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Richard wasn’t surprised Ignacio was already awake. He’d known, somehow, as he came back into the room. Even though Ignacio had been still, quiet, with even breathing, Richard had sensed something different in the atmosphere of their bedroom, and he had known that Ignacio was awake. So, he’d stood there, knowing Ignacio had heard him, waiting patiently for an answer. Patiently, because even though he drummed his fingers against his leg and—yes—tapped his foot a bit, he was prepared to stand there for as long as it took.

He’d seen through Ignacio’s words, and now both he and Ignacio knew it.

It was also why, when Ignacio tried to play ignorant, asked him what he was talking about, Richard’s posture didn’t change. Nor did his facial expression, which was unusually neutral for a typically very expressive person. He was not angry, precisely. He was something else. Tired, mainly. Tired of beating around the bush. Tired of Ignacio hiding, hiding something that Richard had the sickening, gut-twisting feeling was dangerous.

Then, Richard moved, sitting—but not lying—back down on the bed. He didn’t want to fight about this. He didn’t want to fight at all. The first step to that was to not loom over Ignacio. And so he sat on the edge of the bed, folding one leg under him and turning his body to look at Ignacio.

“When you said you were trying to save my life. When you came home bloody. What did you mean?”

Compulsively, his fingers on one hand ran over the forearm of the other, pressing lightly into the bruises. The twinges and jolts of pain reassured him they were there, that no, he was not imagining things. He winced, flinching a bit as he accidentally pressed on a particularly sensitive one. Richard wondered how long it would take for the bruises to fade to a point where he wouldn't get concerned looks from students and parents, or if he'd have to figure out stage makeup and cover them, himself.

He would have to remember to take ibuprofen to make sure the aches didn't make him give himself away anyway.

“Please don't try to convince me you don’t know what I'm talking about. It's not going to work." His voice was softer, here, a note of hurt when acknowledging how easily he had gone along with it before when told everything was fine. Richard knew he hadn't wholly believed it, then, more that whatever it was was serious to Ignacio and Ignacio honestly felt he couldn't tell Richard. And it wasn't that Richard had changed his mind about that.

He still trusted Ignacio.

Perhaps it was the fact that he trusted Ignacio that made Richard turn his head to look at Ignacio's face, to meet his eyes, to refuse to look away. Either way, Richard knew that he wouldn't be so easily dissuaded, this time. He'd been attacked by a monster and his pet squid. He had woken up in the park. He was missing time, not remembering the trip home even if he did vaguely remember Ignacio driving up onto the pedestrian walkway, well away from the public and maintenance access vehicle paths, to get him.

Richard's face was still unusually expressionless as he waited for Ignacio's reply. He tried to focus on not letting his thoughts show on his face, something he was typically very bad at hiding. He tried not to think about the fact that Ignacio had lied to him, was still trying to lie to him. He tried not to think about the hard knot in his gut, a mix of confusion, anger, and fear. The fear was not only for himself, where he couldn't convince himself that they hadn't been followed, that the monster wasn't coming to finish the job.

If Ignacio's wish had ever been for Richard to be less adamant about going on runs at night by himself, then perhaps he had finally gotten that wish.

The fear was also for Ignacio, for the memory of seeing Ignacio coming in the front door and leaving a distinct smudge on the door that Richard had had to clean off, later. It was for the memory of the note of desperation in Ignacio's voice when he had begged Richard in not as many words not to keep prying, to just accept the excuse and go. Richard didn't know what the puzzle was, but he knew he was slowly putting its pieces together.

Another, softer still, “please.”

The weakness in Ignacio’s voice nearly broke Richard’s resolve. Yes, he was hurt, and not just in the physical sense, shown by the bruises snaking their way up his arms. He knew there was something Ignacio was having to deal with, something that made him come home tired, bloody, evasive. He knew Ignacio was being haunted by something, something that he refused to tell Richard about. There was something dangerous that Ignacio was involved in, and he was trying to deal with that burden alone.

