Aya (missbegotten) wrote in shadows_rpg, @ 2020-05-28 01:27:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | #january 2018, aidan, aidan x aya, aya |
Who: Aidan & Aya
Where: O'Reilly house
When: Sunday, early afternoon 01/21
Status: Complete
Human affairs had always interested Aya as far as stories went, amusing events and easily manipulated people made for decent entertainment. She never took interest beyond that, the complexity of human emotions was kind of a drag and when people didn't act the way she wanted them to, she got frustrated and bored. This week she was kind of frustrated and bored. She hadn't really gotten close to the people in the O'Reilly household, nor had she tried, but it was like there was a sleep curse on the house lately and they were all so tired and useless. It wasn't their job to entertain her but she was tethered to their house by some invisible bond so it was starting to bother her how lifeless it was.
And then there was Max, the only one who didn't seem affected by whatever this was. Max and their familiar but these were both men she steered clear of. Knox was intimidating and not human so he was a potential threat, Max just didn't like her being around and tended to be kind of a dick about it. On Sunday that changed. He approached her in the kitchen and started asking her questions about her 'doorway trick', a bit manic and with big plans.
Aya was always up for some troublemaking but she felt her bond with her witch keenly and some part of her wanted him to join them. Maybe she just didn't trust Max the way she trusted Aidan and it was less likely to be some kind of a trap if he was involved. So she stepped into the living room where Aidan was curled up on the couch and plopped down next to him. "Your brother's manic," she told him with a slightly manic smile of her own. "We're gonna do a heist."
Aidan had hit the point where he knew something was wrong with him, that it wasn’t just a lack of good sleep that was bringing him down, but he couldn’t seem to summon up the energy to care. It felt like he was stuck in a fog, like every time he tried to move it took everything he had to accomplish it and he wasn’t even making the kind of progress that he should. What had started with his body had seemed into his brain and even thinking seemed hard. When Aya joined him on the couch, he’d been mindlessly watching the television and couldn’t have even told her what was on. He stared at her for a moment before the words registered and he frowned. “A heist? Right now?” Aidan asked, brows drawing together. “What the fuck’s he talking about?”
"You're still boring," Aya sighed and that meant he wasn't coming with them so she wasn't too sure she wanted to do this. Alone, sure, but with Max? Probably not. "He needs money to buy back his bike? So we're gonna go get some money with my door trick. I told him I don't wanna go unless you come too but you're-" she trailed off, gesturing at him with a little frown. "Actually all of you are kinda-" another gesture. "Except Max. Is it a witch thing? Did you get a magic flu?" She wondered what it'd mean for her if he actually kicked the bucket. Would she fade away? Get locked inside something again? Or be free...
“I know he wants his bike,” Aidan said, but couldn’t muster up enough energy to be either enthusiastic or properly concerned. Aya could probably make the job easy, if Max trusted her. Aidan wasn’t even sure he trusted Aya yet, so he wasn’t entirely sure why his brother was on board, especially without magic of his own to back him up. “I don’t get sick,” he said, rubbing a hand over his face. “Perk of being an air witch. This is… I dunno… Something’s wrong with me. With all of us.” But not Aya, Knox, or Max. Aya and Knox weren’t human, so he could understand why they might not be dealing with something everyone else was, but Max… Why wasn’t he feeling it too? Aidan thought it should be obvious, but he couldn’t figure it out. It was like his brain had turned to pudding.
"Maybe it's a witch flu," Aya said, even as she wondered if such a thing existed. It made sense in a way to think that witches could get sick in ways non-magical people couldn't, but at the same time she'd never heard of such a thing and apparently neither had Aidan. "Your brother's fine and he's not a witch," she added speculatively. "And if you don't get normal sicknesses, maybe this is a magical one." She casually moved to drape herself over him, touching his forehead with the back of her hand. He didn't feel too hot or anything but she wasn't the best judge of people's health or state of normal. "Did you cast a bad spell together?"
“No such thing as magical sickness,” Aidan whined, annoyed at how drained he felt. He’d always known he was a bit lazy, but this was something else. Laziness was a lack of desire to do something, whereas he didn’t even think he was capable of it. He could get upstairs to his bedroom, if he absolutely had to, but that would take so much work at this point. “We haven’t done shit,” he said. “Maybe it’s a curse? I dunno… How’s Shayna Mae?” He felt like he hadn’t seen his sister in days, but he couldn’t be sure. Everything was running together and he couldn’t separate one day from the next.
Aya avoided Aidan's sister for the most part but she had peeked in on her from time to time, enough to know what was going with her and that it was a lot like what was going on with Aidan and Patrick. The older witch seemed to have it the worst, at least Aidan was awake and talking. "She's like you," she said with a sigh. "Like she has a magical flu. Just because you haven't heard of it before doesn't mean it doesn't exist." She grinned and poked his nose before resting her cheek against his shoulder. "You didn't know I existed before I showed up, but here I am."
