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 Posted: Wed Nov 27, 2013 2:32 pm
He still hadn't been back to his room yet.
It was difficult to move through the day and pretend that things were all right, to pretend that things were the same as they'd been Before; which was how Ian had currently divided his dizzied mind, into two two separate slots of Before and After.
Right now he just wanted to go back Before and get the hell out of After, but it wasn't working so much.
His room, most of all, reminded Ian of too much, of things that had once been. It felt claustrophobic in there, as though the walls were closing in on him and Ian had left almost as soon as he'd entered, spending only enough time to change into a clean pair of clothes before he'd hastily exited. After that, he'd stood outside and leaned against the closed door, just trying to breathe.
He felt sick.
There were few places he could go, but he did know of one place that might be either better or worse, depending. Ian pushed himself away from the wall and stumbled down the long, long hallway towards 141, Ian trying very hard not to think about the former occupant of the room just a few doors away from it.
He leaned against the doorframe of 141, took a small breath, and knocked.
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Posted: Wed Nov 27, 2013 4:10 pm
Inside, someone blew their nose, very hard. It took a few more seconds after that before Maebe was ready to open the door. She was curled up in several blankets, all covering her body like a giant, overstuffed cocoon. She lifted her head, settling bloodshot eyes at Ian for a minute, before realizing who he was and why he was there. Her face screwed up slightly, as fresh tears started to sting her already sore eyelids. She left the door open for him to come in, and turned around, moving like a gelatinous blob towards the bed and sinking back down into it. She was a pile of blankets and melancholy, all twisted and mottled and lumpy on the bed. From beneath its muffled safety, she mumbled. "Hi."
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Posted: Wed Nov 27, 2013 4:21 pm
When he saw her red eyes, her blotchy cheeks, he nearly lost his reserve, Ian shifting from one foot to the other. He hadn't cried, not yet, at least, but Maebe's teary expression was painful, so very painful, that he almost let slip the composure he'd been desperately holding onto.
She said nothing, but didn't surprise him, and Ian followed her silently into the room, nudging the door shut behind him with a kick of his foot. Hands in his pockets, he walked over to the bed and stood beside it, looking down at the huddled lump that was Shiloh's best friend.
"Hey," Ian said softly, and his voice was slightly rougher than he had intended. He cleared his throat, hating himself, and gently sat down on the bed beside her, folding his arms into his lap. At first he remained quiet, not wanting to bother with the stupid questions like how are you and do you need anything because the former was idiotic and redundant and the latter was obvious - they both wanted something that could no longer be had.
He shifted his feet a little, tucking one under the other.
"What a ******** crappy day," said Ian softly.
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Posted: Sun Dec 01, 2013 3:55 am
The lump shifted, and shifted, until it was flattening itself out, and a splay of blonde hair stuck out from the top edge of it, but the rest of her remained unseen. "I wish you weren't hear." The lump grumbled with discontent. "It's not that I don't want to see you, I'm glad to see you. But I wish you weren't here because you wouldn't have come to see me if it wasn't real." She shifted again; it was entirely impossible to see what she was doing under there. "I don't want it to be real. I wanted to go out one day and see you out there, smiling, and say, see. See, you assholes, Ian's happy. You're all ******** with me." She'd seen all the pain in his face, and knew two things based off of it. One was that Ian cared very, very much for Shiloh. The other was that Shiloh was unquestionably dead.
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Posted: Sun Dec 01, 2013 1:49 pm
He knew what she meant, and that she meant it not offensively, Ian shifting a little more on the bed. Her hair was blonde and bright in the gloom of her darkened dorm, a small bit visible from under the blanket she was currently huddled beneath. Ian focused on it, using it as a steady mark to try and keep that mask on his face, keep the pain from eating away at him.
Too bad it was too late for that.
He lay down slowly on the bed, sideways across it so that his legs hung off the side, and laid his hands across his stomach, staring up at Maebe's ceiling. Her voice was muffled, difficult to hear, but he wanted nothing more than for what she had said to be true, for it all to be some terrible, cosmic joke that was perhaps terribly unfair, but if it meant not feeling the way he did, then he'd take it.
"That would be a cruel joke," Ian said softly, and closed his eyes, drawing a breath that was shakier than he wanted it to be. There was something just a tiny, tiny bit less hard about being with Maebe because she knew, she had known about him and Shiloh, which meant that he had nothing to conceal, except everything.
