Prompt: "It's a Zing not a Fling" :: The moment they realize you're the one. Masterlist: LinkedUP Parts: Heartslabyul | Savanaclaw (Here) | Octavinelle | Scarabia | Pomefiore | Ignihyde | Diasomnia A/N: No bullets this time. Excuse my wheezing. I hope that I finally leveled up - Also I'm doing these out of order baybeee. Mixing it up hohoho.
Durable. Thick yet durable leather. It's part of Leona's skin at this point. His palms hide - feeling naked and alone - without the supple caress of leather. Gloves that he's adorned for as long as he can remember.
When was it, that his father gifted him a pair of gloves? Not too long after his unique magic was revealed, he knows that much. The exact day is lost to a time before he could recall such things. Before he had a reason to think twice about touching the world with his bare hands.
Now, all Leona knows is supple leather. Letting himself go bare alone in his bedroom is a risk. One he hadn't allowed himself until the ripened age of rebellion. In a country that worships the sun. Washes in the rain. A prince that turns the lush world to sand is a poison. No matter what assurance or empty reach for his potential - that damned word, it's never enough. He is never enough - a prince like him is no prince to the people.
In a world of firsts, he would forever lack.
Could he?
Your gaze, so tender. Focused solely on him. Welcoming. Urging but without words. His senses somehow dulled and heightened all at once. Nothing's distinguishable aside from the pounding in his chest, fangs digging inside his cheek to not let it show -
Soft to the touch. Smooth like polished marble. Warm like the sun kissing his skin through the drapes, on the cusp of dozing yet urging himself to linger, walk the in-between. His callused finger pads barely graze the surface of your thigh, lingering in the air with whatever restraint holding him from pressing his naked palms.
Your skin cracks.
All he did was graze. All Leona wanted was to feel. Even if you never let him again. The way flesh splits startles him - spreading outwards faster than he can comprehend- as if his wants deserved greater punishment. He reaches for you, teeth biting through his gums at your tenderness gone. Your gaze shackled with fear as the flesh between his fingers turns to sand -
"STOP!"
A guttural roar rips through Leona's throat - rasped, taken with labored breath - it could shatter windows if his room only had them.
A lion's mourning.
Leona fisted the sheets, tangled from his nightmares, his heart hammering as his senses all but thrusted themselves from dream to reality. Everything was clear. He could smell the raging waterfalls outside, taste iron on his tongue where gums had split, hear the night bugs sing their song, feel the knotted fabric under his palms.
Your picture, still safely nestled behind his standing chessboard. The frame solid. Whole.
Leona reached past into his desk drawer, and pulled out his gloves.
"I don't know how to swim"
"....wait, you're actually serious. There no lakes where you come from or somethin'?"
Leona drifted on the outer bank of the main falls in Savanaclaw. His legs kicked lazily, keeping him right where he needed to be against sand-rock and out of the splash zone. Without the loud yammering his dormmates would put him through whenever out in the lounge - it was almost a bearable swim.
"Comin' out here this late was your bright idea, herbivore. Now you're not even going to get in?" he taunted, eyes squinting through dark at your legs just inches from the ledge. The thought pops up to pull you in but he resists, although not hiding his temptation
You notice and step back, "I didn't realize it was this deep!"
"And what'd you think it was? A kiddie pool?"
"I thought it was safe!" you huff, cheeks puffing out like a bunny's. Not helping the thoughts in his head at all, "who puts an actual waterfall in a dormitory? What if someone drowns?"
"Then they drown," Leona shrugs, yawning wide as he turns on his back with his arms spread out across the rough ledge.
He cranes his neck back, smirking upwards at your skittish stance. The moonlight did wonders on your visage, swimsuit offering him more to see than he normally gets.
"Nice view," he grunts, snickering as you stiffen and try to cover yourself. Red dusting your cheeks, trailing down to spots normally hidden from him by a poorly done bowtie.
Smooth like polished marble. Split to crumbling ash.
Leona's fingers twitch, disappearing under the cool water as he pushes off the ledge into the water. Far enough for you to have space, but not to leave.
