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In the wake of their fight with Maruki, Akira could feel reality shift around them.
He could still hear Lavenza's words ringing in his mind in perfect synchronicity with the feeling of every hair on his body standing up, his skin tingling, a hook in his stomach that told him everything was right again.
Akira had his eyes closed, knowing when he opened them again, everything would be back in its place and hating that knowledge as much as he appreciated it.
Maruki's reality had been wrong, but it had been a warmer place than a cool, desolate juvie cell, that was for sure.
And, he shouldn't kid himself – it had had Goro Akechi.
So when Akira finally made himself open his eyes, after a few minutes of absolute silence around him, he was stunned to look straight into Akechi's red ones, wide and torn open as they stared back at him.
“Uhm,” said Akira.
He looked around while he waited for any sort of reply to his very thought-evoking comment, saw what he had already expected to see – all his friends gone, the shambles of Maruki's palace gone, replaced by a little box-shaped room with bars in front of the window.
And Akechi Goro standing in the middle of it, still unmoving, still silent, still staring.
Akira put his hands in his pockets, turning back to him, and waited.
“Is this hell?” Akechi finally asked after a minute or twenty. “Is being dead going to... to involve some weird cognition of you forever trapped with me in my cell in hell? Is that what this is?”
“I think it's juvie,” Akira replied helpfully. “Same thing though.”
Akechi blinked.
“But I'm dead,” he said, with a rather firm tone, as if he was trying to explain to a journalist that he was not interested in dating anyone, thank you very much (which Akira hoped was not the case, actually).
“You look alive.”
“But I'm not.”
Akira raised a hand and let it run through silky, soft hair that usually glowed like honey, but was dimmed in the gloomy light of the cell – a true crime, if anyone asked Akira.
“You feel alive,” he offered.
Akechi took a step back, a scowl on his face as he tore his hair out of Akira's hands, then winced.
“But I'm not!” he repeated, even more determination swinging in his words now. “I died on Shido's fucking swanky cruiser! Remember?”
“Vividly,” Akira replied, because he did, had in fact had nightmares haunting him every night, nightmares of the one boy who needed rescue more than everyone else and had been failed by the Phantom Thieves more than anyone else, instead.
“Then how can I be here? We broke that reality, right?”
Akira looked around.
“Well, considering we're in juvie... Doesn't seem like Maruki to give us half-hearted happiness after all the fighting for the whole thing, don't you think?”
Someone hammered against their door, making both boys flinch.
“You're having visitation, remember? You're supposed to get ready!”
They exchanged a surprised glance.
“Which of us?” Akira finally asked with a cheerful shrug.
“Both of you, of course,” the voice from the other side of the door replied much less cheerfully. “Are you coming now or do you want me to send her away? Because I will – hella rude woman to begin with.”
Both of us, Akira mouthed at Akechi, who was stunned back into silence, simply following him towards the door numbly. Akira couldn't blame him. All of this was incredibly surreal.
(He didn't care though, for as long as Akechi was with him.)
Akira wasn't exactly surprised to see Sae Niijima greet him from the other side of the visitor's window but he had to admit he was surprised by her lack of surprise when she saw Goro.
“There you two are, I've been waiting for ten minutes.”
“Pardon us,” Akechi said, instinctively seeming to slip back into his Detective Prince persona (a weird shift, now that Akira had spent so much time with his real self). “We were indisposed by... being held captive in a cell.”
Seemed like a valid enough argument, actually.
Sae frowned at him, clearly not seeing it that way.
“Spare me your sarcasm. Do you want my help or not?”
“Yes,” said Akira immediately.
“Absolutely,” said Akechi in the same moment.
“Help in what?” asked Akira.
Akechi nodded eagerly in support of his question.
Teamwork.
Sae looked at them as if they were sitting in front of her, beaten and drugged, telling her about a secret metaverse and talking cats crafting lock picks. Akira was intimately familiar with that particular Sae Niijima-expression.
“In getting you out, of course. Have you forgotten everything we talked about last week?”
“For the sake of simplicity, let's just assume we did,” Akechi replied.
“Because we did,” Akira went on helpfully and found his foot promptly stepped on.
“...n't.” He added, glaring at Akechi, who glared back with a lot more efficiency. He probably had practised his glares in the mirror, like the little bitch he was.
Sae sighed deeply.
“You two are acting even worse than usual. Anyway – here's the news.” She turned towards Akira, apparently deciding to ignore their combined antics for the time being. This was why Sae was a smart, successful prosecutor and Akira and Akechi... well, stuck in juvie.
