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i.
To be hungry is to be alive. To be alive is to want. To want is to be hungry.
All Ruggie needs is just one more chance. One more day. One more meal. That’s how he teaches himself to survive.
There’s an ache deep in him, something that he has always tried desperately to fill. He wants more. He wants something the world tells him he doesn’t deserve. Ruggie is the worst of the worst, the lowest of the low: just another filthy thief from the slums, one who’ll never amount to anything.
But if he’s nothing more than a dirty hyena, then he should just take what he wants, shouldn’t he? Ruggie doesn’t have to be worthy. He just needs to be desperate enough to want it more.
(What does he want? To never have to worry about another meal? A dad who left him? A mom who died so soon he doesn’t know how to miss her? His hunger leaves its filthy prints on everything he touches).
ii.
There’s a rule that every starving boy knows: if you want a place in this world, you need to fight for it.
The day Ruggie receives the acceptance letter from Night Raven College, he can barely read it. He sounds out the words carefully, trying to piece together the few letters he’s been able to teach himself. It doesn’t matter, though. He knows what this is: a glimpse into a world forbidden to him. A chance to leave. A way to take even more.
The odds are stacked against him, but haven’t they always been? Nothing has ever been in his favor. At Savanaclaw, he’s the runt again. Too skinny to be good in a fight, and too poor to afford a proper uniform. But he’s clever, and wily, and he can make a name for himself on the spelldrive team. It’s easy enough to pickpocket the odd student here and there, and the school always needs menial labor, so he can scrap by, as he’s always done.
(These pampered brats are nothing compared to him. They’ve never gone hungry a day in their lives. They don’t know what it’s like to lay bleeding in the streets. No one has ever wanted as much as him).
And then he meets Leona, and everything changes.
He’s just another potential mark, Ruggie thinks. The spoiled second prince of Sunset Savannah. If anything goes wrong, he always has his signature spell to get him out of a tight spot.
So he does his usual routine; in some crowded corner of the hallway, he bumps into Leona, reaches for his wallet– Ruggie can almost taste how good a pricey sandwich from the cafeteria will taste– and a gloved hand wraps around his wrist tightly before he can pull the wallet out.
Leona’s smirk is so sharp it hurts Ruggie to look. “Ah? What’s this? It looks like some hyena is putting his hands where he shouldn’t.”
“Me?” Ruggie says innocently. “No, no. Your wallet was falling out, so I was helping you by putting it back.”
“Oh, yeah? I bet my watch was falling off, too, right?”
Tch. He noticed that? “It was,” Ruggie says, slowly pulling out the watch from his pocket. “Sorry for the trouble.”
“Don’t think I’m going to let you get away so easily. You tried to steal from me…” Leona pauses, and looks at Ruggie’s face more closely. “Ah, aren’t you that freshie on the spelldrive team? Raggie, or something.”
“It’s Ruggie.”
“Whatever. Now, Ruggie. I’ve seen how fast you can move. If you do me a favor, I can forget the stunt you just tried to pull.”
“What’s in it for me?”
“You want to bargain with me, hyena?” Leona loosens his grip, but Ruggie knows it’s a taunt for him to try to escape. “Aside from not tearing you into pieces, if you keep helping me out, I might be inclined to do something for you, too.”
Leona carelessly holds out the same hand that has just bruised Ruggie’s wrist, waiting for him to take it, as if he has a real choice in the matter. Well, he wouldn’t get a better deal anywhere else, would he?
“What do you need me to do?”
iii.
The first time he sees you, all he can think about is how soft and weak you are.
A pitiful, magicless student with no way home and no one to trust. You’re even worse off than him, living on the charity of a flighty headmage. You’re a future victim waiting to happen.
And then you disrupt his plans, mess up everything he and Leona have been working for, and have the audacity to save the both of them, on top of it.
Maybe you aren’t as weak as he thought.
Resourceful, and a little too kind for your own good, and more smart than anyone gave you credit for: Ruggie doesn’t understand you at all. He can’t help but watch as you stumble your way in and out of trouble.
The world is one of give and take, and he’d be a fool to act like it’s anything different. If he does something for you, then you’ll do something for him, right? There’s no other way he can interact with you. Your sandwich for his drink. Your detergent for his shampoo. Your laughter for his jokes.
Still…
“Surprise!” you say, and hand him a lollipop. “I had some extra, and I thought you’d like it, Ruggie.”
“Shihi, what’s the catch? Do you want me to do something for you?”
“There’s no catch. I’m giving it to you without any sort of ulterior motivation,” you say, stressing the last two words.
“I’m not going to give you something in return, though?”
“That’s okay. I’ll be happy as long as you like it.”
The lollipop, he finds, melts in his mouth, a strong citrus flavor that lingers for the rest of the day.
You’re weird. So, so weird.
Something in Ruggie wants to bite into the nape of your neck when he sees you pass by him in the halls, laughing at one of Ace’s jokes.
To scrape against bone, to taste blood, leaving a mark that won’t disappear.
This is a sort of hunger too.
iv.
