~When the \Day/ Met the /Night\~{Kay}

Sighing, Riley dropped any ideas of being able to create any decent music and fell back into songs he already knew by heart, flying effortlessly over complicated riffs and arpeggios with an accuracy and speed that could only come from hours upon hours of practice. Playing was somewhat of a filler for him, something to do to keep his hands busy. Some people fiddled with their hair, others twiddled their thumbs, but Riley played, he created, he gave life to something that would never have existed if not for his practiced touch and predisposition for weaving together melodies out of nothing but the carefully channeled creativity that constantly clashed with the darker things inside of him, building to a vicious undertow that threatened to pull him so deep inside himself that he'd never make it out unless he found some form of release. Besides, he had to do something to keep him occupied.

Idle hands are a bad thing. They're nothing but a playground for a messed-up mind bent on self-destruction.

Self-destruction was something that Riley was all too familiar with, the scores of thin pinkish-white lines hidden carefully under the fabric of his long sleeved button-up and simplistic vest speaking as a testament to what happened when all that inner turmoil boiling through his veins just couldn't find an outlet in the strings of a guitar. Things got ugly when that happened, all those dark, awful things churning and rising and drowning him under horrific memories and unspoken guilt until he truly believed that he would lose what was left of his fragile mind. And that was when the pain brought him back, the razor blade that was his only other link to lucidity carving tallies of all the times he broke into the already-abused flesh of spindly arms, legs, anywhere that could be hidden by clothing.

He was more than aware that he was completely crazy. Riley wasn't one to kid himself about things, and to claim any sort of sanity after living through what he had endured over the past twelve years of his life would be almost laughable if it weren't so damnably tragic. But for the greater good, for everyone else's sake (Chyba, Aris, Keela, Edana, Antoinette, Avon - their names were a mantra in his head that was a constant reminder of why he had given his soul over to the darkness of the world, why he would do it again and again just to see them happy and healthy and whole), it was necessary for him to be the strong one, the rock for a family tossed on the tides of loss and crippling dysfunctionality. Some things needed to stay hidden.

His eyes began to wander again, skirting absently over Chyba still digging around for worms or one of the other ground-dwelling creatures he was so obsessed with, taking in a few of the couples strolling across the open spaces with hands and hearts entwined. Riley could have guessed that his gaze would eventually be pulled back to her, the glowing girl with the lively eyes and radiant smile. Only this time she was standing rather than reclining in the grass like she had been a minute or so previously, the breeze fluttering the gauzy fabric of her dress and making her appear like she belonged in this idyllic place - a beam of sunlight shining down on everything around her.

The sun has a strong gravitational pull. Maybe that's why I can't look away.

But then she faltered, her light dimming as her eyelids fluttered closed and she swayed on her feet, hand pressed against her forehead almost as if she was checking herself for a fever or chills. Riley's eyes remained locked onto her, brows knitting together in concern as she slowly sank back to the ground, blinking several times before her gaze shifted up to meet his. She really did have the most incredible eyes, glimmering with an inner spark that couldn't be extinguished even after her apparent bout of vertigo had sent her back to the soft cushion of grass beneath her. The girl's head tilted sideways, inquisitiveness exuding from her as their eyes remained locked.

Speak. Talk. Say something. Anything.

"Um, hi." Riley's voice was an even softer version of it's typical quiet articulation, a barely-audible murmur choked out around a sheepish smile as his fingers began to worry the strings of the guitar like prayer beads once more, his insecurity pushed into overdrive by the sun-girl's surveillance. But despite the age-old nervousness that had sparked between teenage boys and pretty girls since the dawn of time, she truly didn't look well, and Riley would have kicked himself for it later if he hadn't at least made sure she was all right.

"Are you okay?" with one last glance to ensure that Chyba wasn't sinking up to his neck in a mudhole or taking candy from strangers, Riley stood up from his bench, lanky limbs and six-foot-two frame stretching unconsciously from the stiffness of holding one position for hours. Clutching the neck of the guitar in one hand, he walked the few yards over to where she sat, kneeling down in the grass next to her. "You looked like you were about to fall over."

