Note:
Flashbacks and thoughts in italics
I do not condone or encourage any behaviors in this story. It is simply a fictional story.
This story is inspired by the—
[Song by Kendrick Lamar and SZA — All The Stars, from Black Panther]
Love, let's talk about love
Is it anything and everything you hoped for?
Or do the feeling haunt you?
I know the feeling haunt you
This may be the night that my dreams might let me know
All the stars are closer, all the stars are closer, all the stars are closer
This may be the night that my dreams might let me know
All the stars are closer, all the stars are closer, all the stars are closer..
"Butterfly Effect"
CHAPTER 2
You already know
"I'm not going to hit the road with you." Unsurprisingly not.
"Sorry? But we have to move forward." Loke pressed.
"It's nothing, no need to bother. It's just that I don't feel like it. Just like I said, I'm tired, entirely. I think it wouldn't hurt to take some rest." 'That's all.' Glimpsing to her right, Juvia's fretted, homesick stare darted from wildflowers to leaves to prop roots to pits. Loke's countenance might cause her to feel incoherently peccant. It could be an accusing glint in his eyes. After all, she downgraded him as well. A sour, angry grind of his teeth. She didn't have to cry, nor did she have to let her guard down. Or something that'll remind her of a beaten puppy. Whatever. Juvia shouldn't have given a crap about what Loke had to say.
"Why don't you continue without me?" Why should someone else's opinion matter to her in the first place? Maybe since the whole phase of her Gray obsession had finalized. Juvia should've tried to girl up. Cleared up her head, steeled her resolve to get the hang of her emotions, and reduced that hypersensitivity of hers. Unfortunately, high sensitivity is not something you can nullify just like that. Even then, the least Juvia can do is change her habits. To be less affected by those stressors she can't control.
"What else are you going to do? What do you mean by you don't feel like it? There is only one way we should be dealing with this. And one of us stopping and staying here, stuck, is not it! That's just freaking stupid." He bawled back at her face, scuttling to the side she had inclined her face, stiff-necked. Her breath quickened, and she paddled back, deft in her duty to put some space between them.
Yeah. I get stupid when I'm emotional. So? She thought, rubbing off the sweat that wet her eyebrows with the pad of her thumb. They were far too late for that. She didn't want to spend any more time with him, period. They shall not have this journey together. Not after all this. '
What will you do? Huh, Loke. Will you force me out of here? Let's see how you do that. Her hands fisted at the cotton tassels on the sides of her dress, playing dumb to his dissatisfaction. "I'll find my way out, myself. Have a safe trip. Okay."
This has never happened to him. I crossed the limit. I did that first. She didn't. At least in a long time. Almost always the man was skilled with his words. Unpurposed or not, Loke had dragged her into this. He slips his hands inside his pant pockets for the second time. "It's not like that—Crap." Cigarettes. Wet ones. He tugged them out, the pocket slots now empty as he held himself responsible for shifting this toxic argument to another level. Moreover, "After I saw you like that," all distraught and emotional like that. Had he known how much of a sensitive subject it was for her—"I shouldn't have mentioned Gray's name at all. I could have been more sensible."
"Juvia doesn't wish to talk about that right now. I'm not going to lie and say: it's okay. But, while it's not true anymore, she did deserve half of what Loke said." She admitted, giving him a sheepish grin as she did. It used to be the truth, nevertheless. Wishes of taking a puff now forgotten, he had turned his back on her in deep introspection, dead umber leaves crushing under his feet.
As if trying to convince him, her words dragged up an upbeat tone, playing it down as a joke. "Don't worry. I'm capable of making it back alone." An idiot in denial, that was what she was. "You won't have to go through any interrogations about a blue-haired dead body." The last part of her script sugarcoated itself in a giggle. And rightfully, in every sense of the word, he swung around in his shirt sleeves, his hair sticking to his damp brow. Argh. She thinks I'm worried because someone might accuse me of ditching her in here. Had Loke taken off his shades, she could've seen his icy glare at the mention of her death.
"I've spent nightfalls in darker sites, camping and trekking. I'm safe here." She believes so, at most. She combs her fingers through the heavy strands of turquoise flowing down her shoulders before her lips screwed up into a smile that didn't reach her eyes. Her pinky finger caught a twig that had entrapped itself in her bird-nest-hair.
