isawallflower | RYSLIG; ic inbox

Yes you are!

[He wants to scream. Covering his face with both hands, he lets out a stream of words that are both crisply furious and completely incomprehensible. If this stupid peninsula had taken away his ability to swear properly he'd have lost his mind months ago. Taking the Madonna's name in vain is the only thing that hasn't betrayed him.]

[Christ. He lets his hands fall to his sides, but only for a second, because they start moving a lot as he speaks.]

I never said I didn't want to talk to you. You decided that. We used to talk all the time, and then after the museum you just weren't around, and it just kept getting worse. I thought you needed space or something because you were acting bizarre, but I wasn't avoiding you. You're the one who hasn't met my eye in a month!

Do you even listen? Killing people is what I do! If you'd taken a few steps forward in the museum you'd have seen it. You think I'm, what, disgusted by what you did? I don't know the whole story, I don't understand it, but you're the one who decided I didn't want anything to do with you because of it. Not me.

Edited 2021-04-11 22:57 (UTC)

[ It's like getting splashed with a bucket of water. A cold wake up. Riley's stunned, but she won't— she doesn't want to believe it. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, she shakes her head, trying to hold on to way she's understood the last two months. ]

No, I... That's not what— [ Another shake, a little desperate. ] What was I supposed to think, after...you were so— you were sure I'd hate you.

[ Her halfhearted attempt to turn it back around ends up sapping the fire in her. Dodged calls. Months left on read. Turning away, and... ]

And...after the... I didn't— I couldn't...with anyone, so...

[ It's true, what he's saying. Even now, she's watching his hands instead of his face, drawn to the movement, or—or using that as an excuse to hide. ]

So...I just... 'Cause I'd...I'd already...ruined it, so...

[ Her voice grows softer and softer as little disconnected explanations pour out. She lets her claws fall to her side. ]

[She's right. He had been sure she'd hate him. But it wasn't only that. He'd felt vivisected, cut from his gut to his throat and splayed open; he'd seen the one person he most wants to hurt with their feet in the squishy red carpet of all his darkest secrets. Raw and brutalized, he stumbled upon her with his back to the wall and his hackles already up, and just like that . . .]

[She never really stopped panicking after that moment. He's starting to see that now. What's less clear is how he can stop it from happening again. Because he's not better than that. He's only as good as his worst moments, when the names of his dead friends are thrown in his face and he digs fangs deep enough into the world to draw blood and rend muscle. He will always, always defend himself. It's so far past a reflex. It's a compulsion.]

[So how does he get ahead of this? His hands draw back as her words trail off, one curling protectively against his collarbone, the other wrapping around the wrist of the first, a weak link of organic chainmail.]

Just because I thought you'd hate me doesn't mean anything about how I feel towards you. I'm . . . [He doesn't know how to put it, shakes his head.] It feels different. It felt different, then. Inevitable. But I wasn't thinking clearly. I was too upset.

[Somehow, it doesn't seem so dangerous now. Why is that? He's quiet for a moment, glancing at the way the sun reflects in the water. They're both day monsters, flashy and pretty, and very dangerous. It's complicated, what they are.]

[Haruno wasn't complicated. His mouth twitches at the corners, and he glances back at her.]

Now, though . . . you know my least favorite thing about myself. At least part of it. You might not even have figured it out from the exhibit.

[ Childishly, she somewhat spits out: ] I hate the exhibits.

[ It's an important first point of clarification. Hesitantly, she starts to bring her hands up, back to where she'd clawed open her own arms. She winces as she sets them back, in a hug instead. ]

...I never wanna look at them. At someone else's. I didn't wanna see any of that, and... I didn't want anyone else to see mine.

[ Can she try and look at him? Her lips press tightly together. She manages a glance, as she can feel her pulse pound in her throat. ]

I didn't wanna know anything like that. Not— ...not from...those things.

[Briefly, a fond smile flits across his features. Yes, he knows. Of course she does.]

I hate them, too. They're unnecessary and cruel. I think I just . . . [Hm. His fingertips press against his collarbone lightly, anchoring him to his body.] There are some things . . . that it does explain better than I think I would know how to.

