*** Note: I'm back! I just want to say thanks to the wonderful Soojimasu for the inspiration for starting this fan fiction and Beta-reading, as well as everyone who read the first chapter, motivating me to continue this. Better late than never: I don't own League of Legends and the characters used here, they belong to Riot Games entirely. Have fun reading!***
Bland: Chapter 2 – Ruins
I feel warm. A hot breath brushes against my left ear. Strong, yet gentle arms caress my belly from behind. He whispers words to me. Soft, comforting, loving words. I can't understand them. I reach to the back of his head, pulling his face closer to mine. I turn slightly, brushing my lips against his furry cheek. His hands wander under my shirt, pushing it up slightly. I close my eyes for a moment, savouring it. Then I turn around in his embrace, opening my eyes again to be welcomed by his gaze.
He looks at me with these bright green emeralds, shining with love and…lust? He pulls my shirt off, he himself being completely naked already. I feel his arousal prodding against my leg. I lean forward just a bit, his face is so close to mine now. He whispers something, I don't care what it is. His lips touch mine and I feel the fire rushing through me. My whole being explodes from pure, rough joy. I lost my pants at one point during the kiss, we're lying in my bed now, passionately kissing, our tongues dancing. My heart dances too, my very soul being engulfed in his heat, his energy, his explosiveness. I've never felt so warm, yet so comfortable in my life. I melt into him, and he melts into me, our souls becoming one, our bodies soon to follow...
I shoot up in my bed. All the warmth is gone. I look around, almost frantically. My bed. My room. The window on the far side of the room is open and fills the room with cool air, the curtains slightly waving in the autumn breeze. I should close the window, it's getting awfully cold in here. I push back the covers and look down involuntarily. And moan out of frustration, the memory rushing back to me. I dreamt of him. Again. And apparently I soiled my pyjamas. Again.
Finally getting up to close the window I get rid of my pyjama pants, throwing them in the laundry basket near the bathroom door to join the ones from 3 days ago. I quickly look into the basket. I should really do my laundry...
I should definitely take a shower. My fur is still a bit damp from sweat and other fluids I lost during the night. Disgraceful. That shouldn't happen to a grown yordle man. And why always when I dream about HIM of all people?
Warm water rushing over my face. My fur feels better now, not as crusty as before. But it doesn't feel completely right. The water is warm, hot. Really hot. Steam is building up in the shower, my body fully soaked with water. I start shampooing my fur all over, taking special care of my lower belly to clean up properly. But something feels off. What's missing?
Who am I kidding here? I miss the warmth. This shower could be steamier than Tristy while overheating, but I'd still feel cold. This is not physical. This is about me and him. And it looks as if my life might stay cold forever.
I step out of the shower at last and start to dry off, giving it not much effort but taking good care of my Mohawk. I'm going to be dirty again as soon as I start working. Another day of tinkering my mind away from the world. I'm back to where I started...
I had flopped back on my bed, not bothering to put clothes on. I don't want to get up again. What's the point anyway? No. To work, Rumble! There's no point in lying in bed either, after all.
I pull on my everyday overalls and head out of my apartment. My workshop is on the other side of the city, in the industrial area. There are no homes there, nobody to care about loud work with different metals, explosions and such. It's pretty far off though, but I like my solitude.
I step out of my apartment complex, beginning the dreaded walk through Bandle's busy centre. Occasionally, people greet or wave, but mostly I earn indifferent looks and some despise, probably because of my dirty, oil stained overall. I dislike both reactions alike. Not that I mind being acknowledged. I just plain dislike large gatherings of people. There are really not that many people I feel comfortable around. None, really, now that I think of it. Not anymore...
I walk quietly through the masses of yordles strolling around, completely ignoring anyone and everyone. What is that feeling? I usually just get annoyed by many people in the same place. But since about a month or two it's getting worse. I feel anxious. Sometimes dizzy, even. I should probably avoid town square...
Finally the streets get less crowded. Grey buildings, mostly abandoned factories, broken windows, filthy alleys. I have reached Bandle's dead end. My workshop is the only place that is still functioning in this terrible part of town. They all shut down due to cheap and, I hate to admit it, well fabricated imported goods from Piltover. Anger is building up inside of me. Those damn sell outs. Leaving their home behind for a pat on the head and a kick in the ass, giving away supreme yordle ingenuity to humans and casually destroying Bandle's economy along the way.
