[RYSLIG] IC Inbox

[beatemall]

< BadMachine2004 > — normal handle
< KidArachnid > — used for hero work
< Sunflower > — anonymous posting

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Outer Limits Fallout

[dauvkind]

[The message is a simple note, torn from some other paper, left with Oscar (who nicely enough put it into an envelope) so he can give it to Miles, when the kid eventually searches for Sigrud and finds him moved out, days ago. His handwriting is erratic, full of the sharp edges of someone more used to knives than pens.]

Please just know it wasn't your fault.
Don't worry about me.

not-a-viking

[The last being his network handle, finally. A means to contact him when he otherwise doesn't want to be found, confronted.]

1/3 <P.B.P>

[heyunderoos]

Miles?

2/3 <P.B.P>

[heyunderoos]

[Twenty minutes later another message pops up.]

Miles, hey? Where are you? I'm kind of worried.

I haven't seen you in a while, so, yeah, hit me up?

3/3 <P.B.P>

[heyunderoos]

[A few hours later.]

Are you actually okay? Miles?

At least come back to A-Tower in a couple hours? Please?

[Action]

[beatemall]

[It's more than a couple hours before Miles returns home. By the time Miles gets to the second from the top floor of A-Tower, the sun has long set. He'd left early in the morning in an attempt to clear his head, but running into Shoyo only made things... Maybe not worse, but he feels more scrambled than ever. He'd spent the rest of the day wandering, processing the things he's experienced and the pain he shared... But it doesn't feel like any weight's been lifted from his shoulders.

His face hurts, especially around the sallow tissue surrounding his eyes, where his body desperately wanted to cry but could only really manage to bleed. The ichor that'd run down his cheeks has been wiped away for the most part, but still left behind dark, smudged streaks that not even the rain could wash away, despite how soaked he is. All the way through his jacket, his sweatshirt, his sweatpants. Miles doesn't even know how much a shower could help the cold that's seeped deep into his bones.

Miles also doesn't realize that Peter's been waiting for him, not until he flicks the lights on and gets a good jumpscare from a pooka in the dark. He gets some decent air, the way he nearly jumps out of his own skin at the sudden appearance—but then surprise ebbs and he's right back to looking sour in the only way a brooding teenager could.]

Don't sneak up on me, man.

[Miles grunts out before shoving his hands back into his pockets and trying to make an attempt for his room, clearly not in the mood to talk.]

[Action]

[heyunderoos]

[Normally, Peter would readily take the hint Miles doesn't want to talk. He usually tries to give Miles space.
Today, really isn't that day.

The pooka's ears flatten against his skull as he's immediately intercepting the lich's path, standing in his way. In their times together, Miles is likely more used to Peter's more anxious but easy personality, not a very puffed up pooka frowning up at him.

Since they got back from the backrooms, he's barely seen or talked with Miles at all. The lack of any response today hadn't made the pooka any less worried.]

Miles, what is going on-? I've been worried about you!

[beatemall]

[Miles pauses in his stride towards his room, shoulders hiked up to his ears as he's caught off guard by the sudden tone Peter takes with him. It startles him, reminds him too much of... Well, of what he's lost. And that? That angers him.]

I'm fine, aren't I?! [He snarls back, barely canting his head to address Peter from over his shoulder. He doesn't like it, this aqueously familial feeling.] It's not like I died again, or something! I was just taking a walk, got damn!

[He starts again, heading across the communal space and towards his bedroom door.]

[heyunderoos]

Obviously you aren't! [Peter answers back firmly, immediately trailing after Miles. This is probably the first time the older teen has taken this kind of tone with Miles at all. Peter has no idea what he's doing, beyond being worried about a friend.

Peter is shorter, and unfortunately quicker on his feet due to proximity to the ground.] What is going on with you?

[beatemall]

[Peter is fast, far faster than Miles could be even if he'd been running for his bedroom door. It seems Peter is intent on making this miserable for both of them, huh? Well, if he wants to know, he'll find out the hard way.

Miles stamps one sneakered foot down, wet rubber squeaking against concrete as he glares down at the pooka.]

Why do you care so god damn much?! [His lip curls, baring white bone against black and rotting gums.] You're not even my Peter, so stop acting like this shit is nothing more than convenient!

[heyunderoos]

[His ears pin back against his skull before he fluffs up somewhat. Pointing at Miles as he speaks. He's hurt by the lasing out, but doesn't leave.]

I don't have to be your Peter to care, Miles! [He tries to stand a little taller, but it doesn't completely work.] We're friends, Miles! I'm worried about you! I want to know what is going on! Trying to carry that weight by yourself doesn't help!

[beatemall]

[He bristles further, pulling back, shoulders squared. For a moment, he looks very near to throwing a punch—detached hands balling into seething fists at his sides—but he doesn't.]

