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 Posted: Thu Jun 11, 2015 12:33 pm
He'd been concerned about Lydia ever since the "incident," though Arorangi had yet to have a chance to go and check up on her. He found time now, however, and was determined to see how she was doing, his heart hammering a little nervously in his chest.
He couldn't quite determine whether or not it was from wanting to see her, or being afraid that she would not want to see him. Arorangi was not quite certain what exactly they were - boyfriend and girlfriend? Just really good friends? Complete strangers?
No, the last one was definitely not true, and the second was true, but was that all?
Arorangi pushed all of these thoughts away, focusing on the matter at hand - which was figuring out whether Lydia was simply all right and if she needed anything. He made his way to her room, dressed comfortably, and knocked on her door to see if she was in.
"Aroha?"
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Posted: Fri Jun 12, 2015 9:20 pm
She hadn't really known what to do with herself once everything with the craziness and the infection had come and gone. A trip to the infirmary had, of course, been in order, for some quick treatment of the cuts and scrapes she had sustained in her battle to get through the vines. Her body still felt the remnants of sickness on top of that as well, sore, lethargic, mildly feverish. After a long wait to get checked on and patched up, she had simply gone back to her room. Feigning some amount of cheerfulness had been necessary, of course, because Chris would have worried over her had she not. Once she was alone, however, all she could do was lay down, to either stare at the ceiling or the wall, and think about what had happened, and over and over in her head, remember what it felt like to hold somebodies neck in her hands, to feel their quickened, panicked pulse against her palms. It was a feeling she could not get rid of, a memory that she could not erase. She had nobody that she wished to speak with during those moments. Well, there was one person at least, but she did not know whether she should even try. She knew she was likely a disappointment to him, and that she no longer deserved his company. Still, the loneliness ate away at her, turning her stomach into a hallow pit whenever she imagined his face, or the warm sound of his voice, or the warmth of his touch, the soft, kindness of his lips...... She didn't know how long it had been. She never left her bed. The return of Rorric's voice helped, his soothing chirps doing their best to cheer her, but in the end, she could only bury herself beneath the blankets, and wonder if when sleep ever came if it would bring with it a new brand of terribly vivid nightmares to outshine even WonderPark. The knock on her door had her cringing, and she slowly peeled back the blankets to stare towards the sound, and the voice that followed. Hearing him brought her hope, because if he was here then surely he was not as upset with her as she had imagined he might be? But then the anxiety settled back in like an old friend that she had never truly cut ties with as she had hoped. Aro being there didn't have to mean anything of the sort. He might have been there to say his piece and leave. And so, she remained silent for a moment, a few beats of pause before she managed a rather quiet. "Doors open." before burying herself back beneath her blankets once more.
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Posted: Fri Jun 12, 2015 9:33 pm
The silence on the other side of the door did not bode well; Arorangi's brows drew together in mingled confusion and concern, because if Lydia was not in her room, then he did not know where else she would have been. She was not in the infirmary - he'd already checked - and really, there were a multitude of other places that were options, but whether or not he would actually find her was questionable.
But then he heard Lydia's voice, soft and barely audible, waft through the closed door, and relief flooded Arorangi's system. In spite of the oddly demure greeting, she was here and she was safe, she was not somewhere where he could not find her, and that made all the difference to him.
Carefully, he reached for the knob, Arorangi pushing the door slowly open. The room was dark, and there was a huddled figure beneath a heap of blankets on one of the beds that was vaguely Lydia-shaped. Arorangi shut the door quietly and slipped off his shoes.
"Aroha," he whispered softly, and made his way across the room, hesitating as he got nearer. "Are you all right?"
Caught in a moment of indecision, he debated internally if it was too much; but this was Lydia, and she was not herself. Arorangi slowly eased himself down onto the bed beside her and reached a hand out to touch what he thought might be her shoulder."
"Lydia?" he said quietly.
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Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2015 2:51 pm
How could he ask that? How could she possibly answer in any way but no? She shifted beneath the blankets, tightening them around her as she thought about it a little bit. She had to be honest though, didn't she? From somewhere within the blankets, there was a keening sound, so high pitched that it was barely audible, and then a deep inhale of breath followed by a loud sigh. "I've been better." She admitted, meekly, from within her blanket nest, her body slipping towards the weight that pushed down on the bed not of her own accord. "I...I didn't think y--you would want to see me..." She hesitated. "Are you here to tell me you don't want to see me any more?" She whispered then, still hiding.
