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Maybe Lukas shouldn't have given all of his friends keys to his house.
Sure, Olivia, Axel, Jesse, and Petra were always welcomed into his house whenever they wanted. He didn't mind it one bit, however a warning would've been appreciated.
How many times had he jumped out of the shower just to find all four of them playing some board game in his living room? Or when he woke up in the middle of the night to find someone sleeping on his couch? And he couldn't forget the times where he came back home to find at least one of them rummaging through his chests. Either taking his food, items, or whatever they could get their hands on.
It was early in the morning. Lukas was just in his pajamas, and barely awake. The last thing he expected was to see Petra laid face down on his couch. Dressed in her regular clothes, and he saw some dust and grime on her from what he assumed was a late night mining expedition. He could see she wiped her feet in the entrance so nothing was tracked in. But still his couch was going to need to be cleaned later.
He had to start keeping track of this. So far he had found Axel on the couch twice, Olivia once, Jesse’s done this about twelve times, and Petra was now on her eighth time. And this was only for this month alone. Dewey stared at Petra skeptically.
“Come on Dew. Let's leave her alone, and let her rest.”
“I'm not sleeping.” Both Lukas and Dewey jumped. Petra had her head turned to the two and she snickered quietly.
“Jeez! Don't do that!” He held a hand to his chest. “Are you trying to give me a heart attack?”
“No.” She pushed herself up, and laid back on the couch. “Not right now at least.”
Lukas snorted and started walking to the kitchen so he could get some food for himself. He started rummaging through one of his chests as he said. “So, then can I ask what you're doing in my house this time?”
“Am I not allowed to visit you now?”
“No, I’m simply curious, that's all.” He pulled out some bread and salmon. He left the salmon on the chest as Dewey walked up. He was too tired to put together a more nutritious and filling breakfast, so he took a bite of the bread.
“Well, I found a few treasures, I think you'll like some of them. And I am way too tired to walk all the way home right now. You would not believe the trouble I had to go through to get this stuff.” Lukas was still gnawing on the bread as he looked over. Petra waved some lapis, and a few enchanted books. His eyebrows raised.
“Oh?”
“One of these is Multi-shot. I've heard it's good for crossbows.” Lukas’ face morphed into one of skepticism. “Hey I know you’re not a fan of crossbows but you haven't even tried to use one!”
“Because it's wrong.” He stood up. Dewey jumped up onto the chest and started eating the salmon. Lukas leaned against it and continued. “I haven't used one, but I have held one. And it feels all wrong. There's a specific feel to a bow, Petra, and a crossbow completely alters it beyond recognition.”
“Psh, really?”
“Yes! I know you don't like bows, so let me put it this way. Imagine trying to switch from a sword to an axe.” Petra immediately looked disgusted at the idea. “See! That's how I feel with crossbows! It's not the weapon for me.”
“...” Petra took a look at one of the books in her hand. “So did I get this for nothing?”
“Does it have any other enchantments?”
“...” She hummed. “It has Piercing which is just another… crossbow… enchantment. I… I’ll just go trade this one, but, ” Petra put the book back into her inventory, and then threw a different one towards Lukas. He barely caught it. “that one has Punch.”
“... And Riptide?” Lukas took another bite of bread as he looked it over.
“I'm not sure what that one's for, but it sounds cool.” After Lukas put the book away she threw some lapis, and a disc at Lukas. He caught the disc, but not the lapis. “And I found a new disc too. I haven't gotten to listen to it yet.”
Lukas took a last bite of bread, and looked at the name of this disc. It had the word “MALL” on the purple center. He hummed with curiosity, and went to pick up the lapis to put into his inventory.
“I found a lot of other things too, but I don't know if you'll be interested in them… Aside from the diamonds, those are mine.”
Lukas shook his head and chuckled. Pocketing the last of the lapis. He then looked over the disc again. He held it up. “Would you like to listen to this now?”
“Uh, yeah? Why else would I give it to you dummy?”
He scoffed, as he walked over to his jukebox next to a bookshelf. Lukas pulled out the disc still in the jukebox. “STRAD”. Currently that one was his favorite. He had listened to that disc so many times he hadn't felt the need to take it out. Carefully Strad was set onto the shelf alongside other discs, and he replaced it with Mall.
“If it ends up sounding terrible, you're keeping it by the way.”
“As always.” He smiled as what he'd describe as a soothing melody started to play from the jukebox. When he went to sit on the couch the drums started to kick in.
Petra had her head resting on her hands, with her elbows out. One leg rested over the other as she laid back. Lukas plopped down next to her. He rested one arm on the rest, and closed his eyes. He found himself enjoying the song. It was nice, calming even.
The two were like that for a little while. The song continued to play on as they rested their eyes. Dewey jumped up onto the couch. The ocelot hesitated when he saw Petra, but he ultimately decided to lay down against Lukas' side away from Petra. He wasn't sure how long it had been before Petra spoke.
