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There’s no other word for it: the medicine Dr. Takemi gives Ren to test that night is awful. Just absolutely disgusting. It’s only been a few weeks since their deal and the night he choked down that first terrible sludge, and when Ren finally manages to work up the guts to go back for another ‘clinical trial’ – after many evenings spent valiantly attempting the Big Bang Burger Challenge – Takemi smirks at him as she ushers him into the exam room.
The medicine she produces for him is different than it was last time. The consistency is actually much better – almost like juice – but as if to to make up for that kindness the flavor is infinitely worse. It tastes like if grass could rot. It tastes like it was brewed inside of roadkill. Ren swallows it like he’s downing a shot and immediately presses the back of his hand to his mouth. It’s awful enough that he has to fight with his body not to vomit. Part of him is tempted to let it happen, just to get whatever it was out of him, but –
But they need Takemi’s medicine. Madarame’s palace is more dangerous than Kamoshida’s was by far, and they keep coming across enemies with ice attacks that leave both him and Ann barely hanging on, and Yusuke’s still learning the basics and God knows the learning curve for being a goddamn Phantom Thief was steep, and Morgana doesn’t have that much health to begin with, and Ryuji – Ryuji is Ryuji.
Ren wouldn’t be able to deal with it if one of them died because he was too cowardly to choke down Takemi’s mystery drugs. So he closes his eyes, and he staggers, and he leans against her counter, and he keeps it down. After a moment the nausea passes and he opens his eyes. Takemi is eyeing him dispassionately, arms folded across her chest. He runs his tongue over the roof of his mouth and winces at the taste that lingers there, but a moment passes, and then two, and he still doesn’t pass out, and Takemi looks almost approving.
“Good fight, kid,” she deadpans, scribbling something onto her clipboard. “How do you feel?”
Ren thinks for a moment. The aftertaste in his mouth is atrocious, and he feels a little light-headed, but other than that he feels almost normal, so he tells her so. She frowns.
“Do you feel… faster? More alert?”
Ren does not feel faster or more alert. He shakes his head. “A little less, maybe,” he mutters. She seizes on this, writes it down, mutters something about opposites. Ren is eighty-five percent sure this woman has a membership to a goddamn witch’s coven and not a medical degree, but as we’ve established, he needs her potions-slash-drugs, so he’s not about to question it.
He sits there for fifteen more minutes while she pokes at him and shines light in his eyes. When she finally nods at him and deems him well enough to go, he nods at her and stands. This is when he gets his first clue that something’s about to go badly wrong: when he stands up, his vision blacks out for a moment, and he staggers forward.
Takemi catches him roughly with a hand on his forearm and raises an eyebrow at him when his vision clears. Ren waves her off, mutters something about standing up too quickly, buys as much medicine from her as he can afford, and walks with as much coordination as he can manage out the door and into the street. He’s gotta get back to Leblanc to close up, after all.
Walking doesn’t help the throbbing pain that’s taken root in his head. Walking, as it turns out, makes it much, much worse. By the time he’s passing the theatre doors Ren feels like someone split his head open and scooped out his brain. His vision is blurring and his throat feels dry and his limbs are heavy and numb, and maybe he should go back to the clinic, but all he wants is to sleep, and his bed is so close –
He bumps into someone. It nearly sends him sprawling to the ground but he manages to catch himself on the stone fence outside Leblanc, and he counts it as a blessing even though the force of the impact makes his whole body throb. He mutters an apology. The other person – a regular at Leblanc, Ren recognizes them through his haze – squints at him.
“Hey, you’re Sakura’s kid, yeah?”
“More like his freeloader,” Ren croaks. He pushes off the wall and starts to drag himself back to Leblanc.
“Are you okay?” the stranger calls. Ren only grunts in response, and after a moment she turns and walks away, shooting glances back at him all the while.
Ren hears laughter as he approaches Leblanc and closes his eyes in exhaustion for just a moment, dreading what he’s now sure will be a confrontation he doesn’t have the strength to handle. After all, Sojiro might be busy enough on a normal day to let Ren slip up to his room without a fuss, but that voice…
He pushes open the door. Ryuji swivels toward the noise expectantly, a great big grin on his face that quickly drops when he sees the state Ren’s in. Sojiro starts to give his usual greeting, but Ryuji cuts him off with a loud “Ren?!” that startles Sojiro into looking up.
