I think that he's spent a long time worrying about other people, because it's easier than seeing the hole.
[To call Bruce a private person is an understatement. He plays a shell game with his secrets, moving them from one place to another as necessary. He discloses very little to very few and has had felt this way for as long as he can remember. But the things they talk about now are not his secrets. They belong to someone else.
Eleven told him once that friends don't lie. This has not been his experience. Bruce has been lied to by everyone he cares about because those people are human- because the reason someone tells a lie or tells the truth becomes more nuanced with age. Some people lie to protect themselves, some lie to protect another. Experienced has softened him in many ways but it has hardened him in others. Bruce wants answers. He craves honesty, the craves the search- and in the same hand he can recognize the inverse that they make.
She believes that a person shouldn't lie to their friend. He believes that lying for a friend is the very least he would do.
These are Riku's secrets and for that reason he's willing to pay the price for his silence. The nuance comes in telling the people who fear for him just enough, to let them know that he's safe, while also protecting his privacy. Riku, after all, gives himself very little of it.]
But it doesn't stop growing.
Sooner or later, you have to look. Otherwise it will swallow you too.
[ So Riku is sad. That much her smaller mind can grasp and understand, though perhaps the nuances are lost to her, or only shapes most vaguely. Eleven starts raising the bag of make up, then slowly lowers it.
There's a deep line between her brows, some gears slowly turning.
Riku is... okay in the sense of alive. But Riku is sad, and being swallowed by the hole he's not looking at, because he worries about others and not himself.
Eleven realizes, then, that she can never tell him how she tried to find him. He'd worry, he'd blame himself. She doesn't want to add to the things that could make him disappear again.
At least he's not alone. At least Bruce watches over him. And she doesn't know much about Bruce, but she trusts him this far.
And if he's watching over Riku so Riku can deal with his sadness and now get swallowed... ]
[Eleven's aim has always been good. He doubts that it's intentional, she is, he thinks, one of the kindest people he has ever met. But her instincts always lead her to the right place to press and this is no different. Bruce watches her process the words, use them to contextualize what she's seen and heard, what she knows thus far- and when she asks this of him in kind Bruce knows he's been given the opportunity to lie. To slip the metaphorical noose.
Instead, Bruce takes a step forward, then another, and moves into the light. The stitches around his hip were done at an angle, with his left hand, so the skin is tighter than it should be and this limits his ability to kneel. To come down to her level. In bares his face to her instead, the true extent of the damage. Riku is an accomplished combatant and under the hallucinations, compelled by fear and desperation and pain he'd held nothing back. There is a mark through one of his brows and across the bridge of Bruce's nose that promise to scar. The bruising along his face is still dark in many places though it's begun to yellow in others. Traces can be seen across his knuckles but they're ugly along his forearms, the brunt of his defense.]
I try to.
[He doesn't look like he regrets his decision, and he doesn't. But this too is part of the truth.]
It isn't always enough.
[In the quiet of the woods Bruce pivots, turning to face the thicket of trees, and beginning to walk. It's a silent invitation for her to follow.]
I don't think it's so different from falling and scraping your knee. Maybe you need help to stand up again, or help to clean it. You shouldn't try to ride your bike again while it's still hurting, if you can help it. But once it's begun to heal, you can help other people when they fall.
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savingthrows) wrote2019-07-31 01:14 am
no subject
[To call Bruce a private person is an understatement. He plays a shell game with his secrets, moving them from one place to another as necessary. He discloses very little to very few and has had felt this way for as long as he can remember. But the things they talk about now are not his secrets. They belong to someone else.
Eleven told him once that friends don't lie.
This has not been his experience. Bruce has been lied to by everyone he cares about because those people are human- because the reason someone tells a lie or tells the truth becomes more nuanced with age. Some people lie to protect themselves, some lie to protect another. Experienced has softened him in many ways but it has hardened him in others. Bruce wants answers. He craves honesty, the craves the search- and in the same hand he can recognize the inverse that they make.
She believes that a person shouldn't lie to their friend.
He believes that lying for a friend is the very least he would do.
These are Riku's secrets and for that reason he's willing to pay the price for his silence. The nuance comes in telling the people who fear for him just enough, to let them know that he's safe, while also protecting his privacy. Riku, after all, gives himself very little of it.]
But it doesn't stop growing.
Sooner or later, you have to look. Otherwise it will swallow you too.
no subject
There's a deep line between her brows, some gears slowly turning.
Riku is... okay in the sense of alive. But Riku is sad, and being swallowed by the hole he's not looking at, because he worries about others and not himself.
Eleven realizes, then, that she can never tell him how she tried to find him. He'd worry, he'd blame himself. She doesn't want to add to the things that could make him disappear again.
At least he's not alone. At least Bruce watches over him. And she doesn't know much about Bruce, but she trusts him this far.
And if he's watching over Riku so Riku can deal with his sadness and now get swallowed... ]
Do you... look at yours?
no subject
Instead, Bruce takes a step forward, then another, and moves into the light. The stitches around his hip were done at an angle, with his left hand, so the skin is tighter than it should be and this limits his ability to kneel. To come down to her level. In bares his face to her instead, the true extent of the damage. Riku is an accomplished combatant and under the hallucinations, compelled by fear and desperation and pain he'd held nothing back. There is a mark through one of his brows and across the bridge of Bruce's nose that promise to scar. The bruising along his face is still dark in many places though it's begun to yellow in others. Traces can be seen across his knuckles but they're ugly along his forearms, the brunt of his defense.]
I try to.
[He doesn't look like he regrets his decision, and he doesn't.
But this too is part of the truth.]
It isn't always enough.
[In the quiet of the woods Bruce pivots, turning to face the thicket of trees, and beginning to walk. It's a silent invitation for her to follow.]
I don't think it's so different from falling and scraping your knee. Maybe you need help to stand up again, or help to clean it. You shouldn't try to ride your bike again while it's still hurting, if you can help it. But once it's begun to heal, you can help other people when they fall.
We need each other.