The last shop to close here was the most painful, though... I walk past a large factory hall, whose doors aren't completely rotten yet. Only some months have passed since it was used last, but you could definitely see that it was used in a quite violent way. Small holes in the walls where detonations pierced through walls, metal splinters everywhere and a strong, sulphuric smell... This was his workplace. We used to hang out here or test some new inventions. Sometimes his, sometimes mine, sometimes collaborations. Or we just hung out and talked, laughed and had a great time. Had. I walk past the building, trying to ignore it to my best efforts. Mostly because I probably wouldn't be able to stop myself from turning it into a smoking pile of rubble if I didn't.
My workplace is a lot smaller. Just a medium sized garage, but enough space for Tristy, a bunch of tools, scrap metal and two yordles working on new inventions. It looks a bit empty now. I stand in front of the door, key in hand. I hesitate. Why would I even want to open this door, anyway? I haven't made any progress in several months now, I come here every day and after some hours I catch myself staring blankly at my robot, phasing out and my head empty. I still stand there, a cool autumn breeze brushing slightly through my ruffling Mohawk. I hear something, far in the distance. I perk my ears up in hopes to decipher what that small sound is.
Rustling. A constant, monotone rustling. I look around. Then I see it. That small piece of forest separating the end of the former industrial city from the Junkyard.
Looking back and forth, undecided between the door in front of me and the empty, grey alleyway. I think about the past months. Endless tinkering. Some minor adjustments with the flamespitter. Nothing that would ever make a difference, just more or less brushing off some dirt and getting myself covered in oil for some reason. I might as well take a little hike. Not like it would make any difference between sitting around in my workshop or walking around in the woods. I put the keys back into my pocket and turn to leave.
Clouds cover the sky. One giant mass of clouds. Grey, monotone, uniform clouds. It looks as if the sky was just another abandoned factory building. Just a bit less decayed, but even more depressing. It's cold, autumn winds brushing through the empty streets, pushing litter in no distinct direction. I walk towards the small forest, watching the leaves wave in the wind. The only thing with any colour at all. The leaves already turned their colours, now spotting red, yellow, brown and even a bit of green here and there.
With some rays of sun here and there it'd probably look kind of beautiful. Like this, though I have a different sight. This is decay. This is the end of life for this year. Like old metal gathers rust, nature develops these burning colours. A last desperate try to gain attention and look beautiful before ultimately falling to the ground, rotting and becoming a mush of brown dirt. Whether it's rusty metal, colourful leaves or friendships. Apparently everything has to end at some point. And the end is never pretty.
I walk through the forest now, not really thinking about where to go, as I already know where I'll end up. Narrow tree trunks, some roots here and there... The trees look unhealthy. Like they were not really living but more vegetating. I'm getting closer to my goal. Some of the stuff that ends up on the junkyard is poisonous and it seems to have affected the trees here...
I look at one particularly runt of a tree, parts of bark falling off, looking pale and dry. Then my gaze goes past the tree, spotting some metal pieces on the ground. I'm here. I walk over to the end of the tree line, overseeing a huge sink, filled with waste. Bandle City Junkyard. Where everything begun.
Back then, as a small pup, I'd always go to the Junkyard by myself. Not a single yordle in sight, just me. I and a seemingly endless amount of scrap metal, pieces of rubber, greasy parts of discarded machines. My empire. I was the king of the abandoned, just as unwanted as my kingdom of waste. I started building little figures. My own companions, as I saw them then. Now, I'd say it was more than fitting. Companions made out of things no one wanted for the boy no one wanted.
And then, one day, when I already lived in that shack on the Junkyard, eating what others gave me out of pity and what I stole out of spite, I saw him. The other kid. A trespasser, an intruder in my kingdom! I remember how I hated him. I hid behind a large steel wheel, a broken part of a train probably, and thought about what to do. I was so angry. Even here I was not alone, always there was someone to challenge my sovereignty. First my mental father, thinking that hitting me was the way to "cure" my antics, then the people from the foster home, who thought drowning me in fake love was enough to distract me from the fact that I was constantly under surveillance.
