Wolfblood

Boredom

"Rhydian, come to bed!" Maddy whined; wrapping her arms around his waist and letting her hands run over his toned stomach.

"Just let me finish this drawing." Rhydian replied absently, shifting back in his chair so that Maddy could continue to hold him while he bent over to get a close look at the finer lines at the edges of the hair he'd drawn.

"But I'm bored!" Maddy persisted.

"Even if I were to throw my shirt off and jump in with you, what would we even do?" Rhydian reasoned. "You know your parents were angry last time they walked in on us and we were only kissing then."

"I don't care at this point!" Maddy pouted.

"So you'd sooner have me kicked out and never even get the chance to kiss me again than just hang on for five miserable seconds?" Rhydian summarised.

"Can you make it four?" Maddy asked. "I hate odd numbers." Rhydian burst out laughing and had to put down the pen he was about to start inking in the drawing with.

"What is this thing with you and odd numbers?" Rhydian asked. "They never did anything wrong to you."

"Yeah, but they're odd." Maddy stated. "It's like the way they used to teach it in Maths when I was a little kid. 'If I have four sweets, each person in a group of four would get one. That's fair, so it's an even number. On the other hand, if I have five sweets, each person in a group of four would get one, but there would be one left that would randomly go to one of the four. This means that three have one sweet and one has two. That's not fair, so it's an odd number. That said: the one who gets two sweets is usually the bully, so in those scenarios, three people get no sweets and one person gets five sweets. Just like the boy behind you cracking his knuckles right now.' It always set my teeth on edge! How is it fair that I got my sweets nicked?"

"Okay, I have so many questions." Rhydian said. "Firstly: What the hell were the teachers doing when that happened? Second: Technically that analogy is wrong because if there were five sweets and five people, each person would get one. That means that five is an even number because it divides up evenly between five people and yet four wouldn't. Also in your defence: I never liked seven. Seven was a nasty piece of work since seven ate nine."

"That has to be the worst joke I've ever heard! And those last two weren't even questions!" Maddy flopped back on her bed and groaned. "Okay then, what was the worst joke you ever heard?"

"What are red, white, black and yellow?" Rhydian asked.

"Let me guess: flowers?" Maddy rolled her eyes.

"No, they're definitely colours." As Rhydian said that, Maddy recoiled as though she'd been shot.

"Bad jokes... My heart... Dying... Give my stuff to the poor..." For some unknown reason, the scene from Resident Evil Damnation sprang to mind for Rhydian.

"Get up, you idiot." Rhydian put on a bad Russian accent as he briefly turned to Maddy. "Do you think that vest you're wearing is a girl's blouse?"

"Rhydian, this is a girl's blouse." Maddy said as she got up again. "What the hell was that from anyway?"

"Do you not remember Resident Evil Damnation?" Rhydian asked. "We watched it at Shannon's Halloween movie night. Tom nearly wet himself when the Goliath broke out of its power limiter..."

"How do you actually remember all this stuff?" Maddy asked. "Wait... Which bit was the power limiter again?"

"It was that big metal-infused overcoat." Rhydian told her. "The Goliath mutated when it broke out of it."

"Oh, I think I remember that now." Maddy nodded slowly. "That was the one where that Russian guy injected himself with the parasite to control the BOWs and Leon shot his spine out with his own Lightning Hawk to kill it, right?"

"Yeah, that was it." Rhydian nodded, absorbed in the way his pen glided over each line leaving a thickness to match each pencil line he'd done.

"God, I'm so bored right now I just need this day to be over." Maddy mumbled.

"Oh come on, you've had a great day." Rhydian said dismissively.

"That's easy for you to say." Maddy shot back. "What the hell am I going to do with the space blanket Shannon got me? I'm not going into space any time soon."

"Maddy, just because astronauts use it doesn't mean that you have to be in space." Rhydian told her. "Your room gets like an ice box when you forget to turn your radiator on, as we've both found out."

"I know she's explained it, but I still don't get how it works though." Maddy argued.

"Why are you bothered with how it works?" Rhydian asked. "Your focus should be whether it actually does work or not. All you have to worry about is wrapping the thing around yourself. It does everything else. That's literally the simplest rocket science ever."

