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knifemonopoly) wrote2021-02-05 06:28 pm
knifemonopoly) wrote2021-02-05 06:28 pm
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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. | ||||
no subject
Mostly she wants to make it clear from the start, at least, that she's not explicitly angry with him. The fins around her wrists, meanwhile, are too short to obscure her own marks. She's got a choker on, notably, although that's not unheard of with her; however, it is strange for someone with gills on their neck.
Trish pads over, sitting directly across from Atem, so she can lean forward and curl her arms around her knees. It ought to be a familiar look, although the last time they sat together, they didn't look like monsters, and they were settled side by side, sharing the view, rather than scrutinizing one another.
As for his statement, she hums.]
More or less, yes.
[Carefully, she traces the scales of her own knee with a claw.
And then, she jumps into it. They're here to talk, after all.]
...How have you been? [That's probably not a question he was anticipating, and she's quick to append:] I want to know that before I ask the rest.
[It's part of everything she wants to ask him, really. How is Atem doing? And how does that inform everything else?]
no subject
The truth is, I could use the company right now -- I've gone wandering this week, like some other monsters. If I seem odd, or try to leave abruptly...please stop me by any means necessary, short of my death.
[All of this is said in a quiet, practical tone, as though he were saying, if it starts to rain, I'll need you to get the umbrella, because I can't reach it, instead of confessing a horrifying loss of agency. But, with that out of the way...]
But I knew the difficult fogs would come back eventually. May and June were more or less peaceful...it couldn't last much longer. You'll likely return to your usual monster type soon, too...
[Matter of fact, practical, calm. None of the openness of their talk in a simulated palace garden, or the raw emotion when the network had connected their minds. There's a gulf here, and while it's not unbridgable...this conversation will determine whether or not that bridge will be built.
That scarf floats around his neck, very nearly as light as air. It's Fog-gray, and wisps of it seem to blow off and fade at the edges; even if Trish doesn't know what it means, it's clearly magic.]
no subject
Unless...he's done that to someone else, and knows it. Hm.
She listens to his appraisal of the situation, a familiar refrain. He knows this world so, so well. Better than anyone she's ever met, frankly, and everything he says, she takes note of, even if some of the news isn't so heartening. Of course, everything will return to the familiar, even if the familiar is still wrong, and brutal.
But his tone stays that way. Flat, barren. Professional, some would say.
In the time she listens, she drinks in his appearance too, and it's impossible to miss that wreath of Fog around his neck. Javert had similar, when she met him briefly in his office to speak of the Fog herself, and what following her meant to the jaded old vampire. What was the Fog, and what did she encapsulate in her being, and how did this meaning mete itself out to her Followers?
Atem wanted to be safe, and cloaked himself in Fog, it seems.
Her gaze tracks the wisps of it about his neck when she finally responds. It's ethereal, regal. It would suit him, if the context weren't predicated on an awful creature's single-minded crusade against humanity.]
You've engaged with this world on a level I never will, Atem. You're wearing proof of it right now.
[A beat.]
Did you find the safety you were looking for?
[Did he find it in her, the god who brought them here in the first place?
It seems rhetorical to ask, when he talks about how his autonomy is at the mercy of the strange effects many other monsters are enduring right now. But she asks all the same.]
cw possession horror, possessed self harm in meta
So far, yes.
At least...it's better.
[He's quiet a moment, gathering his thoughts. Then, he speaks again.]
I was hurt this week, in a way that was pretty personal! It was upsetting, but...with the power I gained, I was able to trap him, remove the injuries he gave me, and hold him until his friends could come get him.
[This is vague on purpose. Atem doesn't want to talk about how Vicious had possessed him, hurt him, borrowed his body and damaged it for masochistic pleasure, out of an out of control shade's desire to feel something, anything. He doesn't want to talk about the violation it had been, to have a hostile presence back in his mind, how it had brought him back to the time with the parasite, how after that he'd been unable to stand anyone, anyone in his head, not for months...
...Trish is high strung, and easily upset. It's better for them both that he doesn't talk about things like that. His power meant he could make it like it never happened -- give it back, heal himself. So, it doesn't really matter what was done, right?
