knifemonopoly | IC inbox

[The hand between his wings makes him sigh, quietly: there's no scars there right now, nothing to dull or mar the feeling of having a hand at his back, trusted and allowed in close. If he could still purr, Atem feels like he would; it's still odd to have that missing, even after nearly two months.

If Ryou weren't quite so thoroughly covered in fur, Atem might be tempted to make a move, because having hands at his back always feels important...but, they've just been talking about family, the mood's probably not right anyway.

So, instead, Atem gives a single, firm nod.]

Yes! Yes, this gift...I think it's good.

I love you, too.

[ She bites down on her lip, very hard. He's not getting it. There's something that isn't... ]

I've had a miserable life, Atem.

[ Her mouth feels dry as she admits this. ]

I don't... I'm not even talking about all the things I did, I'm talking about all the things that happened. I had to get interdimensionally kidnapped to find any kind of family that even liked me. It...messes you up. A lot.

[ She's not looking at him. Just straight ahead, as...she tries to put some distance between them and the orphanage. ]

So. Yeah. If they're like me... If they've felt the things I've felt, I don't...want that for them.

Edited (forgot the content warnings (yes i just edited this bc i misspelled warnings)) 2022-02-14 06:38 (UTC)

[ For the last few weeks, Riley's had a key burning a hole in her pocket.

It's not a key she wanted. It's not to a place she ever really wants to go. But she's had it, nevertheless, and it's starting to make her feel crazy.

...Well. Crazier.

She stands on the roof, because of course she does, looking not out onto the city but at the key in her hand. She wonders how it works. If she just tries to use it on a random door...will it let her into the Fog's city? What would it even look like? Curiosity swells in her—but using it would mean accepting the Fog God's blessing, wouldn't it?

Is...not leaving the moment she realized what had happened accepting the Fog God's blessing?

Riley groans to herself and balls up the key into her fist. She pulls back her arm and makes to throw it right off the edge of the apartments.

But she stops. She just keeps her arm there, above her head, teeth gritted.

And then instead she punches the fence around the roof with a grunt. ]

Ugh, damn it, damn her.

[Maybe the mood's not enough for anything too heated, but that's fine. Ryou is just happy to be here with Atem, close and warm.

He just wants to hold the demon in his arms as close as possible, cherish him and appreciate everything he does and represents.]

...I think perhaps...she would have liked you. If she could have met you. My mother...though, I'm twice as certain you and Amane would have gotten along.

[Two confident souls put in the same room, and she wouldn't even have to defend her brother. He wonders...what would she have been like at this age with him? How would she have grown?

He's happy for the globe, happy that Atem wanted to talk about his family with him, but that thought, it brings him back a little, reminds him why he misses his sister and mother at all, and his ears slick back a little.]

I miss them. It's nice to see them, b-but...I still miss them.

[Oh, he knows that key. Atem knew what Dyster-keys looked like even before he wound up with one of his own; now, though, it's unmistakable. The steel has a sheen you don't really see with any other material...

...and, what Riley's saying is a bit of a clue, too.]

That makes two of us!

[One of the bats that's flying overhead swoops down and poffs back into its usual, much more colorful shape.]

Trying to decide what to do with it?

[He listens, nods, sees what she's saying. It's...it really is terrible, the things she's been through. And it's not wrong, to want other people to not feel that, not experience it or its aftereffects.

But...]

There's still a difference between going through what you went through, and being like you. It left its mark on you -- I understand that. And it's good, to want to protect others from experiencing it, too.

But you're not the harm that's been done to you, either. Be careful talking about yourself like that mark, like those experiences, are all you are. If you say it too much, you'll start to believe it.

[Her specifying this...that's what he wants. That's what he means. The effect it had on her is part of her, but not all.]

[ It's...counterproductive, to dig into this. To argue. He's right. But...

She doesn't want them to grow up into her. She doesn't know what other people see in her, this hollow wreck of a girl, despite how grateful she is for them. She's stopped trying to push them away, and in her honesty...somehow they still want to love her.

And she can't reconcile it. Not with what she's done, or what she's experienced. Why, after so long, would adults finally start looking at her and seeing she needed help, when they ignored her for so long.

Why peers don't dismiss her, want to listen to her interests and don't laugh her down cruelly.

Why she's forgiven, time after time, for disappearing, lashing out, wanting, needing when that was never acceptable before.

...Why Cairo would look at what she did, how she acted, and still live in the same apartment, still offer her care and love. ]

I... [ She sighs and runs a hand through her feathered hair, messing up the ponytail and shaking free the shaggy bits that she tries to tuck behind her equally feathered ears. ]

I hear you. Okay? I do, it's just... It's a little— hard, sometimes, to- really get it.

...Sorry.

[ She is trying. But...she can't just change her whole way of thinking. Not that easily. ]

[ His familiar voice rings out, and Riley doesn't even really register what he's saying, just someone else is here. How sloppy of her.

She turns about, looking for Atem, only to spy him just as he turns from bat to humanoid, staring at him with that deer-in-the-headlights, hand-in-the-cookie-jar expression that signifies between fight or flight she's landed on freeze. A typical Riley day. ]

A- Atem! [ She squeaks, and then, as if it'll save the moment, holds the hand with the key, digging into her flesh, behind her back. ] No. With what? What are you doing here?

[ All quickly, in one breath. ]

[He understands, as much as he can, that it's hard.

After all...

...how hard has it been for him to stop feeling like he has to act, to be effective for his friends, to fix the world around him so it's better, even if right is out of reach? It's caused trouble, time and again, and he feels better about it right now, but...

It's probably frustrating for the people who tell Atem "you're enough how you are," too, when his whole upbringing taught him something else. And he didn't even learn it through...well, through neglect and suffering.]

