[MASK OR MENACE] IC Contact

[stylistic_disloyalty]

"Funny enough I'm not going to lie here-- I definitely saw your call but I'm going to decide whether or not to respond based on how interesting the message is. I'd make it good. Maybe I'll change your contact to 'Yeah, This is Worth Answering'."


( Voice / Text / Action )

Comments

[beautiful_monster]

[ Yuri busies himself by opening a bag of cotton balls and getting a dish of clean, warm water to work on some of the clean up this is going to need. And then he freezes in surprise as what Lucifer is saying sinks in. ]

So you... You got truth serumed?

[stylistic_disloyalty]

I guess that's one way to put it. [Luci pauses and looks suspiciously at him.]

Oh no. Do not make me regret coming here, Yuri.

[beautiful_monster]

[ Yuri flashes a sharp, distinctly untrustworthy grin. ]

Tell me how great I am and maybe I'll consider it. And let me see that one on your arm.

[ There is still wound care to be done here. ]

[stylistic_disloyalty]

[Oh shit. That is an evil grin. Luci puts her face in one of her hands and groans.]

Oh come on Yuri, this is ludicrous. I said I can't lie, not that I'm a fountain of forced adoration.

[She presents her injured arm though. She does want to get these looked at, after all.]

[beautiful_monster]

I'll settle for how great you think I am.

[ In the meantime, he sets about getting the area cleaned with some water to check out the actual wound before going in with some disinfectant. ]

[stylistic_disloyalty]

I can't tell if your ego is inflated, or your self esteem needs work. [Luci bites her lip as Yuri cleans up the slash Keith put in her forearm-- it's not too deep, but it's not something that should be ignored either. Her eyes go between the wound and Yuri as she tries to figure out what to even say.]

...you know, when I was little I scraped both of my knees. My mum cleaned me up, and I was crying from the peroxide, and she told me that if I hadn't run so fast I wouldn't have put myself in that position. I tried to hide it every time I hurt myself after that.

[She winces and bites her lip as the disinfectant is applied, not a fan of the process.] You're far more abrasive than my mum is, and by all accounts I should have been less inclined to come here when I'm vulnerable from all sides. But all I could think about was what you said to me after the mess in De Chima-- You go to your friends. Anyone that cares about you. That's stuck with me, even if I'm still terrified you're going to end up like Amaterasu.

You're fun, Yuri, but ironically enough what I think is truly great about you is you've never let me get away with shit. And not because you think it's going to teach me a lesson... it feels like it's because you want me to be better.

[beautiful_monster]

[ >>Yuri asks for sincerity.

>>Yuri is woefully unprepared to actually receive sincerity. ]

[ He pauses in his work to stare for a moment while she's speaking, startled both at the idea that he managed to give good advice that someone actually listened to, and at the depth of what Lucifer is saying. This truth effect really isn't messing around, it seems. ]

I... [ The words fizzle out on his lips, and he turns back to the wound with a vague grumble. Time to looks busy picking out the right size of gauze padding to bandage this with. ]

I mean... It's not really wanting, you know. I know you can be better. And I know it's fucking hard to figure out how by yourself.

[stylistic_disloyalty]

[This truth effect isn't messing around. Luci is internally screaming and wishing she wasn't talking to Yuri about her mom of all things, but it feels like the harder she tries to lie, the words just come out faster and in greater numbers. Resisting is damning her.]

I didn't exactly have anybody to figure it out with until I got here. I'm not sure I ever thought I could be better. Being the devil means knowing you've lost, after all.

[She watches Yuri pick out gauze too, feeling like if she looked at him directly she'd say more than what's already coming up out of her.]

I hate it, but it's still the broken record I play all the time.

[beautiful_monster]

Are you sure? [ A beat, and then he adds quickly: ] That you didn't have anybody. I thought I didn't...for a long time.

[ It really hadn't been until...just a scarce week or two before arriving here that he'd realized how much he actually had in his team and coaches. It'd been so hard to see it all for so long. ]

[stylistic_disloyalty]

I had Hazel, I guess. Amaterasu. But she was so obsessed with the Pantheon that I doubt she would have ever told me anything except 'Luci sweetness, you're a star'... [One of the last things Hazel ever said to her. Talk about lies.] My parents weren't around enough to tell me to get my shit together, and when they were, it was about the stupidest things. The swearing, mostly. Like that was the biggest problem I had.

I tried, you know. Finding someone before my time was up was right under 'perform until they can't forget you'. Inanna was nice, they cared, and maybe if that hadn't imploded spectacularly they would have done something about my assholic tendencies. After them, I tried Sahkmet, since we were both kind of awful we could be awful together. She would not have given two shits if I set a baby animal orphanage on fire, she would have eaten me out on the ashes. [What a mistake that turned out to be. Remembering everything she and Sakhmet ever did together, post-breakout throwdown aside, makes Luci feel sick now that she knows how Hazel died. Somehow, she manages to scrunch up her face and hold that in, though. If she starts talking about Amaterasu, she may never stop.]

Maybe if I'd lived longer I would have had Laura. I wanted her, she wasn't willing to go along with my bullshit either, she tried so hard to save me when I was so intent on fucking myself. Nothing new.

I don't know what it is about being here, specifically, or if it's an imPort thing, but everyone is unnervingly willing to attach themselves to other people and care like there's nothing else to do. It was strange when Laura did it to me the first time, and now it's... [She trails off and replays what she just said. She can't really say that she's more connected to people because she's in a new place if the seeds had started to grow back in a cell in London. It was never about where she was, it was probably about the fact that she gave up too soon.]

Maybe it isn't different here. Maybe I just was so sure nobody gave a shit that I fulfilled my own prophecy. [She finally manages to look at Yuri.] Is that what happened to you?

[beautiful_monster]

[ Lucifer's story almost sounds familiar—surrounded by people who were just there, at the very edge of what she was looking for. The difference was she'd actually been trying to find that sense of acceptance; knew what it was she'd been looking for. Yuri, on the other hand, hadn't even realized friendship was something to look for until he looked up one day and realized it was already waiting for him.

He shrugs stiffly and moves on to the next wound, cleaning it a little more gently this time. The conversation feels too important to distract her with unnecessary pain. ]

Not exactly that... I never thought much about whether anyone gave a shit or not. I knew my grandpa loved me, so I didn't care about what anyone else thought. [ Except for judges. ] I had to make money for my family. I was...am the only one who can earn anything, so for a long time I just didn't think anything else mattered. The only thing I thought I needed was skating.