“Hey Lukas.”
“Yeah?”
“Can I talk to you about something?” She turned to face him. “And I know this’ll sound like it's coming out of nowhere but I swear to you it's relevant.”
He sat up. “What is it?”
“How'd you do it?”
“... Do what?”
“How'd you find your calling?”
“... Do you mean writing?”
“Yeah that.” Her arms fell to her sides. “How'd you know that's what you wanted to do with your life?”
“Ohh… I don't know. It just… came to me if I'm being honest.” He started petting Dewey. “Back when we were traveling through the portals, I only started writing just to get all of my thoughts out. There was just so much on my mind, I needed an outlet. But then I started to realize that I actually enjoyed the process of writing. And to put everything together into a story. I didn't know at first if I wanted to turn it into a book, but as we kept going on I started to learn that it's what I wanted to do.”
“...” Petra looked disappointed with that answer. She frowned. “Oh.”
“What?”
“Kinda, thought there'd be more to it than that.”
“Sorry.”
“What? No, don't be sorry, dummy!” She punched him lightly on the shoulder. “I didn't mean anything bad by it.”
Lukas leaned forward as Petra sighed. She stared at the wall in front of them.
“I've just been thinking. A lot. Recently.” Her hands rested on her lap.
“That's dangerous.” He teased. Petra snorted and nodded.
“Yeah, no kidding. It's been bad, Lukas.” She had a strained smirk on her face.
“Are you okay?”
“Oh, I'm fine. Absolutely fine. I just… ugh… I've…” She cringed. “I haven't been feeling my best.”
Lukas went to say something but was immediately cut off.
“Been feeling off Lukas. I don't know how to explain it. Like… lost… I guess…” Petra shook her head. “I don't know. You wouldn't get it.”
“I think I would.”
“No. No you wouldn't.”
“Maybe I wouldn't, but that doesn't mean I can't help.”
“...” Petra kept her gaze away from him. “It’s fine. It's nothing that important. I know you would, but it's just stupid feelings. I'll get over it.”
Lukas set his hand onto her shoulder. He could never force her to say anything. He knew that. The one person who could get information out of Petra the easiest was Jesse. And even then it still took a lot. Lukas knew he didn't stand a chance.
But he squeezed her shoulder. A show of his silent support. He hoped Petra still knew she could come to him for anything. That even if she didn't want to pour her heart out to him that he'd still be there. Lukas didn't need to know everything, but he wanted to help.
Petra doesn't look at him. He didn't see any change of emotion on her face. She just looked tired. Really, really, tired. Not from physical exhaustion, but something else that had been embedded into her.
“...” She let out a long breath. “Forget it.”
“Petra.”
“Just forget it.” She brushed him off and he let go. “The song’s over, you better go get the disc.”
He stared at her for a moment. Wordlessly he left the couch. Dewey looked up at him in annoyance as he walked away. His tail twitched.
Lukas took out the disc and set it onto the shelf. Glancing over to the others in his collection.
“Would you like to hear another song?”
“Nah.”
“...” Lukas frowned. “How about food, or water, or…”
“I'm good. I'm not really interested.” That quiet mask was put back on as she said. “Can you tell your cat to stop staring at me, though?”
“Ocelot.” Lukas faced her. “And he's just nervous around you. He doesn't trust you yet.”
“...” She raised a brow as she looked down at Dewey. “Does he have to be creepy while he's doing it?”
Dewey's head shot to Lukas with the most offended look he had ever seen on an ocelot. Lukas folded his arms.
“Dewey isn't creepy!”
“To you.” She leaned away from Dewey. “He's staring at me like he's ready to fight me.”
“Like I said, he doesn't trust you yet.” He walked over, and raised out his arms. Dewey jumped into them. Lukas had one arm holding Dewey’s hind legs for support, and the other over the ocelot's body. He scratched the back of his ears. “Give it time, I'm sure he'll warm up to you eventually.”
“...” Petra pushed herself off of the couch. “Sure. Whatever you say. Cat boy.”
She turned towards the door, and started walking.
“Wait, are you leaving already?”
“Yeah, I have stuff I need to do Lukas. I didn't go into the mines for nothing.” She opened the door. “But thanks for the visit. I appreciated it.”
“Petra, wait.” She stopped and turned to him. “You know you can talk to me right? Not just for a visit, just, y’know if you ever need someone to listen to you…”
“...” Her expression was blank. When she talked her voice was oddly quiet. “Yeah. Yeah, I know.”
Lukas and Dewey watched as Petra left. The door shut behind her, leaving them alone. The author's frown deepened. He kept petting the ocelot in his arms. Something's wrong. That was obvious.
Lukas sighed and turned back to go to his room. He couldn't force Petra to talk. Couldn't force her to give in. He wouldn't ever put her through something like that. Maybe if he gave it time she'd finally come up to him, and let him help her for once.
He just didn't know how long that would take.