She was even more luminous up close. Elfin features, lustrous hair, and those magnetic, impossible-to-look-away-from eyes - she looked like something out of ancient mythology, a nymph, a sprite, a goddess... some mixture of all three. Riley wondered what her name could be; surely it was something as radiant and unconventionally gorgeous as she was, but there was really only one way to find out. Still sporting that nervous smile that tugged at the corners of his lips despite every natural instinct he had screaming at him to run for the hills before he was faced with rejection and hurt and things he could not handle, he extended his hand in her direction, more than mildly self-conscious about it's roughness due to years of guitar and relentless washing in order to cleanse imagined bloodstains that never truly left. "I'm Riley."

And you, Miss Sunshine, are the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

Bridgit.

The name had a unique sound about it; fresh, lively, bright. It suited her well, even though Riley had a feeling she'd always be Miss Sunshine somewhere in the back of his mind. He smiled mildly as she got to her feet, feeling the smooth, fragile delicateness of her hand in his, face reddening noticeably when she complimented his earlier music. Still flushed and sputtering for a response (he was painfully shy at the best of times, heaven help him when pretty girls were thrown into the mix), his gaze drifted down to the verdant ground and stayed there, deep brown orbs fixated on the blades of grass that swayed in the breeze.

If you look directly at the sun for too long your eyes will never be the same.

"Is that your guitar?" Her query made him look back up at her, his smile widening considerably. If Riley could talk about anything eloquently, it was guitars. And with enough extensive knowledge of musical lingo and the skill to back it up... maybe he could impress her. He wasn't sure when being impressive had suddenly become a priority, but he decided to blame the hormones and the fact that he hadn't had a conversation that didn't involve being someone's pseudo-parent in such a long time that he was beyond desperate for normal human contact.

"Yeah," he beamed, presenting the instrument for her to examine more closely. It was a beautiful thing, really, form and function molded together with artisan woods and careful detailing that helped produce its uniquely rich tone. "Well... one of them. I guess you could say I'm a collector. My sisters got this one for me for our birthday. I'm a triplet, so every year we each team up so two people buy a present for the other one. I guess they really went all out on this; it's custom and they refused to tell me how much it cost them."

Riley folded himself into a seated position on the ground, balancing the instrument across his lap as he mapped out the different features of it. "It's got really nice woods that they imported from Seven, the body's cedar and the fretboard is rosewood. Hand-wound bronze strings from Two, mother-of-pearl inlays from Four... All put together by craftsmen right here in One. It's definitely one of my nicer ones."

He trailed off, finally realizing that he'd been rambling on about something she probably couldn't care less about, not to mention in a way that sounded more than a little boastful. Riley could feel the color rising in his cheeks again, his former enthusiasm diminishing considerably at the idea that Bridgit might find him irritating or pretentious or any number of bad things that he really wasn't. Chuckling nervously, he glanced away again, this time fixing his attention on the leaves that fluttered over her head.

I'm really terrible with people. They all say I'm such a good person, but how can someone who's so "good" always be so uncomfortable in their own skin?

Riley wan't used to idle conversations, words that didn't really have a point other than to hear another person talk. He was usually so busy fixing everything - wiping tears, breaking up fights, helping with homework, everything that a fathermotherbrother was supposed to do - that he didn't have time for such trivialities, but he found that now, even though he was embarrassing himself spectacularly, Bridgit's company and attention was the most pleasant thing he'd experiences in some time, and the realization made his the faltering curve of his lips bloom back into something more genuine and less tentative.

"Sorry, I go off on tangents sometimes and I don't even realize - Chyba Lightwood, you get that worm out of your mouth!" Shaking his head, Riley brought a hand up and pressed a roughened palm over his face. "I will never understand why my half-brother has a fascination with eating unusual things. Sorry, what were we talking about?"

