At the end of two straight weeks of fighting in the Dark Hour of the Middle East, engaging Wrecks and Umbra, eliminating Yama Kings in all stages of development, Hikaru Shinta is shifting out of the living blood he had been seconds before, and catching the closest side of the doorway with one shaking hand, right before he can tumble to the floor.
He's not too pleased to find himself here; this isn't in the plan at all. His actual destination should have been the Wolf's Ward, or - barring that - Kibo, up north. He is drained, though, tired within the very marrow of his bones. Perhaps that had distracted him long enough to shift the trajectory of his spell and bring him to precisely the place that he did not want to be. Too dangerous. Only too many people that he'd rather not deal with could see him like this.
Thankfully, he's arrived during one of those precious windows of time where no one's out and about because they're either out on the streets or off in their own corners of the estate grounds. There should be more than enough time for him to drag himself to his room and hide away until he's recovered enough to at least look fine even if he isn't fine at all.
It takes Hikaru an agonizing fifteen minutes of limping along, and he is only halfway up the stairs. On a normal night, he would have crossed those steps in less than a minute. This night - with the fever chills, the laughing voices, the wounds that open and close as if they have minds of their own, the graying hair, the ringing in his head - is not a normal night at all.
He had just crossed past the landing that overlooked the entrance when his ears catch the familiar breathing of Hikaru -- but this time, labored, tired.
He's there before the Blade King can take another step, one hand gentle on the younger man's elbow; enough to support without taking the full weight because he knows better than to add insult to already grave injury.
It takes Hikaru a split second too long to register the grip on his arm, the weight of another's presence, the sound of someone else beyond Him talking.
Tonight just isn't his night.
"Have I ever told you how much I hate it when you do that?"
He was beyond caring whether he sounded angry or not; a part of him hoped that he did. What came out instead, though, was the exhaustion, the thinning line of a body breaking under each and every wave of agony that washed over it.
"Possibly," Riley hides his concern beneath the hint of a smile, but his eyes are alert and attentive. His other hand comes to settle on Hikaru's shoulder, decptively casual, but undisputedly firm.
When he speaks again, it is conversational. And this time, the smile slips. "Come keep me company, Hikaru."
He doesn't like the sound of that hitch between the boy's syllables, and not for the first time does he wish that there was something else that he could do than merely offer support like this.
Attack of the OCD. This is why the edit feature is a Bad Idea for me. OTL
And it takes him a long time to get the words out, because every cell in his body is screaming for him to cut loose and run and because he can barely keep himself together.
He shuts his eyes and breathes out. It hurts, and the next breath he takes is bound to hurt some more, but he can't stop. He can't afford to. (Who will, after all, be left to shoulder the Song, and the lives that dance to the tune that he has made with it?)
"It's just you there, right?"
Please. You're more than enough.
The thought alone of Aidan Clayce and Liandrin Delacroix being there - the man he still held above everyone else, and the woman he left behind - destroyed him. (And there is a third, the one he cannot - will not - bring himself to name. The one who probably won't be there anyway.)
Edited 2014-01-13 10:17 (UTC)
L M F A O somehow, i am not surprised in the least :p
The only response is a look, one that is both telling enough of his concern and firm enough with the unspoken let me help, just this once and I swear to you, we shall never speak of it -- ever.
Riley's hand is firm then, beneath Hikaru's elbow, the other arm a steady fixture spanning the Blade King's shoulders. He does not move, and in that, is respectfully offering assistance in the way a parent might a mule-headed child who insists he can handle things that in actuality he cannot.
"Hikaru," he says in quiet near-admonition. "Really."
You are not the only one who utterly abhors the idea of showing weakness.
What Riley would surely notice would be the way the younger Malice King coiled up, tense and unrelenting, for just a split second before the other let out a shaky sigh, and finally, finally leaning into the support that his elder was offering him.
"Right. Well."
Of course he should not have bothered asking, assuming.
"I... I guess I could stay for a bit."
Given how long it had been since Riley was last active, this was probably the first time in a long time that the Daywalker was going to hear the Blade King sound so small.
And of course, it doesn't matter how long he's been asleep or how much of the comings and goings of the world at large he'd missed -- Riley has learned to cope in his own way, on how to make the most of a thing that holds him as tightly as any leash.
He takes Hikaru's weight, but just enough to lend support, understanding full well what it means to the younger man to stand and move about on his own. Of them all, it has always been Hikaru who moves at his own whims. While Riley himself has never felt the need to go about things the way the Blade King has, he understands the frustration to some degree.
