inbox

[pearlstrings]

bruce wayne @ᴡᴀʏɴᴇ @ʙʀᴜᴄᴇ audio & text

PLEASE NOTE: Bruce has two inboxes.

His official user id for the network is Bruce and if you meet in person, in the unlikely event he gave you his contact details, this is the ID he would give you.

That said, his conversations on the network have largely been under the id of Wayne, as a way to keep his two identities separated.
This is the username he uses most often and he will answer replies to that handle- there just seems to be no physical person on the registry to link it to.

Comments

ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

[evulsed]

[ Vanitas has never had stitches before, and they itch like crazy. He's already been admonished by both Riku and Bruce for reaching for what he can, but probably lucky for everyone involved they're on his back and not easily accessible. It's entirely probable that he might have pulled on them, half out of curiousity. Patience isn't exactly a virtue he has in excess, and the better he's been feeling the more the restlessness has begun to settle in.

There are stitches in his back and on his hamstring, the worst part of his thigh that had made his leg give out; all of them have to come out eventually. That's what Bruce said, anyway. Vanitas loiters just over the threshold of Bruce's work area, where Vanitas had first been laid out, when the stitches had been applied, watching the young man move around the space and collect his things. ]

Do you want me to lay down?

[pearlstrings]

[Vanitas has been asking for days now. Not in so many words, but Bruce knows that it isn't just a matter of discomfort- because he can tolerate all kinds of pain and annoyance. He's sure the lion's share of the trouble is that Vanitas is bored, and perhaps struggling with the limitations of a healing body. Has there been anyone in his life before not to encourage him to rest while he recovered? For the variety and severity of the scars that make up a patchwork on his skin- it's doubtful.

Riku's been worried, a quiet thing largely telegraphed by the line of his gaze and the way his eyes linger. And Vanitas has, perhaps against all odds, allowed them to worry. Allowed them to avoid touching and picking at them, listened to their advice to slow down and decrease his activity level. It's a strange new element to their dynamic and it extends even to the way Vanitas loiters just inside the door now. A different level of comfort between them.

Bruce looks back over his shoulder and finishes setting his supplies out, sets to rolling one sleeve and then the other carefully up to his elbow.]

That would be helpful. It might be too soon for all of them, but we can look.

[The chair eases back.]

How have you been feeling? Itchy?

[evulsed]

[ His eyes flick down to the gesture instead of staying on Bruce's face, the reveal of his wrists and then his forearms as he folds the fabric up into the hinges of his elbows. Bruce, despite his lean appearance, is strong. Though they've never had an all out brawl, they've play-battled enough for Vanitas to understand just how sharp-minded and powerful Bruce is without a lick of magic in him. He can see some of that in the flex of muscle in his arm as he turns his hand over to fold up his other sleeve.

Belatedly, his attention comes back up, and for a moment it seems like Vanitas needs to mentally catch up to the conversation, despite having been the one to initiate the discussion. ]

I said it was, didn't I?

[ Not today, before, but being contrary is second nature. It's still annoying to him that he had to wait it out instead of leaning in to Curaga or his own dark magic. Bruce had warned against it, because sealing the stitches into his body was a very real possibility.

He crosses over to the work bench regardless, but puts his hand under the hem of his shirt, pulling the soft black fabric up over his head, revealing swathes of pale, rugged skin on his way. Instead of folding the fabric, he tosses it at Bruce's chair before climbing one knee, then the other, up to lay down. There's a practiced motion to it, despite the fact before these last couple of weeks he'd never been tended to this way in his life. ]

[pearlstrings]

It's a good sign, because it means the skin is mending.

[Vanitas has been this way for as long as Bruce has known him- he seems to take a confrontational angle by nature. Experience has taught him to listen for nuance. Here and now, despite the irritation that rolls off of him, there's no venom in Vanitas's voice. He peels his shirt off instead, revealing more of the mangled, scarred skin underneath and not for the first time, Bruce looks at him and wonders how similar his own body will look once he's finished. How hard he's willing to push. The difference between a person who chooses this destiny and a person who has no choice.

Without any self-consciousness at all, Vanitas climbs up onto the bench, where Bruce had laid out a blanket sometimes earlier, and he waits until the other is settled. Until he's become still. He doesn't reach immediately for the small scissors and instead reaches for antiseptic; like everything else Bruce does, his intention is to look first and then decide. He draws the chair forward and sits, so near Vanitas's side that he can feel the warmth of his body, that when he speaks, his breath ghosts over him.