What matters is the next part.]
What I paid for...
...it works.
no subject
Trish listens, her gaze drifting to the stoic, canine face that reminds her a little of Mukuro, although Atem has always had better posture.
It would be equally galling and heartening to know Atem remembers the little things and big things both that affect her, morbid details of injury and indescribable pain left carefully aside. But she knows she's only getting a fraction of context, and she pulls the weight for this scenario from the fact Atem hasn't felt safe, and wanted power to protect himself. And then this world proved he needed it, but it's also the one who made this world the way it was who gave him this power, right?
The idea makes her sick. She could spit on the Fog, for all the good it would do.
Still, she's thinking about Atem's estimation. He paid a price for this safety, and he knew that going in. It's not perfect, but it works.]
...I see. So it was worth it.
[No, not at all.]
So if someone or something made you feel unsafe again...would you push for more?
[He already betrayed some of the earliest principles she'd heard from him...at this point, what else has he got to lose?]
no subject
[He can tell he's being interrogated by someone unhappy with him. He'd gotten a similar feeling from Giorno, just after the broadcast. He's being held up and judged, and either he'll be good enough for her, or he won't.
(because he can't be better, there is no better, he's given his best for so long and sometimes, for some people, that's not enough, you're not enough, and never will be. best to accept that and move forward.)]
I've climbed as high with the Fog as I possibly can! There are no levels above "priest" in the god factions. If my choice of powers turns out to be another ineffective strategy...
[Ha ha, that would be painful, wouldn't it? If he had done all this, and something proved that it was no good, all for nothing like his attempt at spreading rumors about himself and his traps had been...
...would he sink? Break? Understand that there was no way to endure here, for him? His dog-mouth parts, widening in a grin that has no happiness to it at all. His tail is very still, his ears forward in a way that's no longer relaxed, and his fur is slicked down tight against him.]
...that would be bad, wouldn't it?
If I need to adjust my strategy again, then...I'll do my best to learn, from whatever it is that's put me back in danger, despite what I can do, now. But I have no plans to do what it is you're afraid of, and cause more large-scale trouble for the peninsula in the name of a god!
"for some people, that's not enough, you're not enough, and never will be." lays on the floor
But she didn't realize the cloak denoted a priest. Further, that a priest was the highest rank a fog follower could get. In no time at all, then, Atem had reached out to grab the greatest power this land had to offer. And still, she thinks, it's not enough. The fog is never going to give them what they really deserve.
That doggy grin is statuesque too, like Atem was carved from the stone that lined his idyllic past. But not warm, oh no.
As for what he's said...she wants to be happy, on some level. He's too much of a smart boy not to have missed the ramifications of what he did, but it's also because of that fact it was so blindsiding. She remembers singing with him, and the time he brought her flowers. People are many truths, but he always seemed to want to be...good. Good to other people. What does he want now that he has power?
The mer hums.]
If anything, that's what I'm really afraid of. That it won't be worth it to you. I don't have any faith at all that this world is meant to do anything but push us to make awful decisions.
[Because he was scared, and wanted to be safe. Anyone would want that. And in a world of magic and gods, where else is there to find sanctuary but in those same foundations?
Power isn't why she's unhappy with him.]
...I'm sure you could tell, but I was upset for awhile. In some ways I still am. But it's like Mukuro. I only knew what you showed me, and assumed the rest. I thought you had unwavering principles, but you're just like anyone else. You have limits.
[...]
Would I be wrong to assume you have some regrets as well? Or are you content with yourself?
CAUSE YOU COULD NEVER BE BETTER THAN YOU
That would be a cruel final trick, for Ryslig to play. If I threw my friendships and place among humanity into the fire, and ultimately, it was for nothing...if there were no way to stabilize at all, and I will lose myself no matter what I choose.
That idea makes him want to burn the peninsula down. End the rigged game, causing his friends, causing him, so much suffering, while it's still a decision he himself can make. Trish is right, to be afraid of it.
