isawallflower | RYSLIG; ic inbox

[ She rolls her eyes. He's sulking. She wishes she could see him. ]

Where IS Steve Harrington nowadays, huh? I've been all over and I haven't seen him once.
Interesting.

Edited 2022-02-07 03:33 (UTC)

Wouldn't you like to know?

[Harrington is on the way. He's coming. He said he would come, that he would be here as soon as possible--

But he isn't here yet. He'll ... be here soon. He'll be here soon.]

Mature.

You can hope all you want. It won't make any of them wake up faster.

Goodbye, Fugo. Maybe I'll come pay my respects sometime to the dearly departed.

[ She doesn't. But she'd love it if she could give him just one last bit of stress. ]

Your threats are about as creative as your taunts. You really don't know what to do once someone catches you.

But, sure. If you do make the phenomenally stupid decision to show up at the Hill House (which, for the record, I sincerely doubt you will) the others will be ready for you.

[Hill House has plenty of defenses, including a very protective blood golem and a thirteen year old who can stop time. This is Fugo, so of course he will worry about it, but comparatively less than he is about the orphanage. And much, much less about where Riley might be.

Because that's what he really hates. That's the area where he feels truly powerless. If her behavior during this conversation is anything to go by, her double is sure to have left Riley someplace cruel and uncomfortable. But he can't look for her and protect the orphanage at the same time.]

[ The double doesn't send anything back.

When Riley revives on the 21st, she doesn't have immediate access to her laptop. Her double left it in her apartment after threatening Cairo and deciding not to return to there. Riley had to fight her way out of a mountain of trash, had to clean herself, had to take time to breathe. Took enough time to make sure Cairo was okay, to stumble upon her laptop, to see what messages might have been sent or received, saw— ]

fugo im sorry
its me
you dont have to know its me
just im ok

im gonna find her
i hope giornos back too

[ ...She barely has time to check her laptop again. Not until the doubles explode, and she's sure hers is gone. She's too busy searching...and then too exhausted. ]

[There is no real way to know if this is just the double fucking with him again. Even so: eventually, the real Riley will read this. It's important that she get this message, eventually, so for the time being he'll reply with her in mind.]

I'm relieved to know that you are back with us, Riley. But don't need to apologize for things you didn't say. That wasn't you.

Giorno hasn't come back yet, but Steve is with him at the Hill House. He won't wake up alone.

I have things in hand with the orphanage. Jodariel is with me. We'll keep them safe. Do what you need to.

[ After screaming at Ash via text, it's Riley's goal to go to sleep and stay that way for the next day or so. She sees Fugo's reply, even reads it. It's a day old at that point, and her eyes drift over the words Giorno hasn't come back yet and her heart seizes but Steve is with him at Hill House mitigates it.

It's okay. He's...not going to wake up alone and afraid. It's okay. She can rest.

Then the whole thing with Rachel happens, as she's starting to fall asleep and, well. No. She can't rest, exactly.

All this to say, she ends up taking until after she talks to Giorno to communicate with Fugo again. It's while she's leaving, actually, and she doesn't intend on this, at first. It's just... She gets a little turned around. Hill House is big, after all, and she's not very good at navigating it. And that sound...

She hears something she hasn't really before, when visiting. Piano, beautiful and calming. Instead of trying to orient herself, she follows it. And to that end, she finds Fugo.

Her talons clack lightly against the floor, and that's the first clue that he isn't alone anymore. It's her first opportunity to really see him. She looks tired, beyond belief, and she moves slow, to avoid being winded. ...But also because...

What's bubbling inside Riley isn't fear. Isn't guilt. But it's something related to those, something just adjacent enough to tie her in knots and tickle every inch of exposed skin. Like a small shock, tens of thousands of times lesser than the one she felt from Sonic, but still leaving her numb.

He says it's fine. She believes him.

But Rachel tried to kill her, for what her double had done.

It's hard to shake. No matter how much she likes—or loves—a person.

After a few long tentative moments, she clears her throat. ]

[Fugo can't help but resent the arachnid legs on his back. He dislikes them so much that it's difficult for him to even think of them as his own. They're so long and inconvenient. It hurt so much for them to grow. Putting clothes on is a chore. The amount of sensory information that they bring in can be overwhelming. They're ugly. They remind him of Purple Haze. He's well aware that this is an exercise in futility; that they are something he has to, if not accept about himself, grit his teeth and bear with.

Even so. Despite all of that, he can't help but become attuned to the footsteps of his housemates and-- associates. (Friends? Is that accurate? Is it okay?) Riley in particular is very distinctive, thanks to the click of her talons. He knows it's her, long before she announces her presence.]

Hello, Riley.

[Although he isn't quite finished with this particular piece, rather than finishing it, he lifts his hands from the keys, laces them together, and pushes forward to stretch his hands and wrists. His knuckles crack a little. And, although he doesn't really mean to, the legs on his back stretch out too. He then twists to face her. He's quiet, for a moment, before he offers--]

It's good to see you.

[Fugo, too, looks worn and tired. Because he is. He probably should get some more rest, but-- it's difficult. To let go of what got him through the past week. The best he can do is this: let go of his thoughts by sinking into the music.]

Edited 2022-02-20 04:29 (UTC)

[ Oh— he stops, and she offers a small, awkward wave. She isn't sure, entirely, what to say. So, she starts— ]

Hey. Uh... You could've kept playing. I didn't mean to interrupt you.