His voice is very quiet.]

You scared me.

[evulsed]

[ At the start of all of this, Vanitas' skittishness at being prone and vulnerable hadn't been something he could act on. His body had been so wrecked, so exhausted, that trying to protect himself had been all but out of the question and it forced him to tremble through the terror and let these boys look after him.

Now, it doesn't frighten him even half as much. As he stretches out on the blanket, a little flicker of anticipation runs up his spine, but it's more easily controlled and it doesn't show in his movements, in his face. He folds his hands under his cheek, and his face is turned away when Bruce addresses him quietly.

A heartbeat passes, and then Vanitas turns his cheek the other direction, so he can put both golden eyes on Bruce. The sentiment isn't exactly foreign to him, but the way Bruce says it... ]

I would've come back.

[ He says quietly, instead of I'm sorry, because those two words still feel foreign and wrong in his mouth. ]

[pearlstrings]

You know that isn't always the case.

[Bruce isn't scolding him. It's unfortunate, but he's had time to learn that the anger that so often surfaces after a close call like this is always born out of fear. It comes from affection, friendship- love. There will come a time when no matter what happens for Beacon, they will all be separated. Bruce hasn't made his peace with it yet, but he recognizes the looming inevitability for what it is. He tries to make his time here something meaningful- he tries to spend it by being kind, by being helpful, by doing the right thing. He isn't always successful.

Despite the careful turn of Vanitas's head and the weight of his inhuman, yellow eyes, Bruce doesn't look back at him. He looks instead at a largely healed line of skin, pink and pale.]

Cold.

[The nonsequitor is a word of warning, before he touches damp gauze to the row of stitches, sanitizing the area.] When I remove them you'll feel a strange tug, but it won't hurt.

[evulsed]

[ There are rules, and rules — no matter how chaotic Vanitas acts — are something he almost needs. A structure that dictates how he is meant to operate in the world, because he otherwise would have no idea how to conduct himself. When would he have had time to learn otherwise before this, when his only example had been a man leading him with an iron fist? ]

I made it back with my lantern. Maridel would have brought me back.

[ There is a quiet conviction in his voice as he carries on the conversation, ignoring the warning, verbally at least. When Bruce touches the gauze to his body it is cold, and his muscle twitch faintly under the contact, goosebumps shooting all up his spine. Bruce isn't watching him, but Vanitas still has his gaze trained on Bruce. ]

[pearlstrings]

[It's hard to know whether or not it's an argument, to know if either one of them would consider that this word fits the circumstances. Neither of them meet with corded tension or accusation. Perhaps that's worse. Vanitas says Maridel would have brought me back as if this is an unwritten rule of the universe, as if it's a child's understanding of the guidelines this world has to obey. He suspects that isn't far from the case.

Vanitas has spent the entirety of his life before now doing as he's been told. He'd been given duties to perform and expectations to meet.

Bruce's hands move and he reaches for the short scissors, cutting carefully through the stitches before setting them aside, reaching for the tweezers. He can feel Vanitas's gaze on him, and his own eyes slide to meet them.]

You didn't know you would make it back with your lantern.

26th, late night

[equinoctials]

This isn't as bad as it could be. Riku would know; he's lived through a greater share of difficulty than most people from his islands will ever see in a lifetime, he's known agony, he's been burned by fire and frozen with ice, he's been thunderstruck and stopped in time, he's had control over his own body torn from him, he's died on more than a single occasion. It's not even the first or last time he's been brought low by his injuries.

Very rarely has he ever been this sick outside of being the target of a Poison spell, his thoughts swimming through the surreal landscape of what only vaguely resembles reality. He can't tell if the thing that snapped him awake, sweating in the tangles of his bedsheets, was a dream or a memory. When he clumsily claws his way out of bed, his head begins to pound enough to make his molars throb in his jaw.

Riku aims for his lantern and catches it on the second try.

He's gripped by a paranoia that, somehow, he hadn't been dreaming that there had been green eyes glowing in the Museum's dark hallways, that their too-long limbs were dragging the unconscious bodies of his friends from their beds. He has to see for himself, he has to know they're alright. The smell of Vanitas's Darkness is still too strong for him to be anywhere else but inside this building, so he looks for Bruce, finds an empty bed and instead unsteadily takes the stairs, clutching the rail.