What a mess he must have seemed to her, all scatterbrained with his nervous speech and meek grins, prattling on about guitars when he should have been doing... whatever it was people did to attract the opposite sex. Flirting and Riley Lightwood would never go in the same sentence, that much was obvious, so maybe Antoinette was right and he'd never get himself a girl. He couldn't help but think that maybe he was more socially inept than people gave him credit for.

I'm sorry if I seem off. It's just that I'm used to being broken, and when you smiled I felt like it may have fixed me just a little bit.

Riley had heard of contagious laughter before, but he'd never really experienced it until now.

Bridgit had this undeniable sort of vitality about her, that fierce, palpable glow that radiated from her in a way that made anyone who looked at her just inherently know that she was rushing headlong into life with her arms wide open to embrace it with all her might. He had to admire her for that. Riley had never been the type to throw caution to the wind or dance in the rain, and he had certainly never eaten a worm, the faint snort at the sunshine-blonde's comment gradually blooming into quiet laughter that seemed to harmonize with hers. She had a beautiful laugh, really (and why wouldn't she, when the rest of her was beautiful as well?), all light and airy and full of life in a way that meshed pleasantly with the richer undertones of his own voice as the two of them threw their heads back and laughed like utter fools. And the amazing thing was that he wasn't even trying. Riley had always assured himself that he was genuine, that every smile and laugh really meant something, but any joyful expression usually took a huge amount of effort. It was hard to smile in a world that seemed hell-bent on ripping his family apart at the seams and tearing his mind completely off its fragile hinges in the process.

But this, the muted stream of mild tenor laughter that danced in the summer-scented air, this was effortless. For once he didn't have to try to be happy, and the sheer relief of it all only made him laugh more, chuckling with his companion in a symphony of mirth until his sides ached and he was left gasping for air, finally lapsing into silence and meeting her wide grin with one of his own. "Can't say that I have. You could be right. Maybe Chyba's a fledgeling culinary genius. They'll be serving sautéed worms in all the upscale restaurants soon."

"Sorry, just the idea! But you were telling me about your present. From your siblings...? I've never met triplets. Not even sure I've seen any. That must be fun?" Bridgit said, turning blades of bright green over in her delicate fingers. Riley's smile faltered a little, that old feeling of effort leaking like liquid lead into the curvature of his lips. Talking about his family was just another one of those things that reminded him of all the responsibility that rested on his narrow shoulders, gave meaning behind the little crimson tethers to lucidity that decorated his limbs in morbidly fascinating works of art. He found himself tracing the raised outlines of some of the worst scars through the thin fabric of his shirtsleeves, mind reeling unpleasantly as all the memories of the dark, ugly things they had been a product of worked their way back into his consciousness (odd, how she had made those burdens disappear, however temporarily, for the first time in... well, ever).

"I wouldn't exactly call it 'fun,'" Riley murmured contemplatively, drawing his fingers away from the covered lacerations in favor of propping the guitar on one of his crossed legs and plucking arbitrarily at the strings, underlining his words with impromptu melodies. "My family is... complicated. There's seven of us kids. I'm the oldest triplet, then my sisters Avon and Antoinette. Edana's a year younger, and Keela was born a year after her. And then there's my brother Aris, who's thirteen, and Chyba over there, my half brother. He's eight."

Each of their faces seemed to appear faintly across his vision when he spoke about them, Keela's freckles and 'Nette's snarky smirks and Aris' (usually) reserved mannerisms. Not for the first time, Riley was faced with the realization that even though he was this awful, fragile, broken thing, they were worth every bit of strife. Not that they all hadn't suffered. They had, perhaps with the exception of Chyba, who had been too young during the incident to remember any of it.

They always say that everyone's going to hurt you, but they don't understand. The hurt is worth it if you can find the ones worth suffering for.

