Chapter Text
The first day goes. Not smoothly, but not a disaster. Mei’s breakdown lasted for about an hour according to Red Son. She’s almost not surprised that he let her be so vulnerable for so long. In hindsight though, the whole ordeal felt cathartic. Letting herself react to what happened to her that day made everything afterwards feel less… less. And more, at the same time.
The hothead mentioned offhandedly that she was probably having an anxiety attack. Which speaks wonders about her mental health, and makes her feel kind of upset with herself because she honestly thought, for a while, that she had it all together. At least the food didn’t go bad. It’s actually kind of tasty. Then again, Mei was never a picky eater and fruit is always a go-to food item for any occasion.
Both her and Red Boy realize with growing horror that the nearby fruit is probably all they’re going to eat for a while. Mei looks at the downtrodden demon boy with scrutiny.
“Can’t you just go back to your badass demon mansion and get your own grub?” She inquires.
Red Son looks distressed at the mention of his home. He opens his mouth to speak and what comes out is a pathetic squeaking noise, before he realizes how embarrassing that just was and frowns before turning away and avoiding eye contact with Mei.
Mei can make a couple of guesses as to why Red Son is reacting the way he is. Neither of them are pretty. Both of them kind of make Mei feel ill, which is bad because she just ate. So Mei shuts her brain off and lets the silence take over for once.
Shockingly enough, it’s comfortable. It carries on past the setting sun and into the night, and both parties leisurely snack and look at the sky, and look at each-other in some sort of silent inquiry of how the other is doing and what they might think of the weather, or of the food. Once it’s late enough to bother them, they both say a short but courteous “good night” to each-other, and walk inside the shelter of the temple and lay on the hardwood floor because Red Son is a dumbass and didn’t plan in advance to get any blankets or pillows or mattresses, so now he has to go back to his demon mansion anyways and, while that would be cause for Mei to brag and rub it in his face and say over and over again how stupid he is, Red Son looks so distraught that he doesn’t even fall asleep.
Mei feels kind of humbled, then. And, for unrelated reasons, she doesn’t sleep either. The sensations from earlier in the day haunt her whenever she closes her eyes. She thinks offhandedly that it serves her right for being kind of a dick. But she wasn’t a dick when all this honestly horrific shit happened to her, so really it serves her wrong in the long run.
Mei thinks to herself like that for a while.
⎏ ______________ ⎐
The dragon-horse girl looks at the floor lost in thought. Red Son sniffs, scratches his cheek (it’s surprising really, how the scar still itches after hundreds of years), and waits until either she passes out, or his heart rate lowers to a level that’s more comfortable to sleep at.
Neither of these things happen. The stars shine on the pair of humanoids as if they’re judging them. The silence goes from homely to overwhelming.
Red Son breaks the now-uncomfortable silence with a haughty clearing of his throat. Fortunately for him, it gets the attention of the dragon girl, which is exactly what he wanted.
“Sleeping is overrated. Who’s bright idea was it to make us miss out on the best part of the day, anyways? The sun doesn’t get in the way of your eyes during these hours. Don’t you hate that, too? When the sun gets in your eyes and you try everything you can to block it out, but it’s a persistent son-of-a-bitch and it’s decided that you’re going to be the object of its ire?”
He probably said too much. His filter tends to shut off during the latest hours of the day, a trend he regretfully noticed during his early childhood and has failed to get under his control even past his teenage years.
The dragon girl doesn’t judge him, though. Doesn’t tell him that his ramblings are immature or that his complaints are too whiny. She, instead, laughs.
“Yeah. I hate that so much, I don’t think there’s a single person on earth actually who disagrees with what you just said. Nocturnal animals have it eeaa-sy!”
The dragon-horse girl lets herself fall back onto the floor. She forgets, however, that the floor is hard and her head is probably far too large for her brain, so a loud ‘thud’ can be heard and Red Son assumes that the girl’s pea brain just bounced around like a fucking sports ball.
Either from delirium or genuine entertainment, The dragon girl laughs again.
“Oops! Forgot that the floor was super hard and hit my noggin!”
Red Son sighs and can’t help it when a soft chuckle escapes his lips
“Does that happen all the time?” He inquires.
His companion shoots up and gives him a glare of faux anger.
“It does not! You think poorly of me!”
“I do,” Red Son snaps back, grinning smugly. “What of it?”
The dragon girl pretends to be offended again. Red Son continues to provoke her. The two don’t even realize they spent the whole night bantering until the sun shines in their eyes and the birds scream loud enough to act as an alarm. The two complain WITH each-other, then, instead of AT each-other.