Ren closes the door behind him and leans against it in a way that he hopes looks casual and not like he’s gritting his teeth against the aching soreness in his body. Ryuji and Sojiro are sporting twin looks of undisguised dismay, so he doesn’t think he’s doing a very good job.
“I’m home,” Ren grits out, and then he pitches forward.
“Dude!” Ryuji yelps. Ren barely registers it. He fully expects to bash his head off the countertop and wind up right back in Takemi’s exam room – if he’s lucky – but the pain he’s expecting never comes. Instead, strong arms wind around him, stopping his fall and steadying him. When Ren looks up, blinks away the dark spots that dance around the edges of his vision, Ryuji is there, eyes wide with concern.
Ren tries to push away from Ryuji, but he doesn’t make it a step before pain arcs down his spine and he gives a pathetic-sounding little half-whimper. Ryuji’s grip on his forearms tightens almost imperceptibly. “H- hey, what the hell’s wrong with you, dude? You look like shit!” Ryuji shifts so he’s bearing Ren’s weight more fully and Ren gives in, sags against him.
It’s… nice. It’s nicer than it has any right to be. Ren’s parents were never particularly tactile people, even before he became more trouble than he was worth, and it’s only recently that he’s made friends close enough that anybody touches him at all. A hand on his shoulder, a slap on the back, a ruffle of his hair. The touches they offer him are casual, everyday, like they’re no big deal. And they are, they should be. Ren shouldn’t – he shouldn’t want more from them. From Ryuji.
But Ren is selfish: he wants to be held, to be surrounded by that intentional touch. To be touched on purpose, with meaning. For Ryuji to touch him like he means it. And even through the fog of pain, the black dots that crowd his periphery, Ryuji’s arms holding him upright are so close to what he wants that it makes his heart thrash in his chest.
“Aasfghjd,” Ren says. “Ow, fuck.”
“Dude,” Ryuji says again.
Sojiro comes around the counter, then, maneuvers Ren’s arm over one of his shoulders. His expression is unreadable, and Ren doesn’t have the energy to even make an attempt. Together, Ryuji and Sojiro help Ren up the stairs and into his room.
Morgana leaps upright when they enter and says “Ren?! You–” but his voice fades out, along with the rest of the world.
Ren’s not sure what time it is when he wakes up, but Ryuji’s still there. He’s pulled the desk chair over next to the bed and is half-sitting in it, half-slumped, asleep, on the edge of the bed. He feels a lot better than he did – his throat is dry and his limbs still feel heavy, but his headache’s all but gone and his body doesn’t hurt the way it had.
He blinks, looks around. It’s dark outside his window – shouldn’t Ryuji have gone home? The last trains must have run by now – and there’s a note on the pillow next to his head.
ren –
goddamn stupid stunt you pulled tonight. called the doc, she explained everything. you probably just need rest, but see her if you still feel like garbage tomorrow. called the school – STAY HOME.
It’s Sojiro’s handwriting. Ren frowns. Beside him, Morgana stirs awake. When he sees Ren sitting up he yowls.
“Ren! Do you have any idea how terrifying that was, you could have died, I–”
“Shh!” Ren says, looking frantically at Ryuji. He’s a heavy sleeper, but that only goes so far when Morgana yells like that, and – ah, fuck.
Ryuji stirs and rubs at his eyes. “Morgana,” he slurs, sleep thick in his voice. (Ren feels impossibly fond). “Why’re y...” and then he looks over. “Oh. Oh! Ren!” And then Ryuji’s arms are around him again. Ren shudders and presses his face into Ryuji’s neck, clutches helplessly at his back.
When he finally pulls back, Ryuji has a look on his face like he’s in pain. Ren wants to reach out and smooth the wrinkle between his eyebrows with a thumb. He ruffles Ryuji’s hair instead, says: “You need a touch-up.”
Ryuji squawks, his hands flying to his head. “Hey! Shut up!” Ren snickers, and Ryuji’s eyes soften. “Uh,” he says, and ah, Ren’s plan to distract him has failed, “so, are we gonna, like – talk about what happened?”
Ren sighs. Part of him wants to play it off or deflect again, but all it’ll do is make that frown on Ryuji’s face deepen, and that’s the last thing he wants. So he says: “Clinical trial. Thought I was good to go. Huge tactical error.”
“Why were you doing a clinical trial?” Ryuji says, confused. “Don’t you have, like, four part-time jobs? You can’t possibly need that much cash, even with the Phantom Thief shit,” Ryuji says.
Ren looks away. “Takemi makes her own drugs. She sells me medicine for the Phantom Thieves as long as I participate in her studies.”
