Archive of Our Own ^beta

~*~

So this is it. Staring down the barrel of his own shadow’s gun.

Goro hadn’t expected to live that long, so making it this far at all is kind of an achievement. Eighteen miserable fucking years.

He’s lost everything, made himself insane, failed to kill Joker and his cronies, and fallen to pieces in a completely cringeworthy way. So when his shadow appears to put him out of his misery, the thing Goro feels strongest of all is relief.

It’s not like he hasn’t been close to topping himself before, clinging on by pure spite and unfulfilled bloodlust. This is just an elaborate version of killing himself, really. Suicide by proxy, something like that.

He pulls the trigger at the same moment his shadow does, and thinks, in the split second before the bullet tears through his skull and ends his wretched life, thank fuck it’s over.

Everything goes black, but then… everything goes blue.

A beautiful song wafts through the air as the lights slowly go up. He’s in a dark room where a bizarre looking old man sits in a shabby suit.

“This is a bit unconventional,” remarks the old man in a shrill, theatrical voice, “however, I find myself in a bind, and you and I may be able to help each other.”

“I’m not sucking you off, if that’s where you’re going with this,” Goro gets in good and early.

“No, no,” the old man assures him with a slightly disturbed tone. “My name is Igor, normally I’d have different accommodations, but I’ve been ousted from them by the same god who conspired against you.”

“Against me?” Goro looks around at what amounts to some kind of cell. He’s on the floor and the old man, Igor, is on a single piece of furniture, a tiny wooden stool. It’s all a bit weird, but then it’s not like he was expecting anything except the comforting embrace of oblivion.

“Indeed, I’ll explain everything if you choose to stay on with me, but it is a choice you may make.”

“What’s the alternative?” Goro checks.

“I seized your soul as it departed the land of the living and brought you here, but if you truly wish to end your life then you may carry onward.”

“So I’m not dead?” he says, feeling his face and forehead for the gruesome crater it doesn’t bear. He actually feels pretty good, all things considered. It's something he’s so unused to it’s inherently suspicious. “But that shadow blew my fucking brains out.”

“Your body was destroyed past repair, indeed, but your soul is intact,” explains Igor. “A wildcard’s soul is a powerful thing, so if you’re interested, how about working for me?”

“Doing what?” asks Goro suspiciously, half believing that this is just another route back to sucking the old man off.

“With your help I hope to return soon to my original chamber, the Velvet Room,” Igor tells him. “If we succeed, with the right training you can become an attendant and tend to our guests and their personas.”

“Why should I?”

“That you may answer only for yourself,” Igor advises. “Suffice to say, it’s not being dead, an option you are still more than welcome to pursue.”

“Death or becoming a Velvet Room Attendant,” Goro muses, having heard of the Velvet Room in loose terms from Joker, a vague explanation for his irritating habit of staring vacantly into space for long periods of time before whipping out a dangerous new arsenal of personas. Jammy fucking showoff.

It occurs that the look on Joker’s stupid face if he came to that mystical place and saw Goro there unexpectedly might be somewhat amusing.

“Fine,” Goro declares impulsively, getting up and dusting himself off, not that there’s anything really to dust. He’s not even in his metaverse costume anymore, either of them, instead wearing the old ace detective rags. “In that case, I’ll accept your offer.”

“Excellent,” crows Igor, raising a hand of long fingers and snapping them. 

Blue shimmers appear and start to swirl around Goro. He attempts to swat them away but it does nothing to prevent his clothes from transforming, a small patch of the worn tan jacket turning sapphire blue and spreading. In a matter of seconds Goro’s changed completely, his double breasted blazer a dazzling jewel tone blue, darker navy blue trousers, and even his shirt and striped tie are shades of his new colour scheme. His hair, when he looks at it from the corner of his eye, has changed too, turning a pure shimmering silver.

“Is this really necessary?” he asks dryly. “I feel like a magical girl.”

“It is part of the transformation into an attendant, so yes,” Igor replies what might be curtly, though Goro doesn’t know him well enough to be sure at this point. “Now make yourself comfortable, Attendant Akechi. We may be here a while, so I’ll use this time to prepare you for our return to the Velvet Room.”

“Fine,” Goro declares, sitting back down on the ground since furniture is apparently not a privilege he gets just yet. “Is it too late to choose being dead?”

“Very amusing,” Igor says like it is not at all amusing. “I’ll start with the tending of the persona compendium.”

~*~

Ren’s given up knowing what to expect most of the time, but it’s a shock when he visits the Velvet Room a couple of days after defeating Shido to find the place totally wrecked.

It appears some kind of battle has taken place, bullet holes and scorch marks all over the floor.

“Welcome, Trickster,” greets Igor, but his voice sounds completely different. “Although you know me, this is the first time I’m meeting you.”

“What’s going on?” Ren asks. “Where are Justine and Caroline?”

“They have been fused back into their whole self, Lavenza,” Igor explains cryptically.

“What?” Ren repeats.

“The false god who invaded this place and impersonated me split the original attendant, Lavenza, in two. Justine and Caroline were those halves,” Igor tells him. “However, with the assistance of a new attendant I have been able to reclaim my rightful place and oust the imposter.”

“Imposter?” Ren repeats.

“Indeed, you will find out more about him as you pursue your mission to its end,” remarks this new supposedly authentic Igor. 

“Where’s this Lavenza now?” Ren asks.

“The fusion process is quite taxing, and she was not exactly… cooperative,” Igor reveals. “Although she is fine now that she has regained awareness of her true self, she has gone to recuperate for a while. My new attendant will be tending to you henceforth.”

“Okay,” Ren just rolls with it, because he’s kind of used to this bullshit by now.

What he really doesn’t expect, though, is who the new attendant is.

The second he steps out where Ren can see him it's like a volcano, earthquake and typhoon all hitting at the same time.

“Akechi!” Ren bursts, throwing himself at the cell bars. The characteristic outfit of the ace detective is now blue and his hair is silver and eyes are stunning gold, but it’s him.

“Don’t make such a fuss, inmate,” Akechi says harshly.

“You’re not dead! What happened, why are you… how are you?” Ren babbles.

“Silence!” Akechi barks. “I am your attendant, trickster, not the person you knew before.”

“I don’t believe you,” Ren insists, reaching his arm through the bars and stretching it like he can get all the way to Akechi, though his fingertips stop just short of Akechi’s electric blue jacket. “It’s so good to see you again, I thought I’d lost you forever.”

“Is this going to be a problem, Akechi?” Igor asks warily.

“Of course not,” Akechi says sharply, and swats his hand to slap the back of Ren’s, knocking it down. “Behave yourself,” he hisses at Ren, glaring daggers made of smaller daggers.

“Akechi…” Ren murmurs in a mournful low like a depressed cow.

“Oh suck it up, Amamiya– I mean, trickster,” Akechi corrects himself stiffly. “You have a rare chance here, don’t squander it.”

“You’re right,” Ren says, not meaning what Akechi probably thinks he means and meeting those golden eyes like the first beam of sun after a long dark winter. “I won’t.”

~*~

Goro had promised Igor his prior acquaintance with their guest wasn't going to be a problem. It wouldn't have been, if Amamiya Ren could fucking act right.

But that would be helpful, appropriate, professional, and the trickster can’t have that. Goro found one of the twins’ batons underneath one of the machines a while ago, and has taken to using it, in part because it gives him something to beat the trickster off with.

Their guest materialises in his cot in the Velvet Room, the only place they interact now. Goro refuses to set foot outside it after he dared to do it once and the leader of the Phantom Thieves tried to aggressively chat him up right there in Kichijoji. Almost dragged him off for drinks in Jazz Jin ‘for old times sake’. Goro almost let him.

“Up you get, inmate,” Goro barks, banging the baton on the bars while the trickster is prone on the cot the way he always is when he arrives in the Velvet Room.

“No need to sound so pleased to see me,” says the trickster, as Goro has been militantly forcing himself to think and refer to one Amamiya Ren, also known as Joker, leader of the barely clinging on Phantom Thieves. 

They’re waiting for Shido’s change of heart to come through, and at least being dead, or as close to dead as being a Velvet Room Attendant is, has released Goro of the deeper feelings about his bastard father that had burdened him his whole life. He’s much lighter now, able to indifferently see what passes in their world like episodes of a show he’s following but isn’t too invested in.

If only the same could be said for the trickster’s investment in him.

“Get on with it,” Goto says bluntly, stepping back as the trickster gets up and presses himself up to the bars. Igor’s said that they reflect his mentality, or are supposed to, but instead of being open the door remains firmly locked, which Igor insinuates is something to do with Goro’s cognition too. No fucking wonder.

“Where’s Igor?”

“Resting,” Goro replies frostily. “What do you want?”

“I want to do a fusion.” His tricky eyes sparkle, more here than they ever did back in the real world. 

“Let me guess,” Goro prompts. “You want to fuse–”

“I want to fuse–”

“My cock with your ass?” Goro suggests archly.

His face pressed between the bars, Ren– shit, the trickster, grins at Goro in a way that strips the sapphire clothes right off him. It had started modestly, but for lack of response, the trickster’s flirting has become ever more obscene.

“I’d be willing to offer my mouth instead, if that makes any difference.” 

“Why should it?” Goro challenges, though the trickster is nothing if not persistent.

He shrugs, commenting, “You seemed agreeable to it before.”

“That was one time, Ama– trickster, and it was before I became an attendant,” Goro shoots. Yes, there was an isolated incident in the attic one evening after exploring Nijima’s palace where they’d gotten carried away and certain things had happened, but Goro aggressively tries not to think about that.

“Was it really just one time if we went for two rounds?” Ren poses.

“Only because someone came the second my mouth got anywhere near his cock,” Goro accuses vitriolically, freed by Igor’s absence to speak more openly about things he wouldn’t dare to say in his pseudo employer’s presence.

“Hah, so you do remember,” he counters, and Goro grabs the bars just above where he holds them and leans in close, though not close enough the trickster can steal a kiss. Goro knows he will because he’s done it before, like the last time Goro got too close and every time before that.

“Of course I remember, it’s just I’m trying to forget all that,” he hisses. “Why can’t you accept that I’m different now?”

“Because you’re not,” Ren argues.

“You just don’t want me to be,” Goro retorts.

“I know you’re not,” he insists.

“What do you want, trickster?” Goro reiterates. “Aside from–”

“Your cock in my ass.”

“– my cock in your ass,” Goro finishes for him. “Nice job at flaunting your complete lack of shame, by the way.”

“You never put it in my ass before, you don’t know that you won’t like it,” Ren negotiates. “Attendant or not, don't knock it ‘til you try it.’

