WHO: Ruby Daly and Cole Stewart WHAT: Having a dark discussion WHEN: Today WHERE: Their place WARNINGS: Talk of death STATUS: Closed/Completed Gdoc
Ruby woke up early and padded into the kitchen. She didn’t notice the photographs on the table at first - a sign, maybe, that Madison Valley had stripped away some of what the League and survival in general had built up in her. She got a glass of milk and turned, only for her eyes to fall on them now and the shock of it had the glass fall out of her hands. It smashed on the ground, the milk spilling everywhere, but all Ruby could seem to do was look at them. She had worked so hard to get those images out of her head and now they were there again. A charred body beyond recognition. A body she had had to wait until she heard from Liam to find out it was Cole. There were a few on the table, stacked one on top of another, but Ruby already knew she didn’t need to look - each one had to be the ones she saw on the computer. The ones she forced herself to look at. She had to reach out and grab the back of one of the chairs and she retched as she tried not to throw up completely.
--
Cole was in the other room when he heard the glass shattered. He’d been in the shower and had only managed to get half dressed when he hurried, shirtless, into the kitchen.
“Hey,” he said, looking at her with concern. “Is everything okay?”
He saw the milk on the floor and her grabbing the back of the chair and figured something had to be wrong. He didn’t, however, notice the pictures - he was too focused on Ruby and her well being.
***
She felt immediate panic swell up inside of her that seemed to override everything else. “Nothing!” She moved, stepping on the glass in the process with her bare feet and wincing, but she kept moving anyway - it wasn’t the worst injury she’d ever sustained. “Sorry. You should - go back to your shower. I’ll clean up the milk.” She was gesturing for him to go. Of course, now there was mlik, glass, and blood on the floor, bu you know.
--
“Ruby, you’re bleeding!” What in the world was wrong? What had happened to her? “Just stop, okay? Stop moving. Let me get this glass picked up before you hurt yourself more.”
He held out his hands and knelt on his knees, picking up the larger pieces of glass - any that he could actually see.
“What happened? Are you okay?”
He was seriously concerned about her. Ruby didn’t usually act like this.
***
“Nothing. I’m just - I’m on my period” She frowned, her brow furrowed a little as her eyes darted to the table. She swore silently to herself and walked over like she was going to sit on the other side and look at her feet. When she got there, she reached for the photographs, though it wasn’t entirely graceful. The photographs fanned out a little and she swore under her breath this time as she collected them. She could feel, for the first time in a long while, the tingling at the back of her neck.
--
Cole blushed horribly, but still got the idea that she was lying to him. Saying something that he wouldn’t want to contradict. He watched her as she stood, and grabbed some photos from the table. He didn’t recognize them, and couldn’t quite see the pictures, but he could see that some of her stress was coming from them. What was so upsetting about a few pictures.
“Ruby,” he said softly. “Maybe I can’t control your mind, but I can tell when something’s wrong. And something’s wrong now.”
***
She looked at him and took a step back. Not for the first time she was standing in front of Cole with bleeding feet. The last time had been because she had run herself on the treadmill until her feet couldn’t take it anymore. Her expression was pleading. “...Please don’t ask me to explain.” She brought the photos up to her chest, trying to keep them all in her hands. Ruby could feel the invisible hand of her mind wanting to reach out and grab onto something. She was worried if Cole touched her, even after all this time trying to control her ability, she’d be unable to stop it.
--
He didn’t reach out and touch her, but he did reach out and grab one of the looser pictures from her grasp. He looked at it, frowning, but didn’t understand what he was seeing. There was a person burned beyond recognition. He couldn’t even recognize himself.
“What is this, Ruby?”
***
It’s you. The words didn’t want to leave her mouth though. She just tensed, everything in the room forgotten for a moment as she just stared at him. How did she explain? How did she get the words out?
You know how.