"I suppose you're right." Maddy pouted.

"Stop pouting, it'll ruin it." Rhydian muttered without even turning around.

"What could it possibly ruin?" Maddy countered defensively.

"It'll ruin your pretty face if the wind changes." Rhydian shrugged. "Do you really want to walk around school with the three Ks passing comment?"

"Since when have I cared about them?" Maddy shrugged.

"You care about everyone, even if you don't like them." Rhydian said without looking up. "That's the sort of person you are. That's where the difference between you and me has always been. I got expelled from foster homes and schools alike because I ended up moving around more than I would have if I hadn't been taken away from the wild pack. They move around every few months whereas I got tossed around like crap every few weeks if I was lucky. It got to the point that I just stopped caring about the people I was put with or anyone around me. They weren't like me. They didn't understand." Suddenly, Rhydian's heart started hammering in his chest as he was swamped by a sudden wave of heat. Intermittent images of the past flashed through his vision as he gripped his head tight.

"What's wrong?" Maddy asked, wrapping him in her arms and holding him close as he turned a greyish shade as though he were about to throw up.

"It's okay." Rhydian assured her as his heart slowed as quickly as it had sped up. "Why did that happen?"

"What happened?" Maddy asked. "Talk to me, Rhydian."

"There was a foster mum I had for nearly a month. It was the longest I'd ever been in apart from Mrs Vaughan's." Rhydian told her. "I got taken away from her when she passed away one night for unknown reasons. At first they tried to accuse me of murdering her. The problem they had was that I was sleeping round someone else's house that night because she felt too ill and didn't want me in the house. I may be able to sneak through windows unnoticed, but I can't murder someone from the other side of a town."

"I don't get it." Maddy said. "What does that have to do with what just happened?"

"For a few seconds, it was like I was living it all again." Maddy could see Rhydian was sweating pinballs.

"Well, it is nearly a full moon." Maddy shrugged. "Those kinds of flashbacks are common in Wolfbloods with troubled pasts."

"Are you calling me troubled now?" Maddy couldn't tell if he was joking or not there, but decided to elaborate for safety's sake.

"Let's face it Rhydian, you've not had the easiest time of it growing up. You know when you get little whispers of things you remember people saying but can't place who said it, or little bits of songs you haven't heard for years? Being a Wolfblood near the full moon can sometimes make that a lot more visceral. Trust me when I say, just put the pens down and come to bed. It's the best thing you can do when that happens, and I'm not saying that to get a cheap kiss out of this. You genuinely shouldn't push yourself here."

"No, it's fine." Rhydian assured her. "I'm nearly done anyway and this always calms me down."

"Well, that's your choice then." Maddy flopped back on her bad and lay on her side seductively.

"It's totally fine, Maddy. You don't have to pose." Rhydian said. "I just drew you naturally."

"What?" Maddy's brain seemed to misfire for a second before she realised that he'd actually been putting her down on paper the whole time. She looked over his shoulder to see the most stunning portrait of her she'd ever seen. It was as if she were looking back at herself from out the paper.

"What? You didn't think I forgot about your birthday, did you, Maddy?" Rhydian asked, smirking as he wiped eraser shavings off the paper and held it up to the light. In the light, it was so much better. It danced through the paper and made her brown eyes sparkle.

"Thank you, Rhydian." Maddy hugged him tight. "It's beautiful."

"So are you." Rhydian shrugged. "Now, what was this you were saying about getting some sleep?"

"I love you." Maddy said; her head still buried in his chest.

"I love you too, Maddy." Rhydian gently ran a hand through her hair before picking her up and moving over to the bed. He gently laid her down before settling next to her. "Have you enjoyed today then?" Rhydian asked.

"Yeah, it's been great." Maddy replied. "Though I still think that space blanket could have maybe been saved until closer to winter."

"Maddy, it's a great idea." Rhydian rested one hand on the side of her face. "Shannon gave that to you because she knew how cold your room got, don't be ungrateful."