“You’ve been practising, of course,” Goro suggests bitterly. He generally avoids watching, but being able to view what the trickster gets up to does mean seeing him getting it from any guy he can persuade into giving it to him, which is not a hard sell for most of them.

“Only because you won’t do it,” Ren complains. “I’m just getting experience so I can do it well for you.”

“You’re not doing anything for me,” Goro reminds him. “You’re here to summon or fuse personas, or let that poor bastard Mara out of confinement.”

“How’s it doing?”

“Awful,” Goro replies, wrinkling his nose distastefully. “I’m certain it’s started fucking itself in there.”

“Can’t blame it,” Ren remarks, eyeing Goro pointedly. “It must get terribly lonely here.”

“With you showing up every day trying to fuck me?” Goro shoots. “Not likely.”

“Trying to get you to fuck me, thank you very much,” Ren corrects aloofly, or as aloof as he can be while salivating at the cell bars like a bitch in heat.

“So you keep saying,” Goro acknowledges sourly. That famous tenacity and stubbornness that makes him an inspiring leader makes him a fucking annoying suitor, to use too good a word for too cheap a person.

“Is it working?” He gives Goro another flash of that diamond grin.

“Not bloody likely,” Goro snaps. “State your business or get the fuck out, trickster.”

“Fine, but I'll be back,” he replies sullenly, having genuinely come for no other purpose than trying to seduce him. Goro knows he's been nowhere near Mementos today and is just horny because his usual easy lays aren't available. 

That Goro even knows he has easy lays is disgusting, so he scowls at the trickster before he leaves and coos, “Don't hurry back.”

~*~

Ren’s wearing him down. He knows he is.

At least Akechi still appears to have all his memories from before he became an attendant, he’s just being stubborn and prissy about them. But that’s how he’s always been, and it didn’t stop him letting Ren suck him off once, or twice, technically, before.

Ren knows if he’s persistent, and more importantly, if he keeps making it known he’s sleeping around elsewhere as long as Akechi won’t fuck him, he’ll win in the end. Hopefully a bit sooner than the end, actually, since they’ve got shit to be doing, but Ren sure would appreciate fucking his Velvet Room Attendent before he has to save the world.

He’s also tried getting Akechi’s interest with news about what happened with Shido once his heart changed, but the only thing that’ll guarantee Akechi shuts him down faster than trying to fuck him is bringing that guy up.

Akechi just says he’s glad to be beyond such things, playing his role as an attendant perfectly, just as he’d played the detective, the teammate, the friend. But if there’s one thing Ren’s sure of, it’s that they’re not friends and never were.

It also happens that they’ve been crawling through the arse end of Mementos looking for the bottom, and Ren’s been limited in who he can easily see, letting it fall to necking with Yusuke in the attic after the others have left for the day. Literally necking, since Yusuke gets a thing about love bites and keeps trying to ‘paint a picture’ with his mouth using Ren’s skin as the canvas.

Whatever it is, it works, meaning it gets to Akechi. Yusuke leaves marks so high up even Ren’s Joker costume can’t cover them all, and Ren makes sure to obviously tug the collar down as if he’s too warm when he’s visiting the following day. Since they’re going around Mementos right now and his stock fills up every four fucking seconds, he’s there a lot. Happy coincidence.

“Must you flaunt that so?” Akechi finally bites, those pointed canines of his only seeming to have sharpened in his transformation into an attendant. The twins never had them, so it can’t be a shared trait, though Akechi definitely meets their standard in sadistic cruelty.

“What’s that?” Ren answers innocently, tugging his collar again as if oblivious to it.

Akechi steps up to the bars this time, a risky move for him, and scowls between them as he declares with complete certainty, “I know you only do it to make me jealous.”

“Oh this?” Ren plays up, tucking his fingers under the collar to pull it down fully and bare his throat like a surrendering beast. Igor isn’t here right now, having let Akechi take over most of the operations muttering something about ‘needing a break’ after Ren’s tenth visit to the Velvet Room in the same afternoon and the ensuing squabble with Akechi each time. “Yusuke got carried away, as usual, I’m surprised you even noticed.”

No he’s not, but if Akechi’s going to break he needs pushing.

“Kitagawa,” Akechi growls, and his arm darts through the bars to grab a fistful of Ren’s shirt, then drags him up to the cell door. “You’re insufferable,” he seethes.

“I’m bored, Akechi,” Ren replies scathingly, “and if you’re not doing anything about it I’ll find someone who will.”

“Bored?” Akechi echoes incredulously. “That’s not the word I’d use.”

“Don’t use any words,” Ren challenges. “Why don’t you actually do something?”

With the hand gripping Ren by the shirt, Akechi shoves him onto his knees at the cell door.

“You want to be punished, inmate?” he says demeaningly, but his hands go to the fastening of his sapphire trousers. That his clothing as an attendant is a blue variant of his old Detective Prince outfit makes it familiar, not something new but a continuation of something started long ago. “Very well, this time I’ll punish you, since you clearly need to be taught some respect.”

Ren just presses his face between the bars and lets his mouth hang open, since Akechi’s pulled out his cock by then and slips it directly onto his tongue. It’s not much of a punishment, since it’s what he’s been after all this time, but Ren’s not going to complain with Akechi’s rapidly hardening cock in his mouth.

He sucks him obediently, but when he grinds the heel of his palm against his own swelling erection Akechi sticks his shoe through the bars to kick his hand away.

“Stop that disgusting behaviour and concentrate on your punishment,” Akechi scolds, fisting his hand in Ren’s hair and holding him to the bars as he thrusts deep into his throat, making Ren gag and his eyes roll back.

Maybe it is a punishment, Ren considers, as Akechi fucks his face without mercy and doesn’t let him do anything to please himself. He’s hardly a selfish lover, but he expects to get something, and Akechi lets him have nothing, filling Ren’s mouth and grunting as he cums onto his tongue after a relentless sprint of thrusts.

“There’s your punishment,” Akechi chuckles as he backs away, his cock sloppy from Ren’s mouth and dripping cum that he wipes up with a gloved hand. “Now then, inmate, what other business did you have here?”

Disorientated and stupid horny, Ren sits back on his heels and swallows the bitter weight of Akechi’s load.

“Persona fusion,” he gets out groggily, and then has to go through the blending of all the personas he’s been collecting into each other with a throbbing erection.

“Next time,” Akechi says sharply when they’re done, and Ren’s boner has gone down for sheer inattention. That and it’s a bit of a turnoff having to execute all those personas, especially the ones that scream. “Next time come to me without someone else’s marks all over you, and I’ll consider letting you get off too.”

Ren nods eagerly. “Deal.”

~*~

It goes from there how anyone would expect it to. Akechi convinces Igor to let him take over dealing with the trickster on the basis that the old man has earned some rest, so he takes off to wherever they sent Lavenza to recover for a while.

The next time Ren visits a couple of days later, it’s during a fusion alarm.

“What did you do?” Akechi accuses when the trickster arrives.

“Nothing,” Ren claims, despite the blaring alarm and flashing lights, making the usual blues of the Velvet Room appear completely black.

“Forgive me for not being convinced,” Akechi replies.

“I can’t help but notice something else is different around here,” Ren remarks as he looks at Akechi not between bars for a change, glancing obviously at the very much open cell door.

Akechi gestures to his neck and says, “Show me.”

It took an absolutely relentless skincare regimen that he had to get from Ann without telling her explicitly he was trying to speed-heal hickies, but Ren drags down his collar to show the unblemished skin of his throat.

“Been saving myself like you asked,” Ren swears. Who’d have thought he’d need to stop sleeping around to get Akechi? Well, after sleeping around enough in the first place to make him care enough to get Ren to stop.

Akechi steps into the cell as he pulls off his gloves one by one, dropping them to the floor as he says, “So, inmate, what did you need today?”

“I think you know,” Ren replies as he does the same, peeling off his gloves and then shedding his coat for good measure too. 

The heavy material hits the cell floor as Akechi gets to him, reaching for Ren’s face to hold in place as he claims Ren’s mouth with his own. They kiss while the red light flashes, as if trying to warn them in vain against what they’re doing, but it’s past that now.

Ren kisses like a thirsty whore, drawing Akechi’s tongue into his mouth and pressing against him needfully. With a sudden movement Akechi tears him off, parting them with a wet smack and turning Ren away from him, though only so Akechi can sit down on the bench and tug down Ren’s trousers in the process.

There may’ve been a time they’d do this slowly, take their time and embrace the finality of this act between them, but they’ve never been much for tenderness or patience. It’s too urgent now, not helped by the constant siren blare, to do anything except remove only what needs to be removed in order to drag Ren into Akechi’s lap and directly onto his cock.

Their moans are lost amid the din of the alarm, but it gives them liberty to be loud, to not have to hear themselves or each other as Ren bounces on Akechi’s cock like he’s needed it since the moment they met. Probably has, as only this feels like getting enough of each other. Of Ren’s ass swallowing Akechi’s cock deep inside him, a relentless rider as Akechi bucks wildly into him from the bunk.

It’s that lack of accountability brought about by the fusion alarm, probably, that makes Akechi say the things he does.

“What a slut you are, trickster, you’re made for my cock,” he babbles. A proclivity for spouting nonsense when he’s fucking combines with Ren’s ability to make him reveal more than he would to anyone else, working together to form an indecent spiel. “You want my cum inside you so badly, I could even knock you up, couldn’t I?”

“Ah-Akechi,” Ren moans as lands hot and heavy on Akechi’s cock. “Fuck, you’re so deep.”

“Would you like that, inmate?” Akechi says sickly. “Getting bred like a beast, wanting me to fuck you pregnant.”

“Yes!” Ren bleats, and Akechi didn’t realise he could hear him that well, or was focusing enough to pay attention to the words, but he does, because he repeats them back. “Get me pregnant, do it, fuck a baby into me.”

Of course they’d share the same irrational breeding kink. Of course it’d all come crashing down at once.

“Fuck, Ren, I’ll do it,” Akechi growls, teetering near the edge and reaching around Ren to squeeze his cock as his ass clenches Akechi’s. “I’m gonna knock you up.”

“Do it,” Ren eggs on, riding Akechi’s cock behind and his hand in front until he cums in dramatic spurts as the red light flashes. The force of his ejaculation is impressive, hitting the opposite wall and continuing to move wildly as Akechi arrives behind him in moments.

“Fuck, I’m cumming too,” Akechi grunts, clutching Ren’s bare ass with his other hand to guide his movement like a mere fucktoy for his cock.

“Inside, do it inside, breed me,” Ren blurts mindlessly.

“Yeah, gonna put a baby in you,” Akechi hisses through his teeth as the throb and unloading of his cock in Ren hits like a runaway train.