"My dad... he died when Avon and 'Nette and I were six years old. Tracker jackers," his usually quiet tones drifted near the realm of inaudible, fingers still dancing over the reverberating wires and shifting into a minor key. "And Mom just kind of shut down. We had nannies, but they didn't really do anything. I ended up taking care of everyone for a long time, making sure the little ones got fed and bathed and clothed, trying to help the older ones cope with the fact that one of our parents was gone and the other one might has well have been, locked up in her room all the time. And then she married Chyba's dad, my stepfather. Things didn't really go well with that, either."

Riley left it at that, choosing not to mention that his stepfather had also happened to be his father's brother, or that he had put almost all of the Lightwood children through years of brutal abuse, Riley especially, that he had confessed to murdering his own brother in order to win the prize of Willow Lightwood's hand in marriage. Those sorts of things weren't generally something to be discussing in polite company. "He died four years ago, and Mom shut down again. She got remarried a few months ago, but she's just... not really here anymore. So it's kind of like I'm everyone's parent. Not exactly fun, but I guess you could call it rewarding. I'm a lot closer to my siblings than most people are. So what about you, do you - "

"Riley!" a child's voice, Chyba's to be specific, rang out across the vast expanse of the lawn, the boy's messy mop of hair barely visible beyond the massive wall he'd made in a nearby sandbox. "I'm bored! We can go home now."

Riley sighed heavily, looking back over his shoulder at the smaller form, eerily a spitting image of himself at that age even though they were technically only half of the same flesh and blood. "Can it wait just a second, Chyba? I'm talking."

"No. I'm tired. And hungry. And you promised you'd get me ice cream."

"And a promise is a promise," Riley admitted, turning back to Bridgit with a regretful half-smile. "Sorry, it looks like I'm going to have to go. It was really nice to meet you..."

He trailed off again (he seemed to do that quite a bit around her), locking back onto those magnetic eyes and re-experiencing the wonderful/highly unpleasant sensation of something smacking him in the stomach with all the force of a speeding locomotive. He wasn't sure if budding romance was supposed to feel like getting sucker-punched and even more unsure of how he felt about the fact that he had just thought the words budding romance, but the encounter with Miss Sunshine positively begged him not to end it here.

Man up, Lightwood. You can do this.

His face flushed for what felt like the millionth time, fingers closing in a white-knuckled grip around the neck of the guitar as he got to his feet, stammering and mumbling and generally tripping all over himself in what he knew was a completely futile effort to at least handle this in a manner that was somewhat suave. "Um... So, Bridgit, I really like talking to you. And I feel bad that I've got to cut the conversation off so soon, and I was thinking, um, that maybe you might want to possibly do something later if you have time? Maybe dinner or something? That is, if you want. It's totally okay if you don't want to, I mean, I'd completely understand."

He felt like his heart was going to burst right out of his ribcage, beating at a rabbit's pace with all the force of a jackhammer, his throat slowly constricting around the words until the last half of the final sentence came out in a distinctly under-confident squeak. Oh God, he squeaked. No wonder Antoinette always said he'd never have a girlfriend. Clearing his throat for another try, Riley painstakingly removed his gaze from where it fixated on his shoes and brought it level with Bridgit's, attempting to laugh off the awkwardness in a way that only sounded slightly deranged. "Let me rephrase that. You like Italian? Because if you're up for it, you could meet me at Angelo's around eight tonight. If you want. Totally your call."

Smooth, Riley. Very smooth. You are the epitome of manly self-assurance and allure. It's a wonder the girls don't throw themselves at you.

Sometimes he really hated that razor-sharp streak of trademark Lightwood sarcasm.

The last time Riley had worn a suit, he'd been going to the funeral of someone for whose death he'd been directly responsible.