“True,” Aidan said and didn’t make an attempt to argue, despite the feeling that that was wrong, wrong, wrong. He’d never heard of a cold that didn’t come with cold-like symptoms. He wasn’t coughing or running a fever, there were no aches or pains. He was just too tired to move without effort. Aidan closed his eyes and curled into the couch, already wanting to go back to sleep. “It just feels wrong,” he muttered. “I’m worried we’re dyin’ or somethin’, but… but can’t figure what’s powerful enough to take us out.” Every time he tried to think about it, it was like a blanket came down upon his thoughts, coaxing him back to sleep.
Aya winced, not just at the thought of him dying - what would happen to her? - but also of the fact that that kind of talk could easily lead to blame. She had been blamed for shit she didn't do in the past and it had landed her locked in a tiny bird statue for centuries. She wasn't exactly eager to repeat that or worse. "You're not dying," she said firmly. "I won't let you." They were empty words since she had no idea how she could fix whatever was wrong. She didn't even know what was causing it. Aya had never been a big thinker, leaving the clever shit to other people because she'd never needed it. Trying to find a solution to this kind of hurt her brain. Her gifts felt so useless right now, she couldn't breathe energy into him, she couldn't soothe his mind, she could just make him get lost but even that required him to be moving. "Do you want something to drink?" she asked and it felt weird, offering up a service to anyone. "I can bring you water or some of that alcohol you make."
It didn’t even occur to Aidan that Aya might be to blame for what he was feeling. Maybe it should have, but she’d been there for weeks now and this felt like it had come on rather suddenly. Sure, he’d been tired a bit last week, but not like this. If she was doing it, she didn’t seem to know it, or she was putting on one hell of a poker face. “You gonna save me?” Aidan smiled lazily. For some reason that amused him. She was such a little thing and he didn’t think her powers stretched to healing, though what did he know? “Water would be good. Maybe some food?” He couldn’t remember the last time he ate and that was probably something to be worried about. Only now that he thought of it did he realize how hungry he was.
"Of course I am," Aya told him, even if he was right. She had no powers to heal or save lives but she did know that sometimes when humans believed in something enough it became reality so she would feed him all the delusions he needed to get better. She tried to think of what kind of food would be good for a guy like Aidan and nothing in the kitchen sounded great to her. It wasn't like she could cook and that would take a while anyway. "I'll be right back," she murmured, cupping his face with one hand and imagining she could actually send some healing vibes into his frail, human body. "Stay awake, I don't like going out of my way for nothing."
Aidan would’ve been annoyed at the thought of being frail, but he was human and he knew something was draining him of his energy. He’d never felt so weak and that would’ve pissed him off more if he wasn’t so goddamn tired. “I’m not going anywhere,” Aidan told Aya as she left to find him food. Was there even anything fresh in the house? Knox had been cooking, so there had to be something. Though it would be nice if Aya just walked through the door to some diner and came back with a cheeseburger and fries. And a milkshake. Maybe that would make him feel better. It was probably a bad sign that he was fantasizing about food, but it took work to even stay awake. All he really wanted to do was sleep. Aidan closed his eyes, just for a second. He’d wake back up as soon as she returned.
"That much is obvious," Aya said with a little roll of her eyes. The staying completely still part was what worried her, he might fall asleep and never wake up. She opened his bedroom door a few times before she found a good place to walk in. All of the kitchens were hard to steal from and not full of options at this hour so she ended up grabbing some cash from a random coat in a random hallway and actually ordering food at Moxie's like some mundane little human and Aidan got his wish, a cheeseburger and fries with a large coke. She didn't think of the milkshake thou. She returned some twenty minutes later, plopping the plastic tray on the living room table in front of him. "Are you dead?" she asked, leaning down to poke at his face. He looked like he was sleeping and that wouldn't do.
Though he hadn’t meant to, Aidan had fallen fast asleep within minutes of Aya stepping away. He was just so tired that he couldn’t close his eyes and not sleep. It was all his body wanted to do and it was too hard to fight it. He didn’t know if it’d been minutes or hours when he felt her poking at his face, by he batted blindly at her hand, attempting to shoo it away from his face. “Not dead,” he muttered, not even opening his eyes until the scent of food hit his stomach and it growled loudly. Now he could tell how hungry he really was. “God, that smells good,” he said, slowly pulling himself up to a seated position. His mouth was already watering and he hadn’t even gotten his hands on the food yet. “Can you read minds or somethin’?” he asked as he pulled the tray into his lap. Why the fuck was it so heavy? His arms felt like jello.