Ruggie dreams about dying.
Leona’s hands on his throat. Sand in his mouth. His skin cracking.
How do you like that, Ruggie? Does it hurt? Is your mouth too dry to keep licking my boots? That was your finest talent, too.
Mercifully, the Savanaclaw commons are empty, so no one sees when his shaking hands spill the water he tries to drink. One drink, then another, and it’s still not enough.
The glass clatters to the floor and Ruggie holds his throat; it’s too soft, too warm. He can feel the blood pumping underneath, and presses a thumb against his carotid artery. He’s alive. He’s alive. He’s alive.
Leona gave him an old uniform, gave him a place in Savanaclaw, and never comments on the extra sandwiches Ruggie bought with his money.
Leona, overcome by black ink.
Leona taught him how to read, gave him old history notes, swished his tail lazily as he put a hand on Ruggie’s head when Ruggie finally got above 50% on a test.
Leona destroying everything they worked for.
Leona’s hand shaking his, the day Ruggie tried to pickpocket from him.
Leona’s hand around his neck.
Ruggie collapses to the floor, pressing the palm of his hands into his eyes so all he can see are stars.
One day at a time, he thinks. One day at a time.
Because he is still alive, and he still wants, and he is still so, so hungry.
v.
“Leonaaaa. It’s time to wake up.”
A growl greets him, and Ruggie sighs.
“You’re going to be held back for another year if you keep this up, you know? I don’t want to be stuck running errands for you until I graduate.”
“Hah? Would you prefer not to graduate at all, then?”
The threat rolls over Ruggie’s shoulders like water. Leona sinks deeper into the pillows, and Ruggie starts his Saturday morning routine. Pick up Leona’s laundry, collect the trash, organize the drawers. If there’s time, he’d even dust the whole place down, and sort Leona’s textbooks in order of which ones he’s going to need the most throughout the week.
Ruggie likes it this way. This is familiar. He doesn’t have time to think about his nightmares if he keeps his hands busy.
(What does he expect from Leona, anyways? Apologies? Tears? As long as you can move, you can still survive, if only for one more day).
It’s while he’s rummaging around in Leona's desk (he makes a mental note to look up the price of the opal ring he finds in the corner) that he stumbles onto something strange. There’s a pack of sleep medicine tucked between Leona’s silk shirts. It’s one of the most expensive brands on the market; the only time he’s seen it is when he was cleaning some rich brat’s apartment, and he saw it shoved in the back of a cabinet.
“Leona. Why is there medicine in your drawer?”
Leona waves a lazy hand. “What? How do you expect me to remember everything I have? Do whatever you want with it.”
Ruggie decides not to comment on the fact that the receipt, stuck under a shirt sleeve, reveals the medicine was bought yesterday.
vi.
Your hands are covered in bandages and little cat band-aids. Did you really think that he wouldn’t notice that you spent a week running around the school, taking up odd jobs, to make enough money for his birthday present? That you skipped on meals to save money? Seriously, you wouldn’t last a day in Sunset Savannah with that sort of foolish attitude.
“You’re so dumb,” Ruggie snickers, but there’s no malice in his voice. He sounds almost gentle, and it surprises him more than it surprises you.
Something about your hands annoys him. His fingers alight on your palm. You flinch, and he stops.
“Sorry, it’s still sort of sore,” you say.
“How hard were you working?”
You shake your head, ignoring the question. “Do you want your gift or not?”
“Shihihi, do you expect me to turn down something you’re giving to me? For free, no less?”
“Of course not.” With a roll of your eyes, you reach for the present you had left on the table, but he grabs your wrist before you can touch it. “Ruggie?”
“I want to get it,” he says as a way of explanation.
“Right, of course.”
Ruggie can tell that you tried your best to wrap the gift; there’s tape holding every stray piece of orange wrapping paper down. It’s clumsy, and sort of endearing. He tears the paper off in one long peel. Inside of the box underneath is… a meerkat piggy bank.
“Surprise,” you say nervously, shifting from foot to foot. “Jack told me that you had a warthog piggy bank, and it was a series, and that you were looking for the meerkat one. Er, maybe you wanted to buy it on your own. I wasn’t sure if we were close enough for this to be–”
Your words cut off in a startled choke as Ruggie flings his arms around you. It’s an uncharacteristic move, he knows, but he feels like he can’t control himself anymore.
“Seriously. You’re so weird,” Ruggie mumbles against your shoulder. “Why do you try so hard to take care of me?”
“Because I like you,” you say, and pat his shoulder. His arms tighten around you as flowers bloom inside his chest.
Birthdays were strange holidays. They were just an inconsequential mark of the time, proof he’s survived for another year, and needs to make it for another. But his grandma would try to make him doughnuts on this day. And his classmates, even the stingy ones like Azul, give him presents. And Leona and Jack have been planning a party for him all week, as if he couldn’t overhear them discussing what sort of food to order.
Ruggie is alive, and he is hungry, and he wants so, so much. But the ache in him doesn’t hurt as much as it did before. Maybe it would be okay to enjoy what he has now.