made. But he's doing what Akechi has never dared; he's using it on himself–?

He brings the Evoker to his own temple and fires; he's probably just in time. Loki erupts behind him in an explosion of power, with a harrowing shriek that only he can hear.]

[And then something strange happens. The younger Akechi springs to his feet, not unlike a cat. He pounces just like one, too.

But instead of kicking and biting and clawing, he just latches on.

His own Loki watches all this wordlessly, but absolutely smirking.

Oh, what a surprising little maneuver.]

[...and you'll be acclaimed as a hero who put paid to a great evil. and I will too, but that goes without saying....

The kid latches on to him like a spider monkey. A mad-eyed, rasping, unstoppable spider monkey. He's too late to bring up an arm to protect his throat, his face. But that doesn't stop him trying. He drops the Evoker, draws Loki close for a Debilitate, reaches to force his arm between the two of them and throw the attacker off—

—when he realises the kid is just clinging to him. Behind him, Loki starts to laugh—not his mad laugh, his battle laugh, his killing laugh, but a soft, sinister chuckle that has driven some of Akechi's most virulent disdain.

He feels ill. He wants to retch. He wants to take to his heels and run so fast he walks on that boating-lake. Instead, half-dazed, he closes an arm on the kid's back, on the borrowed t-shirt he slept in; he can still throw him off for the kill, after all. And he tries not to think of what Shido had said, the night before he arrived in the Velvet Room, the night of the phone call.

... I knew you had it in you. For the rest of the evening, it had been as if he walked on air.]

Am I good enough yet?

[There's an unhinged sound to his voice, like he's not fully there. He's still cinging. He won't let go.]

I won't mess up! I'll be good. I don't hate you! I could never hate you. I won't be weak anymore! That's good, isn't it?

[He... clearly isn't in his right state of mind, but this is perhaps the strangest reaction to Call of Chaos.

His Loki is just watching and snickering. OKAY THEN.]

[There is no way at all there should be tears in his eyes. He was never like this. He never drove himself mad, begging people to care for him. He never....

... he was exactly like this.

All the studying. All the housework. All the smiling, keeping silent, thanking aunts and uncles and cousins when they gave him half as much food as the real kids, or refused to heat his room in winter, or kicked him from his bed in the night to clean. Thanking them for their hospitality, when they always, always snapped, when they screamed or beat him or just lost interest, when they inevitably passed him to someone else who didn't give a shit. All the making himself better and better, every day a little more perfect, a little less human to a casual eye, yet somehow never more desirable. Am I good enough yet?

He drops to his knees, and puts his other arm around the kid, drawing him into an awkward embrace.]

Goro. Do you hear me? [There's a lump in his throat.] You are good enough. You were always good enough. You don't have to do anything.

People—[and again he has to force out the platitude, because even if it's true for this one, it was never, ever true for him]—people will accept you just the way you are.

[He hears it. He hears it, but there's so much racing through his head. So much. He's not letting go. He's just sort of burying his face in his counterpart's shirt. Still clinging. This is very weird.]

I accept you- I don't care if you caused shutdowns or hurt people because you've been good to me and if I didn't have Kanji I would probably so lost and I don't want you to be lost anymore. I just want to be-

[What does he even want? It's all so hectic. This is the strangest form of catharsis ever.]

You mean so much to me and I won't let you run off or push back or anything like that because I can't. I won't.

[It's so odd, unhinged and sentimental and rambling and he's not sure where he's going with it. The words are just spilling out like all his filters have been removed and he's probably holding on a bit too tight but it's something.

He'll probably wind down from this in a bit.]

So don't die.

Edited 2023-09-23 23:48 (UTC)

... you don't know what you're saying. [His skin is crawling from the contact a little less, from the insatiable demands of younger-him. See me, need me, love me. It's a deal, right? If you can't love me even a little, just keep me around, and I'll do anything, I'll be whatever you say....]

Dozens of people are dead because of me. The people injured, living brain-dead or ruined to this day—they are countless. I'm not what you think I am. Bonding with me won't bring you anything but misery.

[And as for the other thing, the promise he wants... "Don't die"? Like he can make a promise like that. A two-year-old would know it was worthless.]

You don't get to decide that!

[It's amazing how the lack of filters Call of Chaos brings can make him so brazen to this person he's so eager to impress.]

