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Ravan is stirred awake when the door opens late one night, letting in the musky air outside. The door closes rigidly and Ravan's eyes make out Chaddick of Foxwood's large figure ambling over the sleeping bodies to get to his bunk, the one right next to Ravans.
He doesn't notice Ravan's awake and he walks achingly. Ravan knows whats happened when he makes out Chaddick's stained shirt torn with a slash. He hates it, but empathy rises somewhere because he's been on the receiving side of Aric's pride too.
He looks down at his bicep, pink mark peeking out from his baggy pajama shirt. It's healing faster then he thought it would, thanks to an Everboy named Tristan. He had offered him a healing cream that Ravan was initially suspicious of. Well, suspicious of many things. He was suspicious of the Everboy and his intentions, (seemingly of wanting to help him), of the cream, (oddly rich) and out of place in the muggy towers in a little bejeweled case. But now that he has it, it would be easy to help him.
But it's not about the matter of how easy it is. It's about the matter that Ravan is Ravan and he doesn't help people. Especially Chaddick of Foxwood, who's made these last few weeks harder then they've had to be.
Chaddick sniffles a groan as he climbs up into his bunk, wood creaking under his mass. Ravan shuts his eyes. His fingers find the ointment under his pillow. It would be cruel, even for a Neverboy, to let it slide. He's not supposed to like him, and he doesn't. Chaddick had opposed him during the circus, and he beat him. The worse part was that he was confident, and cocky, so sure of himself. He got him back in the Trial, but Ravan didn't find kicking him over and easily pulling his flag out of his pocket very satisfying.
Chaddick groans again and before Ravan can stop himself, he's sitting up to study the Everboy.
Chaddick doesn't notice him, he's wrapping his dirty sheets around it, ugh, no that won't help, it needs to be cleaned out, and it needs to breathe- this stupid Everboy.
Ravan sighs. He's the worst Never ever.
"Hey, idiot!" He whispers harshly.
Chaddick looks over, scowling. "What do you want?"
"Don't cover it up. Here." Ravan reaches out, holding the cream, but Chaddick can't really reach out, wincing. Ravan just sighs, getting down the rickety ladder to dodge the sleeping Ever and Never boys and offer Chaddick the medicine.
He's about to make his way back, but Chaddick calls out to him. "Wait! Can you help me put it on?" he whisper yells, somehow louder then his normal voice, halting the Never.
"What? No, you just rub it on." Ravan says. This was a mistake. Chaddick will tell everyone, and they'll all think he's soft, and he is not.
"Please." He says simply.
An Ever. Begging him, a Never. If that even means anything anymore.
Ravan wonders what's wrong with him, but he grabs a flask of water, climbs up the small bunk, and faces his 'mortal enemy', who's hurt.
Chaddick's face is hard to see, the bunk is the farthest from the window, pressed in an awkward position between the ceiling and the wall. At least Ravan won't have to worry about a gossipy little shit like Vex telling everyone that Ravan of Thicket Tumble was in Chaddick of Foxwood's bunk during unholy hours of the night.
"Where did he get you?" Ravan asks him, opening the case and eyeing Chaddick's torn shirt. Oh hell, please let Vex stay asleep. Ravan can already hear him yapping away.
"All around, collarbone to shoulder." Chaddick whispers. He gently unbuttons his shirt, presenting Ravan with a gash, thin, but sharp and long. It doesn't look too deep, so it won't get infected, but it definitely doesn't look pleasant, red and searing.
Ravan vaguely wonders how he got so good at this, but he doesn't really have to answer the question.
He leans forward, inspecting the wound, but his long uneven hair gets in the way and he curses under his breath. When he pushes it back, it falls back into his eyes.
"Here," Chaddick offers a dark blue hair tie with a pink flower pinned on it. Ravan obviously refuses. "Oh. Sorry." Chaddick takes the flower off, discarding of it quickly.
It's obvious where it came from. His date from the Circus, Beatrix. Ravan remembers how bitter he was that night. By now, he's really just intrigued now by the fact that Chaddick's been carrying it around, considering his anti-girl agenda as of lately.
But he says nothing, choosing to ignore it. "What happened?" he asks roughly, tying his hair up.
"He changed curfew. I didn't know, and I was looking for Nick, but Aric found me first." Chaddick winces as Ravan presses the sheet to his shoulder in an attempt to clean it up.
Ravan feels a feeling that must be guilt, or maybe pity. The image of the popular Everboy in the Never halls alone feels foreign and uncharacteristic.“Uh... sorry," he mumbles awkwardly, pouring the rest of the water on the sheet and spreading the medicine on two fingers and spreading it onto his injury like the other Everboy had showed him. He tries to apply the same gentleness, but his large and rough hands weren't made for that.
"Not your-ah!" Chaddick hisses, jerking away. “That burns!"
"Good," Ravan hisses back. "That means it's working."
"That's stupid,” Chaddick seethes. “If it burns, that just adds to the pain, not healing it."