"Bruce!"

It's not even a shout, it's a croak, his insides feel tremulous and aching, like that one time he drank too much with Quentin and discovered just how bad a hangover can get. He finds the kitchen empty, the scent of something recently cooked makes his stomach cramp.

His study. Maybe he's there--

[pearlstrings]

It will be a long road. Wounds heal because the passage of time is a merciless thing- even here, in a place where life and death are mutable, where there are nights without days, time still marches forward. He'd gone to that medical center for everyone, but there are three people he wouldn't have left without. He isn't naive enough to deny his own selfishness. He's had months, after all, to come to terms with it. But what that road will be- how they're going to come back and what shape they'll take, that part is still a mystery. They need different things, Jason and Riku and Vanitas. Some more space than others. Some more silence. But Bruce remembers what it's like to be a hostage, what it's like to be horrified by himself, repulsed by his own capacity, terrified of what he was capable of.

He thinks that more than anything, they all want to feel safe.
And after the abductions, maybe they won't feel safe ever again.

So he starts a patrol. They sleep in fits and starts, at odd hours- so Bruce takes to medicating their food and drinks. To encourage their bodies to find sluggish rest and space to recover. He cooks vegetarian meals and spends the first night showing them the small alarms he's rigged throughout the museums- colored thread that will move if a door is opened, a quiet chime in the furthest rooms if a floorboard is pressed on. He secures the windows infront of them, pulls curtains down. And at night he walks- he moves from room to room, methodically pacing the museum and its grounds.

He's downstairs when he first knows something is off. When he hears the beam above him groan and his head turns towards it- watchful, alert. Bruce? It doesn't quite sound like a question, it barely sounds like a shout, but Bruce rounds the corner and comes through the hall at a jog- only to find Riku in the liminal space between kitchen and study.

"-Riku? What's the matter?"

[equinoctials]

For his part, Riku has handled the days following their rescue with stoicism. Although withdrawn, his eyes had an alertness that only dulled when he ate the last meal of the day and returned after an hour or two when he woke the next day. He's taken to checking Bruce's alarms and traps himself everyday, to checking all the possible points of entry in the building he can identify.

Until he started getting sick, like the awful stink of what they were forced to eat in that horrible place had settled into his pores, into his sinuses. Every part of him rebelled. Unable to bear the smell of food, he instead went to bed rather than have dinner with the other two. Perhaps it's why he dreamt at all.

His eyes have just recently taken on a strange greenish gleam in the dark. It does even now, for that second before he swings up his lantern to look.

His pale skin looks damp, the intensity of his stare is fevered, too bright.

Twice, Riku blinks, like he's making sure he isn't just imagining Bruce has materialized like the granting of a wish. He lurches forward one step, then another, reaching for him without the usual hesitation, the typical curl of his outstretched hand into a fist of restraint.

"They didn't take you."

[pearlstrings]

He can't quite call Riku withdrawn anymore. Yes, he tends to keep things close to the chest, but there's an element to his facade that lowers these days. When they're together. There's an argument to be made that time and space allow relationships to evolve and to grow. Bruce would like to believe it, but cynicism finds the fear in Riku's face instead- it sees his sweat damp skin and the way his shirt clings to him, it sees the intensity in his eyes.

"No," He says, cutting through the space easily, as if it never existed in the first place. Riku reaches for him, so Bruce lets himself be touched. He reaches back in turn, one hand coming to rest on the slope of his side as the other catches his forearm, draws him near. This is an experience he knows well- when words just aren't enough. "I'm at home, with you."

One hand lifts, and Bruce touches the back of it to Riku's forehead, feels for his temperature.

[equinoctials]

His touch lands on Bruce's shoulder and even if his insides feel trembly and weak, his grip is desperate and reckless - perhaps if he were less delirious he'd be aware of where Bruce has been injured and the extent of those wounds, that he'd be more careful. Riku's lantern knocks loudly against the floor when it drops from his grip at his side, wobbling on its feet and throwing light wildly up at one side of the both of them, across the floor.

Where Bruce's hand meets Riku's forehead, his skin burns with fever; in contrast, Bruce's feels impossibly cool. Riku's now empty hand clasps it to his brow, his eyes closing at the too-brief respite.

They're home. He's here. Vanitas is resting.