To reach Golconda he'd chosen to embrace the beast in his own way, to become something more than the creature that the cards he'd been dealt had made him, succumbing to slumber and accepting that ( with no small measure of personal reluctance ) because it was a fair enough trade off for his reclaimed humanity.
He leads Hikaru to the office he shares with Liandrin and Aidan, takes a moment to hold open the door to the otherwise empty room in silent deference to his comrade.
It is not a gesture that chastizes, but one offered up the way he might a glass to drink or a plate of food; a simple and unspoken: here, is this alright? that Hikaru can choose to accept or turn away.
Hikaru, on the other hand, was quiet for the rest of the way. He only moved once he was standing in the doorway of the office. After seeing, for himself, that he and Riley really were alone, the young man gently slipped out of the other Malice King's grip and limped inside.
Breathing hurt a little less now, but that also meant that all of the other aches and pains were rising up to the surface properly. Hikaru pursed his lips, set his jaw tight, and focused all of his efforts on getting to the couch. It worked, for the most part: at least he managed to sink down and stretch out without crashing too hard. It took an annoying amount of time, though, to dig out his cigarettes, find his lighter, set a fag on his lips, and light up.
Two drags in, and then, as he's focusing his gaze on the ceiling of the office:
"Sorry. I'm pretty sure that I'm going to end up bleeding all over your couch."
He is dizzy as fucking shit and in an almost unspeakable amount of agony, but that wasn't about to stop him from being himself. (Hopefully.)
He doesn't need to be told that offering help to one Hikaru Shinta is an exercise in patience, but he understands the machinations of the younger man's mind, at least where it concerns weakness and having no choice on the matter of hiding it from prying eyes.
So, here's Riley, wandering over to one table where an electric kettle is plugged for the sake of convenience -- his comrades didn't want him wandering around too much and to say that Lia and Aidan would know the very millisecond that he started to overextend himself again is a massive understatement.
"What's a little blood between old friends," he murmurs rather glibly, already going through the motions of fixing them both a pot of tea.
That's enough to make Hikaru chuckle, amused, brief, pained a little too exhausted. He took another drag from his cigarette, a longer one.
"I suppose you and Aidan already know this, but... you might want to repaint the ceiling in here."
That was better, wasn't it? It would not be long before he was back on track. (Hopefully. Maybe. Goddamn, he needed to be back on track, needed to not think about how he had gotten here, why he had said yes in the first place, and--)
"Oh, so you noticed that," Riley lets the tea leaves swirl in the pot, and takes a knee to peer at the contents of liquor cabinet below. The selection isn't as extensive as it could have been given the limited amount of space; but what it lacks in variety, it most certainly makes up for in quality.
( He and Aidan also didn't need to be told that Lia would have disapproved -- he and the Dragon could drink their fair share and handle themselves well enough, but the impression it would give others who did not know them so well would not be so good.
It was, in some ways, important to keep up appearances. To be as human as they could manage to appear -- especially in the little details. )
He brings out two bottles then: one for himself, the other, for his companion.
"I rather like it though. Gives the room just a bit of character."
There was a quick comeback to that - something involving logic, correlations, Old World Gentlemen and their resistance towards change - but it's almost instantly buried another wave of pain. It's sitting at the back of his head now, together with the rest of the things that he would have been thinking about if he wasn't so damned tired.
So Hikaru's shifting, taking care not to jostle his own body too much as he's letting one arm flop over his chest (because if he moved it any lower he's pretty sure he'd crack another rib), dropping the other to where the ash from the cigarette he's got between two stiff fingers can drip to the floor instead of the carpet. He's turning, as well, watching Riley move around.
He's lost count of the number of times he's found himself in a situation like this with the Daywalker, and he'll never forget the first (1801, this office, the night he realized that he was quite possibly dying all over again and it was the thought of leaving Lia behind/never resolving things with Alistair that made him realize that he was getting sick and fucking tired of it). He'll never forget, as well, how Riley always seems to do exactly the right things, and have the right words, and know when not to say anything at all. It's hard, almost impossible, to unlearn the responses he has developed to this sort of kindness, to tell himself, instead, not to relax, to keep up the front, to look for the soonest possible way to get out while he still could (before he broke).
So there he is now, watching the other King, wishing he could turn away and at least have enough time to not look exactly the way he felt, and knowing full well that he just couldn't do it.
