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West wasn't sure that his old tactic of hiding in his room whenever something uncomfortable happened would ever work again. He had always used that time alone to think, to come to terms with what was troubling him, but these days whenever it was quiet all he could think about was her, and once he started thinking about Levi, he tended not to stop.

That was the main reason he found himself by the fountain near the demon dorms that afternoon, angrily tugging at his sneakers and socks so that he could stick his feet in the cool water. At first, he hadn't thought to stop here considering the number of dewey-eyed Snots that were hanging around the place, but all it took were a couple of well-timed sneers and some fist clenching and they were gone, like zombies faced with a bonfire. The white noise of the rushing water was soothing, and due to his proximity to his room, it didn't take long for Master to find him. In spite of the water, she hopped right up next to the boil, flopping at his side and purring as he awkwardly patted at her fur.

The boil huffed out a sound that might have been a cross between a laugh and a cough as the water tickled up his leg, limber as a snake.  He couldn't immediately figure out why the liquid was behaving so strangely, but it wasn't difficult for him to put two and two together once he heard Yaya's voice and she slid into place beside him.

"Sure... nice," he said as he looked at her, the faintest of smirks marring his thoughtful expression.  He had been going for something more along the lines of 'different' or 'not somewhere the tatzel would think to look for him,' but he supposed the spot was nice enough from a Yaya point of view.  When he heard her second question, his smirk grew into a grin before he could stop it.  He turned to the water and sat up straight, his back and ribs murmuring with pain from his recent fight.  West seemed at a loss as to what to do with his hands until he finally pressed them to the stone on either side of him, tucking his fingers under his thighs.  A moment later, he looked back at Yaya.  "Things're fine, yeah.  Great."  His voice was no less gruff than usual, holding some nameless quality that made it feel as though he was always telling you to ******** off no matter what he was saying, but even so, the demon seemed almost giddy. "What've you been up to?"

Master, thoroughly ignored by her owner, rose for a moment then flopped closer to the marid.

Ah. Yes. The trials.

West certainly hadn't forgotten his experiences under the Death clan's trance or how much he wanted to throttle a priestess or two in... thanks. None of that seemed terribly important at the moment, however. Even so, it was something to talk about, something that didn't revolve around coming to terms with the reason why he had a nest of phantom litter bugs brawling in his stomach. Stupid litter bugs.

"Recoverin' too, I guess." He nodded and avoided her gaze as he peered down into the water. Despite the fact that he and his teammates had been thoroughly pummeled by a giant crab, the type of recovery West had really needed after the horsemen were finished with him had been the mental sort. Prior to the last trial, he had never understood the consequences of letting the hunters go unchecked. He had never truly grasped what kind of creatures these radical humans were, nor what the price would be if they won. The boil might have chalked the whole vision up to the horsemen playing a trick, but he really wasn't that cunning. He had heard hunters turned students into weapons. The horsemen had forced him to endure being turned into a weapon himself. It had all been very convincing.

Normally he wouldn't have admitted he had needed time to heal, but this was Yaya. She had seen him beaten and battered and whiny, and as far as he knew, she didn't think he was a quivering pansy. Admitting to her that the trials had been a little hard to take wasn't going to change how she felt about him at this point.

He sat quietly for a surprisingly lengthy amount of time after that, watching his toes spread and contract and thinking. As was customary these last few days, his thoughts eventually got back around to Levi. West turned to Yaya again, absently reaching out to pat Master and receiving a swat for his trouble. "Were ya at Scarentine's this year?" he asked, seemingly out of nowhere. She had been last year. They had danced. In hindsight that seemed infinitely less embarrassing than what had gone on this time around.

"No, I didn't..." West lifted a foot out of the water as if he meant to draw it closer to himself, but when he realized it was wet, he lowered it back into the fountain with a faint, affronted huff. "I didn' say I was there," he muttered. "Jus' wanted t'know if you'd gone. An' if ya'd heard anythin'... about... anythin' that may er may notta happened... there."

Master pushed her head into Yaya's hand and rumbled out something that resembled a purr. The wrath demon would always be the one she liked best, but this particular friend of his was very nice indeed.

West shifted his weight, looking over at the marid again. "Fine. I was there. Somethin'appened wit' th'drinks, I think. It was weird." Not having had any prior experience with Hyde's concoctions had left the boil confused and slightly disturbed by his actions, but there was a bit more to it than that. Things had gotten weird before Scarentine's. There had been a flash in the woods, and he and the tatzel had suddenly been standing far too close. He tried to tell himself that none of that mattered now that they were... together, but between that and the funny drinks, West was a little but afraid that his feelings might still not be his own.

"But I should... I got things t'do." In spite of this declaration, the boil didn't move.