"Unaided? Alone?" The sound glissading over his lips was ringing. When she didn't respond briskly, he got the answer he needed. "I wish you'd get where I'm coming from, Juvia. Darkness is not the only thing you have to be concerned about right now. And what on Earth Land do you mean by safe? Sure, we saw no impression of a wheel or chain on our way but that doesn't imply that no truck has ever passed this way." Their guesstimate on the things that could be skulking shush in these woodlands was barely any.
There could be animals.
.
Or worse, there could be People.
.
Cannibals.
Psychopaths.
Rapists.
Anything. "I told you, I can't leave without you."
"Tch. Then Juvia is going to sit here." This time there were no concerns in her voice as if she had already scripted the course of their plans on her own. The options she has provided him with show a lot. Either he goes alone or he wouldn't go at all. Clearly, she thinks he'll choose the former.
"For how long?" He prodded.
"A few minutes or hours. A whole night. Don't know." The yawn Juvia let out mid-sentence to make a deliberate languish in her demeanor, was all the more satirical.
"You're not going to spend the night here, sitting on a godforsaken log, in the middle of nowhere, sobbing." He flexed his knuckles, closing his eyes, needing to smack some sense into her head and his own. His voice rose in pitches when he said. "No way!"
"That's my decision to make. Loke can go."
This insolent Little— Before his thoughts get the best of him, Loke needled his plaguy speculations onto a Voodoo doll of Juvia and threw it across the window of his mind to infinity. He pinched the bridge of his nose, his arms now folded. "Not every forest is the same. I expected you to have known that from experience, Ju-Via." Somehow, sometime during the short period of her life, Juvia had mastered the art of silent treatment. What a Perfect Combo Offer!
Trotting to the side, past his scrutinizing face, she sits down on a huge leafy wood that doesn't give Loke the impression of a long fallen one. Apparently, the monstrous roots were fresh out of the soil. He bit back a curse, two curses, and now four. If she is uncompromising, then he is too. Now, he's definitely not giving up on a patience test. He's gone through the worst. He'll teach her that.
Loke swore he saw her eyes go wide like feather fans the moment he rested his ass on the other end of the wood, lounging like it's home. She wants him as far away from her as possible. Loke doesn't give the benefit of the doubt to that. If she is persistent to shoo him off, then he is determined too, to haul her back with him, and stomp their way out here, together.
There on the bumpy bark, they sat still, until an epic-long thirty minutes crawled away agonizingly. No words were exchanged between them. Yet, for the love of god (nonexistent), Juvia had never felt so impatient in her life. Waiting for Loke to make the next move, (which is, leaving her alone) is like waiting for Sorcerer Weekly to cease the spread of big white lies on the Council of Fiore. That's it. She's done here.
"Why don't you just leave, already?" Ouch. She did not snap. No, she didn't.
"You are not the only one who gets to make choices." Tit for tat. "Don't order me around because-clearly-this is not your house to try to kick me out. To stay or not, my damn decision to make. And I've decided to stay." He got back at her with enough steam.
"I don't need someone protecting me." That's a shame. Juvia is a Fairy Tail mage. Her thoughts spilled out from a pepper jar, words aloud until Loke's death gripped yank on her forearm whipped her out of the state of oblivion.
"Shame? It's never a shame! What mage, you say? Is it that much of a disgrace to be helped by me?" He was the Lion. The leader. The guardian. The protector. She just pulled off some regal footwork on his ego. "What you are doing now is hindering me from my duties. Let me remind you that I am also a Fairy Tail mage. I don't see why it should be a shame."
"And in Fairy Tail, friends look out for each other." He added.
"Friends?" At least her riposte made sense. Loke sighed but was not taken aback. Facts. How did he have the audacity to call them friends when the first time in his life he had ever talked to her was moments ago? That too, after pushing her off a bridge, after they had showered each other with a shit load of insults (mutual respect, his ass), and the rest, well, is history.
"You have a point. Fine. Will you come with me if I needed you instead?" If he had played his cards right, this can't be not working.
"You saved me from the waterfall. Right. Now I'm asking you, to help me again. Protect me, again." This time, she must. If there's one thing Loke knows she shouldn't say no to, then that's a flat verbal request for help. Friends or not. This time, if she is a mage of Fairy Tail like she had preached, then she must put it into practice.
Juvia's long nails find the junction between her neck and shoulders, leaving exasperated scratches in its wake. "Liar." she curses under her breath.
Yes, indeed, she put it into practice.
In the end, she did all the stomping, kick-starting their paused journey for a shelter or whatsoever. Loke followed suit, hasty, nifty steps in tow.