Your attention follows him carefully, instinctively stepping closer as he pulls away. He should get out, take you back upstairs to dry off. Make you comb through his hair as compensation for whatever this is but -
"You'll be fine," he says nonchalant, but his eyes zero-in as you teeter on the edge, "it's not that deep. I'm right here. Nothing will happen to you."
"...promise?"
Leona tries not to let that trust shake him. Weakness isn't meant to be shared between someone like him and someone like you. The balance of vulnerability was already thin.
"Promise."
You jump into the pool - and Leona finds himself wading closer once your head dips deep under the water. The ledge is there for you, he reminds himself. His palms feel naked but bandaged enough by the crisp water that he can ignore it.
Your shadow ripples under still water, flailing like a newborn calf and he's just about to dive under when you come up close - too close, his mind screams - and breech the surface.
Waves cascade as you take in air, eyes opening from their tight scrunch underwater and shimmer just a push away from him.
"Cold! Coooold! Oh my god, it's so COLD!"
Leona kicks his legs to hold against the ripple as you whip towards him, pushing your wet hair back and pulling water from your face. He knows that look - the one that has your lips splitting at the edges from excitement. Laughter pulling from nerves that you're still riding the tail end of.
"I knew this was a good idea!" your sniffly laugh muffles to him, Leona's body trying to register when you went from the ledge to wrapped around him like a koala. Legs wrapped around his waist, floating on nothing under the waves. Arms thrust around his shoulders tight, chest pressed against his to here he feels how fast your little heart thrums -
His hands, the split moment instinctive, around your waist. Bare, naked palms, pressed fully against flesh smooth like porcaline.
Zing.
"You idiot!" He yells, fingers tightening as he leans back to look over your body head to toe. Anxiety dripping from him like the falls themselves.
"Don't just grab someone in the water! Why're you always so reckless?!"
Don't grab me so easily!
You did it so easy, with that flushed candor that had him questioning everything - did the thing he'd been fighting for so long.
"I thought you said I'd be fine! Don't change your tune now!" you yell back, laughing.
It's not the water you should be scared of -
"You almost made us both drown," Leona huffed, rolling his eyes. He gave your waist a tentative squeeze, needed confirmation that this wasn't something he'd wake from wrestling his sheets.
"Then we drown," you lean forward, that impish glint softening as your nose brushes against his, "right?"
As his palms - naked and bandaged under wet moonlight - work their path to pull you in closer, he feels your legs wrap tighter. The way you allow his arms to circle and support you, unafraid. "Right."
Rice. Oats. Bananas. Tomatoes. Beef -
No. Scratch that. Ruggie wasn't in the mood to barter through the main market tonight. He'd go in the morning, clutching the marks brough back from school, slip in when it's just as packed, but his mind will be clearer then. He'll stop by one of his old spots on the way, check in on the kids and make sure they weren't doing anything too bad while their parents worked their tails off.
Right now he'll take the backroads towards home - Gran was waiting for him anyways. Probably sitting on the same chair she always did on the front porch, watching the street with one eye open and the other stuck on their 'houseguest' - as if they were fit to 'host' anyone - until he came back with the week's groceries.
He didn't want to bring you back with him to the slums - but where else could you go? No one. Not a single person or beast, was supposed to ever cross his path outside of Night Raven. Not if it didn't fill his pockets.
As he crosses the threshold pass what could barely be considered a kids' playground, his mind can't fathom what would make you even the slightest interested to come to this run-down village. There were surely other offers to fill your summer break. Your little beastly buddy - or money leech - was shacking up with those first years in the Rose Kingdom. You could've gone with them, and he wouldn't have thought on it twice.
Offering you a place was more of an obligation, something to wipe his conscience clean. Not because he was your 'boyfriend' - did he really count as one? Nothing good lasts forever - but for his piece of mind.
Since bringing you to this place was like cutting a ticking timer in half. Ruggie couldn't admit it to himself, but he knew. He needed you to come here. He needed you to see what you were walking into with that blindsided ignorance that trailed off the bare scraps Crowley had given you at NRC.
'Cause if Ramshackle was considered a shack? Then his home surely looked like a dumpster on the side of a highway. This is what you were signing up for once that four-year drift at NRC was done.