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Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2015 8:10 pm
He wasn't about to push her, but her huddled form and her faint voice was causing him worry, Arorangi's expression one of concern as he sat beside her on the bed. The keening sound nearly stopped his heart in its level of sadness, something raw and open and devastated that made him want to keep her safe, away from the rest of the world.
His eyebrows rose in surprise, his mouth open slightly. "Why would you think that I - " Arorangi started to say, in utter shock, and then he pressed his lips together for a moment before inhaling sharply.
Tattooed hands reached out, pulled the huddle of blankets closer, and Arorangi bent over Lydia, his forehead pressed against the side of where he knew her head was, arms around either side of her. It wasn't exactly a hug so much as it was just his weight gently over hers without pressing down.
"Lydia," said Arorangi softly. "You have done nothing at all to make me not wish to see you. In fact, I have never wanted to see you more than I do now."
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Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2015 10:25 pm
Huddled up in the blanket as she was, with Aro pulling her closer, arms on either side, she could not hope in that moment to escape from her cocoon, and for a moment, she was okay with that. "Because...Because I'm...I'm..." She tried to explain, to reason with him, to let him know exactly why he should not have wanted to see her. But all words died in her throat. From inside the blanket, she blinked, and tried to process what he had just said. "But...." She tried again, her voice becoming very small. And then the small mound of blankets began to shake as she began to sob.
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Posted: Mon Jun 15, 2015 11:22 am
She felt fragile, in spite of the blankets. The soft, broken sound of her throat, the hollowness to the whispered words that she could barely get out. Arorangi felt an ache deep within his chest, something that wrapped itself around his heart and squeezed painfully hard.
"Aroha," he said softly.
He slid off the bed and slipped his arms beneath the mound of blankets and, without hesitation, lifted Lydia up against his chest. Arorangi put a knee on the bed and climbed carefully onto it, settling down with Lydia in her cocoon of covers in his lap. He wrapped his arms around her and held her gently against him.
"It will be all right," he murmured gently. "I am here for you, Lydia."
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Posted: Mon Jun 15, 2015 9:37 pm
She could feel his movement, but she couldn't see it, and for a moment she thought that she was being horribly childish and immature, hiding in a blanket as she was, unable to face the world outside, unable to face him. She wondered how long he would put up with it before he got sick of how she was behaving. Toxic thoughts, not ones she would have under normal circumstances, but now they could not be helped. She was a monster. She had tried to kill Jacob. She had done something awful, had felt awful things, had wanted to hurt everyone around her, including Arorangi. And she read reports. That's what she did. That was part of her job. She knew how the infection was a recurring thing. She knew that the red eyed problem could come back again. She couldn't stand the thought of being that way again. Just couldn't. As he shifted around and shifted her around with him, she continued to cry, to sniffle, to snort in a most unattractive way. She leaned against him, face pressed against blanket to where his chest would be underneath. "B-bu-but w-why-y-yyy?" She managed to stutter out after several failed attempts at talking. "Wh-why are y-you he-he-here?" Another loud and long sniffle punctuated her sentence.
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Posted: Mon Jun 15, 2015 10:28 pm
Perhaps it was naivete, or maybe just Arorangi's overwhelmingly positive outlook on life most of the time; but he'd never considered Lydia's crying to be childish or selfish. Sad, perhaps, and heartbreaking, but not childish, not Lydia, who, even with her quirks and oddities, was filled with a passion and a love for what she did and who she was.
He lifted a hand, pressed it against the side of her face - or rather, the blanket covering her face.
"Why would I not be here, aroha?" Arorangi murmured, and rocked gently from side to side, his dreadlocks cascading down his back in long, ropey waves. "I wanted to make sure that you were all right, of course. I wanted to make sure that you were not alone."
He smoothed a hand gently up and down her back.
"If you want me to go, I will go," said Arorangi gently. "But I do not want to leave you to cry on your own when I can be here to remind you that I will always be there for you if you need me."
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Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2015 8:10 pm
She didn't want to be alone. Being alone was awful. But she also didn't want anything bad to happen, not because of her. She was a risk, a liability. She had no right to put her friends, or Aro, as she considered him something more, in danger. She didn't say anything for a time, giving in to the soothing feeling of being held, rocked, her back stroked. She was an adult who shouldn't have needed such comfort, but yet, here she was, taking it without complaint, only snuggling in closer as she continued to cry, softer and softer with each passing moment, until it had quieted down to nothing more then the occasional sniffle. And yet still she did not emerge. Not yet. "Do you think." Her voice came out still much too meek, "I should ask to be podded again?"
