[ The question makes Eleven reach up to her throat. It bears scars from where the Baubledook scratched her. Mostly healed, no longer an angry, bloodied red. Still, she'll have that reminde.
And then... there was that thing, in the Void.
There's no safety here. ]
Not... recently.
[ It's not a no, but as much of a yes as she'll allow.
She digs into her bucket for now, and holds out three pieces of candy and a crumpled wrapper that looks like it had shape at some point. Eleven holds it out almost in defiance of how it looks. ]
Candy. And... a bird. For you.
[ Eleven likes Candy, and would be in a good mood if someone gave it to her - unless that someone was a stranger, like Aziraphale with the cake. Anyway, it's a very blunt attempt to bribe him into good spirits. The make up, after all, he'll get after satisfying her questions. Eleven is not smart, she knows this. She lacks education and life experience, and while she'd take offense at being called dumb, she also can't pretend to be much more than that. Still... there are some things that even she can't help but notice. ]
[The small movement of her hand towards her throat draws his gaze, and Bruce follows it as he would follow any other tell. Whether she means to reveal it is irrelevant now. She says not recently and this admission, paired with the location of the hurt leaves him to wonder if she had died.
It doesn't surprise him that she refuses to linger or dwell. He has not known Eleven for a very long time and they haven't gone through the motions of explaining who they are to one another. But he suspects that she is very used to it. To not just the pain, the necessity of moving on from it, because other things must be done. It's hard to see, not just because of her age, but because Bruce remembers what it was like. To be a child and to be afraid and to be angry. To want to be more.]
Thank you.
[There's a kind of sincerity in his reply even when he recognizes the offering for what it is. Bruce takes two of the three pieces because he'll give them to Riku and Vanitas. But the bird? That he takes for himself.]
I suspect that you won't give me the makeup until I've answered your questions. I'll do what I can.
[ Eleven's eyebrows shoot up for a moment, and it's enturely possible that her cheeks flush. Though perhaps she shouldn't be surprised. Bruce, like Peter, seems to be smart in ways she barely understands. Clever. No wonder he realizes her intentions.
She scuffs her boots along the ground beneath them. She got those at the store with Riku, shortly after her arrival on bare feet. ]
What is...happening. I worry.
[ About him, about Riku. About secrets. It was a bad idea maybe - she doesn't quite know how to articulate all of this. ]
Is he hurting?
[ Not 'is he hurt'. And most certainly not 'did you hurt him' - no. ]
[Eleven's expression says the things that she doesn't. She wears her surprise and perhaps also her embarrassment, but Bruce doesn't react in kind because there's no reason to. Her decision was clever and well-reasoned. Bribery and even blackmail are tools- he's asked her for something and in doing so has provided her leverage. It's reasonable for Eleven to push her advantage. It's what he would do.
But Bruce has a great deal of experience with grey areas and he had known, the moment he chose to get involved, that there would be no unringing of the bell. Whatever happened, he would be tied to the outcome.
Her feet scuff against the ground and Bruce watches her, the worry that settles over her shoulders. The question that she chooses is illuminating in and of itself, and Bruce wonders if anyone has ever asked it of her. If that's the reason she chooses to think of the present (is he hurting) instead of the past (was he hurt?)
For a long moment Bruce considers it, considers her. And then he says-]
Have you ever felt so sad that you thought you could cry forever? Like there was a hole inside of you?
[ No hesitation, no delay. Eleven doesn't even stop to think about the answer. It's immediate, and painfully honest. She feels it, every day, and in the moments that her dreams turn dark.
It's in the way she remembers her childhood, her upbringing, the way she often feels like she's drowning even now, put into the submersion tank and made to enter the Void, alone in the dark nothing.
Things crawl out of that hole in her chest that put her back in hospital scrubs, hair shorn short, shoved into a pitch black closet and left alone there.
Things crawl out of that hole in her chest in the shape of those loved and lost, the confused empty of her mother's mind, and the knowledge that she won't ever be without that darkness inside of herself.