Ren stays seated on him in the aftermath, and after the blinding haze of climax passes Ren’s the first to notice something.

“Did the fusion alarm stop?” he says laxly.

“Hm, it did,” Akechi confirms, reluctant to slide Ren off his cock just yet when he’s warming it so nicely.

“Do you think it means something?” Ren suggests.

Akechi shrugs and says, “Maybe.”

“Is it to do with us fucking?” Ren offers next, and finally starts to lift himself slowly off Akechi’s cock.

“Probably,” Akechi admits, and then remembers something Igor said to him when he first started work as an attendant, a passage in the rule book he’d instructed Akechi to read very carefully after his initial meeting with Ren in here. “The rules did say something about committing acts of congress within these walls, but it’s all a bit vague.”

“It’s against the rules to fuck in here?” Ren suggests, unseating himself from Akechi’s lap and then slumping down next to him on the prison cot. 

“Does it matter now?” Akechi points out, then recounts, “Though I recall other attendants usually meet with their wildcards for social reasons outside of this place.”

“Well, rules are made to be broken, right?” Ren poses cheerfully, tugging his trousers back up, no underwear in his idea of a rebel’s clothes, naturally, and giving a satisfied sigh. “We shoulda done that a long time ago.”

“Hm, perhaps,” Akechi huffs, turning to look at Ren beside him. “I think this was quite satisfactory for a first time, though.”

“Not the last, I hope,” Ren comments.

“Not at all,” Akechi concurs, and starts to lean forward so Ren folds back underneath him on the narrow bed. “We usually go for two rounds, no?”

“Damn right,” Ren encourages, looping his arms around Akechi’s neck as he squirms comfortably underneath him. It’s about about fucking time.

~*~

Ren’s been feeling kinda weird since finally hooking up with Akechi, not about the hooking up but in other ways. He chalks it up to nerves about whatever they’re about to find on the last level of Mementos. Why nerves would be giving him food cravings and ridiculously sore nipples he doesn’t know, but whatever, the metaverse is weird.

The metaverse is, lest he forget, really fucking weird.

Because when Ren visits the Velvet Room in advance of that last leg to evaluate his stock and free up some slots ready to cut deals with some new personas, something is very different.

Igor is back, of course, but that’s normal. What’s not normal is Ren’s stomach, which is bulging beneath his shirt to expose a clear strip of bare skin around his belly where the normally well fitted top no longer covers.

“Ah, you’re here, Trickster,” Igor greets, while Akechi is making the most bizarre face at Ren’s new physique. “Attendant Akechi,” Igor continues, “what did I tell you about performing unorthodox fusions in the Velvet Room?”

“What?” Akechi says blankly, looking to his employer then back at Ren.

“Unorthodox?” Ren repeats. “But I haven’t done any different fusions than usual.”

“I insisted you read the relevant passage thoroughly,” Igor carries on, and if Ren’s not mistaken, he’s giving Akechi a scolding. “Did you not follow my instructions?”

“I read it, old man, I just don’t know what you’re going on about or what it has to do with… oh,” Akechi cuts himself off suddenly, as if the dots have been connected with string on the big notice board in his head. “Oh no, you can’t mean…”

“What?” Ren demands, holding his hands out either side of him and staring down at the bump in his stomach like he attempted all three big bang burger challenges back to back. “What the fuck is going on?”

“I think…” Akechi begins worriedly, then looks back at Igor. “The book didn’t say anything about sexual relations.”

“It was implied,” Igor responds irately.

“Well it shouldn’t have been!” Akechi snaps. “It should’ve said DON’T FUCK IN THE VELVET ROOM in block capital letters.”

“Can someone tell me what the fuck is going on here?!” Ren bursts.

“You’re pregnant, idiot!” Akechi yells.

For a moment Ren goes completely blank. Next he decides he misheard Akechi, then reviews the tapes, and concludes there’s no other word that sounds enough like pregnant that it could possibly be.

“How can that be possible?” Ren asks as he resists the urge to put his hands over the bump that can’t possibly be what it looks like it is.

“So apparently it’s an unorthodox fusion if a wildcard fucks someone from the Velvet Room in the Velvet Room,” Akechi starts to explain, “but instead of saying that clearly they just pussyfooted around it.”

“We have never had this problem before, Akechi,” Igor says curtly.

“Oh sod off,” Akechi retorts. “Just because I didn’t sneak off to fuck a wildcard in the real world like the others have.”

“Elizabeth is not the example for you to follow,” Igor scolds, then regains some of his calm and fixes his bug eyed stare back on Ren. “Either way, it has already happened now.”

“So I’m… knocked up?” Ren clarifies.

“Indeed,” Igor confirms. “Your congress with the attendant during a fusion alarm set the stage, and the two of you must have further manifested it for the results to be so… evident.”

“Oh,” Ren remarks, and remembers the dirty talk that had seemed like fantastical horny fun at the time. “Oh.”

“So what’s in there?” Akechi asks. “Because if it’s a persona I’m going to lose my fucking mind.”

“That all depends on your cognition,” Igor says.

“We said he’d fuck a baby into me,” Ren tattles.

“Ren!” Akechi snaps.

“In that case, it is most likely to be human,” Igor relates.

“Most likely?” Ren repeats back. “What’s the alternative?”

“Oh, it’s hard to say,” Igor replies disparagingly. “As I mentioned, we have never had this happen before.”

“Great, just great,” Ren groans.

“You didn’t notice it until now?” Akechi questions.

“It only appeared now,” Ren tells him sharply. “I felt a bit weird recently, but I’d have noticed a… baby bump.” The words feel unreal to say, but what else can he call it?

“Since it was conceived here, it’s likely their physical form only manifests when you are within these walls,” Igor theorises. “Outside of here you may carry them as a spiritual presence only.”

“Is that why I’m also like this after only a couple of days?” Ren points out.

“Indeed, the rate of growth is surely much accelerated compared to the usual pace with humans,” Igor confers, and though his disapproval of this situation is clear, he’s certainly writing plenty into his book. Updating those fucking rules, hopefully.

“There is no normal pace for him,” Akechi mutters. “He doesn’t have a fucking uterus, Igor.”

“You of all people should know that cognition, much less the shared cognition of two wildcards with bonded fates, is more than enough to overcome mere physical limitations,” Igor lectures. Or in other words, as he says after, “You should have thought of that before you indulged your shared fantasy of impregnating the trickster.”

“Fucking hell,” Ren mumbles, and when he thinks about it, he can definitely sense something within himself, a warming, comforting presence.

“You’re pregnant,” Akechi says with finality this time, an acceptance of the consequences of their actions.

“I’m pregnant,” Ren echoes. “I’m fucking pregnant.”

~*~

Sure, Ren tries to fight an imposter god posing as the holy grail that wants to enslave all human thought while supernaturally pregnant.

Sure, he loses, gets thrown out to the real world, vanishes with the other Phantom Thieves and gets kicked through to the Velvet Room.

Sure, Akechi’s waiting for him there, leaning against the cell bars with his arms crossed over his chest in that dazzling sapphire blazer.

His golden eyes sparkle as he says in utter disgust, “Get your shit together, trickster.” His smile is sharp and bright as he continues, “Don’t you want a better world for our child?”

“Yes,” Ren answers instinctively, hands covering his belly that is only a little bigger than before. It doesn’t seem to grow at any kind of consistent pace, and he’s given up trying to equate it to any real world comparison, since it’s not like he has any of the equipment to make a comparison in the first place.

“Then get back out there already,” Akechi tells him, opening the cell door. “The others are in the back.”

Ren waddles around to fetch them, and of course every teammate he collects asks why he looks ‘different’. Meaning pregnant. He looks, without a doubt, totally pregnant.

“Long story,” Ren tells each of them, and thankfully they’re all wrapped up enough in their own shit not to question it too much. After all, who would jump to the conclusion that he’s pregnant? That would be crazy.

Then when they all reunite back in the Velvet Room there’s another debacle when they see Akechi. 

“What’s he doing here?!” Ryuji demands.

“Saving your pathetic lives,” Akechi replies, crossing his arms smugly.

“Didn’t you die?” Futaba points out.

“Technically yes, but that’s how I got here,” Akechi brushes off, “It’s not important why I’m here, you lot need to get your shit together and take down Yaldabaoth once and for all.”

“Is that supposed to motivate us?” Ren says wryly.

“Oh I’m sorry, did you want something more magical?” Akechi rips savagely, silver hair setting off the supernatural glow of his eyes. Ren wonders for an irrational moment if the child he’s apparently carrying will take after Akechi as he looks now or before, when he was still alive instead of whatever this is. Better than being completely dead, in any case. “Get a fucking move on, losers. You don’t have much time.”

“He’s right, we should get going,” Ren agrees, and leads them back out to save the world. He’s got a child to raise in it.

~*~

In the aftermath of defeating Yaldabaoth, Ren’s relief lasts just as long as it takes for Sae to track him down in Shibuya square and ask him to hand himself in. They’re supposed to have erased the metaverse, but something tells Ren that it’s not gone anywhere, and not only because he still feels the familiar presence of the life kept within him.

“I…” Ren stalls as Sae waits for her answer, but then the father of Ren’s child appears.

“If they get their hands on a real witness there’ll be no need for him to turn himself in, no?” Akechi declares as he walks up looking exactly the same as he did before the engine room and velvet room.

His clothes are back to their usual colour, as well as his hair and eyes. Ren’s strangely disappointed, as he’d gotten rather used to his look in the Velvet Room colours. They seemed to suit him somehow. More authentic than this crafted appearance.

“What are you doing here?” Ren asks in astonishment.

“Don’t worry about that,” Akechi soothes, and then addresses Sae, “I’ll agree to testify against Shido, so there’s no need to take him in.” Despite his chequered past, it all seems rather like him swooping in to rescue Ren and his unborn child. Ren can hardly believe it.

“Very well,” Sae accepts, but as they’re about to walk away Ren reaches for Akechi’s sleeve.

“Wait,” he says, but Akechi just puts a hand over his and gives it a squeeze.

“Don’t worry,” he says with a sly look. “I have everything under control.”

Ren feels terrible, but he lets them go, as he’s exhausted and desperately needs to pee. Another sign the baby’s not gone anywhere.

Ren had expected to be more thrown off by the thought that he could somehow be about to become a teen parent, but with his record it seems like a logical next step for some reason. Criminal record, expulsion from his old school, move to the city, become a real criminal, have a baby before he turns seventeen, like a delinquent Fibonacci sequence.