[For a moment he's quiet, trying to figure out if that's really true. If he tried, could he figure out a way? It sounds exhausting. More than that, he thinks he'd give up halfway through. Does it help or hurt to know she's already got the key to the lock so few people even know exists?]

I'm not talking about the museum right now, though, Riley. Do you know what I'm talking about?

[ Her talons dig at the ground without her even realizing it. New nervous habit. This is, somehow, better than continuing on as things had been. But, at the same time, she wants to fly away. ]

...That day. What those things said.

[He doesn't know why. He couldn't explain it. But somehow, for whatever reason, that answer makes his heart ache with love for her. She doesn't see it at all. She doesn't get it. The things she saw of him . . . somehow weren't the ugly parts. She sees the good in people, no matter how pathetic they are, and still she hates herself so much.]

No.

[Shaking his head, his claws curl in the hem of his collar. Nervous, somewhere under it all, despite everything. Because he never has before. Because he doesn't want to. Because, because, because.]

I'm talking about Haruno.

[ And it completely throws her for a loop. Riley looks at him, utterly confused. ]

What? But...lots of people had...different names there. First and last, what would— ...You were just...a sweet, normal guy.

[Right. Yes, he was right before. The exhibit wouldn't help him to explain this. This is on him. He's the only one with the answer. So he could stop right now.]

[Breathing in slow, he doesn't.]

That's why I don't like that place. Because it lied about him. Haruno was a real person once, but he wasn't like that. He didn't have that life. Any of that.

[Someone to make lunches for him. To dry his tears when he cried. To teach him things he needed to know. To just be there, to just exist near him. To just be. To prove his worth by their presence. To look at him with hands lowered, smiles on.]

[His expression is glassy, though not with tears; head tilted to one side like he's observing something. Her, but not. The space just past her shoulder, to see if her shadow reacts strangely.]

Haruno was mostly pretty pathetic, Riley. That's why I didn't want anyone to know about him. Up until this whole . . . [Grimacing, he gestures faintly, unable to come up with the right word for everything that just happened.] Nobody did.

[ And all of a sudden, against all odds, she gets it. She's able to see just far enough beyond herself to see...well, herself—feelings she's well aware of. She sees them in Giorno's eyes, in their distance.

Faintly, Riley realizes: ] That...wasn't just a fake name that world gave you. Was... Did you used to...look like that, too?

Edited 2021-04-12 06:06 (UTC)

[Something tight releases in his chest, something he didn't know was clenched around his heart. He breathes in, out again, and nods. Hears his own heartbeat in his ears, hears the breeze around them, feels the earth beneath his roots. These are all real things. Haruno was real once, but isn't anymore. It's not dangerous to talk about this. It's not.]

I'm not that . . . I mean. Not much changed. Not really. [With a rueful quirk of a smile, he frames his face with his fingers, voguing to cut off the only thing that really changed. Hair texture and color do a lot to change the lens through which people perceive. It was so simple to become a different person, with the opportunity dropped in his weak and waiting hands.] What did change was genetic. Complicated. I didn't decide to do that part. It was more . . .

[The reluctance with which he looks back at her is palpable, but he does it. Shrugs faintly.]

He was just tired. I think he'd always been tired. He didn't want to be anymore [not to be tired but to be, to exist, to feel, no more verbs, no more anything, he was so tired so broken so sad—] so I let him go.

Edited 2021-04-12 06:29 (UTC)

[ Genetic. That part Riley doesn't understand, and it shows on her face. For perhaps the first time, she's struck still with the question of what she knows about Giorno. Sure, there was that wonder—that fear—when they first met, but this is different, it's just...curiosity. Wonder for her friend. Everything that was replaced with her fear and panic. ]

Let...him go? Giorno, what...does that mean? He was... Haruno was...

[ ...like that little girl afraid of everything. Like the crying, stuttering child who couldn't stand up for herself, who needed someone else to give her that strength. That girl who wasn't good at anything, who couldn't even get her parents to look at her.