You can't do anything, Peter! No one can! [Miles throws his arms from his sides, gesturing around them.] Is there someone who can make me wake up from this fucking nightmare place?! No! For fuck sakes, Pete— I died, I-I killed!

[And in an instant, all of the rage is gone. In an instant, the will to fight leaves him, and his shoulders round down.]

Spider-Man's a murderer, Peter.

[heyunderoos]

[The most reaction Peter seems to give at the threat of a punch is his ears flattening against his skull, but he doesn't move. He is steady, just waiting on Miles.

Peter is quiet as Miles finds his voice, his words softening the pooka's expression. The frustration he's carrying easing.]

Miles... [He reaches out to touch the other teenager's arm gently. He wishes he had something perfect to say, something that made everything better.

But things aren't that simple.

When are they ever that simple?] I'm sorry. [It feels hollow to say, worse than 'it gets better'.] I know that doesn't mean much of anything. I'm sorry all of this is happening, that you're stuck here.

Miles, we're all murderers here. We can't stop that, we can't pretend it's fine, or perfect, but we can't let it kill us either.

[beatemall]

[Anger shifts and gives way to something else. An indescribable pain underlying shock and disbelief.]

You're sorry? [Miles parrots, his tone incredulous, pitched higher as his hands come to his hand and catch in his dense curls.] So what you- you just accept it? That's it, huh??

[There's no escape. Not from Ryslig, not from hurting people, hurting his friends. He wants to cry so badly, his entire face scrunching up with a furrow brow and narrowed eyes, his lip quivering even—and still they won't come. What he could give to just be able to cry again.]

Can't you see how fucked up that is?! You're just giving up on, o-on helping people, then?!

[heyunderoos]

[Peter is calm, far calmer than Miles. The anger from earlier has snuffed out for now, softened back into worry. He is a steady stone against the current of grief sweeping Miles away.]

Miles. [His voice is gentle, even if his point is sharp. A reminder that the weight of survival is a noose around all of their necks.

He steps forward into Mile's space, shifting into a human shape to be about even with the younger teen.] I know it's fucked up. I'm exceedingly aware it is. That never stops being obvious, no matter how comfortable people get here.

Until we can actually stop the fog from twisting us into this, we need to help where we can. We need to be here for each other. We need to help as much as we can. Even if we can't- stop everything, we're still helping. We're still Spider-Man. We just need to redefine what it means to be Spider-Man. Even if it's not pretty, or perfect, or what we want.

[He hesitates, just reaching out to rest a hand against Mile's shoulder, brows pinching together.]

I was unhappy enough, I tried fighting the gods with an artifact I found. I studied it, I thought I knew what I was doing... It didn't work how I planned, I ended up hurting more people in the process.

<malinovka> - post sacrifice reset

[grivences]

[ The past two weeks have been... hellish, is probably the only word Robin can think of to describe it. Ryslig is already hell in a lot of ways, more so than even the Upside-Down, but the last two weeks have, to quote Spinal Tap, turned it up to eleven.

It's only one things have more or less stitched themselves back together that Robin thinks to take her laptop back out and check on the people she's been out of touch with since everything went sideways. ]

Payback time.
You checked in on me when I was dead, so here's me checking in on you.

Hoping to god you're not dead, though.





(Well. Any more dead than usual.)

<BadMachine2004> cw: obsessive compulsion

[beatemall]

[Hell is something Miles feels intimately familiar with by now—if it really was a place personally curated to make him miserable. The days that dragged into the first week after reviving felt more like years, really.

First it was his phylactery reappearing in his room, and then it was his flesh slowly reconstituting around it, like it were the bulb of some sprouting plant. Once he was whole again (or as whole as he ever will be), it spat up out of his rib cage in an almost comical fashion.

And then Miles laid there, in his bed, for days after. Staring at the too bald ceiling of his room, until he felt like the plainness staring back at him was driving him more mad than the few fitful hours of sleep he could force himself through.

So he left his apartment—to the store, to buy cans of spray paint—and obsessed for the next few days after that with filling his room with so much color it bordered on headache worthy. Faces he wishes he could see again, smiles he wanted to bask in. First it was his mom and dad, then it became Ganke, Hobie, Pav—Gwen.

Miles didn't even notice that the new mural painted while hovering inches from his horizontal canvas had kept him from sleep longer than the nightmares have been. And when he finished it, he turned to his sketchbook. Pages were filled with unrelenting fervor, portraits and scenes he could close his eyes and remember from home.

It isn't until a ding from his laptop breaks the spell that he even realizes how long it's been since, well... He's talked to anyone. Miles' fingers would be hurting from the strain were it not for deadened nerve-endings, but the thought it swiftly put aside to see who it is that could be messaging him—and swears that if it isn't worth it, he'll just go back to drawing.

