Aspel Cassul: When in doubt, Aspel! (weaponry) wrote in emillion, @ 2014-09-16 06:42:00 |
|
|||
It had been over a week since he’d talked to Aspel; she was never in her office when he stopped by, she hadn’t been answering messages, and he’d used to run into her on occasion in the halls, but there had been a distinct lack of accidents lately. Even their Saturday morning thing had been skipped this last weekend, and the only reason Drake could think of was that he had seriously messed up. Which was entirely true, but if she had let him explain, then maybe he could fix it. He knew she was still in the office when he left - he’d overheard one of the squires talking about being on his way to meet with her - and since she always seemed to magically disappear, he was going to wait her out. Somewhere she couldn’t run. Which was why he was sitting in front of the Armory, determined. She’d have to come home sometime. It had been a long day. A terrible, awful, miserable, long day and she wanted nothing to do with anything other than the hot container of take out she had gotten, a warm cup of tea, and to have that followed immediately by an entire bottle of mead. While she didn’t completely, entirely avoid Drake - they did still need to conduct business together as they were both still council members - she saw little to no need to go out of her way anymore to make herself available to him. His refusal of her advances had clearly displayed he’d changed his mind regarding his entanglement with her, and well… That was his choice. She’d never laid any sort of claim to his emotions, or ever even considered voicing her own to him - right now that was mostly… disappointment… hurt… - as it was none of her business to impose any of this foolishness upon him. Clearly, it was better, and easier for them both to remain in a purely platonic working capacity moving forward, and to do that, she would simply need to keep busy. Not like that was particularly hard as of late. However, work was done, she ached terribly from head to toe, she felt miserable in a list of ways longer than she was tall, and just as her hopes were beginning to rise the tiniest bit her gaze rose as fingers dug in a pocket to retrieve her keys to find… Drake Liu sitting on - what little there was of - The Armory’s front steps. Suddenly, that sweeping dismay ravaged her insides all over again, leaving her feeling a bit hollow once more. A faint - weak, forced, tired, strained - smile rose towards him as the keys were pulled from her pocket and she stepped up towards the door, but not close enough to come in contact with him, and leaving enough room so that he could leave if he needed while at the same time assuring her take out container remained raised in front of her - at stomach level - so that he would be incapable of stepping in too close without squishing the container between them two. “Good evening Councilor Liu, is there something I may do for you?” A beat. “Or something at the office that I may have forgot?” While she managed to get the words out without sounding like she was completely faking, there was still hints around the edges that she was just…. Tired. Tired of this, tired of trying so hard to pretend that everything was okay, tired of keeping up a facade of normal. Councilor. The sharp pang at the very clear distance made his heart hurt and was entirely unexpected, but he kept a smile on his face and stood. “Evening,” he returned, ignoring the fluttering in his stomach that seemed to be battling with the dismay. He’d known that Aspel wasn’t entirely thrilled with his running out on her, but he hadn’t expected this, although he probably should have. “Nope,” he continued, answering her questions. “I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d drop by. It’s been a little while since we’ve actually talked, so I was kind of hoping we could do that?” He needed to explain, and he didn’t want her leaving town thinking whatever it was she might be thinking. All he knew at this point was that he didn’t want her avoiding him like she had after they’d died. And he’d never been any good at running from his problems. Almost as good as he was about lying. “My apologies, but I fear I am not particularly free this eve.” There was sorrow tinging the smile she offered him regardless of how she tried to school it. However, her voice - at least - had remained largely neutral. All politely business was how this would be handled. Really, that was best at this point from everything she could manage to muster. “Perhaps tomorrow at Bahamut? I may be able to make a few moments of free time between meetings, and lessons.” It would be so easy to just let her push this off, but he knew that she would suddenly be busy tomorrow, and the day after that. He could walk away, and deep down he knew that that would be the end of it. Whatever it was that they had would be gone, and that was not something he was willing to let happen. Not without at least giving it his best shot at trying to save it. “Not really something that I’d want to discuss at work,” he said, although his voice was a little uncertain. He didn’t want to push too hard, but he also didn’t want to give up just yet. “It won’t take long - just a few minutes. And then you can kick me to the curb if you want.” “I do not really have the time to spare. My apologies.” And it felt like her heart was about to break with every sentence that continued, every new word she spoke. Aspel didn’t need for him to explain how he wasn’t interested anymore, about how he’d found something out about her that he now deemed repulsive. She’d expected it would happen eventually but… Hadn’t planned for it to hurt quite this much. “I unfortunately have much to handle tonight.” Which, honestly, was partly true. There was left over paperwork she’d taken home, and Mag to check in on, along with trying to assure their travel plans remained as smooth as possible with follow up messages, lodging - if it was needed - airship fare…. Then there was making sure all the smithing orders had been handled and sent out unless they could wait. She still had a few of those to take care of yet…Could she spare a few minutes of time in a greater sense? Likely. Could she handle sparing the time emotionally right now between all the stress and work that she still had yet to attempt to handle? Perhaps not. Drake sighed in frustration and shoved his hand in his pocket, removing the little green stone that had caused him so many problems since he’d gotten it. He held it out to Aspel; he was pretty sure she’d know what it was, and if she didn’t want to go inside to talk, then he could quickly say what he needed to say and then leave, since that seemed to be what she wanted. “That cactuar we fought? Gave me this gem. And won’t shut up about me having babies with you and Ari. Which is why I’ve been weird. I just wanted to let you know that. I’ll leave now.” The gem went back into his pocket and he hopped off the steps, ignoring the painful ache in his chest. There had been a lot of reasons he hadn’t wanted to deal with falling in love, and how he was feeling right now was one of the main ones. While he may have had a vague sense that he’d fallen for Aspel, the sad spiral of anguish he was feeling told him that he had. “I’ll see you later.” And he was pulling out some sort of thing or another and started to speak. Honestly, she was doing her best to try not to look at him, but instead look around him as he launched into… Whatever he was saying. Which, Aspel - for perhaps one of the first times they had ever known each other - opened her mouth and began to speak as he finished his question. “Drake I am not in need of…” She spoke simultaneously as he said something about whatever he was holding, which Aspel was still attempting to not look directly at him. Yet, he continued to plow on through whatever speech he seemed to have had prepared and………………………………………………. Aspel blinked. “... Babies…….?” Her voice came out a bit low and whatever was said before, or after, was now lost as the smith blinked again, clearly in a daze - both in tone, and physical stance - from the mention of herself being connected to having babies. Why would…. How did… What in all of Ivalice…. However, when the shock even remotely began to wear off enough for reality to sink in Drake had already started to slink away. She wasn’t calling him back - in fact she hadn’t really said anything at all. I should have expected this, he thought, resigned. He could brood about it at home - for now, he just needed to get out of here. He looked over his shoulder to see that she was still standing there; he wanted to stop and go back, but instead he nodded. “Have a good night.” |