And now this brat, with his fancy headgear, hopping through MY Junkyard like a maniac. "Would killing someone really make my life that worse?" I thought. Victim of domestic violence, runaway, now murderer? "A pretty normal career." I thought. It would have been so easy. Just a little push to the pile of metal to my left and Mr. Over-energetic would have been buried under a mountain of sharp metal pieces. And then he detected me. He looked me straight in the eye and without missing a beat ran over to me to say hello. I was mesmerized. His eyes were so pure! No spite, no pity, no hatred. Nothing fake in them. Just open curiosity. I was never looked at like this before.
The day Ziggs and I became friends was the day I started healing. He brought back my own curiosity, which was the initial cause for the disaster my life had become. But now there was nobody to limit me. We started talking and he never wanted to take my Junkyard away from me. Or take me away from the Junkyard. He just wanted to share. And we started sharing. Material first, then our talents, our time, at one point we started to share our lives as we grew up together. Sometimes he even stayed overnight at my shack. The day he finally convinced me to join him and his family for dinner was my first step back to society. He gave me back my life, I opened a different facet of his to him: tinkering.
When he first saw my shack he immediately discovered my figures. I was so scared. My loneliness exposed to someone I had just met! But he was thrilled! He couldn't believe that I had built them, and asked me how I did it. He discovered his love for building things through me. And his love to destroy. In a place like this, with nothing that could become even more worthless than it already was we could blow up whatever we wanted. We grew with each other and influenced each other. From the first day to our last...
"Rumble?!" A voice calls out to me. I flinch. I don't know how long I've been standing here, not moving a muscle and just looking down on the junkyard. I turn around slightly to see Tristana and Teemo slowly approaching me. As if my mood hadn't been bad enough already. The only person I'd consider a friend after Ziggs departure, together with that constantly smiling dumbass.
"Tristana! Teemo. What brings you here?" I ask, as casually as possible. How did they even find me, at the most abandoned place Bandle has to offer?
"Oh, we were on a small mission together and are currently on our way back to Bandle. We were just wondering what you did here for so long."
For so long? "What do you mean, long?" I ask. Can't a yordle just look at something for a minute? "We saw you standing there in that exact same spot when we got here on our way out. That was almost 3 hours ago."
"What?!" Damn, don't lose your cool now Rumble! You stood there for at least 3 hours without moving. And even worse: they know! "Oh wow! Was it really that long?" I got to remain cool. Play it down, don't show weakness now! Think! Fast! "I was... ehrm... enjoying the view over my childhood, you could say! Haha!" They don't know that I lived here. Only Ziggs knows that. Don't let them find out, Rumble! You can do this!
Teemo frowns slightly, of course without stopping to smile. Tristana looks at me inquiringly for a second before her face lights up suddenly. "Oh! Okay then! We gotta head off now, don't we, Teemo?" What was that look in her eyes just now? Teemo looks slightly alarmed. Or am I only imagining that? "Oh. Y-Yeah, we really gotta hurry back. You can handle yourself, Rumble?" Okay, I'm sure Tristana looked at him when he said that. What was that expression? And what kind of question is that, anyway?
"Sure! Why wouldn't I? Go, you two. I'm just gonna head back to my workshop." There they run. Did she just punch him on the shoulder? Not sure if that makes me feel better now...
I turn around for a last look at the junkyard. What's that on the ground where I stood just now? Oh no. I swipe a hand over my cheek. Wet. No. Oh please no! I didn't... No. I couldn't have. I lick over my hand unconsciously. Salty. Oh heavens no. I sink to my knees and bury my face in my hands. Now I know why Tristana behaved so oddly. And why she tried to end the conversation as soon as she saw my face. Why does this have to happen to me?
I burst into tears again, not bothering to hold back any more. I hate to admit it but it's true. He gave me back my life when we first met.
And now he took it away again.
***Note: I hope you like the second chapter! What? You didn't? Tell me why! → Review
You did? Wow, thanks! What did you like best? → Review as well =)
Thanks for reading, I'll be back with a next chapter soon. This will be NOT go unfinished!***