fic: like tears in rain (oneshot)

[cloudedhues]

title: like tears in rain
fandom: psycho pass | shinkane
stats: 3,327 | teen | oneshot
prompt/summary: akane's hallucinations aren't so one-sided after all. in which dream!akane perplexes shinya and causes him to overthink as usual. canonverse set between season 1 and 2.
notes: dedicated to my lost twin (wherever she may be...) this was my first proper fanfic. so think of the 19 year old writing this and be gentle.

He doesn't hallucinate about her.

He doesn't daydream about her either seeing as he's not the type to go over his head; he is much too grounded to visceral corporeality when he's awake. So it makes sense that in the two months after he walked away and broke his promise, she appears to him night after night in a dream, latching back to the empty notch in his life as if he has never left. It suits her, he thinks. She's always felt untouchable to him, a step above higher from the dirt where he stands, and he's always felt a little off touch with the reality he's made for himself ever since he met her. He is still not used to dreams, doesn't know what to expect (or wants to at least) when the images begin to blur into shape in front of him.

They are in a hospital room — him in a bed and her to his left looking at the torrent of rain outside. There is an IV wire plastered to a vein on his arm and a heart monitor that's morbidly flat-lined. What meaning he can glean from that, he isn't sure. Aside from that, the other details of the setting are all wrong, which is understandable considering that the human mind rarely captures and forms details so well in dreamscapes and the simple fact that he just hates hospitals to even bother remembering them.

But she is a different matter of course. She is easily the most recognizable thing in this room, his mind apparently compensating for its laxness by giving the entirety of its energy into committing her to memory, down to the golden specks in her eyes that appear exactly just when the light hits her at the right angle. Akane perches by the window; wearing a dress he has never seen her wear in his life. She hums a tune that sounds oddly familiar, following the path of the rain with her finger as it slides in consecutive slivers against the glass like an endless stream. She is frighteningly exact to the last fringe on her head.

He shifts, the sound of the bed sheets crinkling causing her to still. She turns to him; face unreadable for a second before breaking out into a smile.

"You're finally awake."

He feels oddly clearheaded and is glad that the room has stopped blurring. She walks toward his bed, looking like the perfect contrast to the rain outside.

"What were you dreaming about?"

"Reality."

His voice sounds and feels like fog. In fact, everything else aside from her voice sounds as if it's been muted and thrown under a wide sheet. He blinks.

"What a horrible dream that must be. Good thing you woke up.

Her smile is nothing short of cheeky and he has an incredible urge to roll his eyes but knows that doing so would require him to take his sight off her for a single second. Instead, he decides to settle for a frown.

"Think you got it switched around."

"Well that makes things much simpler then. Lucid dreaming's quite fun, I hear. You should enjoy it while it lasts."

He nods towards her. "Never seen that dress on you before."

"Clearly. You don't know my fashion tastes that well."

"I think it looks nice," he peers at her. "You look very...appropriate."

She tugs at the hem, hiding a smile as she looks down at it.

"Flowery, even," he supplies.

"You gave the skirt a dandelion print."

"So?"

"Dandelions are weeds, Kougami-san."

"Botany's not my best subject," he admits. "It's a very pretty weed if it helps."

"Thanks. Never figured you'd have an eye for that type of thing."

"Even a man like me can appreciate beauty when I see it."

She blushes and he leans back, satisfied that he remembers at least that quite perfectly. As if sensing his smugness, she holds her hands to her hips and huffs, face still tinged with her self-consciousness. "Well. Anyway, enough of that. There are infinitely more interesting things to enjoy here than this silly dress. This is your dream after all. We might as well make the most of it."

Was that a suggestion in her voice? For certain, he is the only one thinking of the double meaning then realizes his stupidity because of course everything here is a product of his thinking.

"What do you have in mind?" He's curious about her answer, wonders how much of what she says is corrupted by his head.

"Well, what do we usually do when we have free time?"

"We've never had much of that when I was awake."

"Let's see what's around here then." She looks around and as if it has always been there, a bookshelf appears in place to her right. She reaches to it, pulling a book out without missing a beat. "You always told me you were going to lend me your copy of that Dick novel."

"Excuse me?"

She rolls her eyes and waves a battered paperback of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? at his face.

"Philip K. Dick, Kougami-san. Have you always been this dirty-minded?"

"Hardly."

With her other hand, she tosses him a copy of Vātsyāyana's famous work, a hint of reproach in her face and he shrugs, feigning innocence. He opens the front cover and nearly laughs at the first thing he reads. Get your head out of the gutter.

"These books are no use," he says, closing it and tossing it back to her. "Contrary to popular belief, I actually don't have much of these memorized so you won't be doing much of reading."

"You're no fun."

"You forget that this is my mind you're playing in," he says, eyebrow arched. "Speaking of which, why a hospital room?"

"Not sure. As you've said, this is your mind's doing after all. But hospitals are interesting that way, aren't they? Death and life, all in one place. Either way, it seems like anyone who's here isn't here by choice."

"Surely my mind must like me better than this. Can't think of a more depressing place to talk with you."

"Why? Had something more romantic in mind?"

