notpiercings | RYSLIG

The moment is just long enough that she almost leaves. He's not there. It'll be fine. He'll come home, and he'll be fine.

And then there's a yell.

Reira pauses, frozen at the door for a number of seconds. If he's here, he's died. If he's here, he's died a second time...

Strike three, and he'll probably not come back with everything.

The girl swallows, and her voice passes through the door.

"...Dio?"

....

"Is it alright to come in?"

When he hears Reira's voice, he stops himself from throwing any more of a fit than he already has. That sort of behaviour is exactly what landed him back here in the first place. His muscles tense as if stretching. Seconds of silence tick by. He huffs.

He exhales and throws his arms to the edges of the bed. "...yeah."

She isn't the type to 'tell him so,' so to speak, but he still isn't exactly looking forward to speaking to her. Not now, not so soon.

The door opens.

Reira is indeed not the type to 'tell him so'- if anything she seems more concerned about how he's doing now, which on the other hand might sting in it's own way.

There's not a whole lot of room in the room, and actually standing there is a bit tricky- Especially with wings. But somehow she manages and the door is closed. She doesn't really know what to say, for the moment. She can bet that Dio doesn't want to...well. Talk about it. So...

"Did I wake you up?"

Dio is staring at the ceiling when Reira comes in, and though he spares her the briefest glance just to make sure it is indeed her, he continues to stare at the ceiling when she speaks to him again. His eyes are not blank - far from it, even, as he's consumed with thoughts of the cold - but he seems rather spacey all the same.

"...I don't think so," he responds belatedly.

There isn't much beating around the bush to be had. He may as well explain himself. He finally looks at her properly.

"...so you were right about the snow thing."

Silence reigns quite heavily through the tiny room, and Reira bites her lip. She again, isn't the sort to say 'I told you so'. So she's certainly not about to say, well, that.

But then, what else to say? .... "Do you hurt anywhere?" is what she eventually says. "..Um. Are you maybe hungry, or..."

Ultimately all she can do is talk about how to fix it, without saying it's for that.

"...I don't feel like eating right now." That, at least, is truth enough. To say he isn't hungry wouldn't be, but he doesn't want to talk about that right now. That's not a truth he wants to confront yet, if he can help it.

The physical pain, though the memory lingers, is gone by now. Some stretches and he'll be just fine. That's not the problem here.

He's troubled. Perhaps a little vulnerable still. Perhaps a little guilty still.

"...I made you worry again. I'm sorry."

Right. Well, she nods to that- she's canny enough to note that there might be something more there, but she's not about to pry. And-

... It would be a lie to say it was 'okay' she thinks, looking to him with maybe a hair of surprise. So instead. "...thank you." That no doubt sounds odd on it's own. She should maybe...explain? She should explain.

"...For saying sorry, I mean. ...I know going to Bavan was important. And...sometimes things matter more, or feel like they matter more, when you take the long way. I take the short way a lot, so I always forget what it's like. ...Even though it's dangerous, it can be important... ...but...thank you for that. ...and... ...I'm sorry too. For I guess...not getting it maybe?" She doesn't completely know, but she knows she feels it. That seems important to her.

As Reira explains herself, Dio finally, finally sits up, brushing stray strands of hair out of his eyes. The snow thing aside, he had frankly nearly pushed the teleport offer out of his mind, likely because of how fast he had dismissed it at the time. As such, he shrugs when the counter-apology is offered.

"Your pragmatism doesn't need to be forgiven." There's plenty else he could tack onto that, plenty of self-depreciating things, or other things that just aren't important anymore. He leaves it there. "You don't need to excuse it. You did fine."

Right. Well, if he doesn't think it needs an apology, then...there they are. If she can though, she'll sit on the bed with him just for now. It's better than standing, and her legs are kind of getting tired.

So.

They've traded apologies and such....and... "...It didn't go very well did it?" she eventually says, looking to him with a frown. It's hardly judging- if anything the blame in her eyes is likely directed at whoever he went to see.

But one doesn't die for no reason, and she feels like with how long it took he'd probably at least gotten there.

Well, she's hardly wrong. 'Well' is probably about the only way that conversation didn't go. "It could've gone better."

...

"...it was stupid." But he won't say he shouldn't have gone.

There's an empathetic wince there- but it fades, mostly for confusion.

"...Why was it stupid?"

"I dont know why I bothered. They despise me - if not myself then the self they knew in their own time for his atrocities." He pauses, intent on keeping the remainder of his self-reflection to, well, himself. His heart ticks per second.

He swallows.

"Ever since I found out about all the awful things my older self has done, I've done nothing but insist that it wasn't me, that I shouldn't be judged for those heinous crimes I had not committed. I thought I should be absolved of that guilt."

...