Even when his fever unravels his thoughts and all around him, the world swirls with dark uncertainty, there's some distilled moment of safety. A calm in the center of the storm. This place, this home, how many times has it proven itself a reliable refuge because of those in it? A place where it doesn't matter how many times they've been broken, they can put together the pieces and grow stronger.

"I can't," exhales Riku, a fragment of a thought.

[pearlstrings]

That could mean anything.

Riku's eyes are wild and bright with fever, and he looks carried forward by uncharacteristic recklessness. Every inch of him seems to be trembling and the sound of his lantern clattering across the floor startles Bruce enough that his eyes go to it immediately- face cloudy with worry. He's still looking, when Riku leans into his touch. To turn back and see his closed eyes, to see him holding onto Bruce's touch like a stone in a river, tightens something in his stomach.

"It's alright."

His skin is burning and for another moment Bruce lets himself linger- lets him enjoy the cooling sensation while he can. They should get back upstairs. He can get Riku to bed and try to manage his fever. Keep him hydrated, soak a few cloths to rest over his eyes.

"Come back to bed with me. I'll get your lantern."

[equinoctials]

He opens his eyes again, blinking quickly before his eyes search the area. For a moment, he wasn't here, in this liminal space on the edge of their kitchen. With his eyes open again, Riku feels unmoored by the dissonance between what he felt and what he sees until they land on Bruce.

If, in the brief time it takes for him to find his footing again, Bruce has made any move towards his lantern, Riku will reach for his wrist to intercept, to try to catch his gaze when he shakes his head.

"How can it be alright," he insists, like he's misunderstood Bruce's reassurance, hearing the words in some other context. Maybe Riku has confused his unspoken thoughts for a conversation that took place, continuing on, "If I lost you, too?"

But he hasn't. Bruce is still here. Vanitas is here, which means they're safe. He says to come back to bed, that he'll get his lantern, and alongside a sense of gratitude for his companionship, Riku is frustrated by the need for help to begin with. He used to think he had become strong enough to protect the people who were most important to him--

"I can't," he says again, firmly. He can't lose him, "I had to make sure."

[pearlstrings]

He half moves towards it, body turned towards the dropped lantern- but he isn't able to get that far. Riku reaches for his wrist and even hot with fever like this, damp with sweat, Bruce is aware of the strength coiled inside his body. The reply he offers how can it be alright sounds reasonable in and of itself, but then, it also sounds like half of some other conversation. He looks both in and out, here and rooted in this moment, but somewhere else too. Bruce's gaze tracks back and forth over his face, to the bruises under his eyes and his bedmussed hair and he knows he isn't the only person in Beacon that's had to bury someone. But he wonders if Riku's ghosts are in the ground at all. If they walk with him all the time instead, just out of reach. Along the margins of everything he does here.

"Riku," it's soft, the way his mother's voice used to be. The way she sounded when he'd stir in the night and she'd tuck him beneath the blankets, the way she would say his name and push his hair back from his face as they looked at his skinned knees. "I know." Know why he had to check. Know that he's worried and ashamed and afraid and frustrated. Know that things are- mixed up.

Bruce reaches for his face with both hands, cradles his jaw with cool, dry palms.
"I know. It's why I'm coming with you."

30/31st

[evulsed]

[ It takes him time to realize that something is wrong. It's a handful of reasons: because he'd returned in a horrible state. Becuase with all those memories and feelings rattling around his head, and he'd been wholly distracted. Because not days after being back, he'd gotten so sick that most of the week became a haze.

But he's better now. Better enough to recognize why he was sleeping so heavy. Why waking up was like pulling himself, fist over fist, out of a swamp. Out of deep water, his clothes heavy, his mind slow.

Vanitas doesn't know how he's done it. Bruce doesn't have magic, but he has other things at his disposal. Things that make him smart, and dangerous. Things that Vanitas usually admires in him. But he's furious, and maybe it shows before Vanitas has even walked into the room. It's in a tangible weight as he stalks down the hall. It's in the agitated way the Unversed twitch and shiver, but don't run: like they're anticipating instructions.

He doesn't bark at Bruce, there's no snap to get his attention. Instead, Vanitas storms right up to him and shoves him, hard, with one hand against his shoulder. His eyes are bright and fierce in the torchlight. ]

What did you do to me?