“You can't heal without the burn," Ravan says, exasperated. "Fine, you do it then." He tosses the cream at him. Chaddick catches it with ease, despite his condition. Ravan hoped he wouldn't.
He strips off the rest of his shirt and Ravan waits for him to fail, noting the way his forearms bulge when he tries to reach over and reach his shoulder.
After a stubborn minute, he glares over at his companion. "You set me up."
"You asked me to help for a reason, dumbass," Ravan says, snickering. Chaddick rolls his eyes in complete annoyance. Ravan holds his hand out and Chaddick passes it over, leaning closer.
Ugh, he even smells like an Ever.
The sheet cleans up most of the residue, and Ravan applies the medicine surely but clumsily, well aware of Chaddick watching. He keeps trying to start conversation, something Ravan is finding steadily annoying.
"How do you know how to do this?"
"I'm a Never. Potions are something we learn."
"Where did you get the medicine?"
"No where. Can you be quiet?"
"Who gave it to you?" Chaddick completely ignores his request.
"An Everboy," Ravan snaps, pushing Chaddick's other shoulder back so he can focus on the injured one.
"Who?"
"He told me his name was Tristan." Ravan replies, vaguely remembering the show down in the courtyard last year.
Chaddick snaps his fingers. "I know him. We bunked together last year."
Ravan just grunts, leaning forward. His shirt sleeves ride up and Chaddick's eyes are drawn to his bicep. "You got hit too."
And usually Ravan wouldn't care, he wouldn't. He would wear it like a trophy, but Chaddick. The way this Everboy says it, like he cares, soft and genuine. Worried. Thats when Ravan knows coming back from this night isn't going to be easy. He pulls his sleeve down, annoyed, but Chaddick waves his hands away, pushing up his sleeve and grazing it with his fingers, a brush like a quill on paper.
"Stop," Ravan protests, startled at the foreign touch. Chaddick immediately backs off, but is visibly disturbed and upset.
"When- why- are you-"
This was a mistake. Ravan doesn't need an Everboy feeling bad for him, least of all Chaddick of Foxwood, treating him like a damsel in distress.
"Don't ask me that." He answers in a low voice, gritting his teeth and looking down.
Chaddick receives this as 'I'm very emotionally vulnerable right now, so feel welcome to pat my shoulder, and present your chest so I can keep on play nurse with you like we're something other then enemies ' and Ravan stares at him, dumbfounded.
"We haven't even got to your collarbone and I'm this close to-"
"I'm sorry! I don't know how to be... nice," Chaddick whispers back defensively.
"I don't need you to be nice to me," Ravan spits. He softens, deciding he would rather get this over with, opposed to spending the night trying to get along with an Everboy. He resumes his ministrations. "Just be normal, stupid."
"I know, you're a Never and you just hate everything, and everyone, especially me, which is... fine, but I just feel bad, you know?" Chaddick says. Ravan is glad it's dark and he can't make out his face properly. He doesn't know if he'd prefer Chaddick to be genuine or phony.
He doesn't have a response as he works carefully, one that can be trusted to say anyway. Hort gives a little snuffle in the next bed over, and they both pause.
Hort, probably dreaming about his precious little witch, simply rolls over, letting out a little sigh. They both tensely continue.
Ravan sighs, frustrated. "Wish we had more water, a way to clean it up," he grouses.
Chaddick doesn't hear him, his inner turmoil loud in the confined space.
"I feel bad about last year too."
Oh, fuck.
Ravan scoffs, face and ears feeling hot. "You don't get to feel bad about last year."
"But I do!" Chaddick says loudly, and clamps a hand over his mouth.
"You're just saying that because I'm helping you." Ravan rejects, pushing the medicine on quickly so he can haul ass out of this bunk before Chaddick starts pitying him.
"I really, honestly do." Chaddick presses. He probably wants Ravan to look at him like an Evergirl, earnest and flattered and demure, tending to his wounds and his ego. No. Ravan is a Neverboy. A dirty, gritty Never, the son of a demon king. A Never. A boy.
"I liked your dance too," Chaddick says quieter, understanding the situation they're in.
"Thanks. Now stop," Ravan snaps, half heated. Then he remembers this the Everboy who saw his dance and sprout nine extra heads, something that had cultural significance and meaning to Ravan, shot a few arrows, and embarrassed him thoroughly. He accidentally presses down too hard.
"Ow!"
"Sorry."
Chaddick stays quiet for exactly one second. "Do you miss it when it was Good and Evil?" He asks.
"A bit," Ravan says lowly, not paying much attention. "I was neck to neck with Hester."
"Oh, Hester huh?"
Ravan knows what he's getting at. "I am not talking to you about this."
"I saw you two dancing together. Do you miss her?" he advances insistently.
"No. I don't like girls." Ravan snips bluntly.
Chaddick's eyebrows quirk up. "Really?"
"I don't like Hester," Ravan corrects himself, still telling the truth.
"That's cool. Cool, cool. The spirit of exploration, right?" Chaddick says, his free hand rubbing his knee, figures of eight. Infinity.