Riley trails off. She doesn't understand some of this. But that, that, she— ]

...You...didn't want...to be him anymore. So, you just...aren't.

[The temptation, when he sees the confusion written across Riley's face, is to dive headfirst into an explanation of the logistics. Which is absurd. He would genuinely prefer to discuss the stolen body of the murdered progenitor of a lineage of beefcakes that somehow managed to obliquely and accidentally produce him than keep talking about this. He only barely manages to course-correct, to let her speak. Process. Take step after cautious step forward.]

[She's going in the right direction, at least. By now, he doesn't have to lead her much at all.]

Do you know what Giorno means? It means "day". To say good morning in Italian, you say buon giorno. It's not really a given name at all. Giovanna isn't a surname; it's a girl's given name. I wanted to be something [the briefest hesitation, and then he smiles, one of his real ones, albeit small and tired] bright and beautiful. Because I had the opportunity to become something better. To make my dreams a reality.

[This time, it's less a hesitation and more a pause. He's trying to decide if he wants to say the next part. It's not something Riley has the key for yet. Giving it to her is entirely his choice.]

. . . Before, I looked a lot like my mother, but afterwards I closely resembled my father. My real father, I mean. That made it easier, too, to separate myself. I didn't want to look back.

[. . .]

Does it make any sense? Or do you think I'm crazy?

[ Riley wonders if, perhaps, she'd had another name in that other world, if they would feel more separate. She wonders if like Erdianus and Steve her whole name had been a fabrication, if she'd have an easier time differentiating.

No, she decides, in a rare moment of clarity. She...probably wouldn't. But the thought still comes to mind, as soon as Giorno explains. ]

No. I mean— yes, it...it makes sense. I think... [ The logic follows. Even in just petitioning for a name change for the Tigers, she— ] I...understand what you mean.

[ Riley wanted to cast off the unlovable little girl she'd been. She failed. Giorno, however, sounds like he succeeded in taking the parts of himself he didn't like and cutting them away. In that way...she envies him. She honestly regards him with a degree of wonder. ]

I don't...think you're crazy.

[She tells him she doesn't think he's crazy. Somehow, despite himself, he believes her. It goes against every rule about the world that he's come to understand. Whatever she's done, Riley came from a different world than the one he or Narancia or Bruno did. By rights there should be an unbridgeable gap between them. She should pull away from him after this.]

[But then, she already was pulling away because she thought the same thing about him. That he couldn't understand, that he would never give her a chance to say her piece, that he would never forgive her. That he would think her as unworthy of forgiveness as she considers herself.]

[They're really too similar. This time he smiles like a sunrise, one of the easy slow smiles that were fairly common for Haruno, a serious boy who didn't take himself very seriously. The difference isn't as great as he wants it to be.]

Thank you. I really didn't expect anyone to . . . [He wavers, unsure how to explain what a blow it would be to present the reality of this fragment of his past to someone and have them disregard it, crumple it up and throw it over their shoulder dismissively. It would do a lot more damage than he has words for.]

[In the end, he shakes his head.] Just, thank you. That's all.

I don't think you're crazy, either. For what that's worth.

[ For a moment, his smile actually reassures her. The strange, horrible atmosphere that's been over them—that she put over them—lifts, and Riley feels like she actually has her friend back.

And then she flinches away, as something tightly squeezing her heart. Tears prick at her eyes, and she swallows them down. ]

That's...really nice of you, but... I don't really think I can agree.

[One more time: something is wrong.]

[This time it's him who's missing a piece. Maybe he's said it too carelessly. Maybe this wasn't the right time at all. He doesn't know which is true. Watching Riley carefully, he notes her distress and feels it seep into his bones like disease. It could make him brittle enough to break if he let it, hating himself for making her sad.]

[Is he crazy for thinking she needs someone to lean on? That's what memory and instinct tell him. After a moment, he nods slowly, weighing everything.]

You don't have to agree. We don't have to talk about you right now, unless you want to. We can talk about something else. That other place, or the stupid details of what I just told you, or Maple, or nothing. We can just sit, or walk, or you can fly away.

