Distraction

Aurae remains above the airship's deck. She sits flat on the floor, legs folded on either side of her. She leans over a piece of parchment paper, a small jar of ink serving as a paperweight for the cool night breeze. This isn't as high as she usually goes with her broom, but she can't deny the usefulness of being able to actually work on her star maps while she's up here.

She tries her best not to think about the guild, does everything in her power not to, but with every dot and speck she adds to the map, the closer her mind seems to get to the Noble Hearts. Every line she connects between stars, every constellation she draws, only makes her think. She looks back up at the night sky, watches the stars shake against the dark.

Watches as one winks out from view.

Aurae blinks. She rubs her eyes. She makes sure she isn't seeing things.

The star never comes back.

Oh.

This isn't her first time seeing a star die. She was twelve, the last time it happened. She had watched that star for over a year, watched it dim and brighten for weeks at a time. She had watched it glow so brightly --- (just for her, she likes to think) --- before it finally faded. She was ready for it at the time.

This is different.

There was no year to prepare for it.

There was no dimming or brightening.

It was just gone.

...

Aurae's mind wanders right back into the front doors of the Noble Hearts Guild, imagines its walls and rooms, remembers every face and every smile she has ever seen within those hallways.

And she wonders.

...

She neatly rolls up her current star map and works on a new one; a correction from the old, a version with the newly dead star. Empty space where life used to be. She's already forgetting where it used to be, already forgetting the light it once shone.

This time, she dedicates all of her attention, or at least as much of it as she can, to the map. She'll finish the rough draft of this tonight, she swears, and then work on polishing it up over the next week. And then she'll keep it, like every star map she makes. Every little outdated one, every piece of paper depicting a fuller night sky. One with less dead stars.

— ⛧ —

Love tries his best to sleep.

He does a good job at first; he gets a good couple hours in before he wakes up to silence in his head, the voices inside fading to mark the airship passing over the border of Third Eye. The only sound that remains is the beating of the propellers outside. It doesn't take long for him to realize just how much he misses the unique sort of comfort they provided, and eventually gives up on getting any more sleep that night.

His aimless wandering around the ship inevitably leads him to Aurae's spot on the deck. Typically, he's very good at making small talk. Tonight isn't a typical night. He pokes his nose into Aurae's business whether she likes it or not, sits cross-legged about two feet to her right. Part of him doesn't want to take up any part of her cone of vision.

"Looks good," he concludes, after a few moments comparing the map to the sky above.

Aurae jumps, almost knocks the inkpot over. It's amazing how easily her thoughts can get overtaken by him, and she hates herself for it. She gives him a glare and closes the inkpot, cleans up her quill. This time, she leaves the star map out, lets the ink on it dry.

"Why are you up this late?" she asks roughly, perfectly masking her relief at having him around. As much as she hates it, he calms her down, gives her something to distract her with. Turns out, she's not half-bad at hiding certain emotions, either.

"I've asked myself the same thing and failed to come up with an answer. Not for lack of trying, mind you."

Love fiddles with something somewhere in his bag. Eventually, when he withdraws his hand, the mind-shielding ring is on his middle finger. May as well, now that things are quiet whether he wants them to be or not.

His gaze flits between the sky and Aurae for a while. It doesn't take him long to notice the scrapes and cuts that still remain on her body. He wasn't sure if he really expected her to listen to his advice earlier, but he's disappointed nonetheless.

"You're going to get an infection if you keep that up, you know." He gestures to Aurae's legs and cringes a bit as he spots an errant splinter still stuck to her.

"Keep what up?"

She knows what he means. Even with the meal from earlier, it still doesn't quite stop the dull throbbing of her sore wounds and muscles. In all of her hastiness to get back to Gaia to check up on what remains of the guild, she forgot to really treat herself. The cuts and scrapes on her body remain unwashed, and there are still tears in her dress that need to be fixed. She doesn't seem to care.

"I'll be fine," she adds through clenched teeth. "It's just bruises. They'll heal."

"I get that you're the kind of person that just continues forward no matter what, but you need to take decent care of yourself. I may not always be present to remind or coerce you to do so."

He's determined at this point. When Aurae wants to be stubborn, he wants to be stubborn right back. That's just how it is, but now, he thinks, it's especially pertinent for him to be so.

The ink seems dry now, and a quick and delicate touch with his pinky confirms it. He stands, rolls the map up neatly and hands it to Aurae. "I'm sure you'd rather bathe yourself than have me do it for you. And you know I will drag you kicking and screaming to treat your wounds properly."

"I'll be fine," she repeats, more firmly than before. "There are bigger things to worry about. There are worse things that could happen to me than cuts that will heal within a day." She takes the map and stands up, looks away from him, towards the passing clouds.