Aya caught the big serving of soda before it fell off the tray, then steadied the tray because Aidan wasn't doing a great job of sitting upright let alone operating anything outside of his own body. "Maybe I can," she said playfully and he really had no idea what kinds of things she could do and maybe that was a good thing. Let him wonder, it was better if he didn't know her strengths and weaknesses. "You're in a bad way," she sighed, scooting into the seat next to him when he was mostly upright in his seat. She held his soda out to him and watched him with narrowed eyes, as if maybe she could see what was wrong with him if she just tried hard enough.
It was a good thing Aya caught the soda because Aidan’s reflexes were completely shot. Every motion was like moving through water or, worse, pudding. Like his limbs weighed more than they should. “Thanks,” he sighed, then huffed a little laugh at the thought of her reading his mind. He really hoped she couldn’t, it felt like such an invasion of privacy and he didn’t want her to know how much this entire situation scared him. Something was horribly wrong and he didn’t have the energy to do anything about it. It would have felt better if he’d at least been able to panic. “Yeah,” he admitted quietly, leaning against her. It was a weird thing to admit to someone he didn’t really know or trust, but Aya was there and she seemed mildly worried about him. “You need to tell Knox. Maybe he’ll know what to do,” he said, then slowly managed to take a bite of his food.
The thought of talking to the grumpy lug made Aya want to roll her eyes. It didn't take a genius to know the huge familiar and his little witch didn't like her one bit but maybe she should ask the guy if he knew what was wrong with Aidan. It didn't make much sense that he wouldn't tell him if he knew but Aya wasn't the best at understanding people. Most of them were strange and she didn't even know what Knox really was. Certainly not human, but nothing like her either. She watched Aidan eat, like it physically pained him to even lift the burger up and she wondered if a person could be tired enough to choke on food. It made her watch him more intently, slightly baffled at how much she actually cared. "Drink your soda," she said, holding the drink closer to him if he wanted to take a sip. "The sugar will help."
Aidan knew that there was no lost love between Aya and Knox, but he wasn’t sure there was anyone else he could tell her to go to. If Shayna Mae was as bad off as he was, then she’d be no help, no matter how powerful she might be. Max didn’t have magic and seemed to be dealing with something entirely different. Aidan wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. He’d have felt better if they were all in the same boat, however bad it was. “I’d eat a gallon of ice cream if I thought it would help,” he told her with a little smile. He wasn’t sure how much energy eating would actually give him, but it made him feel better as a whole. For as hungry as he was, he couldn’t seem to eat any faster, driving home just how weak he really was. Aidan swallowed a bite, took another sip of soda, then looked over at Aya. “If I fall asleep again… will you hang around? Just in case?”
She almost asked if he wanted a gallon if ice cream because that'd be easy to get but then realized he hadn't said it would for sure make him feel better so that had been... hypothetical or something. The request felt a little pathetic but that was understandable. Mortality was scary so she ran her fingers through his hair in a soothing motion. "You're going to be fine," she told him. "You don't need me to babysit you." She couldn't imagine sitting there while he slept, waiting to see if he woke up again but if he got upset about it she supposed she could lie. He wouldn't know any different if he was sleeping.
“No, I don’t,” Aidan agreed, though the thought of being alone in his current condition did scare him. What if he didn’t wake up? Would he eventually starve to death? He wanted to ask her to poke him every twenty-four hours, but that seemed just as pitiful as asking her to keep an eye on him. Leaning into the touch, Aidan closed his eyes for a moment and was surprised at how nice it was. It wasn’t something he’d have expected of Aya, or even of himself for enjoying. “When I feel better, we’re gonna go for that ride. Find something shiny to steal. Just for shits and grins.” He didn’t have anything specific in mind, but he wanted to be there, laughing and being stupid and feeling alive again.
That made her smile because wasn't that all she wanted? If he came with her, maybe she could go really far away. They could probably steal some fancy fashion shit in Paris if they wanted to, go for a pizza in Milan. God she wanted that, it could be so much fun. She had no idea what would happen to her if he faded away and she wasn't eager to find out, just in case it was something bad. Right now she was bound to a person and not the woods and a person was far more mobile. "That's a promise," she told him. "No take-backs." He looked like he was falling asleep again so she stopped her gentle patting and tightened her fist in his hair instead, just a touch of pain to jolt him out of it. "Finish your food."
“Ow,” Aidan laughed as she tugged at his hair, though it didn’t really hurt. It successfully kept him from falling asleep, which was probably the point. “No take-backs,” he agreed, then took another bite, determined to finish the meal before nodding off again. He kept hoping it would be enough to wake him up, but if that wasn’t the case, then he needed to fill his stomach before crashing again. Who knew when he might be hungry enough to wake for another meal.