Living could be such a bitch. Feeling occasionally made it that much worse.
He'll never say it, of course, but that Hikaru always manages not to throw up that front, therefore allowing Riley a peek into that vulnerable side of him... it's comforting.
It's not lost on the Daywalker, how each subsequent lifetime is harder, therefore giving some logic to how Hikaru chooses to pull a little bit further away.
So he settles into taking his cues where he may, just continues to wait, not exactly watching his comrade while he gathers himself together. He is not Jessiah who might tremble with impatient, frustrated energy -- all borne from the simple truth that Jessie Vice cannot stand to see a dear friend in evident pain; nor is he Aidan, who views all the Kings as his children, after a fashion.
So Riley waits, drops his gaze to one of the bottles in hand. That Hikaru is in the room with him does not mean he cannot give his friend a measure of privacy -- if only in as much as he can by averting his eyes from the agony the younger man is currently in.
And because of that, Hikaru did not say anything until he had finished his cigarette and finally managed to fix his gaze back on that ceiling: he did not trust himself with words.
"Do you mind getting... you know..."
He needed to patch himself up, and his own room was now way too far.
Riley rises at that, steadier now on his feet than weeks before, and all the more glad for it.
He says nothing when he sets the bottle on the table in front of his companion, before stepping to where he, Aidan and Liandrin keep the emergency kit well-stocked for circumstances such as this.
He doesn't offer to help, instead decides to drag a chair over, to keep the Blade King company.
All of that leaves Hikaru just enough time to force himself up: on his elbows first, then a push made of nothing but willpower and that stubborn need to handle what he can at the moment, to cling to what little control he still has.
He reaches for the bottle with a quiet "thanks", and cracks it open. Then he's setting it back down, and focusing on peeling what's left of his shirt off.
The wounds are no longer trying to eat him; they have gone still, and gape at the open air, silent and ugly, as wounds are wont to do. There are bruises, as well, and a few small cuts.
Now, for that kit.
"Middle East," he offers, by way of explanation. "You probably knew that already, though."
Quietly pouring himself a drink as he turns his gaze away from the wounds to look casually off to the side.
There is very little that he can do at this point. But he can always listen, and talk, if necessary. Hikaru ( for all his bullheadedness ) and time, will do the rest.
"Bad enough, but nothing that we couldn't handle."
'We' being relative, and not because of a lack of skill on the part of his operatives. The Middle East had been a convenient distraction for Hikaru, all things considered.
"Get yourself patched up," he says it gently, sliding his gaze back now.
He's worried about you. Very worried. He hasn't said much, but he's been keeping an eye ( and sometimes, an ear ) out for any word on you and your activities.
"And I know that you'll protest: but I, for one, am glad to see that you've come home."
He wants to ask, he really does, what the problem is. But he knows better than to push you when you seem so adamant to run from whatever is bothering you.
And oh, he suspects it's not just the Aria Thing. He knows your patterns for her, but there's been a new one emerging, though he can't quite put his finger on it yet.
He doesn't respond, at least not immediately. From the way he goes still, however, at your last sentence, it's almost like your words were another wound that he has to deal with.
"Already on it."
That is said softly, while he's taking his coat off, while he's peeling the armor from his skin.
'Home'. Falner still counted as that, right? Sometimes, it was hard to believe that.
"What is wrong?" He'd wanted to let it lie, but you have been utterly out of sorts and he's worried, you know how he worries. You are, after all, someone who is as close to a younger brother as he will ever get.
"I swear by my life and the lives of everyone I love and care for that nothing from whatever conversation we have will ever leave this room."
You're not in any shape to bolt. And if you try, he can certainly stop you.
To his shame, the mere mention of the Living Land's name is enough, at this point, to make him flinch. Perhaps he would be better with it, though, if she was the only issue at hand.
He's quiet again, and staring down hard at the roll of bandages and bottle of antiseptic he has at hand now. This is hard to deal with, this whole business with Riley Falner choosing, with pinpoint accuracy, when to be unfailingly direct.
Fuck fixing himself up. He needs another cigarette first.
"I can handle my business well enough on my own, Riley. It's just been hard lately, that's all."
He needs to make this last attempt at deflecting your attention, and he needs you to let him at least try.
Doesn't he always let you? Really, Hikaru. Whatever it is, if it is so terrible, then say so. Yes, he might have appointed himself as the school teacher running check on the whole lot of you to properly balance out Aidan, but you've had enough time as friends to at least feel like you can speak plainly his way.