She remembers, a long time ago, how worried she was when he was in a similar scenario. She understands now. It's annoying when all someone else can think about is something as insignificant as minor scrapes. It's annoying when one worries about her when there's more important things at hand. It's annoying, most of all, if it's Love.

"I'll clean up tomorrow."

"We still have half a day to get where we're going and there's really nothing else to do while you wait. There's no harm in tending to yourself like a reasonable adult. Yet, somehow, you decide it's worth fighting me on this, of all things."

Really, he knows he can't make her do anything. He starts to ask himself what the point even is, if she's adamant about pissing him off even when it comes to things that matter. There's no stopping the groan of frustration that manages to slip out.

Something bubbles up within her. Irritation, anger, a touch of something softer; almost happy that Love worries about her this much. She hates it, she tells herself; she hates him. She doesn't quite believe.

"Just-- just shut up," she says, hands balling into fists. "There's so fucking much to worry about. Just let me deal with this by myself. I'm not changing my mind. Just go."

She silently begs him to stay.

Aurae refuses to look at him. She can already feel tears hot on her eyes. She blinks them away. She's not going to cry in front of him. She knows she already has, but this time she feels more vulnerable than ever.

"Aurae." His tone teeters on the edge between frustration and worry. "...Look, you should be in good shape before making appearances with whoever you're looking for. It doesn't do anyone any favors for you to just be alright when you could be well."

Love is sure his hand on Aurae's shoulder isn't what she wants right now, but it's what she gets. He gives her a stern and slightly apprehensive look. Something in him is determined to bash his head against that brick wall until it gives way.

Eventually he gives Aurae another sigh and secures her wrist, gently enough that she could break away if she was determined to. He starts back towards the sleeping quarters.

Aurae finally falls silent.

She follows, stares down at the ground the whole time. She counts the wooden panels as she steps past them, as a way to calm her beating heart. She wonders, begs herself for an answer as to why she isn't running away. Not this time. Out of all the other times she could and did. She looks up and watches him as he leads her.

You're supposed to hate me.

Though, to be fair, she thinks, she was supposed to hate him, too. She's been doing a lot of hating, and as much as she doesn't want to admit it, a lot of it is directed towards herself instead of him. She wishes she had asked Naberus to help her clean up instead of letting it be. She would've preferred being with anyone else right now if it meant not having to deal with this kind of confusion. She considers running again.

She doesn't break away.

She looks back down, and returns to counting panels.

Love is similarly silent the whole way, for lack of anything meaningful or helpful to say at all. He pulls open the door to his quarters and ushers Aurae inside; the only thing differentiating the room from the rest is a framed picture by the bedside. Once Aurae has been brought to the bathroom and sat on the edge of the tub, Love finally lets her go.

"...Hold still. It may sting a tiny bit." He pulls whatever first-aid supplies he has from his bag, first tweezing out the few remaining splinters he can see, then lifting her sleeve to run the sanitizing cloth over her arm.

He wonders silently about the curious lack of any particular thoughts running through his head at the moment. He hums.

Aurae lets out a pained hiss, sucking air in through clenched teeth when the alcohol runs over her still-open cuts. She flinches whenever he presses down a bit too hard, or rubs over a wound a bit too harshly. Once he's done with the first arm, she even lifts her other sleeve for him, shows him even more tiny bruises, both from earlier's mission and from ones past.

Similar to him, she notices her own silence in her head. It reminds her of how she usually gets when they spar together. It makes her acutely aware of how alone they are, behind closed doors.

Quietly, her voice barely heard above the now-muffled drone of the propellers outside, she says, "I hate you."

"Mm." He hears it just fine. It passes through his head like it was a greeting. A part of him wonders why he's letting himself enjoy the silence between them. At the very least, he can admit that it's a brief reprieve from the rest of life. Anything more than that, he doesn't let himself think about.

Her arms are cleaned in short order, and cotton bandages are wrapped over the more severe cuts. When he moves to tend to her legs, he's well aware of the minor intimacy of it, but chooses not to draw attention to it.

She pulls her left leg away from him the moment the cloth touches it. The gash from the day before is still fairly fresh; clean, at least, but it still stings. The fight with Mirellia seems to have reopened it. She holds it away from him for a short moment before letting him properly treat the wound, bracing herself for the incoming sting. Her hands are already clenching the edge of the bathtub for support.

"Do you think..." she speaks again, if only to break the silence between them. It's too heavy for her, she thinks. Another unnecessary weight combined with everything else. "Do you think things would've been different if we were there?"

She bites the inside of her cheek in an attempt to stop the tears from coming back. It works a little bit.

"Maybe we could have bought time for more of them to run away, or..."

"I don't know." Love sighs and finds himself unconsciously placing his free hand on Aurae's knee for...