But it's not likely, Atem reminds himself. He played the game right. He achieved power through the mechanics he's supposed to interact with, and it worked -- when so many people who missed his traps tuned in for the broadcast.
Time will tell, about the rest.
But, she's back to asking him questions -- an interrogation, one that feels familiar. Are all Giorno's people like this?
Like he had before, Atem turns the question on her.]
"Do you regret it?"
That's a question I asked Mukuro, when I was a nephilim, and the event was making us into the versions of us we thought the other one thought we were.
She thought I was a conceited, judgmental jerk -- and I hadn't done anything to prove her wrong! I used a nephilim power, to bring all of her regrets to the surface, and asked her if she regretted any of the things she had done that I'd found out about, that had made me think that she was a dangerous person who would continue to do bad things here.
[Then, she'd ripped his arm most of the way off. He'd deserved it.]
Determining what someone regrets, and if it matches what you think they should regret, doesn't mean anything, as far as right and wrong goes. It's only one piece of the picture that's someone's heart! Someone can do terrible things without regrets, and still be understandable, worthy of sympathy, and safe for you to be around.
[They're in Ryslig. They all know and care about people like that.]
Besides, wouldn't it be worse to do something bad and then say, "please forgive me, I regret my actions!" That would be dishonest...especially since I'd continue to enjoy the powers I got from my "regrettable mistake," and the people who were hurt wouldn't be healed.
[He hasn't answered her question yet. A lot of words, but no answer. This is on purpose. He tilts his head, regarding her with the red eyes he always has, no matter his form.]
Are you trying to determine if I'm still dangerous?
Or are you trying to decide if I'm a good enough person, according to what you can and can't accept, to continue to associate with?
[Is it safe, for him to be vulnerable with her? He would share his deepest secrets with her in a heartbeat, if he didn't think they would horrify and hurt her, if they were sitting together as friends. But right now, after months apart, Trish isn't safe.
I know what you're doing, his turned-around questions say. You should be aware of what you're doing, too.]
Are you here to understand, or to make a decision?
CRIES....he's babie
But it's good to firmly believe in something, she thinks, in a place that wants you to believe in suffering and nothing else.
She watches Atem in the meantime, his expressions unreadable, other than she's sure he feels the same way she does about such a scenario. Ryslig is cruel enough, she thinks, but Atem is willing to play its game. To what end, yet, she's not sure. Mukuro is the same way, really. They're appealing to the Fog in different ways, but appealing nonetheless.
Which makes it surprising to hear the two of them fought? Trish can't hide her surprise, eyes going wide — She thought I was a conceited, judgmental jerk, he says – and he explains, clear, that Mukuro was right to think that way. And it's horrible to think of him using his powers to hurt a friend like that, but she supposes she sees his point.
In fact, she narrows her eyes, because the way he constructs this is deliberate, as is everything else he's ever done. He's lifting a mirror for her to look at, to show her her actions as he seems them, and really...for what they are. She's not subtle, and she knows it.
The mer considers all of this, expression smoothing out into something less pinched and more resigned, and tilts her head.]
Those things ought to be one and the same, right?
I can't make a decision if I don't understand. Besides, if I was only here to make a decision, there would be no discussion. I would have already made up my mind.
But I haven't. So here I am.
[She curls forward again, relaxing her posture.]
Besides, I don't care about danger. I know you and Mukuro wanted power for a reason that precludes any notion that you two would hurt me intentionally. Even if we weren't friends, I doubt either of you would. For different reasons, but all the same...you're no danger to most of us.
[In her particular case...she's a monster like them, and in some ways, she wonders if that renders her invisible to them. She's not a human, so she's not inherently disposable. She has connections, doubling the former.
Ultimately, she's best left ignored. She doesn't mention humans....but as a baseline, they're all dangerous to humans.]
I thought about my father after this happened, actually. He wanted to be untouchable too, to always be in control, but he wasn't. Though he didn't have anyone to protect but himself, so that already sets you both as far apart from him as I could imagine. What you two want in comparison is ultimately understandable, noble even.
But it made me consider something. If power couldn't protect him...it won't always protect what's important to you either. That's where you run into the same problem.
