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[lakebrat]

Hello. You've reached Goro Akechi, known as Frog. Please leave a message.

[Beep.]

[[ooc: WARNING that threads with willowandoak may contain unmarked NSFW. Tread lightly. Blame Sunflowren.]]

Comments

[lakebrat]

Well, I'd say it's clear enough what happened. Everyone is defending each other. Magpie was defending you, in part. [What?] Glitch has been defending Drake. You defended Magpie. It's the way blood feuds have always gone.

All of us have a history of depending only on ourselves, or on each other. Perhaps it's our nature as Phantom Thieves. Yet we have to work together, if we're to complete this mission.

[fogbornphantom]

Naturally. But that means we're all going to have to do better.

[He attaches a series of screenshots.]

This is the conversation in its entirety that led to the series of events that ultimately brought about that message and all the damage that came with it.

[lakebrat]

Rather than reply at once, Goro looks up at Ren. "He's sent the messages that led to Magpie texting you."

[willowandoak]

Ren, who's been sitting with his legs curled to his chest and tugging restlessly at a lock of hair, looks up sharply, tense with sudden alarm.

"Uh," he says after a moment. "Okay. Cool." It doesn't quite occur to him that Akechi is asking for permission to read it.

[lakebrat]

His mouth tugs a little at the corner. "I mean, do you want me to read them? Or would you rather I not? It's up to you."

[willowandoak]

...God. Ren sends Crow that entire conversation and Crow responds by showing Akechi what Ren said first. He could open his mouth and say, I know how it looks, but Drake deserved all that, and it would be just as clear what he means. All the tension drains out of him as quickly as it arrived. Exhausted, he tilts his head back to stare dully at the rafters.

"Sure. Do what you want."

[lakebrat]

After a moment, he comes over to sit at Ren's side again, sliding an arm around him. "Hey."

[willowandoak]

Ren leans sideways until he's resting his weight against Akechi. A metaphor. His eyes trail down, to Akechi's stupid shelf full of little trinkets that always makes him feel weird.

"Hi."

[lakebrat]

Goro's looking at them too, eyes half-focused on that little Mothman that took him six weeks to get. "Tell me what you're thinking?"

[willowandoak]

"Just. I show Crow those messages and he comes back with, 'Okay, yeah, but remember what you said to me first? So you had it coming.' " He sighs. "He's probably not even wrong, but. I don't know."

[lakebrat]

He squeezes Ren's shoulder, holds out his phone so Ren can see. "Here."

On the screen glows Crow's sad little message. I'm to blame for all of this.

[willowandoak]

He squints at the message, trying to connect that idea to the concept of Crow sending screenshots of that one conversation. He can't make it work.

"...I don't get it."

[lakebrat]

"He's blaming himself." He stares at Mothman, at the pair of sword-wielding Girimehkala that proudly flank him. "For the mess in the Palace, for Magpie texting you in the first place. He thinks it's all on him."

[willowandoak]

"That's stupid," he says, coming to Crow's defense on instinct, despite everything. Then: "Why the motherfuck would he send that conversation, then?"

The one where Ren was too open, and it repelled Crow, like he always knew he would. He remembers it vividly. Voices whisper poisonous abuse in his ears.

[lakebrat]

"I don't know. I haven't read it." But his hand moves gently in reassuring circles. Ren can tell him, if he wants.

[willowandoak]

He sighs again. "Go ahead, I guess." It can't be worse than everything else he's told Akechi, surely.

He doesn't want to look at it again himself, though. He turns his face away.

[lakebrat]

So he opens the first screenshot, and starts to swipe. Almost at once he has to swallow a laugh, at the "pushing people away" evasion tactic. "Sorry."

It doesn't last, anyway. The more he reads, the more the weight of grief weighs on him. i killed wakaba isshiki. i was going to kill my version of you. just have some cops drug him and shoot him in the head. i told magpie....

But Crow's words take him by surprise. What did he do to provoke such a response? I may adore Magpie, but he can be a fucking idiot.

Eventually he has to put the phone down and stare at the ceiling, blinking. i keep seeing futabas face. and magpies when he was little. when they liked me. i hate it. i hate it. "Ah, Ren," he eventually says. "No wonder you ended up with a Palace."

[willowandoak]

"...the fuck does that mean?"

He isn't mad, just. Baffled.

[lakebrat]

"Nothing. Just..." He shakes his head, and pulls Ren close. Then I'll give you some space.

[willowandoak]

That clarifies nothing. Still confused, and still trying not to look at Akechi's phone, Ren settles into the embrace, wrapping an arm around Akechi's back.

[lakebrat]

And now, perhaps unexpectedly, it's Goro leaning on Ren for comfort. When did that happen? He swallows. "I should text him back. He's probably...."

Panicking. Maybe Goro should do more of that.

[willowandoak]

"...Crow can get fucked. Are you okay?"

[lakebrat]

He turns his head to look at Ren, with a bit of difficulty, and a bit of calculation too. "I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be?"

It's like seeing the Palace built in front of him, brick by brick. Or assembled from preformed parts that were just waiting in line. And so many of them have his name on them. He knew that already, but....

[willowandoak]

"I don't know," he says, meaning it. He could understand anger, but Akechi doesn't seem to be mad. "You just seem kind of. Off."

[lakebrat]

"Am I that off?" He resettles, eyes on the, frankly, giant spatula Haru got him in Asakusa. "It was just... sad, I suppose. Not pitiful. It reminded me why we're doing the Palace."