Maybe it’s the link to the metaverse, or symbol of his relationship with Akechi, but Ren only ever feels good when he thinks about the possibility of having a child that’s a combination of the two of them. He didn’t have that breeding kink for nothing, and never in his wildest dreams had he thought it’d actually be possible, but that’s what the metaverse can do.

So on paper it’s a terrible thing, but what it feels like is a miracle. So he’s… excited, actually, if a little scared, but after everything he’s faced it doesn’t seem so bad.

Not to mention, if anything’s going to keep Akechi around with his damage, it’s gotta be a baby.

~*~

The time between Christmas and New Year’s passes quickly, filled with worry about Akechi and a strange sense that something is happening he can’t quite place.

Then Ren wakes up on January 2nd with a very human Morgana on top of him and a very not-dead Wakaba Isshiki downstairs and knows something is wrong.

Thankfully, Akechi walks in the door soon after that and Ren heaves a huge sigh of relief.

“You’re back,” he says simply, and Akechi jerks his head for the door.

“Let’s talk somewhere else,” he invites, and together they go across the street to the laundrette.

“Are you okay?” Ren asks.

“Are you?” Akechi returns, and glances down at his stomach, “and is…?”

“Yeah, I mean, I think so,” Ren answers. “I haven’t been able to go to the Velvet Room to check, but everything feels like it should… down there.” It sounds absurd to say, but Ren’s gotten used to his sense of the unorthodox fusion they carried out inside him, whether it’s physically manifested or not. “What about you? What happened with the police?”

“They were questioning me at first, then today for some reason they just… let me out,” Akechi explains.

“Weird,” Ren comments, “and why are you… back to how you were?”

“Oh this?” Akechi says with a grin, and reaches for the top of his head, then starts to pull. With a peeling sound his hair comes off, revealing underneath the slicked back silver locks Ren had become so charmed by.

“It’s a wig?” Ren shoots. “Then your eyes?”

“Contacts,” Akechi explains. “I couldn’t very well stroll around looking like that, could I?”

“Then you’re still… nothing’s changed?” Ren checks.

“No, Igor gave me leave to exit the Velvet Room for a while and investigate these disturbances,” Akechi explains. “You’ve noticed too, right?”

“That Morgana is human and Futaba’s dead mom isn’t dead?” Ren phrases sarcastically. “Yeah, bit weird.”

“Indeed,” Akechi responds, and before Ren can throw his arms around him and steal a much deserved kiss, his phone rings. “You should get that,” Akechi tells him, and starts to carefully put the wig back on while Ren speaks to Yoshizawa.

“She says there’s a palace at Odaiba,” Ren reports after he’s hung up.

“Good,” Akechi declares, having put his disguise of himself back on, which really is right on brand for him. “Let’s check it out.”

~*~

Of course, it had to be Ren’s fucking therapist who took over the world after Yaldabaoth.

Goro resists the urge to say any of the twenty wry remarks that jump into his head after that smug git turns up and starts waxing lyrical about his perfect pain free world. Even after things turn ugly and he summons a completely not dodgy tentacle monster that they rip into pieces, the guy keeps on going.

Eventually, Goro opts for, “God, would you shut the fuck up?”

“Oh,” Maruki remarks like a kicked puppy, before looking at Ren and saying, “I must admit, I’m a little surprised that this is the person you chose, Amamiya.”

“Huh? Chose for what?” Ren says blankly.

“I had him released from custody because it was your wish, but I’m not sure he’s good for you,” comments the nosey councillor.

“This guy’s a fucking genius, Joker,” Goro remarks acerbically. “Next he’ll be telling us you’re too young to be a teen dad.”

The whole room, which had been humming with a strange purring energy, suddenly stops dead.

“What?” Maruki says.

“Do you have to bring that up now?” Ren says crossly. “He obviously didn’t know about it.”

“Didn’t know about what?” Maruki asks.

“Seriously? His palace is a huge research facility dedicated to stalking, particularly to stalking you, and he didn’t even know about the baby?” Goro phrases boldly, using the most direct words out loud he’s ever used because there is nothing stronger in this moment than his desire to demonstrate exactly who Ren belongs to in front of this incredibly sussy older guy sniffing around him.

It’s not like they’ve talked openly about Goro’s intentions regarding his progeny, but Goro’s here, isn’t he? And even the slightest inkling of a challenger to his rightful place by Ren and their child fills him with possessive rage. So if he wasn’t sure before, which he was, he was just taking his time to admit it, he sure as fuck is now.

“What baby, Amamiya?” Maruki asks like a basket full of kicked puppies about to go over a waterfall.

“Great, Crow, just great,” Ren huffs, shrugging and then admitting to the palace ruler, “There was an incident in the metaverse and I’m… having a baby.”

“My baby,” Goro is quick to point out.

“Yes, your baby,” Ren acknowledges.

“But you, but… you can’t, that’s biologically impossible,” Maruki flails, his very grand little moment totally ruined, much to Goro’s satisfaction.

“Nothing is impossible with strong enough cognition,” Goro gloats. “You should know that better than anyone, no?”

“You… with him…” Maruki says, aghast.

“Yeah, with me,” Goro reasserts. “So why don’t you end this little fantasy early and save us the trouble of kicking your ass?”

“Amamiya… Ren…” Maruki sounds so pathetic, Goro wants to stab him. “If I knew a child was what you wanted I could’ve, I’d have been happy to–”

“He doesn’t need you,” Goro cut off, because now he really wants to stab him. As soon as they’re out of here he’s going to have a very thorough talk with Ren about this loser’s fixation on him.

“Uh, Maruki-Sensei?” Yoshizawa remarks, waking back up and looking around terribly confused. “What’s going on?”

“Go back to sleep, I’ll explain later,” Maruki tells her, and his expression sours again as he turns his attention back to them. “I can see there’s no point in reasoning with you, but I haven’t given up hope. Come back in a week after seeing how your friends like my new world.”

“Oh my god, let’s just go,” Goro pleads with Ren.

“Fine,” Ren agrees, and they leave Sumire with Maruki for now, exiting the palace to stand outside the gates.

The first thing Goro says, of course, is, “Did you fuck him?”

“What?” Ren shoots.

“You heard me,” Goro replies. “Did you?”

“No!” Ren yelps.

“Alright, I had to ask,” Goro says, pointing out, “You have gotten around.”

“Oh that was your fault,” Ren insists. “Mostly.”

“Yeah yeah,” Goro mutters. “So why is he obviously infatuated with you?”

“He’s not… it’s not obvious,” Ren denies.

“If you say so,” Goro says sarcastically. “Either way, we’ll need to figure something out.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Ren agrees, his eyes lingering on Goro a little too long.

“What?” he bites.

“Nothing, just… cool seeing you get so possessive over me,” Ren explains. “Although I could’ve done without you telling him about the baby.”

“I’m honestly shocked he didn’t know already,” Goro remarks.

“Maybe he can’t reach things related to the Velvet Room,” Ren considers.

“That’d be possible,” Goro acknowledges. “To secure my release he’d only need to change the people around me.” It’s also clear the deranged Doctor doesn’t approve of Goro, so if he didn’t want Goro out of Ren’s way before he definitely does now.

“So at least we know that place is safe from him, unlike before with Yaldabaoth,” Ren surmises.

“Yes, though we’ll need more than that to go on,” Goro says. “I’ll do some investigating, you’re going to try and bring those morons to their senses?”

Ren nods, then says, “I’ll see you later though, right?”

“Of course,” Goro confirms. After his performance back there it barely even needs saying, but it doesn’t hurt to hear out loud. “It’s nice being out of the Velvet Room for now, so I’ll come back to Leblanc when I’m done.”

“Getting sick of it?” Ren jests.

“It’s not bad, but the fucking music gets on my nerves,” Goro admits. “I asked Igor to play some jazz instead but he went on some tangent about it not working that way and that song being some indefinable expression of the Velvet Room that’s been around for generations.”

“Poor you,” Ren coos sarcastically, grinning before he says, “It’s good to have you back.”

Goro dares to smile back for a brief moment, and thinks he’s glad to be back too, but what he says is, “Now let’s get going already, this wig is incredibly itchy.”

Ren keeps up the maniacal grin and declares, “That’s my baby daddy.”

“Ugh, gross,” Goro groans at the terminology, but that flicker of a smile has grown stronger. “Say it again.”

~*~

Ren does his best to get through to the others, but it’s frustrating work and his pregnancy is playing havoc with him lately. Although he’s still not showing any physical signs, his cravings have become completely unhinged, the mood swings are a force to be reckoned with, and it certainly doesn’t help that the Phantom Thieves are being self absorbed pricks.

At least Akechi’s around a lot more, although Ren’s started to actually call him Goro now they appear to be actually in a relationship, or something that qualifies as a relationship by their standards.

He moves into Leblanc with Ren, since his lease was terminated when he disappeared, and it seems easier than trying to get a new place right now. Moving into the attic is easy enough to do when Sojiro’s head is in the clouds, along with Futaba. Everyone just smiles and says it’s nice Ren has such a ‘good friend’ around him.

Goro’s arrival is also the day Morgana moves out, which is entirely unsurprising, as at least Ren is into having Goro on top of him. Morgana only goes as far as the Sakura residence, and he's lost in his thoughts too so he doesn't seem to notice anything much amiss with Ren either.

Goro’s surprisingly diligent about cleaning the attic up even more than Ren already had, to the point of throwing out almost everything in there that’s not nailed or screwed down. Claims he's getting it ready for any eventuality, which means the baby coming, since they’ve got no fucking idea when it could be.

On things being nailed and screwed, Goro also insists on a proper bed, if Ren expects him to sleep in it, and more to the point, fuck him in it. Ren pays out for the best double futon on the market immediately, and Goro spends the night pounding him into it. Their mutual breeding kink is stronger than ever now Ren’s actually knocked up, and Ren only manages to tolerate chasing his idiot friends around Tokyo because he’s getting such good dick every night.

Goro carries on wearing the wig and colour contacts while he’s out, since they attempt to dye his hair one night and it proves entirely unsuccessful, the fine silver threads of his attendant colouring proving wholly resistant to artificial colouring. Ren likes the silver on him anyway, so he’s not too put out by it, though Goro never stops complaining about how annoying the wig is and starts suggesting he could tell people he’s gone spontaneously grey with stress.

They have no specific reason to return to the Velvet Room at that time, aside from checking up on the pregnancy, so make the trip together after a few days settling in. Goro doesn’t say a lot about how or why he’s been allowed to roam so far or for so long, or indeed if he’s really still human or alive, or why he has a body when he did apparently die, not that it feels very real when he’s giving Ren the business every morning and night.

It can’t be overlooked that Ren is a lot bigger when they do return to the Velvet Room, his belly huge and full. It’s entirely fucking weird, but his life is weird, so he’s just rolling with it, basically.