He'd been fourteen at the time, and it had fit perfectly then, even though he hadn't been able to shake the vague sensation that his tie was slowly choking him and the nervous sweat he'd worked up was bound to be showing through the dark fabric as they lowered his stepfather into the ground. The suit had seen horrid days, and the awful memories associated with the tailored jacket didn't make it fit any better now, too tight through the shoulders and the sleeves at least four inches too short. The pants weren't much better either; although they fit just fine around the waist, the hem hovered somewhere about halfway up his shin and made him look completely ridiculous. It was hard for him to believe that he'd grown so much over the past four years, that despite the fact that he had this fragile, broken thing for a soul his lanky physical form had found some way to thrive, skyrocketing in height and leaving him very tragically without an outfit for his first date.

I should know by now that things never work out the way I want them to.

"What the hell are you wearing?"

Antoinette Lightwood's immaculately-groomed head poked its way through the door (hadn't he locked it? Was there no longer such a thing as two minutes of privacy?), elegant features twisted into an expression that was half a disdainful snarl and half a barely-concealed laugh. Not bothering with getting up from his current position, sprawled out across his bed in despair, Riley shifted his gaze over to meet its mirror image, locking onto his fellow triplet's identical chocolate orbs with a lazy sort of fatigue that he usually made an effort to cover up. "It's a suit, 'Nette."

"I'm aware that it's a suit, genius." Antoinette shouldered her way into the room, glaring at its state of almost obsessive neatness like it was something to be ashamed of, all of the guitars hung in their racks according to color and brand and every surface meticulously dusted. "I'm not sure if you noticed, but it's about three sizes too small."

"Oh, I noticed," Riley replied, wriggling uncomfortably in the too-tight confines of the jacket. "I'm actually freaking out about it a little, seeing as I only own one suit and I have a date in about an hour and a half."

"A date?" Antoinette's eyebrow arched skeptically. Riley couldn't blame her for doubting him. He didn't go out, it was just one of those things that never happened, like Keela speaking in public or Chyba going five minutes without trying to eat something that wasn't intended for human consumption. But after a flickering moment of disbelief, Antoinette's face split into a large smile, a rare, radiant occurrence that almost made him beam in return. "Riley, that's wonderful! Who's the lucky fella?"

"Oh, you're so clever. Her name is Bridgit, thank you."

His sister cackled, caramel-colored locks tossing about her face in mirth. Riley's expression was decidedly more sour, a dark look on his face that wasn't quite intimidating enough to stop Antoinette from dissolving into fresh hysterics when she saw him glaring daggers at her in his woefully undersized suit. It took at least a minute of raucous laughter for the youngest Lightwood triplet to get it all out of her system, and when she finally calmed down, her demeanor had sobered considerably. "As much as I would love to see you embarrass yourself, Riley, I'm not letting you out of the house in that thing. I don't even know this poor unfortunate soul that you've somehow roped into a date, but no one deserves to look at that eyesore."

"Wonderful. I wasn't aware that you had a closet full of suits that fit me hiding in the house somewhere," Riley said, his voice coming out a little more snappish than he meant it to. His usually mild mannerisms had a way of switching to the only little bits of short, clipped annoyance that he could muster when it came to dealing with Antoinette, simply because of the fact that she made it so blatantly obvious how much she resented him. If any of the other siblings felt that way about his role in the family, they certainly didn't say anything. But Antoinette did. As often as she possibly could.

Still, she almost looked a little hurt at his remark, stung by the rare outburst of irritation from the one person in the family that could usually be counted on to be calm and level-headed. Riley wanted to kick himself. Eyes no longer meeting his, Antoinette looked out the open bedroom door and up the hallway, something like sadness shimmering behind the youthful glow of her features. "I don't. But no one's touched Dad's clothes in years."