It's a fine line to walk, isn't it? Being paralyzed into inaction, or grasping for control no matter the cost. I can see that.
[But she sees that regret isn't on his mind, and she can't play that card, can she? Even if she feels strongly that he should have regrets, he won't do it at her behest. It's tough, because he knows the better side of humanity in a manner similar to her, doesn't he? He's operating from a completely different position than Mukuro.
Still, Trish pivots away from that.]
You're clever, Atem. So I know you didn't make the decision you did lightly. I don't think you're a bad person either.
And if I want better for you...I very well can't get that if I walk away, can I?
no subject
They're not the same.
The person being approached can tell.
[If you approach wanting to understand, and you suspend your own judgment -- something Atem has done time and time and time again, stretched it, contorted his own point of view, switched off his sense of justice in favor of mercy and productive discussion, to the point where he wore himself thin, but was able to help in ways he never would have if he had stayed how he'd been at home -- the person you're speaking with can feel it.
But, if you're approached by someone who's looking for you to prove you're sorry in the way they're looking for...it's different. It feels a little like Trish was expecting him to perform: if he only said the right things, felt sorry in the right way, then it would all be fine.
He's more complicated than that. The situation is more complicated.]
But if you approach hoping to help, by offering to try to understand, with the intention of being friends, instead of getting something out of them...then, that gets you further!
[He tilts his canine head. This...this is good enough for him to open up to her about his thoughts, even if his feelings, true vulnerability, are still under guard.]
I'll tell you my reasoning, if you want to hear it.
But, you should know...it isn't an easy story to listen to. Hearing enough of what happened to me to understand why I did what I did might hurt, Trish.
[It's the same warning he gave to Jonathan Joestar.]
mood re: icon use
She has a core set of strategies for handling scenarios like this, and a handy script in her mind. No wonder, then, that she often gets frustrated when things don't go the way she expects them to.
These conversations with Atem and Mukuro exemplify ground that has never been tread. She learned a lot about herself and others in that single week in Italy, but it never prepared her for extended time with complicated people and complicated situations and the inevitable conflicts therein. Ryslig is not anything like she's ever experienced, and she's had her boundaries pushed at hard in a way she never expected, and now she's pushing at the boundaries of others. So maybe it's less to understand them that she talks and more that she wants to understand just what it is she's dealing with and what neat, tidy way there could possibly be to resolve how ugly March felt.
Now that Atem has pulled back the curtain on what she's really after and held it up for her to examine, though, she's left with an expression that is surprisingly open for how out of her depth she feels.]
I...
[To help, or to get results. If she were more like her father, only the results would matter. Atem could give an apology as shallow as a puddle, and she would've taken it, perhaps. It would've been better than nothing.
But he's offering a tale instead. Where will it take them, she wonders? The mer turns the offer over and over, but it...already hurts, doesn't it? And she wants to know what hurt him in the first place, the things he implied the existence of during the network mind-meld and in every bid he's made for safety. She can shy away from the painful aspects of this world forever, sure, but it won't get her anywhere, will it?
It hasn't gotten her much of anything, so far.]
I want to know. If you're willing to share...I want to hear what you've got to say.
[Still, he talks about understanding, but part of her is afraid the picture he paints will change everything she believed about him.
Then again, that would be her folly, wouldn't it? She trusted what she saw, when she should perhaps be mistrustful no matter how good someone's first impression is. Not everyone lives and breathes every inch of their ideals. Not everyone is Bruno Bucciarati.
All the same, she wants to know. Otherwise she'll be turning away from Atem for essentially the same reason. Too little information, from a source that inspired strong emotions while only showing the results of a long plan, and nothing about how things culminated in it happening at all.]
cw discussion of dissociation, depersonalization, mention of torture
It's an easy gesture to miss, or to miss the significance of. It's a folding of the arms, a gesture of self-protection, of self-soothing. Atem's ears swivel back, once, as he thinks about how best to approach this -- what angle he should come at it from, to help Trish understand, without hurting her unnecessarily.]
