Chapter Text
All she had managed to do all day was admire Callum.
This morning, she had felt like her head was spinning as she listened to Callum and Allen’s conversation jump rapidly from the measurements of the base of one scaffold, to the best angle to support the weight of the broken pieces of the Moonhenge, to the logistics of raising the heavy pieces of stone into place. She was sure from the confident and breezy way that Callum seamlessly slid from one topic to another that it was all connected, but she couldn’t, for the life of her, keep up with how. The words were all a foggy blur...mostly because she’d given up on listening about ten minutes into their work to instead watch Callum’s eyes sparkle and lips move and hands gesture. Even peering over Callum’s shoulder at the neatly drawn but sloppily labelled sketches didn’t enlighten her: it only made her stomach flip with wonder at his ability to create such a thing. She smiled to herself watching him lean over the table studiously and admired the way his eyes glinted just before he exclaimed about a new idea.
At some point, once they’d really lost her, Rayla had quietly slipped away from the large wooden table, deciding to leave the planning to Callum and Allen. She found a nice soft spot in the grass and drifted lazily between dozing off--she still hadn’t been sleeping well--and fondly watching her sweet human prince from afar.
And that was pretty much where she’d stayed all day. Occasionally, Callum had popped over to visit her where she sat in the grass.
“You okay?” He’d asked in the afternoon. Her heart swelled at his casual concern for her.
“I’m great,” she’d smiled.
It was mostly true, aside from the boredom and the slight twinge of guilt she felt at not yet being able to contribute to their work. These feelings were almost completely overpowered, though, by the pleasure of watching Callum, bright-eyed and talking a mile a minute, work. She’d spent all day smiling to herself like a fool while her heart continued to swell and swell and swell with love for him.
Her lovesick daze had not faded as she leaned a yellow-clad shoulder against the door to their shared dormitory. He was where she’d left him, sitting at the desk by her bed, bent over the same mess of papers he’d toted around with him all over the place, from Allen’s workstation, to the Moonhenge, and now back to this room.
“Still working?” She asked, tossing her bundle of clothes onto the side of her bed. She felt a little silly at how admiringly she gazed at the back of his head.
“Hmm?” He asked, clearly having missed what she’d asked. He tugged at the red cuff around his wrist, pulling the sleeves of his pajamas up to his elbows, out of the way of his work on the page. His hand kept moving, pushing charcoal across the page in tiny strokes. She walked over to the desk, placing her hands along the short end of the table in order to lean over and look at what he was doing. A page was ripped out of his book, and she was surprised to see him doing math, of all things. His sketchbook laid open to his left with images of pillars and scaffolds littering the page.
“What’s this?” She bent at the waist, resting her elbows on the desk and her chin in one of her hands. She followed his fingers with her eyes as he began to explain, tracing along the lines of the sketch.
“The northeast pillar has this huge chunk missing, but it’s at this really awkward angle, so we’re going to have to build two scaffolds that fit together like this .” He demonstrated the angle with his hands. “So, I was trying to figure out how long the top of each scaffold is going to have to be and what angle to put them at in order to support the weight and still fit together.” She raised an eyebrow.
“And you know how to figure that out?” She looked up from the page to his face inquisitively, her awe of him only growing.
“Well...kind of.” His eyes left the page to look up at the ceiling. “In theory. I’m trying.” He shrugged and met her gaze. Trying for her , she thought, feeling her heart flutter a little in her chest.
“How do you know how to do that?” She asked, leaning closer to look at the numbers scrawled on the scrap paper.
“It’s just math,” he responded, shrugging again. “See?” he asked. He pointed to the last equation he’d solved.
She shook her head. The numbers and symbols were familiar to her, of course, but it would take her a long while to decipher the logic behind each line. “I’m terrible at math.”
“I’m okay at it if I can picture what I’m solving,” his eyes wandered to the ceiling, then down to his papers, out the window, to his lap, to the ceiling again--looking anywhere but at her.
“So, you draw it?” She clarified moving her head to the side a little, in hopes of catching his eye as he blinked around the room.