...He's not sure why, really. He'll pretend it's to keep her leg still while he cleans it.

"...When things like this happen, everyone regrets. Everyone thinks about whether they could have done something differently. But we weren't there, and we had no reason to be. It's not like there was a call of distress that you failed to answer. It just happened. I'm not saying you can't or shouldn't let it hurt for a while, but you need to let it go eventually. There was nothing that could have reasonably been done."

"I'm trying."

The hand on her knee is comfortingly warm. She appreciates it. She finds herself wishing she can let herself feel her own emotions, or at least let down her pride, and let herself be wrapped up in his arms.

"It's hard. I keep thinking of everyone. And no matter how many of them are actually okay, I don't think I can ever stop thinking about the ones that didn't make it. I don't know."

Aurae closes her eyes. She holds her other leg out; it looks significantly less messed up than her left, thankfully. She lets him finish up.

"I'm trying to stop thinking about it. I don't know how you or everyone else does it."

"You're a damned fool to believe I've stopped thinking about it." He chuckles as he moves on, similarly thankful that the next leg seems to be in better condition. He thinks her skin is still pretty despite all the little nicks and bruises, and then wishes he could easily revert back to not thinking at all.

"Sometimes, yes, I wish I could choose not to worry. I'm decent at putting it off when there's other things to worry about, but then it comes back during times like these, whether I'd like it to or not. And then it begins to compound with everything else I have to worry about, and they all tangle together, and it isn't pleasant."

It's clean now. Again, he bandages whatever open wounds need to be covered. There's a brief silence where, against his own wishes, he looks up at Aurae. It ends when he ties one more bandage around a wound that likely didn't need one. "I can let you take care of the rest yourself. I'm sure you don't want me anywhere near the more tender areas."

"There's just a lot, yeah?" she asks, exhaling shakily. She doesn't stand. She attributes it to avoiding putting weight on her left leg, but she knows, deep down, she doesn't want to leave yet. She doesn't want to go back to being alone. Not tonight. She considers letting him treat the rest of her --- not like there are a lot of cuts left. There's a large part of her, a part she absolutely hates, that wants to spend more time with him.

Aurae gulps down a lump in her throat. She looks down at him --- a mistake, she finds out immediately, as her night sky meets his sun. She stares for several eternities before looking away.

She tries desperately to find more words to say, anything to delay the inevitable moment she has to leave and get some sleep, but lets out a sigh as she gives up. Still, she doesn't move.

Love can intuit why she doesn't leave, or even ask him to give her the room. As much as he thinks she'll probably regret not doing so, he'd also rather not leave quite yet. Whatever semblance of support or comfort he is to her, or can give to her, he'll do his best.

"...Alright, then." He turns around, facing away from her for some modicum of privacy. "Take the dress off and turn your back to me."

This is bad. This is risky. This is dangerous. 

And yet, Aurae lifts up the straps of her pinafore and slips it off, lets it hang from the belt around her waist. She unbuttons the top of her dress and lets that hang, too. She finally stands up, winces when she has to put any weight on her left leg, and turns around. It's a lot colder than she realizes; she shudders a bit when the cool air hits her bare skin and the very small amount of cuts and scrapes on her back.

Aurae's thoughts are at war with each other. It's futile to even try to keep her mind empty. At the very least, she can keep her mouth shut.

"Ready," she says, staring down at the floor below.

One... Two... Three... Four...

Love falls back to silence. This time it isn't nearly as comfortable.

Her back is quick work, which he isn't quite happy about. A few passes with the alcohol and the cloth. And as much as he wants to properly take care of her, he realizes a bit too late that it's necessary to also tend her abdomen before wrapping any bandages around her torso.

"...Okay, cover up and turn around."

...Twenty-four.

Aurae does so and turns around. She keeps her eyes glued to the floor, only because she knows she'll melt under his sun.

She's going to have to leave soon. It has to happen eventually. She can't stay here all night. Her thoughts are a mess and her heart is hopelessly beating against her ribcage, threatens to jump out of her throat.

"That's all, yeah?" she asks, voice quiet. Her mind, without any prompting, falls back to Naberus. Just earlier she was hoping she could be as strong as him, being able to finally tell someone else about his own problems. Being able to share his past to her. Just earlier she was hoping, wishing, for someone she could do the same to.

Love isn't that someone, but it's the closest she has.

Aurae lets out a shaky breath. She finally tilts her head up towards him.

And she melts. 

"When things..." She pauses, gulps down another lump in her throat. "When things get like this, how do you... deal with it?"

That brief eye contact is devastating. He breaks it as soon as he's able, instead crouching down a bit to focus on her cuts.

"Oh, my dear, have you seen how much I drink? I am not the person to get that sort of advice from." He doesn't intend it, but nonetheless, his treatment of the wounds on her stomach and chest goes the tiniest bit slower than the previous cleanings. Maybe so there's more of an excuse to make conversation.