He wasn't sure why he was still concealing it now, when the latter was...gone...but he still felt somehow wrong about telling people, because it had been something between he and Shiloh; a secret, a life, just between the two of them.
Everything hurt.
Ian reached out a hand and laid it atop the huddle that was Maebe, his touch light.
"Sorry," he whispered, and it wasn't meant to be anything but just that, an entire world behind a single word.
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Posted: Tue Dec 03, 2013 3:15 am
When his hand pushed down on the mound, Maebe shifted underneath it, and then stuck her eyes out to look at him. Red, bloodshot, and just so tired. She snuck a hand out as well, and wrapped her small fingers around his, pulling the hand that had rested on her, back down under the blankets with her. It - and half of his arm - disappeared, to be snuggled by both of her arms. "I am too." She whispered, her muffled voice sore and scratchy from crying. "I'm sorry you didn't get enough time with him. I don't know what it's like to really like the person you're with, but you two looked real happy. I know he was happy with you." She was shaking - sobbing again. The mound shivered. "I wish you'd had more time together. I wish I didn't care about any of this. I wish he'd never joined the Hunters and he was still back on some farm making corn or something." She had no idea what he'd actually farmed. Just that he was a farmboy. And he should have stayed a farmboy. Where it was safe.
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Posted: Tue Dec 03, 2013 4:30 pm
He saw her face, finally, or at least part of it; and then he wished he hadn't, because the pain etched in her eyes was almost too much to bear. The fingers that touched his, wrapping around his hand were trembling slightly as she pulled it beneath the blankets.
I'm sorry you didn't get enough time with him.
It hadn't been that long, had it? Only a few weeks, probably a month at most, if that; and yet Ian had hardly noticed, because he'd felt as though he'd known Shiloh for much longer than just that. Which, he thought sardonically, was a cliched way of thinking, but stupidly it was true, and stupidly he had thought that at least he'd get to kiss Shiloh good night one more time.
One more day.
I just want one more day with you.
To his horror, his throat felt thick, and for the first time since Shiloh's death, he felt a prickling, stinging sensation behind his eyes. Ian's body jerked involuntarily as he reigned back the terrible impulse, swallowing back the sob that threatened to escape his throat. His face rearranged itself into a calm expression, though somewhat tense, and Ian rolled onto his side, facing Maebe's huddle. He tugged his hand back, along with hers, and pressed his lips to her fingers gently.
"I was happy with him," he whispered, the truth of this hitting him with the force of a javelin. Ian swallowed, tilting forward so that his forehead was against Maebe's fingers. A long sigh escaped his throat. "But he was happy with you too, you know. He l..." The word was hard to say. "He loved you," Ian said, after a moment, a hard swallow. "And I'm sorry you didn't get more time with him either."
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Posted: Wed Dec 04, 2013 5:47 pm
Her words had an effect on Ian's normally composed expression, and she saw that. She felt it. She saw the facade crack for just a moment, revealing something far deeper than even she'd expected. What he didn't realize was that it was beautiful, for just that moment. She wondered if she was beautiful, now that she'd cracked into this useless pile of emotional mush. (She wasn't.) Then it was gone, and Ian was back to being himself, which was truly not himself at all. He faced her huddle, and the blankets shifted when he pulled her hand out of it. She was visible now, underneath all of it. She was still wearing her cotton two piece purple footy pajamas, wrinkled into oblivion. She'd convinced herself that they still smelled like him, since the last time she'd used them was sleeping curled up like a child into him. She still looked like a child, curled up on that bed, crying over something new. She pulled Ian's arm, yanking it hard. The blankets were billowed, until they covered him in her safety net, burying him into the mound. He was an unfortunate victim of Maebe's newfound clinginess. "Stupid." She mumbled, pressing her face into her pillow. "Love is stupid. Everything's stupid. I hate everything." She slumped, and fell limp, her body mirroring the state of her heart giving up.
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Posted: Thu Dec 05, 2013 10:02 am
He hated that he had almost broken, that he had almost let go of the carefully constructed facade that he'd sent all this time cultivating; he'd spent years pushing and pushing himself, reigning in the extraneous emotions, the unnecessary stress that stemmed from giving in. It was't that he didn't feel them, it was that he didn't want to feel them.
He wanted to be numb.