“Yeah. I do okay then, if I draw it.” His voice cracked a little and his clear discomfort puzzled her. She recognized this variation on the ‘dumb idea face’ as the ‘sad prince’ face. He’d lost the light he’d had all day, and his positivity was replaced with downcast uncertainty. She could understand if he wore this expression if they were talking about something he was bad at, but clearly he was good at this. Good at problem-solving, good at drawing (of course), and, apparently, good at math, too.
“More than just okay, I think.” She said with a smile. He continued to stare at the page, so she reached a hand to touch his shoulder. When he looked up, a corner of his mouth twitched upward in reaction to her attempt at reassurance, but she could see he didn’t really buy it with his lukewarm response.
“I guess,” he said mildly. She shook her head and walked around behind the chair to stand on his left now, enabling her to look more closely at his renderings of the Moonhenge in his sketchbook.
“No, seriously, Callum. Look at all of this!” She gestured broadly across the table, pleased that he, at least, seemed to be listening to her now, watching her with the slightest blush staining his cheeks at her compliments. “This is...impressive.” It felt good to let out some of the affection that’d been building up inside of her all day.
“I don’t know about that… ” He was smiling now, at least, but she was growing frustrated at how dense this self-deprecation of his was. She rolled her eyes and grabbed him by both shoulders to look directly at him as she continued to stubbornly shower him with praise. His eyes widened in surprise as she jostled him and the little red cuffs at the ends of his sleeves fell back down around his wrists again.
“Callum. You’re rebuilding ancient ruins.” She spoke slowly, squeezing his shoulders for emphasis. She hoped his intense look back at her was because he was really, truly listening. Though, she thought, their proximity at the moment might have something to do with his pink-cheeked stare. She could feel his breath on her cheek. “You’re figuring out how all of the pieces fit together, and designing scaffolds, and doing math, and coming up with ideas and solutions and…and you’re good at it. Talented.” She paused and watched her fingers trail down his arms to hold both of his hands. She knelt down next to where he sat sideways in his chair, to grin up at him encouragingly. “Callum, the fact that you can do all of that...it’s amazing.”
“Well, thanks.” She was finally pleased with his response, mostly because there was light glimmering in his eyes again. Her heart skipped a beat as his eyes got a little squinty with the fullness of his smile.
“And you’re doing all of that for me ,” she said, her voice faltering now. The wide grin fell from her lips in favor of a softer, more gentle smile. “Thank you,” she whispered, made breathless by recognition of his dedication to her. He let go of one of her hands to touch his fingertips gently to her cheek and she leaned into his touch.
“Anything for you, Rayla.” She believed him and felt her smile grow again. She caught herself before listening to the impulse to follow his hand as his fingers pulled away from her face. Then, to her displeasure, the excuses started again. “It’s...really not that big of a deal, though. Doing math isn’t exactly a special skill. Lots of people can do math.” With another eye-roll and the addition of an exasperated sigh, she brought her hands up to his cheeks now, holding his face in place to force him to look right at her.
“Callum, you are special.” She paused after each word, trying to pour out all of her feelings for him into each one.
“Oh.” She would have laughed at how silly his lips looked, all squished together by the way she squeezed his cheeks, had she not been so focused on getting through to him.
“You. Not just the math or the drawing or even the magic.” She released her hold on his cheeks and grasped at his shoulders again, still kneeling in front of him. “You are special. I love you .” He took a breath to respond and she put a finger to his lips to stop him from flipping the conversation around. “I love you.” She repeated, then replaced her finger with her lips. The warmth of his lips on hers made her head swim with affection, despite how brief her kiss was. The dorky, dopey, sweet way he smiled at her when she pulled away almost made her roll her eyes again. Instead, her fingers wandered to brush his hair out of his eyes. “Now then...now that that’s settled…bedtime?”
“Not yet.” He shook his head slightly but the silly little smile still remained. She was about to protest, but he clarified before she could. “Come here first,” he said, opening his arms.
She smiled back and fell into them gratefully, her head fitting perfectly under his chin. Her heart swelled again as she surrendered to the warmth and safety of his embrace. “I love you, too,” he said. She wrapped her arms around him snugly, hoping that her words had made him feel even half as good as she felt right now.