"Why are you asking me so many questions?" Ravan asks. He's not applying the medicine anymore, choosing to simply face his enemy and talk freely.
Chaddick shrugs, then winces with the pain. "Well, it's like, we were taught that there's Evers and Nevers, black and white, dark and light, you know? Like, that's all there is. But there's Evers like Agatha and Nevers like Sophie, and then they're in love, and it makes you wonder about the grey in between us. I mean, not us, us, but like, Ever and Never... us."
They're both quiet for a minute. Chaddick ducks his head, rubbing his neck. “Sorry, that probably sounded dumb to you.” he laughs.
"No, I-” Ravan laughs quietly too, just cause it feels right. “That is oddly smart." Ravan decides, deciding to ignore the ’us' for everyone's sake.
Chaddick scoffs. "Oh gee, thanks."
"I was trying to be nice," Ravan retorts, still thinking about what he said. "Is it possible for an Ever and Never to be happy together?"
Chaddick shrugs again. "Dunno. But if Sophie and Agatha can be together-"
"But look what's happened to the Woods and everywhere else because of that." Ravan points out.
Chaddick picks at his sheets. "You're cynical," he's discouraged, and Ravan feels... guilty.
"What about Beatrix? Don't you want to have your ending with her?" Ravan urges.
Chaddick deflates. "She likes another Ever. She didn't tell me who, but I know it. And I think I know who it is too. She never liked me anyways. Girls are so- sucky."
The band holding his hair back seems to burn on his head. "So what, you're just carrying around her hair band, hoping?"
"Oh sod off. She gave it to me as a token of her deflection or something like that. I don't know, I wasn't paying attention. But maybe if I were, if things were different..." he trails off.
"Er...sorry," Ravan says weakly, surprising himself by sounding genuine.
Chaddick doesn't take it that way. "Don't pity me," He grits out.
"Oh get over yourself," Ravan snaps, slightly embarrassed at being caught being sympathetic. He lowers his voice. "Pity is an assumption of superiority. I don't assume anything."
Chaddick shakes his head, dabbing some cream onto his glaringly red collarbone. "I can't figure you out. You act so high and mighty, but you come and you help me, and you seem so detached to everyone, but when you talk to me, you show you do care, you just don't know how to. "
Ravan scowls, batting Chaddick's hands away to put it on himself. "Newsflash asshole, I don't actually care about what you think of me. I am not a mystery for you to solve, or a little secret. I'm no enigma, nothing special. I could care less about what you think you figured out. And you."
"You say that as you're putting medicine on me," Chaddick points out. "And you are special. Everyone's special, regardless if you're a Never or an Ever."
Ravan curses. "Fine, you know what you am? I'm a descendant of a demon king, a legend, while I'm a dirty past Never, a failure, a- mhp-"
He's interrupted from his self deprecating dramatic monologue by Chaddick leaning forward, and pressing his mouth onto his. Ravan hates that his heart accelerates, that he doesn't break away within the first seconds as he tries to comprehend what is going on-!
"What are you doing?!" Ravan says loudly, pushing him back, scampering backwards.
Chaddick slaps himself on the forehead. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! You were right there, and you were saying all that- stuff!"
"So?!" Ravan gapes. "You did- that!" He sounds so- pathetic! And lost! But he really doesn't know what to do- he didn't see that coming, god, this was a mistake, all of this, he knew that having all the Evers and Nevers would be a mistake, that the absence of girls would bring forth things that would make his father cover his eyes, and helping Chaddick was a mistakes, helping anyone, alliances be damned, common enemies be damned, Aric and his whip, and especially, especially Chaddick be damned.
He let him get the best of him, again.
"I'm sorry."
Ravan looks at him. His eyes are bright in the dim. When he talks, he looks straight at Ravan.
"I'm sorry if it's my fault you feel like a failure. You're not. You're one of the smartest people I know in this whole fucking school. I just think that we hate each other because we have to. I don't hate you. I don't know how to hate someone I don't know. But I do know that you're like me. You're a bit of a hardass, but... I like you, Ravan. Even if you are a Never."
They couldn't be more different, but Ravan feels close to this to him right now.
He closes his eyes tight, rubbing his temples. The words seem to be more than that, they take a hold of him and rest on his shoulders, feather light. They aren't just words, they're real to them both. Chaddick doesn't apologize, but he just did. Words like those mean something coming from him.
He's painfully aware of their proximity, Chaddick's eyes on him, his bare skin, red and vulnerable, the tension, and the closeness, Chaddick, the Ever, the boy he is supposed to hate.
He doesn't know what to make of this, but a part of him likes this.
Ever and Never doesn't mean anything anymore, right?
And just like that, the line is broken.
"Do it again," he tells him.
“You sure?" Chaddick asks, already coming closer.
“The spirit of exploration, right?” he says, even though it's not that for him. The air between them is sparse.
“Right.” He leans forward and Ravan pulls him even closer.