[pearlstrings]

[He can only mean one thing. Boundaries have been a work in progress for Vanitas- something he needed to learn not just for the sake of respecting someone else, but to cultivate for himself. Riku and Vanitas both required rest, especially after the events of the last few days. It wasn't just the body that was taxed, it had been the mind as well- and truth be told this isn't an unfamiliar practice. He'd done the same with Riku when they'd barely known one another, when he'd carried him to the museum after the hallucinations reached a zenith. Vanitas is used to pain and discomfort; they're as familiar as the sense of holding air in his lungs. He had tried to wait it out- but the days continued to pass and Vanitas's huge yellow eyes would loom in the dark. Watchful and wary.

Bruce is in one of the adjacent rooms when he comes. He doesn't wander far these days, between illness and confusion and nightmares, he stays close enough that they can call for him- that his head lifts when he hears footsteps down the hall. Instead he practices here, uses high beams for pull ups, dangles from the ceiling by his knees and curls his body up until he's damp with sweat. He does push ups and skips rope and stretches. He's paused for water when the shove comes, powerful enough to adjust his stance, to move him backwards.

Training tells him that what he can't block he should surrender to. So Bruce follows the momentum and lets it carry him back a step. His weight pivots, to turn and look.]

I made you sleep.

[evulsed]

[ Bruce, of course, gives him a straight answer. He's been direct with Vanitas as long as he's known him, and while maybe it's only been a few months, it's been long enough to fundamentally alter his perspective of the world. Maybe if had been someone from his own universe, the effects wouldn't have been the same. His violent rejection of any kind of pity, of the desire of the light to make him change his ways, has permanently skewed his vision of what they want from him.

Bruce never did that to him.

Vanitas looks a few steps away from throwing a fist into his face. It's in the bunching of muscle in his shoulder, even under his black shirt. It's in the clenching of his fists at his sides. He's so angry— and he's used to that feeling of rage— but he can't recall ever being this cross with this person. Someone, that to his eyes, had never lied to him. ]

I didn't ask for your help sleeping, Bruce! You knocked me out!

[pearlstrings]

[It's the first time he's been subject to this particular shift of Vanitas's demeanor. His moods have always been tumultuous but that wasn't foreign or strange- not when he sheds his emotions like leaves from a tree. The unversed take different shapes in different moments, their behavior varies; they are physical manifestations of the things he can't put words to. But anger is easy to recognize in a body.

Vanitas carries his now in the baring of his teeth, the tension that coils in his arms and presents a very real threat of violence. It's in the widening of his stance and the narrowing of his eyes.

Bruce turns to face him entirely, sweat damp and ruffled and flushed with exertion, but he doesn't lift his own hands in turn. He watches, remains as still as he always had.] You wouldn't have asked. It doesn't change that you needed it.

[evulsed]

I know what I need.

[ He snarls, taking a half step closer, like just by presence alone he might be able to make Bruce move. It's certainly an intimidating tactic, one he's used in the past and normally effectively. Even if his opponent doesn't back down, they'll tense up. Bruce goes still, but not in the way a deer does when it spots danger. ]

[pearlstrings]

Then why didn't you?

[There's no accusation in the reply, and it's hard to know if it's deliberate. Bruce has learned to be very aware of his surroundings, to keep one finger on the pulse of the people around him. Vanitas is a small hurricane in and of himself and the rage rolls off of him, a single lean, wordless threat.

Bruce's gaze tracks back and forth across his face.]

Why didn't you sleep, Vanitas?

[evulsed]

That doesn't matter!

[ And it doesn't, not to him. Vanitas doesn't sleep on the same schedule as everyone else. Maybe he doesn't need it the same way the others do, even though he's just as susceptible as anyone else. Darkness is close to sleep, is close to death. There are days Vanitas doesn't even sleep so much as sit, his eyes heavy and staring off into space for hours in a dissociative, meditative sort of state.

He knows he couldn't sleep because he was hyper vigilant. Because the idea of being caught unawares, of being snuck up on and attacked, permeated into every lesson he'd ever been taught about being a weapon. He didn't pace like a trapped tiger like Riku did. He didn't even jump at shadows— but the vibrating intensity in him just wouldn't let him close his eyes to rest.

Bruce is probably right. Especially as he got sick— he did need the sleep. But that was besides the point. ]

You don't get to decide for me!

[pearlstrings]

It does matter.