It's up to you, Riley. The only thing you can't do is push me away again. [The ghost of that smile returns.] I'm a lot more stubborn than you realize.

Edited 2021-04-13 23:35 (UTC)

[ It's only now, as her gaze finds her own reflection, Riley starts to notice her feathers, literally ruffled from stress. How pathetic she looks. It's because she's looking here that she even sees Giorno's soft expression, painted plain despite her attempt to avert her eyes. ]

You...

[ She presses her teeth together very tightly.

I'll always be on your team—

She had that, once. Probably not anymore. (She was going to fix, she was, she swears...!)

Riley forces herself not to think about that. If she starts getting lost in that night, she'll be stuck looking at the faces of Kate and Annleigh again, faces she thought would haunt her less than the people she killed—falsely. ]

...You know... I liked it 'cause...I could just be normal. It was...nice, having just...a normal family, even though it...you know. It was...like that.

. . . Mm.

[Not agreeing, not disagreeing. Just a sound of acknowledgment. This is the first time, this moment, that it's truly sunk in for him how the makeup of Riley's family in that other world might affect her in this one. Part of it is unquestionably good. The other part—]

[Not now.]

That part of it . . . wasn't so bad. That part [by itself, in a vacuum] was nice.

It all became horrible. And...I- I hate some of the...memories it took, my— [ Don't think about it. Don't think about her. ] But, still, you know...

[ It's with quite a bit of hesitance that she continues, very softly: ]

I liked being friends there. Until you told me all this, I— ...I just considered it you.

Edited 2021-04-17 05:23 (UTC)

[Just him.]

[He's quiet for a good while after this. Thinking. Instinctively balking in response, then walking around his own distaste at the idea, looking at it from all sides. Truthfully, he's too tired to do this. Truthfully, he doesn't want to talk about it. Truthfully—]

[He sort of wants to tell her again, how it wasn't. How he could never have been that happy growing up unless he was an entirely different person. It just wasn't possible. But he doesn't want to make her sad, either. It's difficult.]

[But also, ultimately, very easy.]

I think the thought of being friends with someone like you in a more normal place was the best thing to come out of the entire experience, for me.

[This is unequivocally true. If he had known someone like Riley before, it probably wouldn't have changed much, but it would have changed enough. It would have meant something. He envies the strange Haruno facsimile that much. They understood each other, he and Riley, in a way that he never did with anyone in his life back home who wasn't a career criminal.]

[Another beat or two, and his smile goes a little wry.] Did you say I was sweet?

[ For a moment, Riley's very afraid that she's ruined it again. That even though she'd somehow navigated through the rest of it—tricked him, made him think she's better, more worthy than she is, stupid, it'll just hurt all the more when—this will walk-back all the good will. She watches Giorno with bated breath, her chest tight like her lungs are going to burst from worry.

It makes the smile that spreads across her face even more lovely and gentle. ]

I did! Because you were.

[Making people smile is one of those things that he’s recently learned he likes to do. In that other world, he was better at it; he had more practice. But he’s gotten better at it, at least with Riley, someone who rarely smiles in a way that’s soft instead of tense. Those are the smiles that feel rewarding to see.]

No one has ever called me sweet before, Riley. I genuinely don’t know what to make of it. Everyone must have gotten the wrong impression of me over there, and now they’ll be disappointed to find out I’m a bastard.

[ And, in response, Riley rolls her eyes despite the smile staying firm and secure. ]

Ohh no, you were still a bastard there. [ Riley rarely lets herself swear but it feels sort of natural to. ] You were sweet and a jerk. Both are true.

. . . Hm.

[He has less of a comeback for that one. She's at least right on one of those counts. Narrowing his eyes at her for a moment, he eventually gives up and just shrugs, acquiescing.]

I'm multifaceted, then. Although I think I was only a bastard to specific people. Consider yourself lucky.

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cw gory imagery

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cw dissociation, child abuse/neglect

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cw depression, suicidal ideation

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cw: intrusive thoughts

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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!