Chapter Text
Akechi comes back to warmth, and a solid, living bed.
He opens his eyes, finding his face buried in the crook of a massive, curled thumb. He blinks. Fog dulls the sharper edges of his thought, remnants of sleep obscure his vision. He blinks again, looks around, watches fingers long as he is tall twitch against his back. His legs rest against a giant, calloused palm.
He sucks in a breath through his nose, and the smell of vanilla, cinnamon, and cheap detergent hit him like a truck. His eyes widen. His head snaps up, and—
Ren Amamiya's giant, concerned stare looms above him, hunched over Goro like he’s something to be protected. From this angle, Goro has a perfect view of his unmasked face.
Realization dawns like a summer sun. A brittle smile splits his face, all cracked edges and sour cherries. Goro murmurs, “I'm dreaming, aren’t I?”
Ren tenses. His voice reverberates through him. “Akechi, you—something happened. Maruki did—“
Goro runs a—gloveless, how fitting—hand over Ren’s thumb. It’s barely the size of his nail. Ren shuts up. His digit is hard, used to handling tools and sharp objects. He cradles Goro’s form as if afraid he’s going to break it.
Gods, he’s warm. Too warm, too gentle for this to be reality. Goro would die before the universe could give him anything as soft as this.
Goro sighs. “You smell like my mother.”
The hand holding Goro completely, utterly stills. If he craned his neck up he’d see—not a deer-in-headlights expression, because this is a dream, and Ren would never falter in a perfect reality. Whatever fog muddles Goro's thoughts would exist to obscure Ren’s face, like one of Tokyo’s skyscrapers jutting up into the heavens.
This is a dream—it must be, right? He deserves nothing less, nothing better, nothing real.
The hand beneath him is solid, sturdy as a real hand. Goro can feel the faint, rapid thrumming of a pulse, buried beneath layers of flesh. It almost, almost feels real, but—
This is a dream, and Goro settles into Ren’s palm, wrapping his arms around the boy's thumb. Almost on autopilot, Ren’s fingers brush against his back, cradling him, keeping him safe.
Ren’s voice rumbles, “Akechi—“
“Ren,” Goro says, against the skin of his—rival isn’t the right term here, is it? His apparition, his antithesis, the boy holding him in the palm of his hand. He buries his face into Ren’s thumb, and lets exhaustion mar his tone. “...Let me have this.”
Wherever this is, be it an afterlife or a cruel, fleeting reminder of what Goro could’ve held, he’ll take it. He’ll let himself rest.
There’s no price for being vulnerable when you’re already dead.
Ren’s exhale ruffles his hair. His breath smells like coffee, complimenting the scents his mother wore before her death. Goro feels a single, massive finger trail down his side. It’s beautifully warm, just as the rest of Ren is.
“...Okay,” Ren whispers. Goro closes his eyes. “I'll...I've got you. I'll figure everything out.”
Goro takes his reassurance, as fleeting as it is, and slots it into the place where he keeps his mother’s last words. It only takes Ren’s fingers moving to blanket over him, before he slips away.
So long as he’s dreaming, maybe this death will be kind to him.
~
Goro wakes up, and that’s a surprise in and of itself. His eyes widen as he registers that familiar, soft warmth around him. Only—fabric blankets him, thick and heavy. His weight dips it into a hammock. It’s dark; he can barely see his hand in front of his face.
He’s curled up against a wall, one that thrums with a rhythmic, pulsing beat, like that of a heart. He feels more than hears it pumping, drumming under his hands. A piece clicks into place.
He almost jolts as a voice rumbles through the wall, through Goro, impossibly deep and twice as loud, “I’ll be waiting for you.”
Amamiya. Joker. Ren. Distantly, he remembers massive fingers cradling him, remembers a dream-like fugue where anything could happen. The fog’s gone, his exhaustion cured by the last time he slept, slept in Amamiya's hand—
The city chatters around him, muted by a layer of fabric but no less blaring. Amamiya's chest is solid under his body. Goro himself is uncomfortably warm, in his coat and Amamiya’s coat because he’s, what, curled up in his pocket like a fucking hamster? This—this isn’t—why is he so small—?
Something warm and massive slides over Goro, cupping around him and the pit of fabric. Goro isn’t able to quell a full-body flinch.
The warmth stills. Above him—no, surrounding him, voice reverberating like a clap of thunder, Amamiya asks, “Goro?”