[Fugo doesn't play piano for others. That's what he promised himself, when he made the decision to keep playing in Ryslig: I'm not going to play to perform. I'm only going to play for myself. He's gotten a little less secretive about it, a little more open to sharing the music he plays with more people than Giorno and Trish-- but it's still a fraught enough subject that, for most people, Fugo wouldn't ask them to join him.]

I've been at it for a while, so I need to stretch. But I'll start again soon. [He tips his head towards a nearby chair, that's a bit out of place with the rest of the floor's furniture. Giorno is the one who originally dragged it over, but Trish is the one who draped a pink throw blanket over the back.] You can sit down, if you like. I'm not going anywhere.

[ Sitting would be nice. She's tired, and she's not looking forward to the flight back. But instead, she goes through somewhat of a mental dance.

Her mouth opens, to respond, but she second-guesses herself. Closes it. Worries at her bottom lip. Opens it again, closes it. Swallows down a nervous lump in her throat. Her eyes flit from Fugo to the floor and back again.

What she settles on is: ]

I'm— sorry. I know- you said I didn't have to, but- I still am.

Sorry?

[For a moment, he's genuinely confused. What does Riley need to apologize, to him of all people, about? And then it clicks: her double. She's apologizing for her double, again, for the nasty stunt she pulled with him over the network.]

Riley-- that wasn't you. Literally, physically wasn't you. You don't need to apologize to me for what she did.

[If anything... between the two of them, he's the one who ought to apologize. For not realizing sooner. And, for after that, refusing to engage with the double to try and get information about where she had hidden Riley's body.]

[ But Riley shakes her head. ]

No, I'm not— I'm...sorry about what she did, but I'm not... I know that wasn't me. I'm sorry because...

[ She breathes out. ]

She fooled me. If she hadn't...she wouldn't have gotten my laptop. I- ...you wouldn't've been left alone.

[ Working at the orphanage, while the rest of them died or disappeared. Worried. Working. ]

Oh.

[Oh, he says, eyes wide and startled. His eyebrows furrow and he reaches up to nervously brush his bangs out of his eyes.]

That's-- ... it's okay, Riley. I handled it. Don't apologize for--

[Riley isn't ... the only one who apologized to him. About this. Giorno, too: I'm sorry. I left you alone.]

You died. Please, don't apologize to me when you were the one who got hurt.

[ You died. She looks away, a little. Almost guilty. ]

I know, but— ...I wasn't the only one, to get hurt.

[ Mukuro, distraught, still carrying her to the gym and meticulously washing her feathers, despite it all. ]

I'm angry at her, for- me, too, but— I'm angry 'cause I coulda done something, too. I...coulda helped. And she wouldn't've been able to hurt my friends.

[ There's an exhaustion in Riley's voice that...Fugo probably hasn't heard before. Not even at the party. ]

[I wasn't the only one, to get hurt.]

[He... doesn't understand. Oh, factually, logically: he understands what Riley means. Riley's apology ... is not for dying. It's for the pain that rippled out from it, a riptide that sucked others out to sea along with her. When she said I'm sorry, it's because she regrets that Fugo got caught up in it. That he was left behind, alone, forced to swallow a grief that was too heavy to carry on his own.]

That's ...

[He doesn't know what to say. It feels strange. It feels uncomfortable. ... he survived, didn't he? The pain he experienced, it wasn't truly so unbearable. Riley should focus on herself. She sounds so tired, but she still came here.]

It's ... easy to blame yourself for "shoulds".

["I should have seen it coming" or "I should have known better" or "I should have been better prepared". Things like that. All of Fugo's regrets start with I should have. They're so heavy, but completely impossible to put down.]

But-- ... isn't the important thing that you're here now? You came back to-- [Here, he visibly falters. He wants to say us. But is that really true? Is he really a part of that group? He doesn't know. He feels forever out-of-step with the friends, the family, the heart that Giorno has put together piece-by-piece in Ryslig.] As soon as it was in your power, as soon as it was your choice to make, you came back. You're here.

You don't need to apologize to me. For any of it. [Fugo untangles his fingers. One bony hand reaches up to massage his chest, tight and aching.] It hurt, I knew Giogio would come back. And I knew you would, too.

[Knew isn't quite the word for it. He believed it, against all logic and against all reason. Because if he didn't believe it, he would have simply fallen apart.]

Edited 2022-04-07 04:58 (UTC)

[ Alone. Alone. It beats in her chest like a broken record, scratches and catches on the dial. Alone, in her big empty house on her eighth birthday. Alone, in the small, clinical room in the juvenile correction center.

Alone, at the bottom of a dump, dead and tied up.

Riley's life is a serious of regrets that have lead her to that. Alone. She hates to be alone. Hates to make others feel alone, once she realized how much it hurt her. ]

I...guess you're right. I just... [ She glances away, back up. Picks at loose feathers on the backs of her hands. ] I know...it doesn't mean none of it ever happened. I know it—

[ She shrugs one shoulder, her wing brushing against the ground. ]

...I just wanted to tell you. That, if I could change it? I would. For me, and the others...and you too.

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WELCOME TO YOUR PRIVATE CHANNEL, CHEERYCHERRY. FOR SECURE COMMUNICATION, USE 019.46.820.17 * CHEERYCHERRY has joined 019.46.820.17 <CHEERYCHERRY> It's Riley! <CHEERYCHERRY> Please leave a message! <CHEERYCHERRY>** Please be someone with their priorities sorted out properly!