She's the monster, no matter what anyone else says. She is incomplete and clawing at a shred of normalcy she can't ever fully have, despite everyone's best efforts. There's no future, and the past is a shackle she can't quite shake. She's powerfull, but powerless against anything that really matters.
Things crawl out of that hole in her chest that wear her face and voice.
She doesn't lower her gaze now, keeps her eyes on Bruce. Steady. Too old, too young. ]
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.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
savingthrows) wrote2019-07-31 01:14 am
<3 I'm BACK!!! and still having feelings over this tag.
And then... there was that thing, in the Void.
There's no safety here. ]
Not... recently.
[ It's not a no, but as much of a yes as she'll allow.
She digs into her bucket for now, and holds out three pieces of candy and a crumpled wrapper that looks like it had shape at some point. Eleven holds it out almost in defiance of how it looks. ]
Candy. And... a bird. For you.
[ Eleven likes Candy, and would be in a good mood if someone gave it to her - unless that someone was a stranger, like Aziraphale with the cake. Anyway, it's a very blunt attempt to bribe him into good spirits. The make up, after all, he'll get after satisfying her questions. Eleven is not smart, she knows this. She lacks education and life experience, and while she'd take offense at being called dumb, she also can't pretend to be much more than that. Still... there are some things that even she can't help but notice. ]
no subject
It doesn't surprise him that she refuses to linger or dwell. He has not known Eleven for a very long time and they haven't gone through the motions of explaining who they are to one another. But he suspects that she is very used to it. To not just the pain, the necessity of moving on from it, because other things must be done. It's hard to see, not just because of her age, but because Bruce remembers what it was like. To be a child and to be afraid and to be angry. To want to be more.]
Thank you.
[There's a kind of sincerity in his reply even when he recognizes the offering for what it is. Bruce takes two of the three pieces because he'll give them to Riku and Vanitas. But the bird? That he takes for himself.]
I suspect that you won't give me the makeup until I've answered your questions.
I'll do what I can.
But I am keeping secrets.
no subject
She scuffs her boots along the ground beneath them. She got those at the store with Riku, shortly after her arrival on bare feet. ]
What is...happening. I worry.
[ About him, about Riku. About secrets. It was a bad idea maybe - she doesn't quite know how to articulate all of this. ]
Is he hurting?
[ Not 'is he hurt'. And most certainly not 'did you hurt him' - no. ]
no subject
But Bruce has a great deal of experience with grey areas and he had known, the moment he chose to get involved, that there would be no unringing of the bell. Whatever happened, he would be tied to the outcome.
Her feet scuff against the ground and Bruce watches her, the worry that settles over her shoulders. The question that she chooses is illuminating in and of itself, and Bruce wonders if anyone has ever asked it of her. If that's the reason she chooses to think of the present (is he hurting) instead of the past (was he hurt?)
For a long moment Bruce considers it, considers her. And then he says-]
Have you ever felt so sad that you thought you could cry forever?
Like there was a hole inside of you?
no subject
[ No hesitation, no delay. Eleven doesn't even stop to think about the answer. It's immediate, and painfully honest. She feels it, every day, and in the moments that her dreams turn dark.
It's in the way she remembers her childhood, her upbringing, the way she often feels like she's drowning even now, put into the submersion tank and made to enter the Void, alone in the dark nothing.
Things crawl out of that hole in her chest that put her back in hospital scrubs, hair shorn short, shoved into a pitch black closet and left alone there.
Things crawl out of that hole in her chest in the shape of those loved and lost, the confused empty of her mother's mind, and the knowledge that she won't ever be without that darkness inside of herself.
She's the monster, no matter what anyone else says. She is incomplete and clawing at a shred of normalcy she can't ever fully have, despite everyone's best efforts. There's no future, and the past is a shackle she can't quite shake. She's powerfull, but powerless against anything that really matters.
Things crawl out of that hole in her chest that wear her face and voice.
She doesn't lower her gaze now, keeps her eyes on Bruce. Steady. Too old, too young. ]
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.