Ian found himself beneath the blankets, enveloped into Maebe's space beneath them, and he curled next to her, sliding one arm around her waist and pushing his face against her shoulder like a cat. Where mental emotions exhausted him, frustrated him, physical affections were something he could handle, a way of expressing himself without needing to use the over complicated, messy words of the human language.
"It is stupid," Ian mumbled. His hand lifted, gently smoothed down her tangled hair, damp with tears. "But you're not, Maebe, you're not stupid."
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Posted: Fri Dec 06, 2013 12:45 am
Maebe welcomed Ian into her safe haven, curling into his body like it was life support. "I don't think I'm stupid." She whispered out painfully. "I think I'm smart now. Smarter than I was before. I had a lesson to learn. I learned it." She lifted her head off of the pillow, and turned it to look straight at Ian under the covers. There was something pleading in her eyes, and in her voice, as she asked him the question no one else seemed to know. "Do you know how it happened? What.. happened?"
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Posted: Fri Dec 06, 2013 10:32 pm
He smiled against her shoulder.
"You're not stupid," he said again, this time in agreement; but the faint amusement that he'd held, the moment where he had almost forgotten what had happened snapped like a cord, and he was brought painfully back to the present.
"...a fight," said Ian. He couldn't quite meet her gaze. "The big redheaded hunter, the one called Rep. Shiloh provoked him and they got into a fight, and..."
He trailed off, unable to finish the sentence.
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Posted: Sat Dec 07, 2013 2:05 am
It had taken its time, but Maebe finally found a reason to turn her mourning into anger, when she heard that it was some guy named Rep who'd killed him - another hunter. Because of course it was another hunter. Of course that was how they were meant to die. Not fighting some good fight, not saving the rest of the world. They were animals trapped in a cage, killing each other for sport. That's what they were . And Shiloh, bless his pure heart, was just the weakest predator. "It figures." She growled, balling her hands into fists. "It really ******** figures." She looked up into Ian's eyes, and her own sparked with fire and cold hate. "Make you a deal. If we ever get trapped alone in a room with that guy together, let's make sure we send Shiloh a pal." She winked, but there was no humor in her face. Just a big, predatorial smile.
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Posted: Sat Dec 07, 2013 10:53 pm
He could feel the anger, and he reveled in it, let it sink into him. Maebe's fury over Shiloh's death, over the one who killed him, was like a balm, something that he could relate to more than grief, and so he ate it up and let it devour him from the inside out.
"Deal," said Ian, and leaned forward, pecking Maebe's forehead in a kiss. He touched her cheek affectionately and then leaned back, winding his arm around her waist again. "Though that's not quite the pal I'd like for him to have in the afterlife, come to think of it," he added, cracking a slightly feral smile.
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Posted: Sun Dec 08, 2013 2:14 am
The words were considered, before Ian felt Maebe nodding her head in agreement against his body. "I don't think we need to worry about that anyway. Shiloh's in heaven. Rep would go to hell." She sniffed, and then let out a soft, almost comforted sigh. "He'll never have to deal with anybody like that, ever again." And wasn't that for the best? Shiloh was at peace now. Neither of them would be for quite some time. If anything, she realized Shiloh was the lucky one here. It helped to ease some of the pain. Ian's warm body, much like Taym's, helped as well. She didn't need to care about someone, to leech comfort from them. The human body was a wonderful, reactive thing. And Shiloh had been a lucky boy, to have something like this holding him at night. The heat of two bodies under a mountain of covers had Maebe's eyes fluttering shut, and her head swooning with a sudden forced exhaustion. She felt quiet against him, needy hands clutching at his sleeves for support.
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Posted: Mon Dec 09, 2013 2:50 pm
He wasn't sure what he believed about the afterlife, but regardless of his own beliefs, Maebe had a point; or at least, a point Ian wanted to listen to, which was that Shiloh and Rep would not be in the same place together for what he hoped was a very long time.
He was also grateful for the fact that she had not pushed him away, or not yet. Physical affection, whether holding hands, hugging, kissing, or more, was something that Ian had always understood better than he did talking aloud. And it was that that he normally fell back on when everything else was falling apart, because that was something that he knew.
Ian pulled Maebe closer, and felt her forehead. "You're awfully warm," he said. "You feeling okay?"
And then, realizing it was a stupid sounding question under the circumstances, Ian said gently, "I mean, physically. You're not getting sick, are you?"
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