"Oh, is this a date now?"

"Obviously, Kougami-san. Hospital room, old man literature, and me in a dress — what about this doesn't scream 'date' to you?"

"Fair point," he says, enjoying this far too much. "But trust me, if this was a date, you'd definitely know the difference."

"Joseph Heller seems to think hospital rooms symbolize shelter and safety though. Yossarian hides in them so he can avoid the fight outside," she ignores his previous comment as she flips through a copy of Catch-22. Although turned away, her face is obvious from where he's lying down and he resists the urge to smirk. She shows him the blank pages, completely empty aside from some choice gibberish and a few quotes he vaguely remembers. He's never actually finished the book but there is no way he's pointing that out.

"Maybe you being here is a reflection of reality. But then again, you've never been a big fan of metaphors, so what do I know?" she says with a shrug.

"I did get into a fight before this," he remembers as if the memory has always been there. He keeps his arm close to his chest; suddenly aware of cradling the injuries he'd gained before he slept. "Encountered some stragglers in their territory by accident. Four against one. It was hardly a fair fight."

"What?" she looks up from her book, alert.

"For them, I mean," he amends hastily.

Her face is far from amused however, already taking that familiar expression she gets whenever he does something outside of her approval. "Are you safe now? I mean, you're asleep and defenseless, did you make sure to —"

"I'm fine. I took care of it. You don't need to worry."

She ignores the shortness in his voice and starts reprimanding him, "Still, you must be careful, Kougami-san. You can't afford unnecessary risks. You're on your own this time, remember? There's no one to look after your back anymore or have you forgotten that?"

He narrows his eyes but reigns in any damaging words in his tongue. "No, I haven't but thank you for the reminder anyway."

She turns her eyes — chastised or still angry, he's not sure — and settles back into her corner by the window with the copy of Catch-22. He watches her for a moment, a sense of displacement settling in his stomach. Her words have inflicted him sharper than he expected. He has no right to anger or regret, being the one who turned his back in the first place. But he can't help but feel suddenly displaced by her distance even though they are in the same room, so apart from him as if he has no handle without the warmth of her sure-fired acceptance, of what she represents when she walks behind him: the knowledge that she will always look after him as an absolute certainty. He wonders if he can will his mind to get her to move closer.

"Maybe," she says suddenly, breaking the silence, "We're in a hospital room because this is the only place where you've always been completely honest with me."

He doesn't know what to say to that, isn't sure whether he wants to agree or contest.

"Hospitals have a way of making people more honest, don't you think? Maybe vulnerability in death is contagious," she continues thoughtfully. "That or drugs have a funny way of making you more agreeable than usual."

Frowning, he ignores her too-obvious amusement and rips off the IV from his arm to make a point. Unsurprisingly, he feels nothing. "Were you always this mouthy while I was awake?"

"You must not have known me very well, Kougami-san. That or your memory is failing you. How old are you again?"

Damned brat.

He can't resist the smile unfurling on his lips however, glad that she's changed the subject. "Must be your influence. You have an uncanny way of causing people to gray their roots too early."

"Must be that," she jokes back. She looks at him fondly and he is sure that he is mirroring her as well, and they stay in place as is for a protracted second when a thought occurs in his head.

"I've been wondering but what brings you here exactly?"

She shrugs, returning her attention back to the book. "Boredom. Amusement. Whatever the reason, you don't seem to be complaining too much."

"I mean, why you? Why isn't Gino or the old man appearing to me in these dreams?"

"I'm sure you've had dreams of them before as well," she states carefully.

"But yours is the only ones I can remember clearly."

"Who says you'll even remember this when you wake up?"

His eyes soften just a fraction. "Because I always do."

"Well, two theories: (1) you're feeling incredibly more alone than usual so your subconscious has cobbled up something close to comfort as it can get as a way of appeasing you, (2) you feel some sort of guilt towards me and this is your mind's way of relieving it by indulging your vision of me as some faux-absolution." She flips through all the pages and sighs at the sight of seeing them all blank.

"And while both of those might be equally true, you and I both know the real answer very well, don't we," she remarks, almost flippantly, looking up at him so casually as if what she said was not the most damaging truth he's worked so hard to avoid.

He has an undeniable need to look someplace else. But he holds her gaze even when his throat seems too dry than normal. "Enlighten me on this then since I seem to be well out of the loop."

She gives him a knowing stare like he just said something completely inane. She would make a good schoolmarm with that reproaching frown, he thinks distantly. "Don't play dumb. Lying to yourself doesn't suit you, Kougami-san. You've always been susceptible to tunnel vision but you've never been blind."

"Blind to what?"

"Are we really playing this game now?" She moves next to his side so suddenly that he has barely taken a breath before he realizes that her fingers have taken residence on the hollows of his cheek, lightly caressing it with a touch that leaves him grasping for words. "You dream of me every night and you're seriously asking for the reason?"

With whatever remaining will he's retained, he pries her fingers off.

"Stop," he manages to breathe out.

"Why?"

"I'm quite aware of what I feel. Too well, in fact. But there's no way in hell I'm giving myself the pleasure of self-indulgence. It isn't fair to her or to me."