Being a monster in Ryslig is a life of having to make difficult choices. Choices where, no matter what you do, somebody gets hurt. You can choose to control who's hurt, or you can give up that choice, and let the dice fall where they may...usually, causing worse destruction than you meant to. I'm talking about hunting, but the choice I made was something similar.
[He pulls in a deep breath through his damp, canine nose, then lets it out.]
The mind has limits to what it can take. Even mine...even though I thought I never would, that I could handle anything this place did to me as long as I could predict when it would end...I reached my limit.
It happened in January.
[Red eyes rimmed with gold fur fall. No, he's not quite ready to tell the story, not yet. He switches back to the impersonal, to a more detached discussion.]
When someone suffers enough...their mind takes steps to protect itself. I don't know if you've experienced it. I hope you haven't! But..it's possible, sometimes, to stop making memories, when something bad is happening to you. A friend of mine called it "checking out." He said that if he didn't want to be experiencing whatever he was experiencing, but couldn't leave physically...then, he'd leave in his mind, and his body would move on its own! When he came back to himself, he was out of the trouble...and he felt that, if he didn't remember it happening to him, it was like it hadn't happened at all.
I...don't agree. Because I'm a monster, with a monster's instincts and hungers...it's dangerous for me to be out of my own control. It's not a convenient escape for me. He might not care if someone got in his way, when he was in a state like that, but I do. Especially since...
...
...all of this came about because I attacked another monster while I wasn't in my right mind, and as revenge, he tortured me.
[He glances up. Is Trish with him so far?]
cw continued throughout, honestly
Atem wants to feel safe, on every level. It's something anyone would want, within reason.
The people who die tragically and young are the same ones who decide their safety matters less than the safety of others. In some ways, that remains true in Ryslig, but he's not wrong that as a baseline, their very existence here is going to hurt someone. To stay sane, to control the pain they cause, they have to hurt with intent. It's more than possible to become numb to it. But she...doesn't want to. She wants to live above it.
Atem, too, seems to have once believed of himself that he was stronger than what this world could to him, just as she felt about him herself in seeing how he carried himself through confident stances and clever words. Atem is sharp as a blade, cunning, and he...
He lost.
This world cut him deeper than he could cut through it with careful thought and wit. She wonders about this friend of his too, because that description sounds like frenzying, but not quite. Instead, she thinks of the distant look Giorno's eyes had taken in the past, when the two of them had been embroiled in ugly, heated arguments. Giorno went somewhere else too. The warm, gentle boy of gold was replaced with someone cold and angry, as if flipped by a switch.
...No, that's probably not the same either.
Still, Atem sounds more like the boy she remembers so fondly when he talks about caring if someone fell afoul of him in an altered state of mind. She wants to believe he'll never stop caring, but he continues.
He let go of his mind, apparently. Why, he doesn't say, but what matters is that the person who walked into this warpath was another monster. The mer shuts her eyes, trying to picture the moment herself. The idea of fighting another monster is chilling to her. She's not a fighter at all, and she can easily imagine losing and being left at that monster's mercy. Atem is brilliant, but he's probably not a fighter either, not in the traditional sense.
So she pictures Atem in a position like that, and her blood runs cold. Killing is one thing, but torture, torture is...a monster exerting their power over another in only the cruelest ways. It reminds her of how she assured Hinata that whatever he did when he was robbed of his senses, he would be forgiven. But Atem's story proves that isn't true at all, is it? She wants to believe monsters can be reasonable in the ways Atem and Hinata have been amenable to reason, on a level she could impress on them and be understood...but what do you do with someone who cannot or does not want to be reasoned with? Who is angry, and determined to pay back their pain?
When she opens her eyes again, the werewolf is looking at her.
Swallowing, she nods for him to continue.]
cw vivisection, dissociation/depersonalization, traumatic blackouts
I...don't know how much to tell you. I don't want to put echoes of what happened to me in your mind...there's no need for you to experience that pain. It won't help.
But it's hard to explain, without it...it's easy to look at me and say, "you could have found a different way!" if you don't understand that I'd tried to. I...
[He takes a breath in, a breath out. His tail is pressed tightly to his paws.]