You, who he sat down just that morning to ream in the dangers. Not to go out without him as a no-name in a community where everyone's either known or dead. You, who kept your coin purse - even if the damn thing was near empty - in a side bag with easy access to snatch. You, who stood shellshocked when faced with his Gran's appraisal. Introduced yourself as his without a shred of hesitation. As if he had the means to keep you.
You, who carefully set your bag down in the tiny five by five he called a bedroom and said it smelled like him. Gran passed him the shopping list shortly after, and Ruggie left you there to face her alone. His steps quick towards the market, but not in a hurry since it was only a matter of time.
When he turns down his nook of a street - just as predicted, Gran's out on her chair waiting for him to come back. He's ready for an earful. Ready to pull the return bus-ticket out of his wallet and say goodbye. "Rugs, come an' see what this one can do with the corn husks. Nearly split my ribs!" Gran calls just as his foot pivots off the gravel road. And at her side - you're aiming one of his old slingshots at him like a cheeky thug. Cornhusks rolled up tight to make mini pellets - strong enough to bruise he's sure.
"Ruggie! Your grandma's gonna teach me how to shoot!"
A shiver runs down his spine.
"Aye - kid. Gotta have someone making sure my boy stays sharp at that fancy school."
Zing?
"I'm not going to kick you out of your own bed."
"It's not kickin' if I'm offering it."
"Ruggie - the floor is cold. Literally. It's stone."
"Actually it's clay - and do you even hear yourself? Gran'll kick my ass three cities if I let ya sleep on the floor -"
The two's poorly-hidden fight was cut short by an even more stubborn shout.
"LIGHTS OUT NOW! OR IM KICKING BOTH YER ASSES!"
The house grew cold quick - Savannah nights being unforgiving. If there was one thing Gran made sure they had growing up, it was blankets and firewood since central heat wasn't in the budget.
Ruggie wanted reality to bite you in the butt, not for it to hurt. He'd slept on wet mud once, the floor wasn't the worst option. His bed was old and small - a twin where on the left side there was a poking spring he'd learned to avoid in his sleep. He expected you to take it without second thought. But you were stubborn. Annoying with it, and he knew better than to fight one stubborn mule when another was one room over with thin walls daring to push him out on the streets. He crawled into bed with you, kept one of the many blankets and tucked his tail down, tried to make himself small. Pressed up against the wall on the left side. Hoped you'd keep to the right so he could smolder this feeling in his stomach. You hadn't. Ruggie woke up to sunshine and his face pressed in fabric that moved with even breaths. His back no longer against the wall, no crick in his side, his body pulled over another.
Up and down. In and out.
He looked up, chin careful not to press painfully into your stomach (a better pillow than his flattened one for certain) and saw closed eyes. Warm arms encircled him - ensnared him - and he stole one moment to revel in their protective cradle. His head lolling back down to nuzzle in this soft pillow.
You slept warm through the night, as had he.
Zing.
"Ruggie?" your steps trail his heels, hand locked tight in his own down the market road. Whatever change was left over from the errand sat in his wallet, strapped tight to his hip under his shirt. His free arm clutched a tight meat parcel - the beef he'd missed the night before. It was like a calling card for theft. Not too bad, he knew to keep one eye alert.
At least without you there, twisting over your shoulder as he tugged forward. Your furrowed brow drawn to the pack of hollering beastmen, all hostile for a good bargain to feed their hungry families. Some with sticky fingers and other means.
He was one of them just minutes ago. You, stuck tight to his side and wary under the scorn of locals. An outsider, with only Bucchi presence keeping those teeth sheathed. At least he meant something around these parts - or his Gran did. "Don't look back. Any mercy and they'll eat you alive," he said low into your ear, "there might not be anything in your wallet - but that doesn't stop the desperate ones. You've got clothes. Possible connections. Organs."
What should have been a joke, wasn't. His firm glance said as much.
Ruggie doesn't miss how your fingers clutch his tighter. "I told ya to stay back with Gran. Better yet - stay home the whole break," your jaw ticks, even he feels bad asking the necessary, "look - I'll phone Leona. Might have to go out for better reception but -"
"No," you cut him off, keeping your voice down but his ears could catch anything, "No. I want to be here. I - this is where you're from. I don't want to hide inside all summer, but please don't send me away."