This time also marks the return of Lavenza, the attendant created from the unified Justine and Caroline. She’s recovered now, and since Goro has been let out she’ll be taking over his duties, or so she explains when she meets Ren. It’s a shame that she has to meet Ren when he’s the size of a house, but he reminds himself he does know her, just when she was Justine and Caroline, so she has an opinion of him not heavily pregnant.

Ren feels ridiculous when he’s in there, but Lavenza, with Goro’s blessing, inspects his belly and informs their master that it’s ‘almost time’. This prompts a shopping spree of a magnitude hitherto unknown, and it’s good that Futaba and Sojiro are off in lala land, as Sojiro would surely question exactly why Ren and his new live-in boyfriend have been transporting huge quantities of baby paraphernalia upstairs. Ren dreads to think of the probation report on that.

In the middle of the night of January 7th Ren wakes up with a scream, a pain in his stomach like he’s been stabbed, and tells Goro in a panic he thinks the baby is coming.

Goro gets him to the Velvet Room door in Shibuya, doubled over in pain wondering if he might just be dying of a mysterious illness, but of course as soon as he gets within those blue walls it’s all proven correct. His stomach is absolutely massive, he looks ridiculous, but if this is about to be over then let it be over.

He’s gotta admit, he was so focused on the pain he didn’t notice Goro wasn’t wearing his usual outfit at first, so almost shits himself when he and Lavenza approach wearing matching blue nurses’ outfits.

“What the fuck are you wearing?!” Ren blurts, somewhere caught between screaming and hysterical laughing. He’s got a skirt for god’s sake.

“I had no control over this,” Goro says resentfully. “However, the machine is ready for you.”

“The machine?” Ren shoots, curled over on the bunk where this whole mess started gripping his stomach like a basketball is about to shoot out of it. Two basketballs. “What machine?”

“We’ve prepared a special device for your birth, Trickster,” Lavenza explains in her hypnotic and ever calm voice. She pulls a heavy blue sheet off the most terrifying contraption Ren’s ever seen. It’s got stirrups for his feet and is made of old wood and rusted metal, and does not need so many sharp things sticking out of it.

“No way, I’m not getting in that,” Ren declares, but Goro hauls him up and over there.

“Don’t worry, it’s going to be fine,” he says with an annoying lack of comfort.

“You don’t know that!” Ren accuses.

“No, I don’t,” he admits. “Still, it’s not like you have a choice, so get on with it.” He shoves Ren onto the seat and picks his legs up to set into the stirrups for his feet.

“Wait, should I take off my clothes or something?” Ren offers in a panic.

“What purpose would that serve?” Goro replies, and really, it’s so hard to take him seriously with that ridiculous nurses’ hat on, much less the long skirt that flares out and finishes at his ankles. “You don’t have a vagina, remember?”

“Oh really? I know that!” Ren snarls, then screams as Lavenza walks into view holding a huge set of metal pincers with a clawed cup shape on each end. “No way! I’ve changed my mind, I’m leaving,” Ren declares, starting to struggle but Goro holds him down.

“Ren, Ren,” he snaps, hanging over him as he stands between Ren’s parted legs in the machine. “Look at me.” Ren does it, not that there’s too many other places to look, but he does, and in Goro’s golden eyes he sees something calm. “It’s going to be alright,” Goro tells him, and this time he does sound sure, and it is comforting. “I promise.”

“Okay… okay, I can do this,” he says quietly, and closes his eyes as Goro leans over and kisses his forehead, then steps away as Lavenza approaches with the claws.

Ren thinks he might just pass out from the terror of it all, but he sees her clamp them on either side of his huge belly, emerging bare skinned from his top that would never hope to cover it. It’s cold, and it hurts so much already he can’t really tell if it’s a new pain or not, but it’s agonising, and then when he thinks he can’t take it anymore a beam of light shoots up from his bellybutton.

“They’re coming!” Lavenza shouts, the most animated she’s ever sounded.

Ren and Goro both say at the same time, “What do you mean, they?”

The light becomes blinding, and Ren actually loses consciousness for a moment. Or maybe not loses it, but goes into some other state of it, because he’s sure as hell not aware of what happens in the moments between that burst of light and when it fades to the sound of rising cries.

“I am never fucking you in here again,” Ren says furiously as he comes to.

“Agreed,” Goro echoes.

“Bold of you to assume I would allow such a thing,” Igor chips in, but Lavenza is standing there with a worryingly mysterious splatter of blood all over her nurse outfit and a tiny naked baby in each arm, just about managing to support them both with her own small form.

“Let me,” Goro rushes, reaching over to take one of the screaming infants from her so she can better hold the other.

“There’s… there’s two…” Ren babbles.

“Twins,” Goro says fearfully, then again, “Twins.”

“I thought you were aware, Akechi,” Igor remarks, getting up from behind his desk and walking over in that way he has of moving like a spider trying to get out of a bath.

“I was not,” Goro snaps.

“Two wildcards, two fates, your inherent duality, I’m surprised you didn’t figure it out,” Igor says smarmily, leaning over the baby so his long nose almost touches its tiny forehead.

“Give me, I want,” Ren gasps, still in the insane machine, but his stomach has miraculously returned to normal. Goro turns to him and carefully hands over a tiny, screaming baby, then returns to Lavenza to take the other.

He’s holding the second less than a minute when he remarks, “I wonder what their stats are.”

“Goro!” Ren scolds.

“They’re null to dark damage,” Igor comments.

“Oh my god,” Ren says. “They’re babies.”

They were. Actual, living, newborn babies somehow. And there are two of them.

“We can… take them from here, can’t we?” Ren checks.

“Of course, they are human, as ordinary as any wildcard can be,” Igor advises.

“That does not inspire confidence,” Ren says wearily, although the rush of sheer joy as he looks down at the tiny baby in his arms does soften his ability to sound actually annoyed. “Twins,” he breathes softly, cradling the one in his arms close as their cries slowly subside and eyes open.

The babies are naked, of course, but dry, and Goro had the foresight to grab their go bag on the way out of Leblanc. The bag he meticulously packed himself with everything they could need, thankfully including several onesies despite them believing they'd only be leaving this place with one baby.

They're Featherman designs, of course. Ren wasn't going to try and fight him on that, and in the few days they've been shopping it's guaranteed that if Goro sets eyes on any piece of Featherman merchandise for babies he will buy it immediately. Ren's just glad they have something to put them in, after he gets up shakily from the horrifying device and carefully takes the baby in his arms to Igor's table to change them into a nappy and some clothes.

“Congratulations, Trickster and Attendant Akechi,” Lavenza is the first to say. “You're the first of your kind to procreate.”

“Wildcards? Or attendants?” Goro clarifies.

“Both,” she declares with a faint smile, which seems to be her equivalent of a huge grin. “My sisters and brother are very excited with this news.”

“Don't go getting any ideas, Lavenza,” Igor says disapprovingly. “I am not permitting this to happen again.” He thinks for a moment then adds, “I also did not permit this instance in the first place.”

“Then why are there parental rights outlined in the terms of our contracts?” Lavenza puts to him.

“What?” Goro turns over from where he is diligently putting a nappy and Red Featherman onesie onto the other twin next to Ren.

“Those clauses were added by Elizabeth,” Igor replies aloofly. “They were never intended to be used, but she was insistent on having them.”

“What do they say?” Goro asks.

“You didn’t read your contract before signing it?” Lavenza says sceptically, for her. 

“It was sign it or die, what purpose would reading the fine print serve?” Goro retorts. “What are the rights?”

Igor sighs and says, “You’ve been granted them already, Akechi. Restoration of a mortal form and dispensation to leave the Velvet Room as often and for as long as you choose so that you may be a parent.”

“Oh,” Goro says as he carefully works their baby’s leg into the foot of the onesie as their dark eyes gaze up at him blearily. “Well, that’s good.”

“Wait, so you’re… alive, basically?” Ren checks.

“Indeed,” Igor confirms. “Barring the changes to his appearance, which are irreversible, and the ability to enter and perform the duties of an attendant, he is effectively human once again.”

“That’s amazing, what a relief,” Ren heaves, carefully wrapping the baby he’s dressed in a blanket and lifting them up to carry. While the birthing process was super traumatising in its own way, he feels physically better than he has in a good while.

“I wasn’t going anywhere, Ren,” Goro says as if disappointed he’d even doubt him.

“Well I didn’t know for sure, but now it’s like you never died at all,” Ren says delightedly, looking at the twin now being lifted carefully into Goro’s arms. “What a wonderful gift they’ve already given us.”

“Yes, well let’s get them home,” Goro moves on. “We’re going to need to buy extras of a lot of things, but we have enough for now.”

“Have you thought of names?” Lavenza asks excitedly, for her.

“Perhaps Igor,” suggests Igor. “A fine name for any child, girl or boy.” They’ve one of each, of course. Dualities and all that.

“Uh no, we haven’t decided yet, we wanted to see what we thought after… whatever this was,” Ren excuses, which was also partly that they didn’t really know what to expect, and hadn’t ruled out some unexpectedly bizarre occurrence that left them not with a baby at all. By this stage they’d been assuming and hoping it was, and they’d gotten twice what they’d wanted in that sense.

Ren’s parents are going to flip, of course, and Ren still isn’t quite sure what he’s going to tell them aside from some vague story about taking part in a wildly experimental clinical trial. They’d effectively separated from him when they sent him here anyway, so he’s not expecting a whole lot from them, but they at least deserve to know about their grandchildren’s existence.

“Well, we should be going,” Goro urges, their bag hung carefully over his shoulder and one of the twins in his arms. “You couldn’t send us straight back to Leblanc, could you?”

“Very well, I’ll permit it this time,” Igor agrees, so when they walk through the back of the cell to exit the Velvet Room, it’s the alleyway in front of Leblanc they arrive in.

The twins are still there, of course, but a part of Ren had still worried they’d vanish somehow when they left, like his belly bump had. They’re asleep for now, as if the music of the Velvet Room was a lullaby to them. It’s an annoying tune to hear on an eternal loop, Ren agrees with Goro on that point, but if the babies like it they might have to hear a lot more of it.

They make their way into the cafe and then upstairs to the attic, where their setup is now only half done. Thankfully there’s a crib and also a basket, so each of the babies go into one and Goro mixes up some formula while Ren lies on the futon and tries to wrap his mind around the idea of giving metaverse birth to twins.

One of them wakes up by the time Goro returns with formula, and he tells Ren to keep resting while he attempts a first feed, carefully burping and then setting them back to sleep. Ren watches in total awe, amazed that Akechi Goro, metaverse hitman who personally attempted murder on Ren, is now devotedly taking care of their twins.