Richard didn’t know what it was, but he knew he was going to find out, one way or another.

Stay away? Wild horses and orange squid monsters couldn’t make Richard stay away. Not if Ignacio was in danger. Especially not if he was in danger because he was trying to protect Richard. Especially not if protecting Richard meant that, one day, he came home worse than bloody. Especially not if one day he didn’t come home at all.

Richard, indeed, wasn’t stupid. He remembered the boy-monster telling the squid-monster to stand down, to back off.

‘You haven’t earned it.’

It had indeed occurred to him that he was lucky to have escaped with what damage he’d sustained. He didn’t know what was going on, but he did remember the sensation all feeling and sense of vitality being leeched out of him. He also, intuitively, assumed that Ignacio knew something about it. It was too much of a coincidence, otherwise, and it wasn’t like Ignacio to do something like driving his car onto pedestrian paths just to get to Richard. Something had scared him. Why would he be that scared if he didn’t have a reason to be? And if he had a reason to be, if that was the sort of thing he was trying to protect Richard from...

What had Ignacio dealt with that would give him that kind of knowledge?

As much as it hurt to hear Ignacio sound so small, so desperate, so vulnerable that the last thing on Earth Richard wanted to do was make it worse, hurt him more... This was important. This was important. Ignacio might be trying to protect him, but from what? And who was protecting Ignacio? And if Ignacio was out there, risking his life to protect Richard... Richard felt he had the right to know what it was about, what it was over. He didn't like the idea of Ignacio going out and putting himself in danger and Richard never even having any kind of idea about it.

Who was protecting Ignacio? Who was helping him out there? Was anybody? Or was he doing that all alone, too? Richard had never asked Ignacio to do that for him, but didn't know how to convey that in a way that wouldn't sound like he was rejecting it, rejecting Ignacio. Because it wasn't that. It wasn't that he was angry at Ignacio, either, not like that.

He was scared.

Richard could tell Ignacio was, too. It was why he wanted to be careful, to watch what he said. Ignacio was scared, and Richard was--this time--somehow at the center of it. That was exactly where he didn't want to be, and not only because it apparently meant being attacked by a day-glo squid and its diminutive dictator. Well, maybe he could start there.

"It wasn't me staying away that was the problem." His voice was quiet, but firm. "I at least want to be able to name what attacked me." Richard looked down at the bruises on his forearms. "And I want to understand what danger you're putting yourself in to try and prevent it."

Richard wanted to go to him. Already seated as he was on the edge of their bed, Richard wanted to reach out to Ignacio. He wanted to reach out and gather him closer, reassure him. Reassure himself. He could see the old ghost of panic in the way Ignacio hid. At the same time, he knew that there was a chance that Ignacio's anxiety and panic would make him lash out if Richard got too close, moved too quickly... He'd gotten smacked once or twice, in the very beginning, making that mistake.

He never blamed Ignacio for it, but he knew Ignacio would blame himself.

It was why he didn't reach out, didn't gather Ignacio closer or lean closer to Ignacio. It was why he did softly murmur Ignacio's name, did at least turn more toward Ignacio when he saw his chest rising and falling much too quickly. The wheeze in Ignacio's lungs, the loss of colour in his skin... It had taken more than he'd admit to keep from breaking his resolve. Pulling the blankets up higher did hide Ignacio's face from Richard, that was true, but Richard didn't need to see his face. He could tell Ignacio had only a tenuous grip on not having a panic attack.

He jumped, a bit, when Ignacio threw the blankets off of himself. Richard watched Ignacio get up and go to the dresser and fish out the fidget toy. He was relieved, admittedly, that Ignacio was up and moving around. That was something. It was something that showed Ignacio was trying, and maybe even succeeding, at fending off the anxiety written in the lines of his face and his body. Richard didn't want to do anything to interrupt that. He didn't want to hurt Ignacio more than he already was.

He jumped again when Ignacio started speaking.