“Your friends managed to track down the woman who witnessed you protected from Shido and she's made a statement in your favour, now that he's had his change of heart. Don't ask me how they found her – something tells me I don't want to know.”
“I think it is very likely that your sister used some of the data stolen from your laptop to pull up the details of the report – alternatively, Futaba Sakura might have-”
“What did I just tell you?” Sae asked Akechi with an exasperated tone.
“You told us not to ask,” Akechi replied stubbornly.
“He didn't ask,” Akira explained patiently.
“I'm this close to just get up and let you rot in here, you know that? What's going on with you two?”
Akira leaned forwards consiprationally. “We just vanquished God,” he said. “Some of us for the second time.”
Sae frowned again, an expression that always brought out her similarity to Makoto.
“That was months ago.”
“It's complicated.”
It was Akechi's turn to sigh and take over the conversation to lead them gently back on track.
“So are we getting out or what?”
So gently.
Sae blinked at him as if she had forgotten he was there while, undoubtedly still trying to figure out when Akira had managed to fight God in a prison cell.
“Simply put: yes. Shido's statements support both, your innocence and Akechi's lack of agency in his murders. Some formalities still need to be taken care of, but you'll likely be free to leave tomorrow.”
Akechi raised his eyebrows.
“Shido made statements in my favour, claiming I had no agency?”
Akira sighed heavily.
“You can't tell him these things – he'll make a big show out of not owing Shido anything and chain himself to the bars or something just as dramatic.”
Akechi turned to him.
“No.”
“No?” Akira asked, surprised.
“No,” he confirmed calmly, then, upon seeing his questioning look, clarified, “I've been here before, remember? This is the second time I magically escape juvie. If this is another fake reality that needs tearing apart, I'm ready for it.”
Akira bothered to listen into himself for the same shady feeling of wrongness he had felt before in Maruki's reality and felt... nothing. Everything was normal. Mundane, gloomy, unyielding, just like he had gotten to know reality before it had yielded.
“I don't think it is.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Sae asked, her voice now getting higher as she got increasingly more concerned about them. “Have they given you any drugs?”
Akechi rubbed his eyes tiredly.
“Just make sure to get us out by tomorrow, please? Sharing a room with this idiot is unbearable.”
“How would you know?” Akira snorted. “You never did before.”
Sae raised an eyebrow. “You've been sharing a cell for weeks now.”
Akechi gave her a sharp look.
“And why is that? It's not common for people to get to pick room mates in juvie, is it?”
“Of course not,” Sae replied, looking and sounding as if she had to explain to a child that snow was cold. “But you two belong together.”
“Don't you think that was weird?” Akechi asked for the seventh time that night, while Akira lay in bed, shivering. Their blankets were way too thin for a room without a heating in winter.
“No,” Akira replied for the sixth-and-a-half time (Akechi had tried to smother him with his own pillow that one time).
“ 'You two belong together' – What does that even mean?”
“Probably that we belong together. I find that incredibly wise of her.” He stifled a yawn.
“Who the hell looks at a couple and thinks 'these two look cute together, they should share a cell in juvie!' There's something wrong here!”
“Aw, we're a couple?”
He couldn't see Akechi's glare in the darkness but he knew it was there nonetheless.
“Do you have any contribution to the topic? Anything at all?”
“You didn't even invite me to dinner yet.” Akira didn't bother stifling a yawn this time. “We could have Takoyaki with pancakes as dessert!”
“Akira...”
“Come on, Goro,” he sighed. “Stop worrying your pretty little head. It's night – I think. Hard to tell from in here. We've just come back from another reality that we single-handedly destroyed in life-changing, dramatic decisions that apparently didn't change anything, fought God in the metaverse and need rest. Can we just go to sleep?”
There was a little pause, then...-
“Don't you want to know what's going on at all?”
Akira sighed.
“No. Because if I hear about having to lose you one more time, I'll snap. Right now, I'm just accepting things as they are. Can you do that with me? For one night?”
Another little pause. Akira couldn't even hear Akechi breathing, was sure that he had held his breath for a moment and then light steps on socks came towards him in the darkness. It was entirely possible that Akechi would try and smother him with a pillow again – he didn't have any spare energy to care.
“Okay,” Akechi's voice drifted to him instead. “One night.”