Ryuji’s eyes darken. He curses under his breath. “Damnit, I knew we shoulda asked where you were gettin’ that stuff. God fucking– Ugh.” He throws his hands up into the air and stands, paces around the room. Ren watches him. Distantly, he notices Morgana get up and slink downstairs, out of the room and away from the burgeoning confrontation.
“You’re pissed,” Ren says, something almost like wonder in his tone. He hadn’t expected pissed from Ryuji. He’d expected Sojiro to be pissed, Morgana to be stern with worry, and Ryuji – well. Ren hadn’t expected Ryuji to be around when he woke up at all.
He thinks maybe he’d underestimated him.
“I – fuck, Ren, of course I’m pissed. Boss says you’re out and then you get back and you’re all – feverish and clammy and stumblin’ all over the place like a fuckin’ baby deer, and then you’re just out, and Boss calls the doctor and she’s like well, bring him here if he dies and I’ll tell you what killed him –”
“Ryuji –”
“And the whole time I’m tryin’ to figure out why the hell you’re doin’ those shady clinical trials in the first place, and then it’s for – for us?” Ryuji sighs, buries his face in his hands. “Do you have any idea how scared I was?” he says, plaintive. It comes out muffled.
Ren frowns. “I can’t let anything happen to any of you. You’re my friends.”
Ryuji barks a laugh and all but collapses back into the chair. Ren doesn’t understand this, not until Ryuji finally meets his eyes and says, “Well, I can’t – I can’t let anything happen to you. Ren, you gotta know your safety’s important too. You gotta.” He exhales a shuddering breath. “Please tell me you know that.”
“I…” Ren wants to look away, but he forces himself to hold Ryuji’s gaze. It’s the least he can do. After all, the next thing he says is: “I’m not stopping. Like it or not, Ryuji, we need that medicine.”
Ryuji looks torn for a moment, like he isn’t sure what he can even say in this moment, and Ren thinks they are at an impasse. Then, Ryuji’s eyes flicker. “Take me with you, then.”
Ren blinks. “What?”
“When you go to do the –” he grimaces – “trials. Take me. I can – I dunno, take care of you, or whatever.”
It’s hard to tell in the dark, but Ryuji’s cheeks flush when he says this, Ren is almost certain. His heart thumps in his chest. “I go at odd hours,” Ren says.
Ryuji blinks once, and then determination sets his features. “I’ll adapt my schedule.”
“Takemi’s weird. You can’t get freaked out.”
“No way is she weirder than you, dude.”
“The office smells weird.”
“Seriously? That’s all you’ve got?” Ryuji snickers.
Softly, Ren says: “... you don’t have to do this.”
Ryuji’s face turns serious again. “I want to,” he says, like it’s that simple, like that’s enough of a reason. Ren wants it to be. He wants it so badly his chest sings for it.
“Why?” he says, needing to be sure, needing to hear it aloud.
“Why?” Ryuji echoes. He runs a hand through his hair, laughing nervously. “God, I thought you weren’t gonna make me say it.”
“Please,” Ren murmurs.
Ryuji closes his eyes. Opens them. “I – like you, or whatever.” And suddenly, it is that simple. “D–don’t make it a big thing, though! You’re still my best bro, I’m not gonna –”
Ren reaches out and presses his hands to the line of Ryuji’s jaw. Ryuji falters and falls silent. The air between them is charged like it always is when Ryuji’s around.
“My lightning in a bottle,” Ren murmurs, and kisses him.
It’s not a particularly good kiss. Their teeth clack uncomfortably, and Ryuji doesn’t know what to do with his hands – they flounder in the air before settling stiffly on Ren’s shoulders like they’re at a middle school dance, which makes Ren laugh into it. He tries to turn his head, to adjust the angle, but apparently Ryuji has the same thought because suddenly he’s been knocked a few inches back and his forehead is throbbing.
Ryuji swears. Ren bursts into laughter. When he stops, Ryuji is just watching him, desperate fondness in his eyes, face pale and soft in the moonlight.
Ren scoots over and pats the mattress beside him.
When Morgana returns, both boys are fast asleep, curled up facing each other like a pair of kittens, their limbs tangled together. Morgana huffs a fond sigh and settles down on the pillow next to Ren’s head. Tomorrow, Morgana will have words for Ren about his recklessness with his own life; he’s sure Sojiro will too, and Ann and Yusuke when they find out what happened.
For now, they sleep.