The strain in Ignacio's voice also almost broke Richard's resolve. When Ignacio said he was used to danger, the part of Richard whose heart hadn't contracted painfully wanted to insist, 'see, I knew it!''. Used to danger meant that Ignacio was regularly in danger, regularly at risk, regularly out there, getting hurt, maybe getting killed. His breathing hitched, at that, and Richard tried very hard not to think about it. He tried very hard to keep anything showing on his face, to keep from interrupting Ignacio now that he was finally talking. His legs ached with tension he didn't realise they were holding, Richard resisting the urge to get up. He didn't need to be looming over Ignacio, which Richard would surely be doing even standing...

Not in the danger Richard thought he was, and Richard himself would be in? In another situation, maybe Ignacio's evasiveness, his lack of detail, would be irritating to Richard. None of this was specific enough to allay Richard's concerns. If anything, the vagueness of it all made his fears worse. How bad was it that Ignacio couldn't just name it?

'Sometimes I wish you'd leave.' That made Richard's breathing audibly catch, settling something cold and hard in the pit of his stomach. It was another heartbeat or two before he was able to even think of a response, yet another before he could put it into words, actively mentally arguing with his own knee-jerk reaction. But two things stuck out to him. One, Ignacio had not said 'I'd leave'. That meant that the first thing that had come to Richard's mind was, though perhaps logical given he had no context for anything else, not likely to be what Ignacio had meant. Two, Ignacio had not said 'we'd leave'. That meant Ignacio intended to stay to fight whatever it was, for better or worse, even if Richard were to go somewhere else.

Richard had no intention of going somewhere else.

"I'm not going to go anywhere." He inhaled, held it, exhaled. "All I'm asking for is information."

Richard supposed that it would come to that at some point. He would eventually have to tell Ignacio what had happened and why he'd ended up waking up slumped over a park bench at, like, six in the morning. But he didn't want it to come to that, yet. He wanted his answers, first. Maybe if he had context, he'd know how to explain it to Ignacio in a way that wouldn't make him sound like he'd lost his mind. Richard sighed.

"Answer my question first, please. Then I'll tell you." His voice was, again, soft but firm. It was hard to ignore the way Ignacio's breathing changed and the way he repeated "information" over and over. Like if he said it enough times, it would lose meaning and he would be able to avoid answering Richard's questioning. Richard wasn't going to be that easily dissuaded. That being said, he stayed quiet, waiting, letting Ignacio work on getting his breathing back into rhythm. "Hell, maybe I'll have the words to explain it to you."

There was something almost... frustrated in Richard's tone at that.

He really didn't know what was going on. There was a lot of "happening" but not a lot of "explaining", and that was perhaps the part that was the most frustrating to him. He was having to beat around the bush and persist to try and get answers. All he wanted was to know what it was that Ignacio was apparently up against, because if what had happened to Richard could happen to Ignacio... In fact, Richard was pretty sure it had, or at least to some extent. Why else would Ignacio be acting like this? It wasn't like him to be evasive. But this was important to Richard, and he was going to insist. If he knew what had happened, then maybe he could prevent it from happening again. Then he wouldn't have to think about the way Ignacio's voice had sounded saying his name when he found him in the park, or the looks he'd given Richard when driving him back home.

If someone had told him 48 hours previously that he was going to be attacked by Squidbilly the Kid, then left--probably for dead--in a park, passed out and everything, Richard wouldn't have believed them even with as gullible as he knew he could sometimes be. There would have been no reason to believe them. Richard still didn't quite believe all of it, only knew it had happened because of what his memories told him about the bruises on his arms. Not to mention the residual urge to cough...

"I promise."

“You said you were trying to save my life, first,” Richard reminded him. “Before any of...” he gestured to himself, to his arms. Ignacio had to have had context for that, after all. He shouldn’t need extra details from Richard to explain himself further. Richard wanted to start with that.

To some degree, the evenness of Ignacio’s voice worried him as much as the stuttering had. Ignacio wasn’t hiding anymore, but his agitated pacing was making Richard restless in turn. It also told Richard that he was on the right track. It wasn’t a track he wanted to be on, but if something was going on, then Richard wanted to know about it.