"If you tell me not to ask, I will not."
He realizes, a bit belatedly though, that calling you out like that has opened up two possibilities. He amends then, "And I do mean that." Quiet now, concerned.
"If you wish not to speak of whatever it is that weighs on your mind, then we can turn this conversation to you telling me instead what it is that I've missed since Liandrin put me on house arrest."
The world turns, out there. And he remains here, recuperating.
No words first, because over the ringing in his head, the pain of his injuries and the magnitude of the situation he's in at this moment aren't easy to deal with, especially when one tops it off with what Riley's saying to him now.
He should be able to trust Riley. He should be able to trust all of the Malice Kings, given everything that the lot of them have been through. The losses, the hardship, the victories that did not at all feel like victories. He knows as well, however, that the people he loves the most have also been watching him carefully, too carefully, and are incredibly quick to shut him down "for his own good". He's also firm in his belief that there are bigger fish to fry, and he certainly isn't the only one with problems that need to be handled.
This is why there are things that he does not tell them, even if he and many of the others should be "fine" now after the talks, the arguments, the negotiations. This is why he keeps pulling back, even when every other instinct in his bones and blood is telling him to rest easy and let the closest of his friends - his family - catch him when he starts to fall.
The look that the Daywalker will see the moment Hikaru finally looks up to meet his gaze is dark with one too many things, and the physical pain that the Blade King is in seems like the least of it. That is broken by a sharp laugh, a shake of the younger man's head. The bitter twist of his lips partially disappears from around the cigarette that he places between them.
"Honestly? I don't know where to start." And he isn't referring to what Riley's missed. Not at all. "I don't even know whether I should."
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Waking the Dead 2.0 || I Know You Are But What Am I?
He's not too pleased to find himself here; this isn't in the plan at all. His actual destination should have been the Wolf's Ward, or - barring that - Kibo, up north. He is drained, though, tired within the very marrow of his bones. Perhaps that had distracted him long enough to shift the trajectory of his spell and bring him to precisely the place that he did not want to be. Too dangerous. Only too many people that he'd rather not deal with could see him like this.
Thankfully, he's arrived during one of those precious windows of time where no one's out and about because they're either out on the streets or off in their own corners of the estate grounds. There should be more than enough time for him to drag himself to his room and hide away until he's recovered enough to at least look fine even if he isn't fine at all.
It takes Hikaru an agonizing fifteen minutes of limping along, and he is only halfway up the stairs. On a normal night, he would have crossed those steps in less than a minute. This night - with the fever chills, the laughing voices, the wounds that open and close as if they have minds of their own, the graying hair, the ringing in his head - is not a normal night at all.
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He's there before the Blade King can take another step, one hand gentle on the younger man's elbow; enough to support without taking the full weight because he knows better than to add insult to already grave injury.
"Come join me in my office?"
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beyond Himtalking.Tonight just isn't his night.
"Have I ever told you how much I hate it when you do that?"
He was beyond caring whether he sounded angry or not; a part of him hoped that he did. What came out instead, though, was the exhaustion, the thinning line of a body breaking under each and every wave of agony that washed over it.
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When he speaks again, it is conversational. And this time, the smile slips. "Come keep me company, Hikaru."
He doesn't like the sound of that hitch between the boy's syllables, and not for the first time does he wish that there was something else that he could do than merely offer support like this.
Attack of the OCD. This is why the edit feature is a Bad Idea for me. OTL
He shuts his eyes and breathes out. It hurts, and the next breath he takes is bound to hurt some more, but he can't stop. He can't afford to. (Who will, after all, be left to shoulder the Song, and the lives that dance to the tune that he has made with it?)
"It's just you there, right?"
Please. You're more than enough.
The thought alone of Aidan Clayce and Liandrin Delacroix being there - the man he still held above everyone else, and the woman he left behind - destroyed him. (And there is a third, the one he cannot - will not - bring himself to name. The one who probably won't be there anyway.)
L M F A O somehow, i am not surprised in the least :p
Riley's hand is firm then, beneath Hikaru's elbow, the other arm a steady fixture spanning the Blade King's shoulders. He does not move, and in that, is respectfully offering assistance in the way a parent might a mule-headed child who insists he can handle things that in actuality he cannot.
"Hikaru," he says in quiet near-admonition. "Really."
You are not the only one who utterly abhors the idea of showing weakness.