Ruggie clamps his mouth shut, frown set in a thin line until you both pass yet another beggar. Their eyes hateful and distrusting to someone unknown, even when desperate.
He turns to shield you from it - insist. Except you tug him along, pulling him closer. You nod towards the beggar, acknowledging them but not stopping.
Zing
"It's got ya good, huh?" Gran said, hovering in the doorframe with the house laundry basket on her hip. Summer was nearly ending. You'd gone off to nap in his room - the heat did harsh things this time of year. He was just grateful it wasn't a stroke and you'd be fine in a night or so. Gran said as much, and there weren't any doctors in the area. He didn't have to ask what she was talking about. Rule number one in life: don't look out for anyone but your own.
And they way he was hounding you like a mad hyena earlier? The way your clammy skin felt under his palms, the panic in his voice when Gran ran to get water and fruits to get your sugar back up. He freaked out. He shouldn't have but he did.
"Yeah. If you're gonna lecture me about bearing my heart and that sentimental stuff - could you save it? Just...just this once?" he rarely stood up to her but this felt more like a plea.
She, of course, sat in her chair. Even pulled the thing up to where he sulked.
"The only thing I'm going to lecture you for is fighting. Sabotage is something ya do to other folks, not yourself."
"I'm clearly not doing a good job if...y'know," he sighed, flicking his ears back. Maybe then the world would shut up for once.
"Yeah...I know kiddo" Gran paused, looking him up and down like he was some sort of stranger she hadn't crossed before. She set her hand between his ears, giving his hair a good tussle, "but you're a good man. I raised ya into one, so I'd know -- you're not your father, Ruggie. I thought that fancy school might've softened you. I was right, you're definitely not the kid I sent off itching to make up for years lost 'ere. You're better, and that one in there's good for you. So maybe be grateful the world cut ya a break for once, and be happy."
Maybe she was right. Maybe he could stop ignoring that feeling. Maybe, he could do what he does best, and take you. Keep you. Since you were so hell bent on being had.
Zing.
In. Out. One. Two. In. Out. One. Two.
Jack's steps are even and uniform. His form perfect, unwavering even at the strongest gust of wind aimed to topple him. There was no force in the entire world that would set him off the track - his training too important if he ever wanted to get a scholarship in his fourth year.
Winter. Rain. Snow. Sun. Jack ends his day with a run. His lungs thank him for it as does his mind. The exertion is just enough to ensure a peaceful night of sleep feeling accomplished. His chest chills with cold air as the final lap for the night draws closed, and he slows to his cool down. A time meant for his mind to relax as he walks the circuit in it's full, listening to the trees and whatever delinquent is out trying to sneak past the campus security for a night of fun.
He won't rat them out. Not his circus, not his monkeys. Lady justice will come to draw her own conclusions - and by lady justice, he means the Heartslabyul House-warden that strikes fear into students from all dorms looking to cheat the system.
Jack himself was the slightest fearful of Riddle.
"Heya hiya hey -"
On predictable cue there's a filled water-jug in his face. Lukewarm, the ice he'd received the first time you offered it upset his stomach and you never gave it again. He takes the bottle with nothing more than a nod of gratitude, slumping on the lowest bleacher to finish his wind down. A moment later and a clean towel drapes over his shoulder. He nods again, and you return to your musings like nothing happened.
Jack can't remember when you started coming around - or why, for that matter.
Nestled into one of the low corners in the bleachers, legs curled under a blanket with your thermos in hand. One he loaned and never asked back - it's not like he was using it. Seeing you warmed on cold nights gave it a higher purpose than his gritty protein shakes.
Your focused mind lingered in the corner of his peripheral vision at all times - like an eye floater that never goes away. Haunting the same spot every night with your homework scattered about, busying yourself with whatever's there until he pulls up to unwind from his training.
When did he grow used to it? To where he can grunt and you'll know exactly what it means - be it a thanks, a question, or if he's needing silence to end the night.
Jack can't recall.
He's encouraged others to adopt a routine like his, but never pushed. Even then it was never like this. With the intent to weave his regimen together with another's.
