AN - After being disappointed with Ren's lack of character development in GvK, I decided to take matters into my own hands and at the very least gave one the most important characters in the Monsterverse's angsty son a redemption ark. To give credit where it's due, this is partially inspired by a chapter in Hrodvitnon's 'Abraxas' (go read this shit it is *chefs kiss*
He never meant for things to end up this way.
He just wanted peace.
All Ren Serizawa could think as he trudged his way up the stairs of Castle Bravo up to the flight deck was how tired he was. Yet, another sleepless night brings him back up to his best hiding spot, away from all the lights and noises and everyone and everything reminding him of what he did, what it led to.
It led to over four thousand dead.
Simmons ignored his pleas to at least test the Mecha with the energy they extracted. The man was blinded by his own fantasy of humanity reigning the earth once again to see the entity they had awoken, and Ren had been too blinded by grief to see that Walter was merely using him for his own gain, and wasn't afraid to put him or his own daughter in harm's way to get what he wanted.
The last thing he remembered before waking up confined to a bed in the Argo with a throbbing headache is being paralyzed by a force beyond comprehension in Monster Zero's skull. The distorted computer's warning drained out by the ever growing hum. And then the hum began to cackle.
Then nothing.
They said it was a miracle he was able to walk, talk or think, moreso that he was even alive.
Ren disagrees. He sees it as a curse.
The breeze greeted him immediately as he opened the door to the deck. He inhaled, tasting the salty air and exhaled, letting go of all the tension in his muscles as he did so. The night was silent minus the waves crashing below. He tried to focus on the sound as he walked towards the railing, trying to drown out the flashbacks of the god forsaken sinister voice that overflowed his brain in that machine, tormenting him, taunting him. Almost as if saying, "Now look what you've done little one. You awoke a force your pathetic little mind cannot even begin to conceive. You never learn. And now you will feel my rage until you can feel no more. I'll show you. I'll show all of you."
As he lights a cigarette with shaky hands, Ren thinks, for the first time in five years, he was almost glad his father had died.
Blowing the smoke into the air and watching it until it diminished into nothing, he wonders what he would say to him, if anything at all. Would he even be able to even look at him? Perhaps his miraculous survival was at the thanks of him, his way of punishing him for his deadly error. He'd rebelled against his upbringing to respect the course of nature, never to fight against it. He let himself be manipulated into playing God only to become the Devil's advocate, and he was now living in his own personal hell.
Because living with the heavy burden of his mistake was a punishment worse than death.
He's so lost in his own head that he doesn't even see the blue glow in the sea below beckoning closer and closer until he spots familiar dorsal fins breaking through the surface. He tumbles back and collapses to the floor, dropping his pack in the meantime, staring up in shock and amazement as the king of the monsters rises before him, staring directly back at him.
The titan his father died for. The titan he nearly killed himself trying to destroy.
Gojira.
The king looks down at him with curiosity, leaning closer with a deep bellowing rumble, close enough that he could have named the colors in his irises had it not been so dark. He huffs, the hot wind so forceful, it nearly pushes him back down again. Gojira lets a rumble escape his throat, as if he was saying, "I know you."
Ren slowly gets back onto his feet and takes a step back, trying to control his breathing. The titan continued to stare him down inquisitively almost looking like he was trying to pinpoint where he had seen him before. Every alarm in Ren's head rang at him to run, to say something, to do something, but he's frozen. Whether it was from fear or awe, he's not quite sure.
He wonders if this was how his father felt when he entered his chamber.
A growl brings him back to his majesty's full attention, and his blood went cold.
This is it. Gojira recognizes him. He knows what he's done and how he tried to destroy him and now he's here to get his revenge. He braces himself and cowers down, waiting for the king to finish him and put him out of his misery. He continues to wait for the end to come, but it never came.
He just stood there, now with a mischievous look in his eyes. Ren's blood begins to boil.
"You BASTARD!" he shouts in Japanese, so forceful that even Gojira looks taken aback.
"How dare you torment me after everything! Who do you think you are?! You think you can just show yourself whenever you like, come and go as you please?! Take whatever and do whatever your heart desires and expect us to rejoice in your grace and sing kumbaya?!" Ren stops to regain his breath, his vision beginning to blur, tears beginning to fall. He squeezes his eye shut as tight as he could, refusing to let the king see him begin to finally break after years of keeping his composure. "My father gave you his life to you and what do you do? NOTHING! You don't even blink! You have no remorse! He saw you as a God and valued you more than anything and you go on as if nothing happened! You took everything from me!"
"Then you come and taunt me! To show me how much of a coward my father's pathetic excuse of a son is! You don't think I know this already?! IknowIknowIknow!"
He's screaming through sobs now. He doesn't care.
Looking up to the sky he shouts angrily at his father, "Look what you've DONE! Look what your choice led to! Here I am breaking down to a giant ancient radioactive lizard," he dramatically motions his hands towards the beast while shouting to the stars, "because you left me here! You left me behind! And now I've ruined everything! Is this your way of punishing me?! Is this what you want?!" He hoped he could hear him.
Ren chokes and gasps for air and screams with all of his might before collapsing down onto his knees, pounding his fists onto the hard pavement like a child not getting his way, not even noticing that Gojira had moved closer to him until he falls and lands on his snout. He continues to slam his fists with his body onto him, before residing and burying his eyes into the heels of his palms, crying, "Why did it have to be you?" into them.
"Why did you have to go?"
He sobs for several more minutes, now shouting, "I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry." into his hands over and over until he has no more tears left to cry. Once he finally regains his breath, he shakily stands up and pats his pockets for his cigarettes again. When he doesn't feel them in there, he looks around and doesn't see them. Assuming they fell into the ocean during his tantrum, he sighs defeated.
Gojira rumbles to remind him he's still there. Ren looks up at him in his eyes again. This time however, he sees the strangest thing. Recognition. Compassion, even.
After a moment, He slowly takes a step forward, and reaches his hand out to rest on his face. (Ren doesn't have to wonder if his father did the same, he knows.)
"Sorry for hitting you." he says. (It roughly translated to, "I'm sorry I tried to replace you. For betraying him, betraying you. I'm sorry for all of it, for evrything." and everything his throat was too sore to speak outloud)
Gojira huffs in reply.
(That roughly translated to, "I Forgive You." he wasn't referring to the poke on snout)
Ren pulls his hand away and Gojira pulls back as well, they share one final look before the titan turns and dives back into the ocean, splashing Ren in the process and disappears below the waves.
Ren sleeps that night, a lifetime's worth of wounds finally beginning to heal.
"Sometimes, the only way to heal our wounds is to make peace with the demons who created them."
AN - Constructive criticism is always appreciated