"I know. You're right." Maddy shrugged. "Anyway, we'll find a time to use it." With that, Rhydian kissed her on the forehead, held her close and pulled a blanket over the two of them as she fell asleep.

As they lay together, Rhydian couldn't help but think of what happened that day. He hadn't been lying about what he'd said to Maddy, but there was more to it. It wasn't that he stopped being able to care about people, or even that he didn't want to. It was that he couldn't afford to. He'd ended up realising that he couldn't afford to care about people. He honestly stopped seeing the point. If he started caring about people, then when he inevitably got moved somewhere else it was just another person he'd managed to get attached to that he had to let go of. But then Maddy had come along and things had been different. As soon as he'd seen she was like him, he knew there was something there. The realisation that there were others like him in the world was something he owed her dearly for. It was a debt he felt he could never truly repay.

As Maddy lay there pretending to be asleep with her head buried in Rhydian's chest, she knew exactly what was going through his mind. She could easily guess that when he said he'd stopped caring about people, it was because he got moved around so often. If he got attached to people, it would just be someone else to let go of. But that was never happening again as long as she lived. She was never letting him go. She also knew how he felt about her. As soon as they'd met and she realised he never knew what he even was, she knew he felt he owed her for all she'd shown him. What he didn't realise was, he paid any debt he owed her just by being there. When it came down to it, they were there for each other when they needed to be and even when they didn't. Their companionship was what kept them both going. That was how they managed to sit through Jefferies' dull history lectures and the terrors of Maths class. Provided he was there, she was ready for anything.

The next morning...

Maddy woke up warmer than she'd ever been. Rhydian was wrapped around her, but so was something else. Maddy looked at the reflective fabric and realised it was the space blanket Shannon gave her. It was in that moment that she actually realised how it worked. The reflective surface bounced their body heat back at them to warm them instead of letting it escape into a fabric sheet like other blankets did. How could she have been so stupid to look at the blanket and not know how it worked? While that was cool though, she didn't remember Shannon giving her a breathing pillow. She'd really have to have a look and see where she'd got that from. Suddenly, she woke up properly and realised that the 'pillow' she'd thought was breathing was actually her boyfriend. She carefully picked herself up into a sitting position and turned to face him.

"Good morning, handsome." Maddy groaned as she arched her back to pop her spine back into place. Rhydian didn't respond, so she simply laid back down on her front and wrapped her arms around him again. Just then, Emma came into Maddy's room with a tray of bacon sandwiches. Maddy instantly let go as Rhydian sat upright at the smell of bacon.

"I just thought you might be hungry after sleeping for over half the day." Emma grinned.

"What?" Maddy looked at the clock by her bed and saw that it was nearly supper time the next day. "Wow. That blanket Shannon gave me really works."

"Mrs Vaughan called and she'd staying at her mother's for an extra night to keep an eye on her." Emma said to Rhydian. "If you two want to stay there all day, that's not a problem. You're on the half term, so the time's your own."

"Thanks, Emma." Rhydian nodded as he took a bite of sandwich.

"And don't forget, you're staying over for the full moon." Maddy reminded him.

"Yes Maddy, I haven't forgotten." Rhydian rolled his eyes, earning a fierce elbow from Maddy. Emma burst out laughing.

"You need to calm down, cub. He's only messing with you." Emma got ready to take the plates back as the pair finished their bacon. "Not many of us forget the full moon easily." Maddy and Rhydian passed their plates back as Emma got ready to leave. "By the way, your dad and I are going shopping, so behave yourselves."

"So, do you want to go for a run?" Rhydian asked Maddy as soon as they heard the car pull away. What he didn't expect was for her to grab him round the back of the head and pull him in for a brief kiss.

"I can think of other ways to kill the boredom."

End!

Author's Note: Okay, so I was (as insinuated in the title) incredibly bored when I wrote this. I was ill and I literally couldn't do anything. This is just a short Maddian drabble since I wasn't up to much, but I probably will do a sequel when I eventually get the inspiration. I have ideas for other stories too, so please bare with me since I haven't actually started to write them yet. I'm at that awful stage where I've got ideas for great middles and ends, but no beginnings; or great beginnings and no idea where to go from there.