"As far as I've experienced it, there's some things you never get over. Closure is good when you can get it, but... you don't always have that opportunity. I let myself break sometimes, but never in front of the troops, if that makes sense. I don't burden anyone else with my problems. But, that being said, I haven't had anyone in a while that wouldn't have minded."

Aurae nods. She silently commends herself for not flinching whenever bare skin touches bare skin. She does shudder, though, whenever he traces her cuts.

"...I think I understand." It's odd, she feels, knowing that even someone like love has to break, even if it's by himself. She can't imagine him being anything but smug, arrogant, and irritating, despite how far from all three of those things he's being right now. She wants to tell him she wouldn't mind if he broke in front of her. She wants to ask him if it would be okay for her to do the same.

She thinks, she knows, it would be a horrible mistake.

Aurae falls silent again. There's a sentence --- just six words --- that she desperately wants to say, and yet she's somehow afraid to say them. She's terrified of the outcome, of how he might interpret them. Part of her still wants to know. Part of her still wants to experience.

All of her knows this is a terrible, terrible mistake. Perhaps bigger than the thought she had before.

Almost too quietly, she whispers, "I think... I need a distraction." Four more words --- "From all of this."

The last one, with all the feeling of melancholy and finality that it carries:

"Please."

Love knows what she means. Of course he knows what she means. He's a bit slower with tying off the last few bandages, and when he finishes, he brings Aurae into his arms, nestling his chin over the crook of her neck.

"You'd be making a mistake, sugar."

She knows. Gods, does she know. This is her last chance to turn back. Her last chance to take back what she just said and leave, get a good night's rest, and forget this ever happened. They'll go right back to theatrically hating each other for the sake of it tomorrow morning, like she never asked him to do anything like this.

Aurae did always run headfirst into danger.

And maybe, just for tonight, she can retreat back into a cave full of lightning, if only to hide from the storm outside.

She hooks her index finger, makes a point with its lower knuckle. She brings her hand to the nearest surface --- the edge of the bathtub, it seems --- and knocks gently, three times.

Love imagines, for a moment, feeling everything from Aurae's perspective. Whatever whirlwind has taken residence inside her, he imagines how bad it must be for her to seek him out for this sort of comfort. For either of their sakes, he knows he shouldn't oblige her request, but for her sake, he knows he must.

He's both happy and devastated that Aurae seeks and finds comfort in his arms, as his fingers press gently into her shoulder and her lower back. As he guides the pair of them out of the bathroom, kisses to her collarbone taste like bitter alcohol. He can't determine the exact moment, but at some point, he makes the determination to put off his regret for later.

Love needs it and despises it in equal measure, but he'll take one night of distraction nonetheless.

— ⛧ —

It's amazing, Aurae thinks, how, even when every fiber of her being is yelling at her to stop, she forges on. It's beautiful, admiring, and completely irritating how stubborn she is, even to herself. How annoying she must be to deal with, a girl who always seems to do her own thing, no matter the consequences. A star unaffected by any gravitational pull other than its own, as impossible as that may be.

...Maybe one other.

Love lives up to his name, she thinks. She gazes up at him now after the act, tangled together under the sheets, head nestled on the left side of his chest. Her ear presses into him, listens to the beating of his heart. He had treated her so carefully. Like porcelain. And she might as well have been, with how volatile she was and still is right now. His heartbeat calms her down. Allowing herself to enjoy his warmth, even if just for tonight, is enough.

Just one night, Aurae says to herself. She reminds herself that they still hate each other, and that when the sun rises again tomorrow and they touch back down on Gaia, they'll both act like this never happened. She thinks, as painful as it may be, that that might be what she prefers. As long as she doesn't have to think about what they've become.

Her hand glides over his chest, down to his abdomen. She runs her fingers over the smooth lines of his scars, traces them like constellations.

He's the first star map she won't be able to keep. 

... 

Aurae counts forty-three on the walls before her eyes finally shut, still pressed against him.

— ⛧ —

Aurae will never know that she'd taken one of Love's firsts.

Anyone he'd previously been with, at least after certain events a year ago, had never seen him completely bare. There was always a shirt or a set of bandages wrapped over the particular scars that he cares about, the ones that stick to him along with the lingering regret from that day a couple years ago.

There's a small tragic irony in how interested Aurae seems to be in them, in how she misses what is likely her only opportunity to ask about them, and in how Love realizes he would have told her if she did.

It's a while before he sleeps, and this time it's of his own accord. He listens to Aurae's breathing, runs his fingers through her hair, to make it hurt more when he ends up wishing for a night like this again. When he does finally close his eyes, his sleep is more restful than it's been in a long time.