She tried to ignore the voice that constantly tried to convince her of things. Right now, it won. She took a step forward and opened her arms. The rest of the photographs fell into the milk on the floor as Ruby went to hug him, hard. When she did, she pushed inside of his head. First it was the whole argument of if they should go. Then it was when everyone found out Cole and Liam had gone to the Red Camp. The worry and frustration she felt when she heard the news. And then he’d see and hear and feel the moment she got to the computer room. How everyone told her not to look. How Nico had been pale and in shock. How she forced herself to look at the photos. Look and re-look. How she knew it was one of the Stewart brothers, but she had no idea and the utter turmoil she felt. How it didn’t matter if it was Cole or Liam, she felt shaken to the core. But the scene didn’t end there. Then it went to her confronting Clancy. How she found out he manipulated her. How she had been the one to betray the boys and send out a heads-up to the Red Camp. And then, finally, Liam’s phone call. The way he sounded, the way she felt. Liam explained what happened at the camp and then suddenly Ruby pulled away, but from his mind and body. She was crying and she was looking down, unable to look at him or find words.
--
Cole staggered back, away from her, his head already throbbing from the thoughts she’d forced into his head. He was shaking and flame was coming from his hands as he closed his eyes and struggled to get control. It was him?! He was dead?! He couldn’t even question it because it was all there in his head.
He staggered back, falling into a chair, closing his fists to try to put out the flames.
“What...how…” but he didn’t need those questions answered. He had all the answers, all the visions, everything that had happened right there in his head. It almost made it harder.
***
She closed her eyes shut and turned her head to the side to ‘look’ at the wall. She tried to breathe in and out, but she felt sick - she deserved to feel that way. “Cole, I -” I, what, Ruby? Ruby finally managed to look at him before taking a step backwards away from him. I’m a monster. “It’s my fault, Cole. I -” I killed you
--
“No you didn’t,” he said simply. He hadn’t yet made perfect sense of all the images that she’d put in his mind, but he knew that one for sure. She hadn’t killed him. He’d been burned to death, and Ruby wasn’t a red, so that was completely impossible.
“Whatever happened, it wasn’t your fault.”
It was his, probably for being too curious about the others like him.
***
She’d beg to differ - she gave their arrival away - but she didn’t feel like arguing with Cole after dumping all of that on his lap. Her own hands formed into fists beside her hips as she tried to redirect her energy. “I didn’t want you to find out.” She wasn’t going to lie about that. Ruby had been planning never to tell him if she could help it, even if sometimes she felt a little guilty about it. “I didn’t - you deserve to be happy here, Cole.”
--
“Ruby,” he said softly. “You couldn’t hide it from me forever.” Did he wish he didn’t know? Maybe. It was kind of a terrible thing to learn. He thought that he’d enjoy his time here as a kind of vacation, then go back and help make things like this again back home. But apparently he wouldn’t get that chance. He was too young to have to face his own mortality, but it seemed the fates or whatever didn’t give a shit about that.
“I am happy here. And that’s not going to change.”
In fact, it might make every day just a little more precious.
***
She exhaled, long and hard, like maybe she had been holding something inside of her. Her foot ache, there was milk all over the ground and still some glass too. Everything was a mess. Even if she had been planning on telling him, this hadn’t been how she wanted to go about doing it.
“Is there... anything I can do?”
--
He shook his head. His hands were shaking a little, but he ignored it. It was to be expected, with the emotion he was feeling about all of this. He didn’t blame her at all, but it wasn’t like it had been something that he’d wanted to hear. It hadn’t made his day better, knowing he was going to die a horrible death when he returned home.
“But we need to make sure you don’t have any glass in your foot and get that all fixed up.”
Thinking about Ruby and her injuries was simply easier right now than figuring out his own issues.
***
She had to bite back the comment that he always seemed to be helping her and not the opposite. The unspoken comment manifested into a frown. Somehow she'd have to try to make things right, however that looked like. For now she'd let him fuss, thinking maybe cleaning up would give him something to focus on.