He comes over to Ren on the futon when the other baby is also fed and settled, lying down next to him with searching eyes.

“You okay?” he asks delicately.

“Yeah, just… are we crazy?” Ren asks.

“Oh, definitely,” Goro replies, and Ren can’t help but laugh.

“Good, just checking,” Ren confirms, and with Goro’s weight reassuring by his side, lets his eyes close for a precious moment of rest.

~*~

Of course, they still have to go back to Maruki’s palace the next day, after a long night of waking up regularly to feed the twins and go back to sleep for fleeting moments. Well, mostly to sleep. They do have sex once, possibly from the sleep deprivation mania, and about 5 a.m. they finally start to talk about names.

“What if we just each name one?” Ren proposes, though not a single name has come into his head at any point. He’d just been thinking of them as the babies so far.

“Alright,” Goro agrees, one of the babies braced against his shoulder as he rubs their back soothingly. “In which case, I’d like to call the girl Robin, if that’s alright.”

“Robin?” Ren echoes, trying it on.

“It’s fine for any gender, and… Robin Hood was borne from the part of me that wanted to be good, to be a hero, and I… want to be a good father,” he confesses like it’s shameful instead of the most beautiful thing Ren’s ever heard. He can’t be postpartum hormonal because he doesn’t have those hormones, but the Metaverse didn’t care about that when he got pregnant in the first place. “I hope the name Robin will remind me to always be that hero for them both.”

Ren doesn’t want to burst into tears, the twins have enough of those for everyone right now, but he’s definitely a little shiny eyed as he says, “Well, then I choose the name Loki for the boy, because all of you is good, and you’re using Loki now to free us from Maruki’s false reality, so that makes him a hero too.”

“Ren,” Goro chokes up, gently setting Robin down in her basket while Ren soothes Loki in his crib. “This might be the sleep deprivation talking, but I love you.”

Ren laughs, but also maybe is crying after all. Hormones.

“Yeah,” he says as he blinks and feels the water running down his cheeks. “I love you too.”

~*~

After a long, long night of many, many emotions, Sojiro comes to open Leblanc in the morning, Futaba and Wakaba not far behind him.

“So we’re agreed?” Goro checks with Ren while they’re still upstairs. They can hear the others downstairs but they’ll be in such a blissful bubble they probably won’t even notice two infants in the attic with very tired parents. Maruki’s reality doesn’t exactly account for that sort of thing anyway. “I’ll go get another stroller in Shibuya and some extra supplies and come right back?”

“Yes, I’ll be fine,” Ren insists, glancing at the babies. “They just sleep and eat and shit anyway.”

“True,” Goro replies, leaning over to kiss Ren’s cheek. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“Okay,” Ren says, and Goro goes out first, a fact still unremarked on by the others of course, and they’d been seeing it all week anyway. It’s only once he’s gone and Ren looks over that he sees Goro’s silly original hair colour wig sitting on the desk amid a mess of different baby things.

Never mind, Ren thinks. He can just tell people the stress of having twins turned him grey.

~*~

Ren and Goro conclude there is absolutely no way they’re leaving their babies with anyone else in this fucked up world of Maruki’s, nor are Lavenza and Igor’s offers to babysit credible at this point in time, so fine, they’re taking them into the metaverse.

Igor did say they had null dark at least, probably more, and as long as their parents are organised there should be no real danger from the scattering of shadows around the palace. Certainly no more than if they left their infant children with anyone else, and they can always split up to clear areas between safe rooms and escort the twins between them.

Goro did well on his emergency shopping trip and returned with Featherman helmet design hats and, more importantly, a double stroller. It means one of them can push it with both twins while the other runs point, but it proves not to be much of a worry since the halls are empty of shadows when they arrive and it’s a straight shot to the main hall.

Maruki is standing there in his stupid Steve Jobs outfit with Sumire sleeping by his side in a weird chair, and boy does he look mad.

“I can’t believe you actually… you brought… are those your children???” Maruki bursts in disbelief as Goro leads the way while Ren pushes the stroller just behind him.

“Well you gave us a strict deadline and we don’t exactly trust this world you’re forcing onto everyone, so yeah, we decided they’re safest with us,” Goro starts, then with a scathing grin and gestures to match introduces, “Asshole, twins. Twins, asshole who’s trying to remake the world to coddle his own pathetic weakness.”

Ren pushes the stroller back and forth gently. “Don’t teach them bad language so early.”

“Relax, they won’t know what to make of it for months,” Goro says flippantly, then checks. “They’re asleep?”

“Safe and sound, for now,” Ren confirms, looking at Maruki and remarking, “So should we do this now, or…?”

“Come on, Amamiya, you really expect me to… did you bring… them on purpose, to try and convince me?” Maruki accuses frustratedly,

“No, we brought them because they’re our children and you’re trying to remake reality to suit your own misguided views, so there’s no one we can trust to take care of them right now,” Ren reminds him cuttingly.

“I want the world to be perfect, to be free of suffering, for you too, and your… children,” Maruki pleads, pulling a distressed face as he adds, “I’m actually a bit unclear how this has happened still, but even so…”

“Too bad,” Goro cuts in. “We don’t want your world, we want our one. The real one, for our children.”

“Is it okay if I park them over there?” Ren cuts in. “We are fighting, right?”

“I don’t want to, but if you leave me no choice, I’ll have to–” Maruki struggles, unable to reconcile his reluctant need for force with the presence of the babies, but they’d expected as much by bringing them here.

“Do you want to hold one?” Ren offers suddenly.

“REN!” Goro snarls wildly.

“It’s fine,” Ren insists. “He’s obviously not going to hurt them.”

“No, I forbid it completely,” Goro raves, drawing his sword. “I’ll take him on by myself, you watch them.”

“Wait, could I?” Maruki says thoughtfully.

“They’re asleep now, but if they wake up and you, I dunno, agree to put the world back as it should be then sure,” Ren negotiates.

“No way, absolutely not,” Goro pitches fitfully, and they’re still squabbling among themselves when Sumire wakes up and sees Ren jiggling the stroller.

“Senpai, what’s… what are you doing?” she asks, befuddled and wincing as she regains consciousness. “Why do you have a stroller?”

“For the babies,” Ren answers simply. 

“The babies?!” she yelps. “Why do you have babies?”

“Long story, but they’re mine and his,” Goro interjects. “Are you done running from yourself?”

“I… no, I can’t go back to being… sorry, they’re both of yours?” Sumire breaks off from her own despairing rant. “How is that possible?”

“Just chalk it up to the metaverse making anything possible,” Ren brushes off quickly. “If you’re ready to accept reality and cooperate with us again, I’ll let you hold one.”

“Ren!” Goro snarls. “Stop offering cuddles with our children as bargaining chips!”

“I can cuddle them?” Sumire says wondrously, turning around to look at Maruki, then back at Ren with the stroller just as Loki starts to stir, his eyes opening and tiny mouth preparing for a piercing cry.

Not wanting to let him wake Robin, Ren scoops him up directly to cradle in his arms. “This is Loki,” he tempts, glancing down to add, “The girl is Robin.”

“Twins?” Sumire says ecstatically. “You had twins?!”

“Just like you and Kasumi,” Ren replies warmly, hoping this will be a positive reminder and not a negative one. Still, Goro will go ballistic if she starts to act hostile, but for whatever reason, Ren thinks this will work. “So I know it’s hard for you, Sumire, but can you be strong?” Loki wriggles gently in Ren’s arms, and he brushes his soft dark hair and leans down to kiss the top of his head. “I know something awful happened to both of you, but I’d never want one of our babies to take the other’s place, they’re both so important and loved.” Looking at Sumire, sorry for the ways he unknowingly encouraged her delusion, he says, “I’m sure your father feels the same way too, and wants Sumire back.”

“I…” Sumire’s eyes fill with tears, and she sinks down onto her knees, sobbing. “I know… I know people still love Sumire, even though what I did was terrible, it’s me who didn’t love her, who wanted her to go away forever.”

Ren gives a gesture with his head to Goro, who’s still on guard, but has let his sword hang loose rather than raised up and poised to fight. Ren nods and Goro shakes his head, then Ren makes a pleading face and Goro gives a huff.

“Fine,” he hisses, then to Sumire says, “If you try anything I will literally kill you, alright?” He walks over to her and offers his hand for her to get up. Tentatively, and checking for signs of trouble every step of the way, he leads Sumire over to Ren and Loki.

“Wait, Yoshizawa,” Maruki pleads. “You can’t forget all the pain you feel just because Amamiya will let you hold his baby!”

“You haven’t seen how cute they are,” Ren points out, turning Loki to be able to look out as Sumire and Goro approach. “Look, Loki, it’s your aunt Sumi,” he says fondly.

“Aunt Sumi?” Sumire repeats joyously, looking at the baby and a smile lifting her tearstained face. “Oh hi, little guy, aren’t you wonderful?”

“This is not how I planned for this to go!” Maruki yelps at the top of his podium.

“Oh give it up, loser,” Goro goads. “Just accept that no one wants your stupid happy clappy world.”

“That’s not true! Your friends, Amamiya, where are they?” Maruki accuses desperately. “They were happy with my reality, weren’t they? They don’t want to return to their painful realities.”

“Not so fast!” comes a shout before a blur of blonde and black sprints into the hall. Ryuji leaps and dramatically lands between them and Maruki with a yell, arms crossed over his front to block oncoming attacks, then when none arrive he looks around and says, “Wait, why’ve you got a baby?!”

“Two, actually,” Ren informs him.

Ryuji’s clownish reaction does the rest of them dirty, his mouth hanging open and eyes bulging out of his head as he makes a sound like, “Bwah?!”

“Wait until he finds out I’m the father,” Goro adds.

“Gwah?!” Ryuji responds as the rest of Phantom Thieves dash up.

“So am I,” Ren insists. “You’re not making me be the mother just because I had to give birth to them.”

“Well it might get confusing,” Goro comments thoughtfully. “What if I’m dad and you’re papa?”

“That seems fine,” Ren muses while Loki squirms as Sumire waggles a finger in front of his face.

“Is Robin still sleeping?” Goro checks.

“Yes, she’s a good girl,” Ren says proudly, jiggling Loki and remarking, “Unlike this one who I can tell is going to be trouble.”

“You named him,” Goro counters with a grin through the jaws of his helmet.

“Excuse me!” Maruki yells.

“What?” Ren returns crossly. “Can’t you see everyone is here? They don’t want your fake reality.”

“Can someone explain what’s going on here?” Matoko asks helplessly.

“Time… you just need more time…” Maruki decides suddenly. “February third, that’s when we’ll meet again.”