/)_(\
"Right. Well."
Of course he should not have bothered asking, assuming.
"I... I guess I could stay for a bit."
Given how long it had been since Riley was last active, this was probably the first time in a long time that the Daywalker was going to hear the Blade King sound so small.
;__; sorry so late
He takes Hikaru's weight, but just enough to lend support, understanding full well what it means to the younger man to stand and move about on his own. Of them all, it has always been Hikaru who moves at his own whims. While Riley himself has never felt the need to go about things the way the Blade King has, he understands the frustration to some degree.
To reach Golconda he'd chosen to embrace the beast in his own way, to become something more than the creature that the cards he'd been dealt had made him, succumbing to slumber and accepting that ( with no small measure of personal reluctance ) because it was a fair enough trade off for his reclaimed humanity.
He leads Hikaru to the office he shares with Liandrin and Aidan, takes a moment to hold open the door to the otherwise empty room in silent deference to his comrade.
It is not a gesture that chastizes, but one offered up the way he might a glass to drink or a plate of food; a simple and unspoken: here, is this alright? that Hikaru can choose to accept or turn away.
it's okey. '^'
Breathing hurt a little less now, but that also meant that all of the other aches and pains were rising up to the surface properly. Hikaru pursed his lips, set his jaw tight, and focused all of his efforts on getting to the couch. It worked, for the most part: at least he managed to sink down and stretch out without crashing too hard. It took an annoying amount of time, though, to dig out his cigarettes, find his lighter, set a fag on his lips, and light up.
Two drags in, and then, as he's focusing his gaze on the ceiling of the office:
"Sorry. I'm pretty sure that I'm going to end up bleeding all over your couch."
He is dizzy as fucking shit and in an almost unspeakable amount of agony, but that wasn't about to stop him from being himself. (Hopefully.)
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So, here's Riley, wandering over to one table where an electric kettle is plugged for the sake of convenience -- his comrades didn't want him wandering around too much and to say that Lia and Aidan would know the very millisecond that he started to overextend himself again is a massive understatement.
"What's a little blood between old friends," he murmurs rather glibly, already going through the motions of fixing
them botha pot of tea.no subject
paineda little too exhausted. He took another drag from his cigarette, a longer one."I suppose you and Aidan already know this, but... you might want to repaint the ceiling in here."
That was better, wasn't it? It would not be long before he was back on track. (Hopefully. Maybe. Goddamn, he needed to be back on track, needed to not think about how he had gotten here, why he had said yes in the first place, and--)
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( He and Aidan also didn't need to be told that Lia would have disapproved -- he and the Dragon could drink their fair share and handle themselves well enough, but the impression it would give others who did not know them so well would not be so good.
It was, in some ways, important to keep up appearances. To be as human as they could manage to appear -- especially in the little details. )
He brings out two bottles then: one for himself, the other, for his companion.
"I rather like it though. Gives the room just a bit of character."
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So Hikaru's shifting, taking care not to jostle his own body too much as he's letting one arm flop over his chest (because if he moved it any lower he's pretty sure he'd crack another rib), dropping the other to where the ash from the cigarette he's got between two stiff fingers can drip to the floor instead of the carpet. He's turning, as well, watching Riley move around.
He's lost count of the number of times he's found himself in a situation like this with the Daywalker, and he'll never forget the first (1801, this office, the night he realized that he was quite possibly dying all over again and it was the thought of leaving Lia behind/never resolving things with Alistair that made him realize that he was getting sick and fucking tired of it). He'll never forget, as well, how Riley always seems to do exactly the right things, and have the right words, and know when not to say anything at all. It's hard, almost impossible, to unlearn the responses he has developed to this sort of kindness, to tell himself, instead, not to relax, to keep up the front, to look for the soonest possible way to get out while he still could (before he broke).
So there he is now, watching the other King, wishing he could turn away and at least have enough time to not look exactly the way he felt, and knowing full well that he just couldn't do it.
Living could be such a bitch. Feeling occasionally made it that much worse.
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It's not lost on the Daywalker, how each subsequent lifetime is harder, therefore giving some logic to how Hikaru chooses to pull a little bit further away.
So he settles into taking his cues where he may, just continues to wait, not exactly watching his comrade while he gathers himself together. He is not Jessiah who might tremble with impatient, frustrated energy -- all borne from the simple truth that Jessie Vice cannot stand to see a dear friend in evident pain; nor is he Aidan, who views all the Kings as his children, after a fashion.