Goro’s digs his fingers into Amamiya's chest. Why doesn’t he have gloves? Why isn’t he bleeding out? Why is he so small?
Amamiya darts through the crowd—and that’s his hand, isn’t it, squishing Goro into his chest like he’s an unruly cat? This isn’t right. He should be dead, rotting on a ship in the cognitive remains of Tokyo, not—whatever this is.
What the fuck is going on?
Amamiya takes a sharp turn. The chatter of the city begins to fade into a muted hum. He keeps walking. Goro jams his teeth into the flesh of his hand. He isn’t fucking dreaming. What—?
Amamiya stops. Goro cranes his neck back as—something pries open the fabric above him. Light floods into the small space, and massive, dark shadows reach in. He throws himself into the corner of the fabric, heart pounding, arms braced in front of him. Thick, leathery trunks slide under his arms and chest. Goro sucks in a breath as they tighten, lifting him up, up, up—
They drop him on something solid and warm. Goro's head snaps up, and he meets concerned, dark eyes the size of his head. Amamiya's face completely fills his vision, his fingers hovering at Goro’s sides.
He winces. “Goro—“
“What the fuck is this?!” Goro shoots to his feet, refusing to be curled up in Amamiya’s fucking hand like some kind of pet—before throwing his arms out because he refuses to eat shit like this, too. “What the hell did you do to me?!”
“That’s what I'm trying to figure out.” Amamiya's voice is low, calm, completely level, like he’s trying to be fucking soothing. Like he isn’t 20 times Goro’s height. “I have a hypothesis, but you woke up before I could confirm it.”
Goro yelps as Amamiya's finger brushes against his foot. He doesn’t hear Amamiya’s next words, because he’s too busy drowning, because he’s—
He’s completely helpless, isn’t he?
He’s literally standing in the palm of Amamiya’s hand, body no longer than one of the boy’s fingers. He probably doesn’t have his phone, doesn’t have his gun, doesn’t have an once of strength to his name. Amamiya could overpower him with—what? His hand? His pinkie? He’s buried too deep in the subway’s corner to escape. No matter how far he’d run, Amamiya could catch up to him in a matter of steps—unless, of course, he doesn’t decide to simply crush Goro beneath his heel—
“Hey...are you...?” Amamiya’s voice rumbles through him. Goro's breaths are coming too fast, too quick. It doesn’t matter. He—refuses to be someone’s plaything, stuck under a corrupt god’s control, again. But he—he can’t—
“Put me down,” Goro forces out. He drags his eyes to meet the giant’s gaze, expression hardening into a desperate glare when Amamiya’s eyes crinkle with concern.
He bites his lip, teeth gleaming like fangs gleaming like knives. “Goro—“
“Don’t—fucking call me that. Get the fuck off me. Put me down.” His voice cracks. It doesn’t—matter. Stand your ground, look into the barrel of the gun levelled at you, shrug off the social worker’s hand when they ask about your mother. Keep going, overcome, do it alone if you must. He can’t string together his thoughts long enough to manipulate his target, but Amamiya’s heart has always fucking bled.
He looks around, searching for an alternative exit. He’s about to hurl himself off Amamiya's hand when he replies, “I—I need to talk to you. I don’t want you to run off.”
Goro chokes out a laugh, high-pitched and manic. “Where the fuck would I go? Let go of me. I—I swear to god, Amamiya, I'm going to fucking—“
“Okay,” Amamiya breathes, and Goro flinches when the hand beneath him lowers. His breath’s coming in too fast—and Amamiya noticed that, didn’t he? Shit—but it doesn’t matter when freedom’s so close. He resists the urge to brace himself against Amamiya's thumb.
Goro wastes no time flinging himself off when the hand reaches solid ground. His shoes stumble against the floor of the subway, and he shudders as its cold wracks through his body.
It’s fine. He’s fine. Suck in a breath, dance away from the giant crouched in front of him, steel himself and save face for the cameras. No one likes a quitter, Akechi Goro. He's a goddamn ace detective. He’ll figure this out, and he’ll find a weapon that’ll stop Amamiya's hands in their tracks. Eventually.
Goro cranes his head up, scrambling for whatever control he has. Amamiya's hunched over him, crouched on the floor like Goro's a particularly interesting bug.
Goro swallows, clenches his clammy hands, and grounds out, “You are going to explain to me what the fuck you’ve ‘discovered’, and you are going to fix this, right now.”
Amamiya winces, and Goro knows, tar spreading into his stomach, that fixing this will be far, far easier said than done.