I get to decide the risks I take! It's Shido, isn't it? You didn't have anybody so you went to Shido and you probably got involved in something and now you're stuck, but I don't care! I don't care because you're still good to me! Nobody else gets me like you do.

[So yeah, he's not letting go, even as he's tipped into a bit more ferocity. What a weird therapy session.]

Edited 2023-09-24 00:08 (UTC)

I'm trying to protect you, you stupid fucking—child! [Because sure, when reasoned argument won't work, and you can't just kill them, you kick and spit until whoever it is leaves you alone for good. Even if it's just in your head.]

You don't know what's good for you! Yes, I went to Shido, I murder for him! I'm not even sorry I did it!

You have a family. You have one at home. You found one here, for fuck's sake! You don't need me! [But rather than thrust the kid away—which might have met with limited success—his hands have curled into fists against his back; he's tense as a wire.

The two Lokis are still looking down at them, as if they're the most fascinating park sculpture ever.]

Yes I do!

[He almost roars that out, shaking a little. Growling through his teeth.]

I can't go to my future self for any of this! He doesn't even like Loki! He buries all those ugly feelings. Maybe he's better now, I don't fucking know! But I'm not! And when I'm with you, I don't have to try so fucking hard to live up to some impossible standard!

[And he catches his breath. Nothing he says is going to work. When the kid comes around, though—then he'll get it. He'll see what Akechi is, and he'll just walk away, and thank fuck for that.

But what if he doesn't? Akechi knows what Call of Chaos does—it opens people up to their darkest desires. The things they're most ashamed of, that they don't dare admit. That they lie to themselves about.

so what would it do to me...? what will he be like, after this...?

I don't give a shit about your feelings. I don't want you. The words are on the tip of his tongue. He could let them fly and ruin the kid forever.

But he doesn't. Because he's as selfish as it's possible to be. And he doesn't want to let go either.]

But I don't want you to be like me. [He breathes it, again, through gritted teeth.] You have choices. You have alternatives. You don't need anything you can learn from me.

I'll still be me! I can make my own decisions! But maybe there are things about you that I actually like! If you were really that bad, you wouldn't have done half the things you did for me!

I don't need perfection, damn it! I just need someone who gets it. And maybe we can both benefit somehow! I don't fucking know!

[He doesn't...

Oof. He's a little wobbly. It might be starting to subside, a little.]

I don't...

Hey. [Oh, thank god. He readies himself for shock, for revulsion, steadying the kid in his arms.]

You're all right. You're safe. Come back down, now.

...Shit.

[He doesn't act in revulsion or shock, but he does pull back just enough to avert his eyes because his cheeks are just a little red from embarrassment.]

I, ah... Please don't get mad!

[He wasn't trying to be rude! He's not sure what he was trying to do, but that sure was a lot.]

It's a little late for that, don't you think? [His cheeks aren't red, but his eyes are. The tears didn't fall, though, which would have been the end.

But there are other considerations, for the moment. More important than anything that might just have happened. He turns his head a little, to ask.]

... how do you feel? What was it like?

I think it made me stupid.

[That may or may not be sarcastic, but hmm...

How does he describe that?]

It was like everything I was holding back wanted to explode out of me. I wasn't afraid of pushing too far or stepping out of line. I didn't give a fuck, and it was... liberating, I suppose. In the moment, anyway.

[And he sighs quietly, over younger-him's shoulder. All his chains gone. A liberation, just as he always thought. Except... imagine if he came out with even a fraction of what he just heard? No, thank you.

He sits back on his heels, on the grass. He's going to have grass stains for years, shit.]

I'd say "stupid" is probably something of an understatement. [He releases younger-him from his embrace, which is becoming just a bit awkward; he examines his face.]

What about that headache? Did it settle?

Oh.

[He blinks a few times.]

I guess so.

[He lifts his hands and looks at his fingernails, face crumpling.]

...And I got dirt under my nails. Fantastic.

[He sighs, just a tad grumbly.]

...It wasn't like what I said was a lie, necessarily. I just didn't have control over how I said it. The words just came out.

I don't think we need to talk about what was said. [By either of them. At all. Ever. He scowls.]

Are you telling me I was stuck with a headache after my awakening, and you're not?

[...but they'll both know. Akechis are like elephants, in that single regard.]

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