It's okay.

You don't have to be sorry, and you don't have to get it today...

...but, it wouldn't be a bad thing to consider how you talk about it. I'm not saying not to express how you feel, but...

[Lighter, with a hint of a tease to it -- his tone goes from serious and worried to friendly and warm.]

If you do put yourself down, you know I won't let you get away with it.

I was headed back in! But it looked like you were about to throw something...

[If it had hit him, it would have been bad! Atem's glad she didn't!]

...something that looked like this.

[He fishes in his pocket a second, then pulls out a key, identical to the one that's hidden behind her back.]

[ Riley remains stiff and uncomfortable, only sort of glancing at Atem. Arms crossed, jaw set.

It's...like when Steve told her not to call herself a crazy murderer, huh? Doesn't it feel awful, to talk about herself like that? Doesn't it make her feel disgusting? Yes—but she always feels like that. This is just- when it slips out, when she's so full of sharp aches and pains that it punctures her, and it leaks.

It never used to. Before, when she just pretended, so much, when she forced it all outward at everyone else with a smile that could cut diamonds. Now that smile cuts her own skin, instead, and all the sludge and poison she lives with pours forth, for everyone else to see.

Maybe part of her feels it serves them right. They want her to talk about what she feels, right? They want her to be open and honest and real, so it's for them, isn't it?

She hates that part most of all. She hates how ugly it is. How ugly all of it is.

Atem's tone lets up, warm like the sun his usual form can't go out in, and Riley's shoulders slump. She's tired. She's so tired. She hates when her friends talk like this about themselves, so she gets it—but she has to live with it. All the time. ]

...I'll try, alright? That's- all I can really do.

[ Not distant. Not defensive. Just tired. ]

[He nods, again.]

Changing how you think of yourself, when everyone's told you the same thing for so long...it's hard!

But, trying's good enough.

[And with that, he'll let the subject change!]

Seems like there are bad teachers everywhere, huh...

[The tail that's wound in Ryou's shifts, its spade curling around to pet the fur with its flat side, slow and soothing. He's pleased to hear Ryou's family would have liked him, delighted even: it's important for your boyfriend's family to accept you if you're serious, right? But, Ryou's sad again...]

...remembering family that's gone...it's good to have memories of them, but it can still make you feel lonely, if you think about them long enough.

[He knows that now. Atem's family...they've been dead for so long...they're separated by an ocean of time, and any remains might not even have made it, or been identifiable if they had...]

But I'm glad I got to see them. Maybe one day, I'll be able to show you something like it.

[ Her eyes widen. ]

Atem... You...? [ Was it like her? Was it a mistake? Was it...? ] ...You're...a follower.

I prefer to think of it as an alliance until I change my mind.

[He pockets it.]

It's a funny story about how it happened, actually...but I'll bet it's about as strange as yours!

[Because being that torn about throwing the key away...that's familiar!]

...Yeah.

[ Riley's bristling feathers relax...sort of. It's still not a fun topic, but it's better than herself—as long as she keeps from steering it to herself. ]

Not really surprised, honestly. There's always people who get into a profession like that for the wrong reasons.

[ Her jaw tight, Riley complains bitterly: ]

It's not funny. She did it, that— ...my double.

And I did it when I was out of it, at the beginning of January.

["Funny."]

What an odd coincidence, that it happened to both of us around the same time...

[Atem wonders if there's something to that, if there was some kind of god recruitment campaign in a place invisible to the players, if someone decided the gods needed more followers in general...but files that away, for later.]

...so, you're conflicted about whether or not to keep it?

[Atem doesn't mind the shift in conversation.]

Where I came from, a lot of the teachers were more interested in lording their power over us, and protecting the reputation of the school, than they were about what happened to us...they let students do whatever they wanted to each other, as long as it didn't get out.

Then, our homeroom teacher nearly expelled three of us, just because she could...

[The memories almost seem distant, now...Atem's been in Ryslig longer than he was awake in Domino City.

Huh.]

[ She breathes out slowly. ]

Wow. Mine just didn't care. Like...none of them. I don't think my coach came to a single practice.

[ It's possible...her beloved school was trash. ]

Well! That's something else. Why coach at all if you don't want anything out of the job?

["Just for the money"? What? He's got no idea what that's like.]

At least you can make it better here, right?

[ Fancy private school money. The root of all evil. ]

...At least I can try.

[ Trying's good enough. That's what he said. She isn't so sure about that, if she just causes more harm, but—

Trying's good enough. She hopes that's true. ]

[He nods. He still thinks trying's good enough. A clawed hand comes up, rests on her shoulder a moment.]

If you want me along, or just want to talk it out, you know where to find me! But I'm sure you'll do fine.

[He believes in her, he's confident she'll find her way through this, navigate hunting for herself and helping others at the same time.]

[ She casts her gaze sideways at him and manages a small, half-smile. ]

Yeah... Yeah, I know. Thanks, Atem. [ For coming with? For the offers? For still being here after everything?

All of it. Just all of it. ]

[ His lost time. She was remarkably worried about him, then. It figures on top of everything else, that would happen. A prayer in a moment of desperation? ]

No. I mean— I know I don't want to keep it. I never wanna talk to her, again. [ ... ] But...

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cw: child abuse/neglect

february 10th or so

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cw: self harm imagery in narration but no actual self harm

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WELCOME TO YOUR PRIVATE CHANNEL, PLAYER1. FOR SECURE COMMUNICATION, USE 10.11.0.0.01 * PLAYER1 has joined 10.11.0.0.01 <PLAYER1>** If you're looking for someone you knew as Yugi before June, you've found him! It's Atem, leave a message.