Before Akira could as much as reply, a warm body had curled up beside him, a back pressing against his chest as he tentatively wrapped his arms around Akechi's waist, pulling him close. There was a content little sigh that made him want to squeeze Akechi until he made that sound again and again and again, but he held back, instead pulling at the blanket that Akechi had brought with him to drape over both of them on top of his own and revelled in the sudden warmth.
“One night,” Akira replied in confirmation. “Tomorrow we're already out of here.”
“Mh-mhm,” Akechi mumbled into the darkness.
Akira had to admit – juvie wasn't half as bad as last time, for some entirely unknown reason.
“Trickster. What a pleasant surprise.”
Akira recognised the blue glow encompassing him before he even opened his dream-eyes, sighing as he sat up on the prison bench and grinning at Lavenza through the (open) bars.
“I actually am in a prison cell right now,” he told her.
Lavenza raised an eyebrow.
“I'm aware. I did tell you everything would return to its rightful place, did I not?”
“You did,” Akira agreed with a nod. “Except...”
He turned his head and found that next to him on the very narrow prison cot lay Akechi, in his silly skintight suit, poking holes into the air with his mask, but still fast asleep.
Adorable.
Lavenza smirked at him.
“I admit I may have found it necessary to use a bit of a loophole so you would finally receive a reward worthy of your efforts – especially considering the things we put your partner through. I would hope that this one pleases both of you – wouldn't you agree, though, that he is in his rightful place next to you?”
Akira gave Akechi a thoughtful glance as understanding coursed through him.
“Is this really him? The real him? Just taken out of place and time to be put next to me? And does he have a choice to leave or is he stuck with me now?”
Lavenza shook her head softly.
“Worry not, Trickster. He is the one you know, just as real as you and taken out of his fate to live through the one that could've been his if it wasn't for divine intervention in the first place. You were always destined to meet, which is why this whole loophole even got made possible. His will is as free and untamed as it always is – what he does with his chance is for him to decide.”
She gave him a little wink.
“I felt like we owed him.”
“Lavenza,” Akira said earnestly, a beaming grin spreading on his face even as the Velvet Room began to dissolve around him. “You're a legend!”
They woke up arm in arm, Akechi looking incredibly adorable in the morning light, with his hair sticking in every direction and his face carrying indents of heavy pressing against Akira's shirt. He blinked up at him with eyes glazed over from sleepiness and Akira realised with a loud pounding of his heart, that he could get used to that sight.
“I dreamed the weirdest shit last night,” Akechi mumbled with lightly slurred words.
Akira grinned.
“I can only imagine.”
One very important dream-exchange and some discharge formalities later, they were standing outside of juvie, staring at Sojiro who was staring at them.
“The car's getting fixed, there was something wrong with the motor,” he explained again. “I really don't know what your sudden problem with taxis is.”
Their ex psychologist/ex-semi God/now taxi-driver may have something to do with it, actually.
Currently, he was waving at them from the front seat with his silly little taxi driver cap as if he had never done anything else.
Akechi looked pained.
“You're right, this has to be reality,” he admitted for the first time, even after their talk about what Lavenza had said. “No dream world could be this shitty.”
They got into the taxi and let Sojiro sit in the front. Akechi let his head fall onto Akira's shoulder and closed his eyes, pretending to be asleep.
Maruki winked at them through the back mirror.
“Told you you belonged together,” he mouthed when he caught his gaze and Akira closed his eyes as well.
It was definitely too early for that shit.
“If he has anything to do with this-”
“He doesn't.”
“But if somehow he does...-”
“Goro. He doesn't.”
“But...-”
Akira grabbed his hand, tired of Akechi walking circles in his little attic room (it did stir up a lot of dust he would rather keep being unaware of) and pulled him towards him, his other hand also reaching for Akechi's and squeezing.
“It's real. I promise you, it's real. We're good.”
Akechi blinked down again.
“But you chose differently!”
Akira shrugged.
“We chose to save reality and reality decided it owed us in turn. It did. I'm not going to complain.”
“Akira-”
“No, don't you Akira me,” he interrupted him fiercely.
“Joker.”
“Nice try. Listen. You made me choose reality, so I did. To respect your wishes like you wanted me to. Now this is reality. You're here. You've got the free will you wanted. Use it. Stay.”
“Stay? But I can't possibly-”
There were steps on the stairs. Akira watched Akechi froze, felt the sudden stiffness in the fingers still intertwined with his, before he pulled away, turning.
Sojiro stepped into the attic with a pillow and some blankets under his arms.