He had to admit, the borrowed clothing fit like a glove. But it was surreal looking at himself in the mirror, dressed in a suit that he'd seen his father in a thousand times, Antoinette carefully adjusting his tie and tucking a matching pocket square quickly into place at the last second. Riley had always known that he would spend his life attempting to fill his father's shoes, but his clothes were another thing entirely. Studying his reflection in the polished glass, hair combed into something a little more tame than its usual disarray and cuff links polished to a distinguished gleam, he couldn't deny that he was a dead ringer for Casper Lightwood, just a subtle shift of the jawline and a slightly closer set of the eyes away from being the exact replica of the smiling face in the pictures that haunted dozens of dust-covered photo albums in the library. Clearing his throat hurriedly, he gave his sister a quick pat on the shoulder before looking away from the slightly disturbing image and heading for the door. "Thanks, sis. I owe you one."

"Riley?" There was something in her voice that made him pause, one foot already out the door, turning around to look at her again. She looked distinctly off-balance for Antoinette, usually the picture of cool derision and unflappable composure. There was something in her eyes that wanted to say a million things, but she only managed to give him one strained command. "Get her flowers. Girls love that sort of thing."

Half an hour later, he stood bouncing on the balls of his feet in front of one of the District's nicer restaurants, clinging to a cellophane-shrouded bouquet of pink roses like they were the only thing that allowed him to hold onto his sanity. He was getting that uncomfortably familiar sensation of his tie cutting off his air supply again, but he contented to let his fingers tug nervously at the cuffs of his jacket rather than mess up the perfect knot Antoinette had made (he knew it would be impossible for him to replicate). Dark eyes shot from his shoes to his watch to the stretch of sidewalk in front of the restaurant's entrance, unable to stay in one place for too long.

It's already two after eight. She's not coming. Why did I think I could do this? I'm an idiot. A class-A idiot.

Riley's train of thought was interrupted by a telltale flash of blonde in the crowd, prompting a very wide grin to spread across his face and any more qualms about Bridgit not showing up to disappear entirely (he still had plenty of worries about screwing everything up, but those could wait for later). Still smiling more than he had since ... well, since a few hours ago, he shuffled towards her, palpable nervousness only making him trip over himself a little bit.

"Um, hi." His eyes were now fixed rather intently on the ground as he held out the flowers like a sacrifice to some terrifying deity rather than as a gift for the pretty girl he was taking to dinner. "I, uh, I brought you flowers. I figured you'd like roses but I don't really know about all this stuff, so, um... here you go."

((ooc - full permission from Ely to powerplay Antoinette. Also, hopeless awkwardness. Lovely.))

Bridgit was just one of those things that Riley couldn't get used to.

It wasn't such a bad thing, though, not like the other things in his life that he never seemed to be prepared for - watching his siblings grow up too fast, horrid memories that could overtake his mind in the blink of an eye and the sharp pain that was the only thing that could bring him back, knowing, knowing, knowing every second of his waking life that if he didn't hold everything together that it would all go to pieces, having to keep that responsibility in the air in the same dangerous juggling act as the crippling guilt and mental/physical scar tissue. No, being around Miss Sunshine was kind of like getting a pleasant surprise every second, little details that he'd seen before but still were so striking that he had to remind himself that staring was rude.

How on earth can she smile like that, it's like summer, and her eyes, I can't even.

Her hand closed around his, and Riley felt one of those huge, dopey idiot-grins spreading across his face, immediately grateful that Bridgit was standing at an angle where she couldn't see it. With a smile like hers, he couldn't even begin to hope to compare. It wasn't supposed to be happening like this. This was real life, maybe (hopefully, oh God, please) real romantic chemistry. Growing up with four sisters, Riley had seen his fair share of those unbearably sappy Fenn Klardie chick flicks where boy met girl and eyes locked and the world just stopped and everything else seemed to fall away. Where there were things like perfect kisses and conversations where no one needed words, where the music played and the credits rolled and people walked off hand in hand into the sunset, knowing that love was the ultimate force in the universe and nothing could sully it. A pretty way to think of things, for certain, but Riley had always been positive that real life could never be that simple. He'd never thought that everything he'd ever known or cared about could fall away into a pair of bottomless eyes that were so dark but still managed to shine with an inner flame that he was sure no one else could ever replicate, and he'd be left scrambling for his own name, much less everything else that usually sat so heavily on his narrow shoulders. Life, love, none of it could ever work that way. Not anywhere but the movies.