[This is the line Bruce draws. He's well aware of the double standard he creates for himself, of the permission he gives to others and not to himself. To the inverse. He's able to accept shortcomings in everyone but himself, of whom he demands perfection. He expects honesty from the people around him but admits that he's taught himself how to lie. But this much, he thinks, he's been forthcoming about from the start. He's never hidden his darkness from Vanitas. Bruce knows that he's a selfish man and he knows that this thing inside of him, the person he really is, isn't something he can outrun. It isn't something he wants to outrun.

It's the force that compels Vanitas to bear his teeth and make two fists at his sides.
And it's what compelled Bruce to drug his chocolates and tamper with Riku's food.

They've had this conversation before, in quiet spaces.
Seeing you hurt. It's painful for me.]

You wouldn't have recovered without it.
And I accept your anger as a consequence of that.

Passed on by a Night Merchant Vendor

[desypharing]

[ A rolled up parchment, sealed with wax. Old-school? Sure. No markings on it, and as to the sender? 'Your friend', the vendor says with a shrug. The scroll reads as follows: ]

Dear Bruce,

surprise!

Did you think I would just disappear beneath the waters and not keep needling you with a frienship you just can't refuse? Oh how dearly I miss our conversations.

I wish I could have come to see you as the Night Market visits, but my work keeps me quite occupied, and alas, I am not the only person seeking to see some new faces.

As much as we all get along just fine, sometimes you do just tire of the same old faces, don't you? Do you feel the same about your companions in the dark, or are all their faces a constant source of comfort, like small beacons of delight and hope scattered throughout the dark?*

I hope those of my companions who have made their way to the market with Pluto this time will treat you well. If not I'll be very vexed with them. As you can imagine I'm not a woman whose ire one wishes to draw. I might be petty enough to burn an eyebrow off, and I swear I can manage not to burn the place down while doing so, Pluto, thank you very much**.

Where was I?

Sometimes I wonder if I'm doing letters wrong. Am I supposed to plan these out better? Maybe next time I'll try to write a draft and revise it and pass along a finished product, polished and all that. It's entirely possible that the twists and turns of my mind are only fascinating to myself and quite dull to read along with. It's a little like getting lost in a library and pulling out random books. Oh, I miss libraries. Proper ones - the old ones, with books full of brittle parchment, where you have to be careful not to damage the paper. Books that are full of old knowledge. Oh, you should have seen the Belmont archives - that is Belmont as in Trevor Belmont, I do believe I told you about that oaf of a man***. Also, I once teleported a castle and I made it land right on topo the archives. An impressive feat, if I do say so myself - but admittedly not tactically sound in hindsight. Of course, it was all to defeat the great evil living in that castle...

I do hope the boys managed when I didn't.

Anyway. More cheerful topics, we already deal with so much darkness and gloom. Have I told you about the time Trevor meant to whip a night creature, and got the whip hopelessly entangled in the branches of a tree? Ah, I had to take a break in writing this to laugh for a moment.

As for us, I know the written word can hardly replace the presence of a good friend - and obviously, that is what we are, and the one upside of not meeting in person is denying you the ability to claim otherwise. Please imagine a smiling face here. Some of the other people say you can put smiles onto messages, but I'm not sure how. Perhaps I shall just draw you something.

[ There is a small drawing next to these words. ]

So I hope this letter finds you well, and happy as can be. I miss you dearly, my good friend, and hope that the eternal gloom has not whittled your heart down.

I find myself sitting here with a mug full of hot chocolate, and when I know Pluto and the others have docked, I'll make another one and raise it in the direction of Beacon. Go on, take a break reading this, make yourself some hot chocolate, and toaste in the direction of the lake. Go on, I'll wait. You better do it, Bruce, I will know if you don't.****

There you go. This is our tradition now, yes?

Yes.

And with that I'll let you go to enjoy your drink.

I'll write to you again soon.

Keep making some good memories until then!

Sincerely,

your dear friend*****

Sypha Belnades

*Some faces I miss: Trevor and Alucard and you

**You mildly damage the station one time...

***Should you ever meet him, don't tell him I called him an oaf. But do tell him I don't appreciate him ending up here. And then find a way to alert me, so that I can complain to him directly.

****While amazing and powerful, the writer of this message might be overselling her magical powers ever so slightly

*****Miss you, Bruce!