“Oh surprise surprise, he’s running again,” Goro comments acerbically, and Maruki gives him a particularly malicious look.

“Next time,” Maruki says, “get a babysitter.” Then in a flash of the lights he’s gone.

“I’m glad you all came through,” Ren announces, facing the Phantom Thieves with a surge of pride for his friends.

“Even if you took your sweet time,” Goro bites, and that’s true too, but that’s why Ren has him to say those things.

“This will be a lot to take in,” Ren forewarns, as they’re back to their senses now which means it’s time to explain everything. With a deep breath he begins, “but these are our twins.”

~*~

“Well, that could’ve gone worse, I suppose,” Goro reflects when they’re back home in Leblanc returning to the true battle that is twin newborns. 

“They took it as well as could be expected,” Ren evaluates, “though it almost seemed like they had a harder time believing in us as an item than the twins.”

“Oh that was definitely the harder pill to swallow,” Goro confirms, “especially for your creepy admirer too.”

“I swear, Maruki isn’t like that about me,” Ren insists.

“I hate to have to be the one to tell you this, but he really is,” Goro tries to convince him. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t try to get me out of the picture entirely.”

“No way, that’d go against everything he says he’s trying to do,” Ren counters. “It’d be in violation of my happiness.”

“Hm,” Goro huffed proudly.

“What?”

“You can really be happy with someone like me?” he says, wanting to hear it from Ren’s lips.

“Of course,” Ren tells him with a smile, and they’re tired, very tired, and it’ll only be so long before the twins are back up again, but it feels like the most meaningful thing Goro’s ever done in his life, and it happened after he already died.

“So,” Goro moves on without dwelling on the utterly disgusting truth that is his surprisingly found domestic bliss, “what do you want to do about these two and the palace?”

“I suppose the best option is one of us stays back with them and the other goes with the Phantom Thieves,” Ren reasons. 

“What about the Velvet Room?” Goro suggests.

“You’d actually trust Igor and Lavenza with them?” Ren says disbelievingly.

“Those two? Absolutely not,” Goro confirms certainly. “However, you haven’t met Margaret.”

“Another of the attendants?” Ren guesses.

“And the most responsible by far,” Goro explains. “If she were supervising, then I think for a short period during an important time she could be relied on to watch them.”

“Important like what?”

“Beating that smug superiority complex right out of Maruki, of course,” Goro says.

“Ah,” Ren murmurs. “You have a point.”

“What point?” Goro checks, just to hear it from his stupid soft kissable lips.

Ren flashes that dazzling smile and says, “We should beat the shit out of him together.”

It's a date.

~*~

Compared to taking care of the twins, Maruki's palace is a doddle. That's not to say the palace is easy, it's just not as chaotic and overwhelming as being two teenagers with twin newborns is.

Ren’s right, not that Goro wants to encourage the expectation too much, but Loki’s a born troublemaker. They love him just as much as the angelic Robin, but still, trouble with a capital T.

Already having a poor attendance record and plenty of excuses to continue it, the least of which is his technically being dead, or at least a missing person, Goro takes on the majority of childcare to let Ren go back to school as if things are sort of normal. It's horrible the first time Ren has to leave him with the twins for the day, but Goro is adamant about Ren finishing his education and insists he'll be fine. It's not clear if he's planning to finish high school himself, but he doesn't seem to think it's too important right now and is more invested in taking care of the children.

This is why Ren makes what he thinks is a joke about Goro being an unlikely stay at home dad, but he replies in a deadly serious way that he'd be proud to give his children everything he never had and Ren almost cries, so it's not really a joke after that.

Somehow they manage, a lot of which is down to the help of Ren's confidants. Dr. Takemi does all their checkups and assures Ren and Goro they are perfectly normal and healthy babies, and thankfully doesn't pry as to why they're taking care of them or where their mother is considering they don't actually have one.

Goro worries more than Ren about how they're going to explain the twins to the wider world, since they're not registered and will need to be if they've any chance at a normal life. Ren points out that with their parentage and miraculous origins 'normal' is unlikely, but Goro is determined to give them the best start in life, unlike what he had, and will rest at nothing to make it happen.

What it amounts to is a not insignificant amount of fraud. Goro calls in several large favours, not quite blackmail but certainly blackmail adjacent, to get all of them on the same family register with no questions asked. Ren is removed from his family's record at the same time of course, which feels surprisingly liberating, like making official what his parents had done unofficially by sending him away with his belongings in a cardboard box to live with a stranger in the city in the first place.

Since the Amamiya name ties Ren to that past, and his criminal record, it makes perfect sense for them all to register under the Akechi name. While technically dead, or having been dead, Akechi Goro died in the metaverse so his death was never reported or acknowledged, and considering he’s alive again thanks also to the metaverse, the only problem with taking the Akechi name is if Shido’s old associates want to find them. Goro assures Ren they wouldn’t dare, or if they do he’ll make them pay, and that his name is the only thing that ties him to his mother, so he wants to keep it no matter what. That also makes Ren cry, but everything does right now.

All this also means one of the forms they fill out somewhere along the way is civil partnership registration. It seems somehow unimportant as a sign of commitment compared to having children together, but it's nice anyway. To become a family, dysfunctional as any family with a hundred percent wildcard content can ever be.

They obviously can’t live in the attic of Leblanc forever, as accommodating as Sojiro is of having crying twins upstairs during his operating hours. Actually, having babies in the place might have increased his footfall, since his many elderly customers come more often, sometimes twice a day, just so they can coo and fawn over the twins when they’re brought downstairs. It’s not a long term childcare solution, but certainly sufficient to leave the twins gurgling or sleeping in an elderly customer’s lap under Sojiro’s watchful eye for a while. Long enough to go to the shops or baths, or have a nap, or ‘have a nap’ but not actually sleep. As much of an impact as newborns have on any couple’s sex life, they are still teenage boys and it’s not like Ren’s body needs to recover, or they’re at risk of anymore bundles of joy.

Although they talk about getting an apartment somewhere in Tokyo for all of them, prices are as expected, not to mention the challenges of renting with both of them being under twenty, a gay couple, and having newborns, so it doesn’t go far before Ren starts fantasising about being out in the country again. Not his hometown of course, fuck that place, but as a country boy at heart he fantasises about the twins getting the same peaceful upbringing he had.

‘Peaceful upbringing’ is about all Goro needs to hear to be sold on the idea, not to mention how much more affordable property is outside the city, so they plan in secret to move once all this crap with Maruki settles down.

The matter of which of them takes any particular afternoon’s expedition into the metaverse depends on whether Goro’s in more of a protective mood or filled with the urge for violence. Ren prefers to stay home with the twins after being apart from them at school on weekdays, and Goro doesn’t always want to leave them even when Ren’s there, so they mostly go on weekends, which the rest of the Phantom Thieves are fine with considering their own studies and exams.

Nothing is exactly great, the world still sinking into Maruki’s unreality, even if their little bubble is unaffected for now, but it’s manageable, and a few weeks absolutely fly by. They navigate Maruki’s palace with some liberal use of hypno mist to speed things up, and clear the route to him just in the nick of time.

They’re expecting Maruki to reach out to Ren, or specifically, Goro says he’ll make a ‘last ditch attempt’ with Ren, and as expected when the calling card is prepared on February 2nd Maruki walks through the door of Leblanc.

It’s a normal day in Goro and Ren’s world, which is chaos, naturally. Loki is screaming his head off, and Robin joins him in screaming should Ren dare to try and put her down, though she’s quiet as long as she’s being held at least.

“I’m this close to taking him to the Velvet Room,” Goro is telling Ren when Maruki enters, and without missing a beat turns over his shoulder to address him, “Oh good, you’re here too.”

“Did we figure out what the song is yet?” Ren replies.

Goro shakes his head and says, “No, but I’ve been having some success with opera.”

“He’d like jazz if he took after you,” Ren teases.

“Is now a bad time?” Maruki asks after being more or less ignored bar Goro’s scathing remark.

“Not really,” Ren says, then back to Goro, “Do you want to be here for this?”

“Obviously,” Goro insists, and thinks for a moment before deciding, “I’m going to put him upstairs with the opera and let him scream for a bit, see if he’ll self-soothe.”

“Last time you tried that you lasted less than a minute,” Ren points out. “You can’t stand to hear them cry.”

“Yeah, and he knows it,” Goro observes, and putting on a brave face swears, “If he doesn’t calm down in a few minutes I’ll go get him, but he might just be overstimulated.”

“Alright,” Ren concludes, and glancing at Maruki apologetically adds, “Sorry, we’ll be with you in a moment.”

“I… okay,” Maruki replies awkwardly while Goro takes the screaming force of nature that is Loki upstairs, puts him in his baby basket in a dark room and plays an aria that’s about at close to the Velvet Room music as he’s been able to find, and walks away.

He almost doesn’t make it, because Loki’s still wailing when he reaches the stairs, but by the time he’s at the bottom of them their son has miraculously started to calm down. 

“Look at that,” Ren remarks as Goro reappears. “Screaming because he’s overwhelmed, he must get it from you.”

“And Robin gets her clinginess from you,” Goro retorts, though it’s playful banter at heart.

“I can’t believe this is the reality you chose,” Maruki comments to himself, and gets double glares for it.

“Over your empty happiness? Every fucking time,” Goro says viciously, while Ren goes to sit at one of the booths.

“You don’t understand my vision for the world,” Maruki claims.

“Oh I understand it very well,” Goro retorts, “You think that free will is an acceptable price to pay for an end to everyone’s suffering.”

“Which you don’t,” Maruki surmises.

“Nothing is,” Goro insists. “There is nothing more important than free will.”

“Even if it brings you misery?” Maruki asks, looking at Ren as he continues, “Even if your choices mean living a hard life, mean being with someone who may be wrong for you, who has hurt you before and will probably do it again?”

“Hey fuck you,” Goro says casually. “You think you’d be better for him, do you?”

“Of course,” Maruki blurts, “I thought I could show you the life you could have away from all this, Ren, but for some reason I can’t alter–” he trails off as he hears how far he’s gotten, glancing awkwardly at Goro.

“Told you he tried to get rid of me,” Goro brags. “Your bullshit powers don’t work on me.” 

“Indeed,” Maruki says stiffly. 

Ren's stare is the burned side of incineration as he asks, “You actually tried?”

Conflicted for a moment, Maruki seems to accept his fate and admits, “I did, but only because I thought it would help you see what could be, so you could make the choice knowing what was on offer.”

If the words could smoke they would as they came out of Ren's lips, “You tried to erase my children.”  

