It couldn't have been later than two in the morning when Anne was dragged from sleep by an annoying, persistent knocking at her door. For a while, she tried to ignore it, but that soon proved to be impossible. So, she reluctantly climbed out of bed with her blanket wrapped tight around her shoulders and dragging along the floor behind her, pouting and grumbling quietly under her breath.
When she did get to the door, Anne spent several moments just hugging her blanket tighter around her body and savoring the warmth before squeezing her eyes shut and quickly opening the door, wanting to get letting the cold in over with as quickly as possible.
Once the door and her eyes were both open, she was met with the startling image of an almost haggard-looking Tarel, someone she hadn’t seen in weeks. Their hair was even messier than normal, they weren’t standing up straight, and the fact that they were heavily leaning their weight on their right leg was apparent and troubling.
As soon as they realized that Anne had answered the door, though, they stood up straight and put on that charming grin of theirs- or at least, something resembling it. Rel tried to balance the weight between their legs, and there was an obvious discomfort as a result.
“Hey, uh. Been a while. Mind if I come in? For a few days, maybe..?” Their grin was more apologetic this time, and almost… mischievous? Anne was worrying more with every little look like that. “It’s nothing big.”
For a while, Anne just sort of stared, but she did manage to speak eventually. “Oh, uh… sure. But…” She studied their face carefully, and Rel tilted their head to the side and raised one eyebrow, silently encouraging her to go on, and Anne thought she saw a little scar on the part of their ear that she could see when she did. She’d been about to dismiss it as a trick of the light, but they stood up straight when they saw her looking. Maybe it was real, after all.
“But, what? You can say it, you know.” Was it just her imagination, or did they sound a little sharper than they had before?
“Oh, yeah. I just wanted to know why you weren’t…” Anne trailed off when she noticed the nervous look her friend was getting. She cleared her throat, though, and kept on going, though this time with her eyes on her feet. “Why you’re here, instead of home.”
It was a while before Rel responded, and Anne almost considered looking up to see if they were alright, but decided against it. She pulled her blanket around herself a little tighter and moved it to cover her feet, too.
“I just can’t. Uh, go home, that is. Alright? Now, are you actually going to let me in? It’s sort of cold.” They added a little laugh after they finished speaking, but their voice had sounded stressed.
Anne blushed, realizing she’d been blocking their way, and stepped to the side to let him in. They ruffled her hair as they walked in, which wasn’t unusual, but it almost felt like they were trying to turn her face away from them, too.
Rel slowly walked to the couch, and Anne noticed a slight limp. She opened her mouth to ask about it, but decided it was probably in her best interest to wait a while longer. That didn’t mean she didn’t have other questions, though.
Apparently, that was a sensitive subject. They froze up for a moment before sitting down, gripping the arm of the couch a little too tight, but they smiled at her and laughed. “What about Vrea? He’ll be- Vrea’ll be fine.” Rel was clearly putting in a lot of effort to keep that smile going, but their voice had cracked, and they had that look in their eyes that they got when they were trying to keep themself from crying.
When she realized how upset they were getting, she quickly shut her door and went to go sit by them, though she left a fair amount of space between them.
“Are… are you, though? Rel, what happened, why can’t you go home? Please give me a real answer.”
Anne had braced herself for some kind of angry reaction, or tears, but Tarel just laughed and shook their head. “Fine, fine. I got kind of fucked up, that’s all. Hurt, I mean, not high. Well- uh, never mind. But it was my fault, and I don’t want to make him deal with this, you know? He deserves better.”
She looked down at their leg, wondering if that was what had been injured. “But couldn’t he help you? You always say how sweet he is, wouldn’t he want to…” Her voice trailed off upon noticing the pained look on Rel’s face that made her regret speaking at all.
“No. He- he got hurt, too. Also my fault.” It didn’t look like they could meet her eyes. “He… can’t see. Was going to take care of him, but… well, I can’t really do that now, you know?” They tried to laugh again, but it sounded more depressing than anything. “No, he can’t help. He’s better off without me. With… someone else, I guess. I don’t know.”
“So, what? You’ll just stay here forever?”
“No! Well, uh… probably not. I’ll figure it out, alright?” They reached an arm around her shoulders, pulled her closer, and kissed the top of her head. “Go back to bed. Sorry I woke you up for all this. And I’ll go get my… my stuff in the morning, alright? I had to have it sent to the old house, so- so Vrea wouldn’t get it.”
“You want me to go get it for you?” For reasons Anne couldn’t quite understand, Rel’s face turned red and they quickly shook their head.
“Don’t worry about it. Really, just… uh. Goodnight.”
She raised an eyebrow and stared at them for a minute before standing up and pulling her blanket tight again. “Well, okay. I’ll see you in the morning, then, right? Love you.”
They gave her a halfhearted wave as she headed back to her room to sleep. “Sure, yeah. See you.”