So Riley waits, drops his gaze to one of the bottles in hand. That Hikaru is in the room with him does not mean he cannot give his friend a measure of privacy -- if only in as much as he can by averting his eyes from the agony the younger man is currently in.
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"Do you mind getting... you know..."
He needed to patch himself up, and his own room was now way too far.
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He says nothing when he sets the bottle on the table in front of his companion, before stepping to where he, Aidan and Liandrin keep the emergency kit well-stocked for circumstances such as this.
He doesn't offer to help, instead decides to drag a chair over, to keep the Blade King company.
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He reaches for the bottle with a quiet "thanks", and cracks it open. Then he's setting it back down, and focusing on peeling what's left of his shirt off.
The wounds are no longer trying to eat him; they have gone still, and gape at the open air, silent and ugly, as wounds are wont to do. There are bruises, as well, and a few small cuts.
Now, for that kit.
"Middle East," he offers, by way of explanation. "You probably knew that already, though."
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Quietly pouring himself a drink as he turns his gaze away from the wounds to look casually off to the side.
There is very little that he can do at this point. But he can always listen, and talk, if necessary. Hikaru ( for all his bullheadedness ) and time, will do the rest.
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'We' being relative, and not because of a lack of skill on the part of his operatives. The Middle East had been a convenient distraction for Hikaru, all things considered.
"I'm home a little earlier than intended."
Hence. Well. This.
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He's worried about you. Very worried. He hasn't said much, but he's been keeping an eye ( and sometimes, an ear ) out for any word on you and your activities.
"And I know that you'll protest: but I, for one, am glad to see that you've come home."
He wants to ask, he really does, what the problem is. But he knows better than to push you when you seem so adamant to run from whatever is bothering you.
And oh, he suspects it's not just the Aria Thing. He knows your patterns for her, but there's been a new one emerging, though he can't quite put his finger on it yet.
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"Already on it."
That is said softly, while he's taking his coat off, while he's peeling the armor from his skin.
'Home'. Falner still counted as that, right? Sometimes, it was hard to believe that.
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"What is wrong?" He'd wanted to let it lie, but you have been utterly out of sorts and he's worried, you know how he worries. You are, after all, someone who is as close to a younger brother as he will ever get.
"I swear by my life and the lives of everyone I love and care for that nothing from whatever conversation we have will ever leave this room."
You're not in any shape to bolt. And if you try, he can certainly stop you.
"What is the matter, Hikaru? Is it Aria?"
Might as well cut to the chase, right?
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He's quiet again, and staring down hard at the roll of bandages and bottle of antiseptic he has at hand now. This is hard to deal with, this whole business with Riley Falner choosing, with pinpoint accuracy, when to be unfailingly direct.
Fuck fixing himself up. He needs another cigarette first.
"I can handle my business well enough on my own, Riley. It's just been hard lately, that's all."
He needs to make this last attempt at deflecting your attention, and he needs you to let him at least try.
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"If you tell me not to ask, I will not."
He realizes, a bit belatedly though, that calling you out like that has opened up two possibilities. He amends then, "And I do mean that." Quiet now, concerned.
"If you wish not to speak of whatever it is that weighs on your mind, then we can turn this conversation to you telling me instead what it is that I've missed since Liandrin put me on house arrest."
The world turns, out there. And he remains here, recuperating.
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He should be able to trust Riley. He should be able to trust all of the Malice Kings, given everything that the lot of them have been through. The losses, the hardship, the victories that did not at all feel like victories. He knows as well, however, that the people he loves the most have also been watching him carefully, too carefully, and are incredibly quick to shut him down "for his own good". He's also firm in his belief that there are bigger fish to fry, and he certainly isn't the only one with problems that need to be handled.
This is why there are things that he does not tell them, even if he and many of the others should be "fine" now after the talks, the arguments, the negotiations. This is why he keeps pulling back, even when every other instinct in his bones and blood is telling him to rest easy and let the closest of his friends - his family - catch him when he starts to fall.
The look that the Daywalker will see the moment Hikaru finally looks up to meet his gaze is dark with one too many things, and the physical pain that the Blade King is in seems like the least of it. That is broken by a sharp laugh, a shake of the younger man's head. The bitter twist of his lips partially disappears from around the cigarette that he places between them.
"Honestly? I don't know where to start." And he isn't referring to what Riley's missed. Not at all. "I don't even know whether I should."
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