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Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2015 10:15 pm
The silence stretched out between them, not quite awkward, but not quite as comfortable as it could have been either. Arorangi simply rocked back and forth, humming softly a tune from his childhood memories; something in Maori that reminded him of home. And eventually he could hear Lydia's cries quieting, could feel the shuddering sobs begin to shift into simple sniffs.
She was still in the blanket; he wasn't quite as worried as he'd initially been, but he still was a little bit.
Her question - and the weak sound of her voice - made him stop. Arorangi's mouth fell open slightly, and he pulled back, tugging insistently at the blankets to try and get them off of her head so that he could see Lydia's face, so that he could see her properly.
"No!" he said, aghast at the very notion. "Aroha, why on earth would you think such a thing? Of course I don't think you should ask that!"
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Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2015 10:29 pm
And there went the blankets. Well, after a little bit of struggle at least that Lydia in no way at all helped with as she unreasonably felt the urge to continue to remain hidden, afraid to see his face, to let him see hers..... But before long, she was exposed, her eyes still wet with tears, her face red, her nose runny, though another long sniffle and a wipe on the sleeve of her shirt mostly sorted that out. Her hair was, of course, a tangled mess of blue and brown but that was hardly anything new. She looked up at him, with nothing short of absolute misery in her gaze. "But it could happen again! I could hurt somebody else, I could hurt you!" She pointed out, biting her bottom lip as she lowered her gaze down. "I just...I can't bare the thought of it! I can..I can still feel his throat, his pulse...my hands..." Her breath was coming out much too fast, and it sounded like she was on the verge of breaking down a second time.
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Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2015 10:22 pm
He could finally see her face, which was a relief, even if Lydia's face was wet and there were smudges across her cheeks, and her hair was messy and tangled, and her expression utterly devastated. Even as he took all of this in, Arorangi felt his posture relaxing, the tension ebbing out of his shoulders until there was nothing left.
She was stumbling over her words, tears streaking lines over her skin. Arorangi just looked at her.
His hands reached out, found the sides of her face, and cupped them gently between his rough palms. Then, without warning, Arorangi bent his head and kissed her, firm and without any hesitation whatsoever, his eyes falling shut, his fingers gentle in spite of the determination behind the gesture.
He pulled back after a short while, but didn't go far, just enough that he could look at her, and his thumb swept over her cheeks, wiping away some of the tears.
"You will not hurt me," said Arorangi quietly. "You have not hurt me. You will not be podded, I will not let you."
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Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2015 10:34 pm
She couldn't read his expression, her gaze clouded, blurry, and not just due to the lack of glasses on her face, but from the tears as well. Her breathing was hitched, erratic, her heart heavy and full of pain that she could not describe. Everything was wrong, and she felt miserable, but mostly frightened. She did not know what would happen to her, when that rage might strike her next, and it absolutely terrified her. His hands on her face helped to hold her focus, kept her gaze up when she felt like she would rather look down, to hide again. When he closed the distance between them, she had an inkling of what to expect, and yet it was still a surprise, to feel warm, firm lips pressing against her trembling ones, catching her breath in her throat, distracting her away from her line of thought, from the inevitable darkness it would have drawn her into again. When he pulled away, her eyes were still closed, her lips parted slightly. She let out a single, shuddering breath, felt his thumbs wipe against her cheeks, and then, suddenly, let her body sink against his. She was still frightened, still lost in a sea of the unknown, but for that moment, she felt that he could be her life jacket in this storm. It was just something about him, about how he spoke, about how he cared. "Okay." She finally murmured. "Okay, okay, okay. I won't." Another shuddering breath, followed by a quiet, whispered "Thank you."
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Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2015 2:21 pm
He caught her easily in his arms as she sagged against him, Arorangi gathering Lydia up against his broad chest. She was not entirely better, not yet, and she seemed to be hurting from the inside, less so from physical injuries. But at the very least, she was letting herself open up around him, and he was going to make sure that she was all right.
"You are welcome," Arorangi said softly, and ducked his head to press a kiss into her tangled mess of hair. One hand smoothed gently up and down her arm, adding warmth and reassurance.
He was silent for a few moments, and then -
"Lydia. May I...ask you something? If you do not mind?"
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