So why does it feel like she's the only thing that matters?

He'd always wanted his life to be solid, stable, to stand on something rock-solid that he knew would never change, and here came this girl with her effortless joy and smiles that did funny things to his heart, shaking his already unsteady foundation and making him question things he'd never had any doubts about before. She'd seemed so happy to see him, to talk to him, and while he'd always been willing to go to great lengths to make people happy (it was the least he could do when all of his smiles for the past twelve years had always felt wrong, like he wasn't supposed to be happy), this was different in a way that he would readily admit scared the living daylights out of him. Bridgit was dangerous. Pretty, funny, intelligent, alluring… and terribly dangerous. She made him forget all those things that it was necessary for him to focus on - if the little ones were in bed by now like they were supposed to be, if Keela would take his absence as an opportunity to sneak out again, if he'd remembered to lock the front door on his way out - they had all done out the window in an instant, floating away on a sunbeam and a laugh only to be replaced by Bridgit's smile and Bridgit's laugh and Bridgit's eyes and just Bridgit. Riley found himself further off-balance than he'd been in a long time, which was something considering that thinly-veiled internal turmoil was his standard state of being.

Except I feel like any scars she leaves won't be like these ugly ones I've already got.

"Um, yeah, inside. Inside sounds good." he said, already-quiet voice hovering near the realm of inaudibility, mostly breath and effort to keep from passing out from the nerves because she was looking at him and for goodness' sake, Lightwood, try not to sound so awestruck, she's just a girl, just a girl, just the most wonderful girl to ever walk the planet and you are completely unworthy. There was a brief awkward moment with the flowers (the last thing in the world he wanted was to let go of her hand but the couldn't exactly walk in both attached to the bouquet), fingers disentangling and leaving Bridgit clutching the roses, a brief exchange of grins after which Riley had to remind himself to breathe be a gentleman and hold the door open for her, and in a blur the two of them were being ushered into a table in a fairly cozy corner of the restaurant.

"Thanks for coming," he said with another one of those damnably nervous smiles, pulling a chair out for Bridgit and waiting until the petite blonde sat down before he folded his lanky form into the seat across from her. "You look, um… You look… Wow. Really nice. I mean pretty. I mean… yeah. I like your dress. It sets off your eyes and stuff. Can you tell I haven't done this before?"

Sometimes there was nothing he could do besides laugh at his own crippling shyness, since wallowing in despair over it wouldn't make any improvement. Still, the resulting chuckle was tense, not at all like how freely he'd laughed earlier that day sprawled out on the verdant carpet of the park's well-maintained lawns. It took all of Riley's willpower to not hide behind the menu in front of him, cursing himself for being socially inept, and even more courage scraped up from some deep-down reserve for him to meet her eyes and manage a genuine smile. "Okay, let me try that again. You look gorgeous and stunning and all those other adjectives, and I'm never good with words unless they're on paper. Add those two things together and you get a bumbling, socially awkward Riley who can't string together a coherent sentence."

Maybe making fun of himself wasn't the best strategy, but what else could he do? Feeling that ridiculously wide idiot-grin start to bloom again, Riley laughed a bit and brushed a few stray curls out his line of vision (how? How? 'Nette had fixed his hair less than an hour ago and it was already in a full state of revolt). "Maybe it'd be better if you talked. You already know about me, crazy huge family and weird guitar collecting habit and everything. What about you? Do you have any worm-eating little brothers that I should know about?"

Maybe an explanation of why my world was such a dismal thing until you lit it up?