“No! I wasn't going to change them, just who– it doesn't really matter, since I couldn't actually…”

“You owe me a curry breakfast,” Goro declares victoriously, “I told you he's into you.”

“You were right,” Ren concedes with a disgusted look at Maruki, who he tells to his face, “I'm not interested in you that way, and I wouldn't be even if you did manage somehow to erase my husband and steal his children to make your own.” It's a sick thought, and Ren's never been more glad for Goro’s link with the Velvet Room, if that's what protected him and the twins from Maruki's deranged attempts.

“H-husband?” is the only part of that Maruki seems to latch onto. “You got married?”

“We didn't have a ceremony or anything, but we registered our relationship,” Goro informs him snootily, and is taking it quite well considering he's not trying to stab Maruki. Then again, he knew what the madman was up to and Ren was the nonbeliever, though not anymore. “It helped with the family register for the kids.”

“The family…” Maruki looks devastated, but it's still too good for him.

“Yes, I'm Akechi Ren now,” Ren confirms absolutely, reaching with his free arm not cradling Robin to him still, which is the only reason he hasn't tried to stab Maruki, and flings the calling card at him. “See you tomorrow, fuckface.”

~*~

Since they don’t know how long it’s going to take to beat Maruki into the dirt, the bag they pack for the twins is a little excessive. Not a bag, exactly. A suitcase. Two.

“Are you sure we need all this?” Ren checks, certain that Goro has packed things he’s never even seen before and wouldn’t even fit in the attic. They can’t get out of Leblanc fast enough, really, but there’s a certain convenience in being about an arm’s reach of anything they need, Goro’s dick included.

“I’d rather be overprepared than under,” Goro insists, and with the twins in their stroller and Ren hauling luggage, they make their way to the Shibuya Velvet Room Entrance.

In the Velvet Room someone Ren’s never seen before is waiting this time, a statuesque woman with a decidedly maternal air.

“Hello, you must be Margaret,” Ren greets as politely as he can, considering he’s about to entrust his newborn children to her.

“Trickster, my, what a pleasure it is to meet you,” she responds, eyes sparkling as she sets her gaze on the stroller that thankfully did transition just fine to the Velvet Room.

Goro produces a notebook he’s been obsessively filling with instructions and hands it over, “Everything is in here,” he says, “but we’ll be back as soon as we can.”

“Indeed, your success is imperative,” Igor agrees.

“What’s going to happen to this place after?” Ren inquires. “Won’t the metaverse disappear, like, for real this time?”

“It is never truly gone, merely inaccessible to those granted access before,” Igor replies. “However, considering your unusual arrangement with one of our attendants, it seems unlikely that access will be revoked so easily.”

“I see,” Ren murmurs, leaning over to kiss each of the twins goodbye for now. Goro doesn’t, but only because Ren is pretty much sure he’ll cry if he goes anywhere near them, already a bit weepy when he kissed them a lot and put them in the stroller to come here in the first place.

“Let’s get this over with,” Goro says sternly instead.

“What’s going to happen to you?” Ren asks Goro. “If things go back to how they were without Maruki’s interference?”

“I’ll presumably return to custody,” he predicts. 

“Is that alright?”

“I’ll get out, I have enough contacts and my work with the police and lack of a criminal record should be enough. They’ll let me go as soon as they’re able to stick Shido with some charges,” he assures Ren. “Besides, I can still get here, so there’s an escape route if we need it.”

“If,” Ren agrees, reaching for his sleeve and working down to squeeze his hand, which Goro squeezes back.

“Don’t worry,” he says, being strong for his family like it's the thing he's been missing all along. “We’re going to be fine.”

“Yes,” Ren agrees, determined to manifest it no matter what. “We’re going to be fine.”

~*~

“Well, we got a sitter like you asked,” Ren remarks when they finally get to Maruki at the top of his god complex ivory tower.

“I… appreciate that… I think…” Maruki replies awkwardly. “I suppose there’s no point at all in asking you to reconsider?”

“No point at all,” Ren confirms, Goro by his side and adrenaline snapping in the air like static. “Let’s get this show on the road.” 

They beat him seven ways to Sunday, twice, Morgana learns how to turn into a helicopter, and Maruki finally has a breakdown even more cringe and embarrassing than Goro did, by Goro’s own admission.

“It’s not fair! Why choose– why would you rather be with him?!” Maruki wails pathetically after dragging Ren down for that last ditch attempt Goro had been warning him about.

“Because he’s not afraid of his past like you are,” Ren tells him, almost starting to pity the poor son of a bitch, if he hadn’t tried to take Goro’s place in their family, on which point. “Also he didn’t try to steal anyone’s family.”

“I know, that was… wrong of me,” Maruki admits.

“Oh, YOU THINK?” Ren barks as the Monacopter starts to loom overhead.

“Hurry it up!” Goro roars from above. “Kill him already!”

“You’d have every right to,” Maruki assures Ren. “I claimed to be selfless, but I’m still a person with my own bias and desires… and I did desire you, I can admit that now.”

“Uh, yeah, I got that,” Ren says sarcastically. “Look, can we just go? You can be pathetic and apologise when we get out of here.”

“We?” Maruki echoes. “You’d still save me, after all this?”

“Sorta,” Ren says. “My husband also wants a chance to beat you with his bare hands and we’ve got the kids to get back to, so would you give up already and just cooperate?”

“Alright,” Maruki agrees weakly, allowing himself to be hooked with the grappling hook and dragged behind the Monacopter as they escape his crumbling palace.

Somehow in that transition Ren and Goro find themselves back in the Velvet Room, which is convenient since they were only going to go straight there anyway.

Margaret is holding Robin while Loki sits in a baby chair on Igor’s desk engaging in some kind of staring match with him, but all seems well.

“How long was that?” Ren asks as they arrive.

“Oh, time has no real meaning here,” Igor points out while Loki stares at the tip of his nose. 

“How were they?” Goro asks fretfully.

“Excellent entertainment,” Lavenza reports. “You two have also done well to return the world to its rightful state.”

“Please tell me there isn’t anyone else lined up to take Maruki’s place,” Ren pleads.

“No, if it were not for your union and the creation of the twins, we too would soon be disappearing, at least for now,” Lavenza reports.

“Will we still be able to come here?” Ren asks.

“Akechi will be able to show you the way, as he has rights still as an attendant, but you will no longer be able to come here independently,” Igor explains, turning to them to say, “but do come back and visit, I can see myself as a godfather.”

“Oh, that’s nice,” Ren replies awkwardly.

“Margaret would make a decent Godmother,” Goro adds thoughtfully.

“We’re actually considering it?” Ren puts to him as he walks over to take Robin back from Margaret.

“It’s just a thought,” Goro defends, going to collect Loki and taking him over to the stroller. “Remember, there’s every chance I won’t be with you when we return as I’ll be back in custody.”

“I remember,” Ren says, putting Robin in the stroller, and they do both seem fine, not even hungry or tired, which could be worrying but after a few weeks of newborns they’ll take what they can get. “I’ll be fine.”

“Still, I’ll get out as soon as I can,” Goro promises, checking everything is right and seeing Ren off at the cell exit. “We’re almost there,” he adds softly just before Ren goes into the rippling blue light strung with chains.

“I know,” Ren replies. “I’ll see you soon.”

~*~

Goro wakes up in the cell he’d been staying in while he was in custody and nothing seems to be amiss. They think he’s been there the whole time even though he was very definitely at home with Ren taking care of the twins, but whatever, who said it has to make sense?

Since he was careful only to admit to knowledge of Shido doing things wrong rather than doing them himself, Goro is able to persuade Sae to let him out and come back in for further questioning if needed. He makes a fuss on the basis that he’s been there ‘since Christmas’, which is true as far as they know.

Even though he’s barely actually been away a day, it’s still too long for his liking, and he rushes straight back to Leblanc to relieve his husband. Sexually that is, since the twins are fine despite his worrying. They're passed between various doting elderly people in the cafe while Goro buries his cock in Ren’s ass upstairs, ranting about how even in Maruki’s dreams and with all his power he couldn't get close to taking Ren from him. He misses that chance to beat Maruki up with his own bare hands, but concedes to keeping it banked in case he tries any other shit with Goro’s husband before they can leave the city.

It’s only a day after that someone knocks on the door of Leblanc wearing a black suit asking if they would be willing to meet with a representative of the Kirijo Group.

The representative is, as it turns out, the CEO.

Goro knows of Kirijo Mitsuru of course, since the government has various links to them, and warns Ren to be appropriately cautious. As it turns out they somehow figured out, namely spying, that they're thinking of moving out of the city and want to offer them a fully funded package to move to Inaba. Yes, the Inaba of those murders and kidnappings several years back, but it purportedly turned out a ‘remarkably balanced’ wildcard, Kirijo’s words.

Inaba being so remote and also a hotspot in the metaverse, it suits national security to have a wildcard or four present there, Mitsuru claims, and is definitely not at all about encouraging them to get out of Tokyo fast. They want to get out of Tokyo fast so it works out, and the paid ride doesn’t hurt either. Ren can finish his last year of high school out there, and Goro can take any exams should he decide he wants to finish his own education instead of being a stay at home dad, though there are no signs of that tide shifting in him any time soon.

It takes a while to sort out the move anyway, by which time most of the Phantom Thieves have made their own plans, so it feels right that they all scatter, at least for now.

Inaba is perfect. Small but not too small, and used to enough weird shit to not really question two teenage boys with twin infants moving into the neighbourhood in a bunch of government cars.

Between the Kirijo corporation’s ‘grant funding’ for the continued presence of at least one wildcard in Inaba and their respective savings, not to mention the house already being paid off, working isn’t much of a worry. Aside from Ren going to school they only need to take care of the twins, which is perfect since the older they get the greater their capacity for trouble becomes too. No wonder Kirijo Mitsuru wanted all of them out in the sticks.

Goro adores being a full time dad, and soon starts to lament how fast the twins are growing up. So it’s no surprise that he’s the one who starts talking about whether they’ll ever get the chance to do it during a fusion alarm again.

“Goro,” Ren says, “you cannot be serious.”

Oh, but he is.

He even talks to Igor about it secretly while visiting with the twins one day while Ren’s at school. Igor, despite swearing he would never permit it again, is apparently open to overlooking certain things or triggering certain others in exchange for an official godfather declaration.

Ren waits to graduate first, but is won over in the end. They do get to take their time doing it in the velvet room during the fusion alarm this time, and are very clear in their dirty talk about putting one single baby exactly in Ren and definitely not under any circumstances twins. Loki and Robin are wonderful, but there’s no way they're looking to have two newborns again, so one it is. That's how baby Arsène comes along and completes their wildly powerful but very happy family.

~END~