Work Text:
Juliana is staring at him.
Arven narrowly misses the knife’s edge as it plays hard and fast between his fingers. Truth be told, it would be a desirable result if it nicked him, because Arven is a traitor. Arven knows that he deserves the scars that snake across his wrists, the topographic map of burns and unhealed scabs that make up the lower half of his legs. The psychiatric nurse once employed by Naranja told him otherwise, but Arven knows that professionals of her ilk are trained to coddle nutcases. They can’t tell him how awful of a person he is to his face, lest the truth drive him to madness and they be held liable. So he stopped going, and tossed those awful pills they forced into his possession, too. He was determined: nothing, whether they be man or medicine, would be responsible for Arven but himself.
He looks up from the sandwich. Juliana’s eyes are no longer trained on him. But the guilt that has rattled his brain from the moment he caught her gaze still lives. Now she’s idling, arms stretched behind her as her legs relax into a pretzel. Effortless as she makes challenging the Titans look, he knows it’s taken quite a bit out of his little friend. Good on her for taking a rest.
An awful realization dawns on him. He’s thinking about Juliana again.
Arven begins chopping the herbs into a near-fine paste, his knife now flies so deftly. He registers Juliana jerking her head quickly in his direction, perhaps alarmed by the sudden increase in noise, but doesn’t bother to meet her gaze. He hates that he even considers doing it to begin with.
“Arven?” he believes he heard her say, but the clicking of the knife against the cutting board drowns it out. It occurs to him that if he truly accepted his guilt, he would, in fact, respond to her. The distraction would guarantee that the knife would fly through his skin, which would be fitting punishment. No hesitation, the way he cowardly avoids drawing the blade to himself in moments of true solitude. Of course, he doesn’t take up this suggestion. He still lacks the conviction.
With a man as spineless as him as its companion, it was no wonder that Mabostiff got sicker by the day.
“Arven,” she starts again.
The fact that his mind has wandered away from the task at hand is a clear sign of treachery.
“Arven!” she now shouts, threatening a particularly loose spiral of stalactite above his head. The knife pauses, but Arven feels as if he’s still going a thousand miles a minute. “Your hand!”
He looks down, and can only think of how his carelessness has ruined the sandwich. Blood blooms from his knuckles, leaking now over his work area and soaking deep into the loaf. Arven barely registers Juliana leaping to her feet.
“Sit!” she partially asks and mostly begs, all too familiar with his stubborn nature. For once, Arven listens to her without complaint. He settles onto the cave ground and sticks his hand upright in an effort to slow the bleeding. Juliana fumbles with her belt, where six pokeballs are embedded. When she manages to wrest one out, the first tinge of pain begins to spread across his hand. He hasn’t taken a close look at the wound yet, but he is aware that it should hurt significantly more. A small flush of pride breaks across his chest. It’s rare confirmation that Arven’s priorities are in the right place.
“Go, Chansey!”
A round pink pokemon rolls out of Julianna’s pokeball. It requires no further instruction from its owner and immediately waddles to Arven, the smell of blood making its purpose obvious. Pinkish fog emits from its mouth and reaches for Arven’s outstretched hand. He doesn’t need to look to know that the wound has immediately closed, the process taking no more than ten seconds. He lowers his hand, which is uninjured but an angry shade of red from the trauma. It is with some disappointment that he registers that the incident has not left him with a scar. How else can he be expected to remember?
“You really need to be more careful,” Julianna chides as he continues to study his hand.
Arven laughs. She doesn’t know the half of it.
“Perhaps. Thanks for the help.”
Arven never understood why some people’s smiles were described as “beaming” until he met Juliana. Her grin brings light to the cave’s din atmosphere and heat to his cold fingers. Instinctively, he draws back, afraid to be burned.
“No problem! What are friends for?”
It’s a hypothetical question, but Arven struggles for an answer. What he and Mabostiff share is dirtied by the implication that it is something as easily abandoned as friendship can be, and past that, this isn’t a topic he has much experience in.
He instead settles for: “Well, I hope my sandwich is a fair trade for medical treatment. I’d like to think it is.”
She stares at him, mouth agape.
“You can’t be serious. You’re still going to try to make us a sandwich after all of that?”
He can’t tell her how badly he needs this sandwich - no, how badly Mabostiff needs this sandwich. Guilt prickles his neck. Once again, he’s put his own needs before Mabostiff’s. No, Juliana can’t even know that Mabostiff exists. Then, he’d truly be unable to untangle the two, and where would that leave him?
“Well, obviously. If all this stuff in the scarlet book is actually true, there’s no better time to make one then when I just got injured, yeah?”
She looks at him with some concern. “Does it still hurt?”
“Yes,” he lies. “So - a perfect learning opportunity, yeah?”
“You’re incredible. You know that?”
He shrugs his shoulders, rolling the rising heat from his chest away from his cheeks. If a blush doesn’t spread across his face, maybe he can pretend it never happened to begin with. “I like to keep busy.”
It’s the easiest way to tell her: he pushes himself to the breaking point because he deserves to break.