"The scars of trauma run deep. An absence of guilt does not mean an absence of pain. Their wounds are still fresh, and their lives have been changed for the worse because of me." He flops back into the pillows. "I've done some awful things myself, even; I've been such a fool to assume I should be forgiven."

The ceiling staring resumes. "I only hurt them by showing up. It was thoughtless. An unforgivable error."

Reira is, if anything at all, a good listener. She listens easily and quietly, and does well not to interrupt. And she tries to think of the people Dio is likely describing- at the very least they were both around at Christmas so she can take the guess that maybe they're not Terrible? Actually if anything Dio is saying the problem is some other Him being terrible to Them, so hm.

It's not very fair to judge someone else for that- she's probably said that before though, and... Awful things.

"...I killed Tsukikage once."

That's pretty awful. She doesn't look directly at him when she says it, sort of focused on the wall as she gets it out. "...It wasn't an accident, either. I mean...I don't think it was supposed to be him, but it still happened. And I don't think saying I wasn't all me is a very good excuse. I was still mostly me, and that means it was still mostly me that did it.

"I don't think it's bad though, to want forgiveness. Even if you only realize it later, it's important. It's just hard- and...I think Tsukikage still remembers when that happened, and still gets a little scared thinking about it. And that hurts, on both sides. But...

"It wasn't 'thoughtless'. You put a lot of thought into it. Because it matters now to you, and you want it to be better. If you don't ever try, how can you make it better then? So it was important to try. And..."

She pauses. "...If it means anything, I think they'll at least realize it one day too. They just have to stop hurting a little more first."

Dio doesn't take that answer lightly. He doesn't seem to react, remaining still on the bed, but he considers it and its implications heavily. He knows how much Tsukikage respects and protects Reira, and he knows how safe he makes her feel. All of that, after murder?

"...it was JoJo's wedding anniversary. It was also the a anniversary of his death. I hated seeing him sulking on a day I felt he should be remembering fondly. If nothing else, anyone but his murderer should've been the one to tell him to chin up."

Indeed, a murder. Honestly Reira still hasn't fully apologized for it, which probably makes it worse.

Maybe she should do that.

That's not for Now though, right Now is Dio's talk, and that means thinking over the implications of... "...You mean...the one before the murderer as well, then..."

Well. So a future Dio caused a lot of problems, and also, maybe, killed Mr. Jonathan. Definitely killed Mr. Jonathan. (Though not really on the same day as the wedding, as they're both assuming)

"...I don't think that's your fault." She'll go on, trust her, but she leaves the words on the air a bit as she looks to Dio on the bed. "...Mr. Jonathan...that's JoJo right? ...But Mr. Jonathan hasn't been here very long right? So I don't think he expected it to be that day again. It's supposed to be a happy one, but there's probably a lot of bad feelings stuck there, since it hasn't been that long. It's not something good, being stuck like that...but I don't think it's something easy to stop. ...when you did leave... ...mnh." She pauses, thinking of the right words again. "...I guess it didn't work, obviously but... ...even though I only really saw him at Christmas...I think maybe, he'll at least think about the things you said for good reasons. Not for bad ones. He was here earlier this year too right? And he wasn't mean or rude, right? So...

"...Maybe he does want to give you a chance, at least. But more than that, I think even if someone else talked to him, he'd still be sad, or whatever he was." That's a blatant guess, but ultimately she's not that wrong. After all, Speedwagon, the Best Friend, was stuck.

And wasn't Dio the one who got him to stand?

Got Jonathan to stand, sure, but at what cost? Had it been worth all the remarks, all the painful memories dredged up from where they should have remained to die? Had it been worth that invasion of privacy? Had it been anything more than a forceful assertion of Dio's own feelings when it was Jonathan's that were most important?

He had gotten Jonathan to stand, but wouldn't he have been just as well sitting? Spending the day in his own way, as he had every right to?

Dio says nothing. How JoJo regards his words isn't important, and it never will be. He had still ferried more conflict to their humble home and left them with the burden of festering anger - if not Jonathan directly then Speedwagon, whom Jonathan will have to deal with. He still failed. He still made things worse.

He's quiet for a long time, lost in his own thoughts, until finally...

"...thank you for the kind words. I do appreciate them."

Quiet is important, Reira thinks. Sometimes you just need things to be quiet after all, even if the only thing happening in the end is feeling a bit worse.

"...They're true words, after all," is what Reira eventually says. And in the quiet, softly-

"...Do you just want to sit for a while? ...Like this, I mean?"

Despite the moment he takes to consider it, in his heart Dio wants nothing more than to jump at the offer, but he refrains from letting that 'yes' leave his lips. Maybe... there's something better he can say instead.

"...is that okay?"

Reira is quiet for a moment. And-

"Yeah."

They'll sit there for as long as they can.

RYSLIG - IC INBOX

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