pyr min solemnly swears he is up to no good (twinclaws) wrote in emillion, @ 2014-06-29 03:46:00 |
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Pyr did not see Juliette return from her trip, but the presence of Chuckles the Chocobo in the guildhall stables once more told him she had returned safe, unless it had been only the chocobo, but there would be a bigger uproar if a guild member had been injured, so Pyr told himself everything was all right. And once again he had no choice but to face the truth that if she had successfully completed her training regime in the mountains, then she was going to kick his ass even more than she had been lately, and there really wasn’t a lot of wiggle room between the current situation and a complete and irretrievable defeat on his part, after which she would inevitably lose interest in sparring with him, and then he would bury his face in his hands and know no more. This was, of course, a possibility he wished to avoid. That was the reason he headed straight to Baker’s Dozen the morning after Chuckles’ return and bought a large bag of cookies. He took these out after his training session with Jareth, reaching for his bag like a dying man reaches for the hand of a loved one, and struggled into a sitting position before saying, “I brought cookies. I didn’t know what kind you like, so I brought a bunch of different kinds. But mostly chocolate.” It was a well-known universal truth that everybody liked chocolate. Jareth, of course, had to be the one person in the entire world who didn’t like chocolate. The bag of cookies was given an exasperated look before he turned to his squire. “I don’t like cookies.” Not the whole truth - Liana used to bake them when she had been pregnant, peanut butter and oatmeal, and he had happily eaten those - but he wasn’t supposed to be sitting in a patch of grass, sharing baked goods with the kid. He was supposed to be making sure that Pyr was ready for his class exam, which was 277 days away. Not that Jareth was counting. Or even cared. “Let’s skip the nonsense and get to training. We’re working on durability today,” he informed the kid, stubbornly remaining standing. Pyr’s jaw dropped and he suppressed a groan, only because he knew it would only make things worse for him. He couldn’t stop himself saying, “But we just trained like, a lot. And it’s just one cookie.” Not that that had ever stopped Jareth from refusing similar offers in the past, but it was worth the attempt. Probably. “Listen, just take one. It’s important to me. Pretty please?” How could the combined allure of cookies and puppy eyes not work? The skeptical look he gave Pyr should have clued him in to the fact that, no, the cookies and puppy eyes would not work, but then, Jareth had gotten good at hiding his emotions. The damn wide eyes and hopeful expression on the kid’s face pulled at whatever heartstrings he had left. That was still no reason to share a fucking cookie in the training yards. “Me eating a cookie is important to you,” he said, just to clarify. “Why?” “It’s not the eating of the cookie that’s the important part. Well, I mean, you eat one and I eat one, of course. It’s like a friendship thing.” That he has to explain it means he’s making progress; that he thinks of this as progress says enough about his previous attempts. “It’s called bonding. And I feel kind of hurt when you keep rejecting it like that. I just want to be nice to you.” “Nice,” Jareth repeated. Why in the blazing hells did the kid want to bond with him? What happened to the days when he had been a squire? His mentor hadn’t liked him, and Jareth had never felt the need to forge some sort of a relationship with him. His mentor said jump, Jareth said how high. His mentor said run, Jareth said how far. Wasn’t that how these things were supposed to go? Jareth sighed. “Let me get this straight. You want to bond by eating cookies.” Pyr sighed, too. “It’s totally a thing. I do it all the time.” “All the time, huh? Who else have you shared cookies with?” And fuck, that came out all sorts of wrong. He shook his head. He wanted to ask what the fuck gave you the idea that we could be friends?, but that was a little harsh, even for him. “All the squires. And Juliette. Coulombe.” And then, it’s as if a giant fist is squeezing his insides when he says, “And all the time, I used to share cookies with Cress. She really liked double chocolate chunk, like me.” Now this was just getting uncomfortable. He recognized the archer’s name as one of the guild members who had died during the Sage’s assault on the city. And, if the way Pyr’s voice had changed when he said it, she had been someone the kid had liked. Fuck. When the hell did having a squire turn into actually giving a damn about them? (Easy, a voice inside his head said, when the kid reminds you of the one you lost. He told the voice to shut the fuck up.) “Fine,” he said, lowering himself to the ground and into a sitting position. “Just this once, and only one.” Pyr beamed. “Okay,” he said, holding out the bag. “You can have as many as you want, though. That’s what I bought them for. They’re from René’s bakery so they’re really good, you’ll see.” He waited for Jareth to select one before taking one for himself and devouring it in two bites (stuffing it into his mouth in one go was, he decided, not the most appropriate for the first cookie-sharing session.) Jareth shook his head as he watched the kid down his cookie. By the time the second half of Pyr’s cookie was clearing his mouth, Jareth had barely taken his first bite. It wasn’t bad - a bit sweet for his tastes - but he’d promised, inasmuch as he promised anything, that he’d have a cookie, and he was going to eat the damn cookie. Where Pyr had the cookie down in two bites, it took Jareth six. He brushed the crumbs from his hands and looked over at Pyr. “Can we train now?” Pyr considered this request; then, finding it acceptable, he shoved a second cookie into his mouth and stood up, brushing crumbs off his shirt. “Okay,” he said. “Listen, I’m going to try really hard. I know I whine but I do want to get better, but not die in the attempt, but I’ll do my best.” He grinned. “So I’ll train as much as you think is necessary and try not to whine too much. I won’t disappoint you.” The sudden clenching of emotion in his chest took him by surprise, but he attributed it to the unfamiliar food in his system. It most certainly had nothing to do with the earnestness in his squire’s voice, or the way he was looking at Jareth like he thought this was something Jareth deserved. The clenching tightened. “Come on, kid,” he said, putting a hesitant hand on Pyr’s shoulder. He refused to look at him. “Five miles, then we spar. I grabbed a pair of claws for you.” Pyr nodded. He could not help feeling that the sharing of the cookies had been a wonderful idea, and that perhaps Jareth would not object to it in future. He looked sort of happy, now, beneath the permanent frown. “Okay,” Pyr said. He started running and, though his muscles begged for mercy after their earlier exertion, he did not complain once. |