But it is worth it, in the end.]

hey
not dead just been busy
think i just got sucked into one of those famous lich spirals

[Miles stops, glancing around his room that has turned into the studio of a manic artist in a matter of a week.]

shits been really sucking lately ngl
im not crazy for thinking about home non stop am i?

[grivences]

[ If you had caught Robin only a year ago, and brought her into Ryslig then, her coping mechanisms would have sent her spiraling in similar ways, albeit focused more towards consuming art rather than creating it. That Robin actually was here in Ryslig, during that weird week-that-wasn't where everyone was a different version of themselves for a while. Pre-Steve Robin, as she likes to think of that part of herself now, would cope with life turning to shit by giving herself a new project: a new language to learn, a new director to watch the entire filmography of, a difficult new piece to pick up on the trumpet.

But that is what pre-Steve Robin would've done. Post-Steve Robin copes differently. She seeks out connections, rather then pushes them away.

Thus, the message to Miles. ]

In a weird way, things sucking does remind me more of home, yeah.

[ But probably not in the way Miles means. ]

Do you need or want help un-spiraling yourself?
I'm here as a sounding board.
Bounce your mental tennis balls off of me instead of the walls of your room.

[beatemall]

[The connection does help.

Seeing that he isn't alone, that there's at least one other person on this peninsula that can understand how he's feeling, makes the suffocating weight that fills his emptied chest feel just a little bit lighter. Since regenerating, his lungs have reformed within his chest cavity, but even with the newfound space to breathe—he doesn't. The phantom sensation of air filling them is now more familiar than the once autonomous act itself.]

maybe i
i dont know how people here manage to not go crazy robin
dying and coming back isnt normal
and the more freaky things i experience here the more i just want to go back to the freaky stuff im used to

[He doesn't know how he's supposed to feel about the sacrifice, how he can even begin to really talk about those feelings—nor the feelings he continues to have.]

you know
i was expected to make a huge sacrifice back home and i refused and
it got me into a lot of trouble
like world-ending trouble
i lost a lot of people i cared about but it didnt matter if i could just stay true to myself and protect my family

now that im here none of that matters
the people i want to keep safe are in danger and so i just
had this thought
that maybe if i didnt follow my heart this time and just did what was expected of me things would turn out different

but it didnt
everything is the same as it was weeks ago but still somehow worse

[grivences]

So you did it.

[ She types, but backspaces. Seeing the words on her screen makes them feel a lot more accusatory than they felt in her head, and she can tell that's not what Miles needs right now.

So she backspaces, takes the time to think about what she actually wants to say, and starts over. ]

If any shady government people show up from my universe, you can't tell them any of this, because I signed an NDA, but I'm pretty sure the US government has no jurisdiction in nightmare fog world, so fuck it.

But back home, I tried to protect people, too. I won't tell you who, and I won't tell you how, because even if I'm okay breaking the NDA, I can't make that decision for anyone else involved.
But the point is, we tried to protect people.
We failed, and the world looks like it might be ending because of it.
I don't know if it will or not, because I'm here now, not there.
I can only hope that the people who are still there can stop it.

[ Nancy, Dustin, Eleven, the rest of them... Robin has to count on them to stop Vecna before he destroys more than just Hawkins. ]

When things started falling apart here... The only thing I could do was try to protect myself and the people around me. To try to succeed where I failed last time.

[ That's a large part of why she stuck with Max instead of trying to spread herself thin looking out for the rest of her friends. Back home, Vecna got Max because Robin, Steve, and Nancy couldn't kill him. She couldn't let Max down a second time. ]

I don't know what's "expected of me." I don't think I'm the kind of person anyone expects much of.
I just try to do what feels right at the time.
I think that's all we can do.

I do, though, want to state for the record that I think it's a little messed up for anyone to expect you to die to save them. Here or anywhere else.

[beatemall]

[Miles' knee-jerk reaction is to dismiss what Robin says with disbelief—because how often can multiple universes really be ending? But he knows the real reason his mind and body both want to reject it, without even really thinking about it but simply feeling it, is because it feels a little too much like his responsibility.

If the canon is messed up, it's not just a singular universe that can be destroyed, but all of them. The entire multiverse was thrust on his shoulders, a weight that's been crushing him for months now, one he's been holding fast to his chest—not even told to Peter—and now he's finally giving up to it. Better to be crushed and have it be over with, right?

