The whole of Riku's frame tenses and goes still but that isn't the same as saying the fight has left him, cables still taut for the sustained strain of muscle against their manufactured reliability. There's even an attempt to strip the anguish from his expression, some automatic mask he slaps over his mouth.
He recognizes that voice and after a beat he surges against the bonds again. They hold fast. Turns out, Bruce's mother made a good point. An abundance of care may have spared Bruce another broken bone and Riku a smashed lantern.
"I know what I saw," Riku croaks. Disuse and panting at air gone dry and musty this far from the shore and this deep into autumn has put a layer of rust on his voice, "People would say anything to save their own skin."
The threat is explicit. He still blames him for his part in Riku's perceived failure to save that one last speck of light he had hoped for, had strived for. He's still... angry and frustrated, for all that exhaustion and grief have crushed its sharper edges into powder. The closer he gets, the more he becomes aware of that scent, the more certain Riku becomes.
It's crazy to think he hadn't identified his masked attacker sooner, but he'd been...
Distracted.
This instead feels like a betrayal, even if they hadn't been close. Because in Bruce he had thought he saw a kindred spirit. A heart that sought to use the light and dark for a better future, not just for himself but for everyone. Someone unafraid of the shadows, a protector of the weak.
Instead, he stopped him. Like Riku needed protecting when he was only trying to protect the one last thing that really mattered. And now he's still doing it. He hears Bruce say he'd like to keep him this way for a little longer, and Riku tosses his head, arches his spine. The cables don't give.
http://gph.is/XJI25L
The whole of Riku's frame tenses and goes still but that isn't the same as saying the fight has left him, cables still taut for the sustained strain of muscle against their manufactured reliability. There's even an attempt to strip the anguish from his expression, some automatic mask he slaps over his mouth.
He recognizes that voice and after a beat he surges against the bonds again. They hold fast. Turns out, Bruce's mother made a good point. An abundance of care may have spared Bruce another broken bone and Riku a smashed lantern.
"I know what I saw," Riku croaks. Disuse and panting at air gone dry and musty this far from the shore and this deep into autumn has put a layer of rust on his voice, "People would say anything to save their own skin."
The threat is explicit. He still blames him for his part in Riku's perceived failure to save that one last speck of light he had hoped for, had strived for. He's still... angry and frustrated, for all that exhaustion and grief have crushed its sharper edges into powder. The closer he gets, the more he becomes aware of that scent, the more certain Riku becomes.
It's crazy to think he hadn't identified his masked attacker sooner, but he'd been...
Distracted.
This instead feels like a betrayal, even if they hadn't been close. Because in Bruce he had thought he saw a kindred spirit. A heart that sought to use the light and dark for a better future, not just for himself but for everyone. Someone unafraid of the shadows, a protector of the weak.
Instead, he stopped him. Like Riku needed protecting when he was only trying to protect the one last thing that really mattered. And now he's still doing it. He hears Bruce say he'd like to keep him this way for a little longer, and Riku tosses his head, arches his spine. The cables don't give.
"LIAR!"