“For you,” he nodded towards Akechi before pushing them into his arms.
Akechi stood motionless.
“Huh? For me?”
“Yeah, something tells me that kid here is a blanket hogger, you're gonna want your own.”
“You... you want me to stay... here?” he asked, voice tethering on hysterics.
Sojiro frowned.
“Of course,” he finally grumbled. “What a stupid question – do you get that from him? You belong together after all.”
He left with a shake of his head, leaving a stunned Akechi and a chuckling Akira.
“People are going... to keep saying that, aren't they?”
“Look at it from the bright side,” grinned Akira, finally succeeding in pulling Akechi next to him on the bed, where he sat staring into the whirls of dust he had stirred up himself. “It'll solve the problem Haru is going to have with you joining our circle.”
Akechi glanced at him from the side.
“This is ridiculous.”
Akira couldn't help himself – he pressed a kiss to his temple, grinning.
“Are you staying or not?”
Akechi froze beneath him but didn't move away – in fact, after half a minute of silent shock, he moved back against him, head yet again falling onto Akira's shoulder.
“I guess.”
Akira pumped a fist into the air.
“Turned the Detective Prince into Attic Trash in only a day!”
Akechi pinched his eyes closed.
“Fuck you.”
The Phantom Thieves accepted Akechi into the group seamlessly.
“So I get free will – but everyone else is losing theirs,” Akechi remarked dryly while Akira poured coffee for everyone who asked – Akechi first though, he always got awfully cranky without his daily caffeine boost.
“What makes you think that?” Yusuke asked, sounding genuinely interested in that way of his.
Akechi raised an arm and waved at the entire group, all squeezed into two booths with him very much in the centre. Akira slid in beside him, grinning as he wrapped an arm around his waist and squeezed gently.
Ann laughed.
“So you think us spending time with you is a sign that we lost our free will? Please. We just want Akira to be happy.”
“Plus, you're not that bad,” Ryuji added sheepishly. “At least now that you're less stuck up.”
Ann stepped on his foot in a way everyone saw. Akechi's lips twitched.
“Debatable,” Haru threw in, voice deceivingly sweet and cheerful. She had always been the kind to murder with kindness. “But I know Akira cares about you, and some of my friends do, too. I'll deal with it and hate you in quiet – all out of my free will.”
Charming, thought Akira.
“Charming,” said Akechi.
“I don't have a problem with you as long as you don't eat my curry portions,” Futaba told him and Akira was sure no one else could tell, but he saw Akechi's lips quirk into the tiniest of smiles.
That evening before bedtime, Akechi ate his fourth portion of curry.
“Are you trying to punish yourself?” Akira asked, watching him with a raised eyebrow. “Futaba can find any and all dirt on you for this, you know?”
“What's there to find you don't already know?” he asked, shovelling in the curry with abandon. “And no, I'm just hungry. We haven't eaten properly since we left that damn reality.”
“There's always your Feathermen fanfics.”
Akechi froze, spoon in the air and horror on his face.
“I'll just tell her it was me. Should be fine. This once.”
Akechi finished his plate and set it down, a smirk on his face as he looked back to Akira.
“So. What's your plan, then? Aren't you going to return to your home town after the semester ends?”
“Oh,” Akira replied. “I can see why you would think that – Nah. That'd be stupid, wouldn't it? Going back to a town where no one wants me after all I went through with the friends I found here. Sojiro says I'm free to stay, so....”
“Good for you.”
“And you?” Akira asked, fiddling with the hem of his shirt and feeling nervous for the first time since they returned. “Are you staying?”
Akechi gave him a sharp look. “Do you really want me to?”
Akira nodded and he sighed, once, heavily, theatrically in a way that let Akira known it wasn't real.
“Well, then I suppose I might as well.”
And that was that.
They fell asleep intertwined again, skin against skin as they lay in Akira's small, improvised bed with nothing on but their boxers. There was honey-brown hair in his mouth and tickling his nose but he didn't care, just kept his face buried in his hair, taking in the smell of his shampoo, feeling the breathing, warm body in his arms and it was alright.
They were alright.
Reality had shifted, Gods had been vanquished and Goro, he was by his side still.
...
“You looked really hot when you punched Maruki,” came Akechi's voice from the darkness.
“Hot enough to kiss?”
There were soft lips on the corners of his, pressing a single kiss against them, then the tired murmur,
“Ask me again tomorrow.”
Who needed a fake reality anyway? It took so very little to find happiness.