Except that didn't happen. He came back, and the guilt and dread came back with him.]

i
im sorry robin

[Sorry that she had to know what that weight feels like, and sorry that she's stuck here, just like he is, helpless. Maybe that's why the urge suddenly comes over him, like two kindred spirits baring their souls to one another.]

no one should have to feel like this
it was me this time but before?
i was told i had to let my dad die and i
i couldnt do it

"you cant win them all" was something i learned early on when i lost my uncle
but i wasnt gonna let it happen again when i knew i had the power to stop it

i didn't care if stopping it from happening would unravel the universe
id rather cease to exist saving someone i love than to exist in a world where i let them down and let them die

but a hero cant do that
a hero has to save the majority not every one

[grivences]

[ It can hard for Robin to read tone, especially over text, but the sadness in Miles' words is practically radiating off the screen. And as much as she's sad that her friend is sad, the fact that he's been apparently forced into these circumstances to make him this sad just makes Robin angry. ]

I'm sorry you lost your uncle. And I'm sorry someone told you that you had to lose your dad.
I think you were right to try to save him.
Turning life saving into a complex mathematical equation to try to save a majority sounds to me like something only a maniac would try to do.
I think heroes are best when they try to save individual people, that's what makes us root for them as heroes.
There's a difference between "saving the majority" and saving as many people as you can.

And besides, you shouldn't have to be a hero. No one our age should.

[beatemall]

[It's funny—the short time in which he's known Robin is both shorter and longer than he's known some of the best friends he's ever had and yet... Did they ever say any of this to him?

When had Gwen, or Peter, told him they were sorry that his uncle was actually Prowler, and that he had to hold the second father he had in life while he took his last breaths.

And yet here she is, saying more, conveying more now even though she doesn't even understand the depth of it.]

thanks...
uncle aaron thought like that too
i think you wouldve liked him

i really really wanted to be like him
actually
it was while hangin with him that i got my powers by accident

which is to say im like
a real hero
or was
so while i agree normal teens shouldnt be a hero
if i have the power to save people im gonna
thats also just the right thing to do

[grivences]

Oh
OK

[ Weirdly, Miles is not the first person with superpowers Robin has met. He's not even the first teen with superpowers, nor the first teen with superpowers who's trying to use them to save the world, to do the right thing.

But Robin never really knew Eleven. They met in a whirlwind the night of the mall attack, and then as soon as Robin became aware of Eleven's existence, she was gone again to California. Robin would've liked to get to know her better, instead of the second hand synopsis she ended up getting from Steve and Dustin, but she never got the chance. ]

I definitely want to know more about you being a hero, and I'll probably annoy you with a million questions, but I do realize this is not the best time for me to be a nerd so I'll hold back for now.

[ When they're not both recovering from mass panic and group suicides, she is absolutely going to geek out. ]

I don't change anything I said.
I can totally see you being a hero, because you're a good person, and I've seen first hand you doing everything you could to try to save a life.

[ Her life. Keyword "try," but she's going to try not to pause too long on that, because the failure is not the important part here. ]

Even if I didn't know you were a hero back home, you were already my hero here. AND my friend.

I think... Whatever you thought was the right thing to do, probably was in that moment.
And now we just need to help each other find the right thing to do going forward from here.

<not-a-viking>

[dauvkind]

[He should've done this a lot earlier, Sigrud knows now. Talk about his problems, not run away from them, leave Miles with nothing but one note and no information where he was. If he was alright, though he still has a hard time believing that Miles cares, after what happened.

Given that Reira already chided him for letters being wrong for this, he searches the kid out on the Network this time.]

I'm here now, if you still want to talk. Or anywhere outside – I'll be there.

(OOC: Dated forward to November 2023)

[beatemall]

[Surprisingly, the sentiment isn't all that lost on Miles. Offhandedly, it reminds him of Ganke, when he came out as Spider-Man to him, and how sharing that secret only really deepened the friendship between them. Outside of Spider-society, Ganke was the only person who could even come close to understanding him, the only person who made him feel just a little less alone in the world.

And surprisingly, when faced with that realization, Miles finds that those feelings he holds for Ganke are similar to the ones he holds for Robin. She's the closest thing he has to a best friend here—aside from Peter, who really feels more like an older brother than anything.]

my friend ganke said the same thing when i told him back home lol
i wouldnt mind answering whatever questions you have but...yea
maybe after i stop feeling like shit?

[Which if slowly feeling like sooner than later, the longer this conversation goes on. Miles has already settled into bed, with his blankets tucked around him cozily, finding himself relaxing into comfort almost by accident.]

my dad would say im reckless
maybe its cause i was raised by a cop and a nurse
caring about people is just something my family does...did

[Seconds pass, Miles anxiously tapping his fingers against the flat face of his keyboard before finally deciding, fuck it, and typing out something that feels just a little embarrassing.]

thanks for always having my back robin
youre my best friend and youre always checking in on me damn
are YOU okay???
this convo feels a little one sided