Built Like a Moth
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Author's Note:
I've always wondered how a romantic relationship between these two would go. I've written them as platonic before, but this idea wouldn't leave me alone. Reviews appreciated.
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Bruise
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"This whole thing depends on amnesia and magnets." –Dessa Darling, Matches to Paper Dolls
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For the first night in months, Howard wasn't listening to sobbing and screaming as he tried to sleep.
Not that that meant quiet; outside the tent was the rustle of kids moving into their new homes, the clunking sounds of inexperienced teenaged boatmen ramming their vessels into the docks, the occasional cheerful yelp of a toddler playing in the dark water, and the sounds of vomiting from dehydrated idiots who'd reached the lake and overindulged. Inside the tent, Orc was breathing over the roof of his mouth, an endeavor Howard would have sworn was spitefully noisy if Orc were awake. And somewhere in the distance, coyotes were calling to reassemble.
The tent itself was built for two people, but Orc could have taken up the space on his own. Howard had resigned himself to pressing and wriggling up against the side only because he knew better than to try and find someone willing to pity him enough to share a bed, and it was too cold for him to reasonably sleep on his own. Besides, Drake and Brittney were still somewhere out in the woods, and despite everything, or maybe because of everything, Howard knew Orc was still his best chance at being defended.
Howard's nose was bleeding. Again.
He snorted and only succeeded in spraying bloody mucus down to his mouth. After licking some of it off his lips, he snaked an arm up out of his sleeping bag and smeared the rest on the nylon corner. His face hurt. Not as badly as it did yesterday, not the sharp sting of a freshly-broken nose, but the tired ache that settled in after a day of squinting and face-rubbing and crying on top of a day-old broken nose. A glimpse of his face in the reflection of one of the tentpoles earlier in the day had confirmed his suspicions; a blotchy grey and purple tint had spread like algae from under the inside corners of his eyes to around his nostrils. Not a bad bruise, but a noticeable one nonetheless.
He repositioned himself in the sleeping bag, covering his injured face with fabric and warming his chin with his own breath. This new pose left the back of his neck and his shoulders cold, but that was life.
Drake and Brittney's cacophony might have been difficult to sleep through, but at least it was a single intrusion into the night, the metaphorical car alarm of crazy blaring into the night. This night, the sheer variety and unpredictability of the noises were possibly even worse. Every one of the many footsteps clumping through the forest undergrowth could be an unknown threat, rather than an identified and managed danger tied up in the basement. Every delighted squeal and splash sounded too much like a warning cry. Howard entertained fantasies of wringing the throats of every happy child out there, or at least delivering a curfew and a lecture to the lot of them, an oration on Stop Being Happy and Shut the Fuck Up. At gunpoint.
Orc's hand was on his shoulder.
"What do you want?" His tone was acidic enough to stain paper.
"You're cold."
"That's because it's a cold night." 'Moron' was tacked onto the end of that statement, if unspoken.
For several seconds, Orc didn't say anything, and Howard hoped he'd gone back to sleep or passed out again.
"I said I'm sorry," Orc finally said.
"And I said 'okay'. Now go to sleep."
"I meant it."
"I know you did."
Orc squeezed Howard's shoulder, just a little. It was a gentle enough to be surprising from a boy who could split someone's skull with a tap. Howard cringed as if Orc's fingers were made of needles and sandpaper.
"Don't touch me."
"You're all cold."
"I said don't fucking touch me, alright?" Howard squirmed and wrested himself away from Orc's grip, feeling suddenly trapped in the small tent and the pitch black. He scrambled out of the sleeping bag and slipped on an empty bottle of something. The wall of the tent made poor support and he slid onto his knees, somewhere around Orc's head but he couldn't tell where. The bottle clanged against something, probably Orc's arm.
"Where you going?"
Howard didn't respond. He just fumbled for the zipper on the tent door and walked out.
It wasn't as crushingly dark outside. A few kids had set up firepits, and while the dim burn of the fires wasn't enough to change the ground from a black morass of things to trip on, it did provide a general idea of where people had set up their camps. Looking up, Howard realized the trees against the sky were still inky black against inkier black, but at least he knew where the trees were enough that he wouldn't walk into them.
Unfortunately, it was also colder outside the tent. Howard's hands already felt like they were all knucklebones. Taking careful steps, he started to make his way towards the nearest campfire when someone jabbed a hot flashlight beam into his face.
"Jesus!"
"Something going on out here?"
Howard blinked and rubbed his palms over the sore patches of skin around his eyes. "Dekka?"
Dekka lowered the flashlight beam a hair, although Howard knew full well that she was keeping it aimed at his face on purpose. "What are you doing out?"
"Didn't realize I was under house arrest. Tent arrest."
"I heard bottles clinking."
Howard stopped squinting just long enough to give her a look to tell her that any question she could have about the bottles was an extremely stupid one. Dekka snorted.
"What happened to your face?" she asked.
"Your stupid flashlight happened to my face. What's your face's excuse?"
Howard couldn't see Dekka's face enough to be sure, but he was fairly sure he'd managed to at least get an eye-roll out of her. Which was some small, meaningless victory on its own.
He also couldn't be sure that he saw a sympathetic crinkle between her eyebrows when she asked "you sure everything's okay in there?"
"I don't know what you're talking about. Do you just sit around in the dark waiting to spring people with your flashlight?"
"I'm trying to be nice."
"No, you're getting in my face. Are we done here, officer?"
Dekka grunted and lowered the flashlight before turning and walking away. Her booted feet made crunching noises over the pine needles.
Howard gave her a little wave that was lost in the night. "Night night, Dekka! Don't let the bed bugs bite!"
He didn't get to see how much the remark hit home, because she snapped the flashlight off entirely, leaving him in darkness.