The awkwardly bashful, slightly lopsided smile that had been painted across Riley's face began to falter a bit as he watched the radiant girl across the table from him cast her eyes downward at the mention of her family, a cloud skating across her sun-soaked words and dimming them to something that was contemplative and almost-mournful and heavy in a way that didn't seem to fit with the vibrant, laughing, reckless young thing he'd met earlier that day in the park. He sensed that he'd hit a nerve and immediately backed off, amberdark eyes fixing themselves intently onto the pristine linen of the tablecloth as he silently cursed himself for ever opening his stupid mouth.

This. This is why I never go out. If I can dampen Miss Sunshine's light, what havoc could I wreak on others?

Grimacing faintly, he pushed his hair back from his face for what felt like the umpteenth time, avoiding Bridgit's eyes and looking instead at the place on the table where the the boquet of roses stood out in stark contrast with the tablecloth, the stark white accentuating the blood-red petals until -

Blood-red. No, no, nonono this is not happening, not now...

Riley looked pointedly away from his hands, but not before he caught a glimpse of the liquid crimson gleam that stood out neon-bright across the roughened surfaces of his palms, that age-old curse that never stopped scaring him senseless even though he was more than aware that they were hallucinations, fictional, not really there. Still, Riley's stomach churned as Bridgit's inquiry leaked around the haze that had overtaken his mind, prompting to force a smile and drag his eyes back up to hers. "Yeah. Well, kind of. I write songs. Lyrics. I'm not a novelist or anything."

He finally noticed her hand, stretched out expectantly across the table, the delicate, birdlike bone structure opened towards him in a way that needed no words to say what she wanted. It should have made him absolutely giddy, the prospect of twinging his fingers together with hers and getting to bask in a ray of that light and warmth she always seemed to emanate, but another accidental glance at the imagined stains across his own hands made the smile die on his face and transform into a look of wary apprehension. It would be so easy, reaching the few inches across the surface of the table, but there was just something that prevented him from doing it, still staring at her in a way that probably made him look even more like an awkward, lanky deer in the headlights than he usually did.

I'd love to. Really. But I can't get all these ugly stains of mine all over your pretty hands. It wouldn't be right.

"It's just kind of like... I can say things better with a pen than I can with my mouth," he shrugged, glancing down to see that his palms looked normal again and sighing slightly in relief. Sometimes the visions only lasted for a few seconds, and this seemed to be one such occasion. "Things sound good in my head and they never quite transfer to speech in a way that doesn't make me sound like a complete moron. But when I write, it all changes. Like, when I look at you. There all these words and if I tried to tell you, I'd sound really stupid. But if I wrote lyrics about it..."

Realizing that he was acting as a prime example of how ridiculous he sounded when he tried to talk to people, Riley pursed his lips together, cutting off the flow of word vomit as he dug around in his pocket for the pen he kept with him at all times, other hand reaching over to pick up a paper napkin and sit it down in front of him. Dark eyes flitted back to Bridgit's face, giving way to another grin and a slight flush across his cheekbones as he looked carefully at her features and waited for the words to come to him. Something about the sun would be too cliche, because how could she not be aware of her own radiance? No, any song for Bridgit would have to be something with a different approach, something mellow and deep to compliment her exuberant glow. With that thought, he could almost hear the colorful chords of a blues melody in his head, and a snippet of verse popped to the forefront of his mind, flowing through the pen and scrawling their way across the napkin's surface in immaculate penmanship.

Feet are no stranger to the undertow
Wind won't decide which way to blow
But we will never leave
You're all that's left for me
This is a home, we just don't have a door
Euphoria is a risk on the floor

Taking a moment to check over the quality of what he'd written, Riley deemed it acceptable with a brief nod and a smile, a newfound confidence surging through him at the realization that maybe he wasn't as socially inept as he made himself out to be. Finally holding eye contact with the ray of sunshine across the table, he carefully picked up the napkin and pressed it gently into her outstretched palm, grinning even more widely at the little electric tremors that surged up his arm at the contact. "There. I'm incoherent most of the time, but I promise if you're patient I really do have something to say."