For a long time...I couldn't really talk about this. It was too hard...it made me too angry!
[Among other things. He didn't like the way it made him feel. Powerless, held back by his promise to Ryou, weak.]
What happened to me...
[One more moment, to steel himself.]
...he cut out my heart, while I was awake. I remember seeing it, in front of me...
[Like Steve's, he'd thought. Like Steve's, but smaller.]
...and, the next thing I remember is wandering around Bavan, with a note from the surgeon taped to my chest and the taste of blood in my mouth. I'd attacked somebody, at least two people -- but I couldn't remember who.
A few people found me. I remember that much. But, those hours...it's a blur. It's confused! I don't remember what order any of it happened in...only that some of my friends found me, at some point, and eventually, I found myself in the casino, or Poundmates, and Mukuro -- or Steve -- brought me back to the apartments.
me reading this like oh. atem was robbed of his heart. what a neat literary device--
A cool demeanor, an easy air. A little boy excited to see what the world had to offer him. That's Atem, to her. Not someone so wounded by their hurt they seethed about it before, now shying away from the memory of it. But he says it himself. He's shielding her from something ugly, both about what happened to him and maybe about himself.
And it is ugly, enough a hand flies to her mouth on reflex, her eyes going wide.
Someone...cut his heart out? She knows he's a vampire more often than not, that he's by rights undead...but what if he wasn't? She wants to ask, but it's apparent the little niggling details matter far less than the enormous impact of the act itself. Someone punished Atem in the most gruesome way possible, and they can argue about what's right and what's fair but what's fair and right didn't matter then, and she wonders...does it matter now?
She can see how he could feel unsafe after that. Did he cry out for help? Did anyone know he had disappeared? Or did they see the shell of him wandering after, already too damaged to put back together right? The way he describes it, she pictures it like glass, and Atem as many shards. Seeing himself in the shrapnel, a collage of confusion where the only consistency is that he's reflected in all of the shards.
How many people could walk away from something that brutal and shrug it off? No one comes to mind. No one comes to mind at all. No one...
Trish's breath is quick, shallow.]
...You weren't the same after. There's no way you could have been.
Everything you were at the time was shattered, wasn't it? I can't fathom it. I won't...pretend to try.
[It makes sense now, his ominous words on the network. From January to spring, this personal catastrophe consumed her friend, and she had no clue.
That feeling is back now. That feeling that Atem was let down, although she can't picture a time when anyone could have prevented this. All it takes is one misstep, and in an instant...]
You got what you wanted, anyway. I suppose anything that could have been said about it is being spoken too late now.
["I'm sorry."
"Power can be found within, without inciting the same fear and loss of safety in others that you felt yourself in that moment."
"Your friends will be there for you."
None of that would've been true, anyway.]
cw torture/med horror, also in old Egypt the heart=memory, so blackouts are a symbolic tie
But there's one thing she says that's not true, either. He shakes his head.]
I don't know how much it matters, but...this isn't what I wanted. Not really! It's not what I would have chosen, if I had seen another way forward.
[He means that. If he had seen an option that wasn't to allow himself to be dashed against the rocks, until he didn't look anything like himself anymore, one that didn't cause widespread emotional hurt, he would have taken it.
This is the closest to the apology she wants that she's likely to get from him: I didn't do it because I wanted others to suffer, and what will follow: an explanation of his reasoning, of why he chose that option, out of a set that was all bad.
His tone is even as he goes on. Perhaps too even. Atem has made himself come to terms with everything he has to say; if he lets hinself feel anything about it, it'll be too much. It might carry him away, ruin his words, take away his ability to speak. So, he speaks evenly.]
But it wasn't just me who was hurt. Ryou was killed, trying to protect me. He's been scared to go out alone for months now. I can see him looking over his shoulder even now, sniffing the air, making sure he isn't catching the coroner's scent.
And he asked me not to avenge him. I promised not to. In his state, there was nothing else I could do...he was frightened. Scared I would only be hurt more, unable to accept that for his sake. After all, the person who'd hurt us had tier-three god powers, and had managed to sneak up on me, despite my ability to hear heartbeats...