So what's Jack to do with someone who's willingly engrained themselves into his life?
What's he to do, when the comfort of solitude has stretched beyond him?
"Hungry?" your voice flit to his ear one night, he utterance a break through dusk and his even breathing.
"I don't eat after six," Jack answered blunt, hoping it was enough and not thinking. Your lips purse to a pensive frown and his attention turns to the box in your lap. Its green his favorite - not that you'd know. The color of ripe cacti.
"Uh.." he catches his own tongue before words come out. He didn't mean to cause that expression. Letting the lip of his water bottle down, Jack decides to press a bit more.
"Nice box - I mean, what's in the box?" he asked, trying and failing to make his tone softer than the evening's bite. His cheeks warming.
What hesitance he held disappeared when you smiled, uncurving around the box to open the lid.
"I made some finger sandwiches," you tut, struggling with one of the latches before he reaches out. The instinct to assist beats his shyness.
You hand the box over.
"Sorry if they're a bit rough - I asked Deuce about what's good for people building muscle. He said protein so...egg salad?"
Jack has to resist the urge to laugh - of course Deuce would suggest egg salad. He raves about their protein benefit at least once a track meet.
They're a bit rough - the tight packaging ruined their presentation from singular little bites to one solid brick.
Nonetheless, Jack felt something stir in his stomach.
"Actually," he starts, whacking the box's bottom to pull the now-brick out, "I think I could eat. You want to split?"
For reasons he couldn't place at the time - or ones he didn't want to - Jack couldn't bring himself to hand back the cacti-green box without emptying it. Your hard work worth sacrificing one day's regimen.
When he held out the sandwich amalgamation, you reached out in kind to take the opposite side. With a little pressure, it gave and split in two.
In that moment, so did Jack.
Jack's palms slid under your legs with ease - almost like they belonged there. With the underside of your thighs in each hand, your body draped over his back like a pillow-weight, he realized how easy it could be to hurt you. All he needs to do is squeeze too hard, stumble over a rock and tumble the wrong way. His weight could crush you or the concrete could scrape your skin.
Maybe that would toughen you up a bit - no student at NRC shouldn't be able to take a it. He's sure you could - if there's one thing he learned from Epel, it's that those you assume can't are the ones who can take the most.
"You don't have to carry me like a sack of potatoes, y'know that. Right?" your voice tickles his ear, one flicking back just as your chin comes to settle between his neck and shoulder.
"It's good training," he argued, tone anything but argument-worthy, "and I want to."
Maybe adding that second part was too much. Why did he?
He'd beat himself with his own tail if it could move that way.
"It's a good thing I'm actually very lazy then. Since the track's no short distance from Ramshackle. You Savanaclaw guys really do monopolize the sports here, don't ya?"
His grunt's a suitable reply - one you're used to. As Jack crosses the mirror chamber from Savanaclaw to main campus, he jostles you up just to make sure you're still there once the magic fizzles out.
Your breath on his shoulder, weight holding down to earth - would he fly if you took it away? After all these days.
"Wouldn't it be easier to just study at home? The track ain't a suitable library"
And I'm not suitable company.
Not someone you have to trouble yourself to watch over.
"True," your hum drawls in his ear, exhausted he's sure. Your plate isn't necessarily empty, "but you're there. What, scared I'll leave you lonely?"
Yes.
"No. I just think you're exerting yourself too much." he says, scrunching his nose when your fingers ghost the apex of his collar.
"A bit of exertion is good. You're the known preacher for it," Jack feels your smile in his skin. It almost brings his own to life, "and if we're being honest? This is the best part of my day. I love spending time with you, even if I end up being your makeshift barbell."
Your laugh trailed the ends of that sentence, sweeter than the pears picked back home, which were always ripest this time of year when he thought on it.
Zing.
The rest of his 'prefect-delivery-service' as you laughed on and on about into him, was finished in silence. Comfortable silence.
And when he came to your dorm, he needn't ask if you wanted to be put down. Jack opened the door without a word and settled you upstairs in your bed. Grim didn't stir. The ghosts hadn't blocked his path. You let him be the end of your day, and he hadn't felt the need to explain himself even as he crossed back into Savanaclaw territory.