He didn’t want to start with what had happened the previous night. Part of it was still new, almost too new. Richard didn’t want to start with relaying events that frankly made him sound questionable. He pressed lightly on his bruising again. The pain made him flinch slightly, inhale a bit more sharply, but it reassured him again that he hadn’t imagined it or hit his head somehow.

But he was already making Ignacio pace around the room like he wanted to be literally anywhere else. He was already causing Ignacio’s voice to waver and crack. He’d already caused Ignacio enough panic that he’d driven his car up onto pedestrian walkways. Was it fair of Richard to be this stubborn about it?

Richard took a deep breath, held, released it.

“Can we start with that? What are you trying to save my life from?” A pause. “What made you come home with blood on you?”

Chaos? What did that mean? Saving him from chaos? Richard took a second to mull over Ignacio's words. He got the feeling there was more to that than what was on the surface. Especially when Ignacio said he'd already failed. That gave Richard the distinct impression that Ignacio wasn't talking about chaos as an abstract concept. He was treating it more like an actual entity.

"Chaos, huh?" Richard shook his head. "What does that mean?" Was Chaos an actual entity rather than an amorphous one? And if it was, what did that actually mean? Squid boy was part of "Chaos"? Was Chaos a hivemind, or a leader? Or a general unifying theme?

Richard brought his thoughts back to the matter at hand before they could run off down a rabbit hole. Ignacio was pacing a hole in the floor. He was pale, anxious. Richard sighed, just a little, wanting again to reach out to him and not knowing if that would actually help or make things worse. Shifting toward the headboard, leaving room next to him on the mattress right at the edge of the bed, was his compromise, his way of inviting Ignacio to sit with him without actually voicing it. The rattled sigh that Ignacio gave made Richard's heart hurt. He wanted so badly to be able to chase away whatever it was that was bothering Ignacio so badly.

Somehow, he knew he was out of his depth on this one.

Ignacio deep, rattled breath almost had Richard on his feet. He even put them on the ground in preparation to stand up. The though that Ignacio might not want him close was what kept him on the bed, even as he reflexively glanced to the open spot beside him on the mattress. Failed? How could Ignacio have failed?

"You didn't fail." Richard frowned, a little, but not at him. "Not if it was part of all the weird s**t in general that happens around this city..."

The use of his full first name also made Richard's heart hurt, especially on top of Ignacio continuing to pace rather than sit next to him. Richard couldn't help feeling as if he had done something wrong, even as Ignacio was blaming himself. Perhaps, in fact, because Ignacio was blaming himself. Ignacio couldn't honestly expect to be able to babysit Richard every second of every day, could he?

No, but knowing Ignacio, he probably expected that of himself anyway.

Richard listened as he kept talking, as Ignacio gave him the information he had asked for. Honestly, a part of him sorely wished he hadn't asked, so that he wouldn't have to see that look in Ignacio's eyes. But... he had asked. And Ignacio had given it to him. And it was time, now, for Richard to live up to his half of the bargain.

"I don't think he was after my soul," he near-mumbled. "Just... something else. Some wispy bullshit. My energy, I guess." That was the term Ignacio had used, after all. Richard hadn't known that his energy was a quantifiable object, but he supposed it had been a very enlightening day for him in general.

Richard supposed it was time to live up to his end of the bargain. Ignacio had answered all of his questions, at least the ones Richard had so far, and now it was time to answer Ignacio's. He really didn't want to. He really, really didn't want to. But a promise was a promise, and maybe now he'd be able to understand what had actually happened to him, besides.

"Yeah, sure, I guess." He shifted, fidgeting as well. "Yeah, there was a monster. A couple of them. I was running in the park and got attacked by," he felt very foolish, saying this aloud, "a bright orange squid and a kid with pipes sticking out of his back." Richard looked down at his arms, again. "The squid did the actual attacking, I guess..." Though the kid had done the "draining" thing, as far as Richard could tell...