[But, Ryou hadn't believed in him. He hasn't thought Atem could do it, and avoid hurt he couldn't take.
That hurt, not to be believed in. But the alternative was making Ryou feel like his decisions didn't matter, that his wishes wouldn't be respected...Atem couldn't do that. Not to Ryou, after what his life before Ryslig had been like.]
He made fun of us, after that. He donated the design for the mechanical heart that he put in my chest to science...the newspapers still talk about it sometimes. The "AT-3-M" artificial heart.
[His ears press down and back. No -- he has to keep his temper in check. The bristling of his fur at the insult he hadn't been permitted to do anything about, on top of the injury he couldn't avenge, is the only indication of how he feels.]
It isn't subtle. But nobody asked me why my name was in the papers. No one who found me with my chest ticking that night put it together. No one else noticed Ryou was scared...and only one person struck back. .
I'll be grateful to him for the rest of my life...even if he came out of it worst off. His target got bored of what was being done, and told him where to hit to kill him...and then, when he came back, tortured my friend until he was in a state I'd never seen him in.
If I'd gotten what I'd wanted, Trish, my friends would have protected me. But...they weren't able, or weren't willing, to expose themselves to the danger. Not for my sake, or for Ryou's, who hasn't done anything but try to save me.
[His gaze drops, his ears swiveling back, As he talks, his voice gets quieter.]
I can't blame them. Not after what happened to the Ring-Spirit. One of them knew the attack was coming, and hadn't warned me. Others want to stay friendly with him anyway. I won't make them choose between us, no matter how much it hurts...I won't be a hypocrite, that way. And, I suppose I'm afraid...[Here, his voice is as quiet as it's been yet.]...afraid that the people I thought cared about me would choose Ryou's murderer, my torturer, over me. After everything...that would have been too painful.
[He's quiet a moment. Then, he lifts his head, his throat carrying the ligature-marks from this month's fog. His voice is steady again, clearer now than a moment ago. Back to business, to the careful laying-out of why.]
No matter what their feelings on it were, their actions made two things clear to me. One, the place that felt like home...the first home I'd made that was mine and not Yugi's, the place I felt safe among my friends, in the 38-8...that had been taken away from me. I wasn't safe. I looked weak, like I could be hurt, and my boyfriend could be killed, and I'd do nothing, and neither would my friends. A safe target, for people like Daniel, looking for monsters to kill for their own ends.
And, two...no one was going to do anything about that, but me.
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Desperate for some sign of the wide-eyed young boy, or the young king that sat shoulder to shoulder with her and watched ducks paddle about in a false pond. If there's anything she's more afraid of here than dying, or monsters, when death is utterly meaningless by itself and everyone you know is a monster...it's what people lose when they become complacent in those two things.
Death loses memories, and being a monster changes you from the outside in, a slow loss of humanity that starts in the flesh and creeps ever closer towards a person's heart. Not that she necessarily thinks enjoying monsterhood in and of itself is wrong anymore. Not after what she and Mukuro have said to one another. But there's another force always plying at their hearts, making it miserable to have an open heart. Atem couldn't withstand it, but it's not his fault, not anymore than it would be anyone else's.
He got what he wanted, he said as much. He has no interest in pushing for more. He doesn't see what he's got as a natural evolution of himself, and he won't use it indiscriminately. Realistically, that's the absolute best she could ask for. Realistically, that's all he can give.
And with Ryou, there's an additional complication to all of this. She can't imagine how she would feel about seeing any of her friends too scared to move about their day, too damaged to every really recover. It would have driven her mad with fury, and she imagines Atem must be the same. But to be rendered toothless because that same person couldn't find comfort in you...that must be agony.
Ryou, a safe person to return to...had become someone painful just to see.
So she listens, and the rest of it only makes her feel like everything else has fallen away but her and Atem. She watches every incremental movement of his like they're a magnet for her eyes, swallowing at the more sordid parts. Torture, gleeful torture...it's sick, it's wrong, and she can't believe she didn't know about it. Or why no one would say anything if they did know. She wonders, too, how anyone could know Atem and this other person and choose anyone like that over him, but she supposes when you lay forgotten, your faith is shattered completely. That's not fair to anyone, but a heart only believes what it is shown.