"Self-indulgence? Surely you can't think all of this is one-sided." She swats away his resisting hands and moves her body over him, hovering with her face barely inches from his. "I may be just a reflection of her, a memory conjured up by your mind but isn't it plausible that dreams are formed from a basis of reality?"

"I can't act on this," he insists.

She refuses that answer and returns her hands to his face. Her eyes are warm and comforting even when her words feel anything but. "You must have realized something while you were awake, something that one track mind of yours finds hard to comprehend. Something you realized in our time together that tells you that my feelings aren't the wishful thinking that you think it to be."

He knows it. Of course, he does. From his time acting as her mentor, her partner, he is very much aware of the line that both of them have mutually considered to step over. But to accept such a thing as valid would mean to indulge in the possibility of its actuality. And that is not a train of thought he would like to tread on anymore than he has already. Hope in the face of impossibility is the most dangerous thing he can feel. And he's exerted a lot of effort to not have to feel much of anything in the first place.

"What would you have me do, Akane?" he asks, trying to sound tired, hating the pleading note that appears in his voice instead.

"Simple," she whispers as if she were telling him a secret. "Get out of that head of yours for once."

A higher man would have disagreed, even resist with a disbelief that such a thing would, should never happen. A chivalrous man would have pried her off with a firm apology and a gentle rejection. A more moral man would. But he has never considered himself moral. Far from it. Because as if there is no other eventuality possible, he follows her advice, and he finds that her lips taste just a tad above reality as he imagined.

For once, he lets himself want her in the way he's never allowed himself to do. He lets himself indulge in the childish wish that if he gave himself to her and she did the same, it would be enough to make society and the rest of the world cooperate. The ache in his chest races mercilessly to the rest of his body, igniting his nerves to the point where even his mind doubts if this is still a dream. Goosebumps prickle at the path of her wandering hands as it crawls upwards to his sides, his arms, neck then face. The noises she makes, the feel of her around him emboldens his hands to a frenzied desperation, his lips to a murmur of promises he would never say out loud on the skin of her neck, at the soft shell of her ear that she favors with a shiver. After drawing out another breath from her and another, after an eternity of being completely subsumed in her presence, he leans his forehead against hers and keeps her gaze with a look he's perfected to a craft — the same look he wears during a particularly challenging case or an interrogation with a misleading suspect. She is too real and too unreal all at the same time and it angers just as much as it frightens him.

"I feel the same. I always have," she says to his lips, seemingly unaware of the broil of emotions churning within him.

He catches his breath and pushes her back, hating how much colder he feels. "Stop. Just stop."

"You've already gone this far."

"Too far," his fingers itch to touch his lips, or hers for that matter, but he'll give no one that satisfaction. Especially not this subconscious version of her, this image that pales in comparison to the actual thing. "You're not even her. You're a shadowed derivation. A weak reflection of my ego and desires. I'm not going to taint her memory for something that isn't even real."

She sighs, as if defeated. "Sometimes I forget that single-tracked mind of yours. You're more chivalrous than you give yourself credit for. Always shooting the bullet so others don't have to."

She detaches herself from him and his bed, disappointment evident in the way her smile doesn't quite reach the crinkles of her eyes. But she understands. Even this version of Akane, any version of her, would understand him perfectly whatever he did. "But what should I have expected? When was the last time you ever enjoyed something for the simple sake of the action?"

He refuses to look at her, hopes and fears that he will wake soon.

"You're right in that we shouldn't. Whatever happens here is not the same when you wake," she admits and he doesn't know if he is relieved or disappointed at her surrender. "But you've got one thing wrong about all of this however."

"And what is that?" he asks, despite it all, a challenge in his eyes.

As if she can do nothing else, she leans down to whisper the answer to his ear.

Her voice reverberates in the foggy space of his mind and he can feel her placing her lips on his forehead with a warmth so achingly familiar and so much like her that all too soon like whiplash, Shinya opens his eyes with a jolt, vision bleary as it tries to ground itself to something solid in the confused darkness.

Breathing heavily, he scans the scene, hospital room dissolved and the empty warehouse he's holed in for the night staring back at him. His eyes adjust, and he rights himself to wakefulness. The jagged hole in the roof tells him that it is still the middle of the night. His head carefully leans back down on the makeshift pillow of his jacket, all too aware of the ache from his fight registering in his body. In the blurred fog of the sky beyond his walls, he can hear the stream of wind howling through the abandoned town, the distant call of a bird as it travels past the maze of trees beyond and he wonders briefly where it's headed.

Against the gravity that's hung around his shoulders, he closes his eyes, already heavy in the realization that he is supposed to be moving soon. Every day he is moving and every night he is restless. Her nightly visits tire him just as much as his treks during the day. Two months and he wonders just how long and how many more dreams he can bear. She already haunts him in his sleep; how much more can he take if she begins to haunt him outside of his dreams as well? He affirms that such a thing would never happen. But as he drifts back to what he wills to be a dreamless sleep, her voice echoes in his mind, whispering to him that answer before he woke — another truth proving to be even more dangerous than the first.

He can practically feel her next to him.

How can this not be real if I'm the realest thing you know?