She doesn't read the paper, either. She doesn't watch the news. She doesn't...but after today, she will. Too little, too late. But she will.
All of this to say: what would she have done if she had known? There's nothing she could do to stand up to another monster that wanted to kill and wasn't afraid to do it. She doesn't have the strength.
Hell, even Steve, beloved Steve, he was just an easy target of circumstance. Who you are...only means so much to so many people.
All the same, who Atem is, it matters to her. He matters. She couldn't save him then, not even if she wanted to...but she can be here. She can stay. It's not much, but when she thinks about how much it meant to her that Atem was happy to sit and talk with her, to be friends...
The mer leans forward to rest her chin on her wrists where they cross over her knees, regarding him thoughtfully.]
It...matters more than you think, Atem.
I came here because I wanted you to regret what you'd done. However, I'd forgotten that you'd already told me in so many words before everything happened that something was...wrong. I could tell that much. But I never pushed for more answers, did I? You told me you would handle it, and I was content to let it go unquestioned.
[He was vague about the circumstances, but only in the sense that he had been hurt and that he had a solution.
The pain was much deeper than she imagined, and his solution was to reach down, down, down until he could try and pull it out at the roots. But it's still there. He's safe in the way he wanted, but he still aches.]
Not to mention I...well, I sympathize with you more than you know, Atem. When you're all you've got, and who you are isn't enough, what do you do?
I haven't thought much about that since I got here. I've had the luxury not to. And while I'll never be happy about what you did, I can't pretend I know a better way myself. You did what was right for you and Ryou. No more, no less.
[...
She chews her lip.]
Even if you were sorry, there'd be no going back. I was just worried you'd been lost completely, but if I'm honest...you sound like the same Atem to me.
[Faint from the distance between them, but distinctly Atem.
Still, she can hear the way he talks, and how different it is from how they used to speak to one another. As such:]
...Can I ask what you were expecting from me, Atem? Do I remind you of the people that let you down?
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It's hard, isn't it? To not be enough, and to have no more than yourself.
Then, she asks what he expected from her.]
You mean, here and now...?
[He confirms, before going on. There's a moment of thought, then the slightest hint of a canine shrug, as his head lowers a few inches.]
Either who I was would be enough for you, or it wouldn't. I didn't know which it would be...but I was prepared to accept either one.
[Atem doesn't know Trish intimately enough to be able to predict how she would ract. He wasn't trying to win her over or push her away -- he cared enough about having a fair shot at it to let her know he knew she was coming at him unfairly, to ask for her to approach him with the intent to understand, but besides that, he simply told her the truth, as he sees it.
He expected one of two outcomes, after that. Trish, in his life, able to understand him, even if she couldn't forgive him -- or a rejection, another person who sees his actions as nothing but willful evil, or the result of brainwashing by the Fog God.]
If you had rejected me even after hearing my reasons, or...if you were to go on, after this, as though nothing wrong had happened at all...then yes, you'd have reminded me of them. I would have been sad...but not surprised.
You didn't see what was happening, but...part of that's my fault. I told you I would handle it, and didn't let you deeper into my heart, so that you wouldn't have to see the horrors there. I thought I was protecting you, but...that means the loneliness I felt is my fault, isn't it?
I'm still doing it. This, and Daniel...they're just two of the things that have happened to me, Trish. But, if you don't truly want to share the burden of them, knowing ahead of time that they're bad...then, it doesn't feel right to make you.
Some people here just have good luck, and the worst of what happens passes them by. Yugi was one of them. I'm glad you have that luck, too...you deserve to have an easier time, now that you're here, than what you went through before. I don't want to hurt you for no good reason...
[Even if it's lonely. Even if it means there's parts of him she'll never see. She doesn't have to, if she doesn't want to...that's not a condition of their friendship. And he'll take responsibility, for his willingness to protect her preventing her from helping him more.]