Don't save me

It seemed like Aurora let the topic go, which eased his mind a little, so he wouldn’t have to be thinking about that and instead could focus on getting himself cleaned up. Of course, he could be doing homework or something alike, but ever since Aurora had mentioned how he had looked, it couldn’t really leave his mind. He scribbled a little on his drawing before he got up and moved towards the door, looking out the glass to see how busy people were. When it seemed like people were busy with their own thing, and no teacher was nearby, he teleported out and moved to the rest rooms, this time entering the assigned restroom for his gender. He simply walked straight in and grabbed some paper towels and made some of them wet. He took a quick look around before he teleported back into the  classroom, right in front of Aurora. He grabbed the stool from the seat in front of her, turned it around and sat down. “I know you’re doing homework, but would you mind?” he said gesturing to both wet and dry paper towels in his hand. Maybe if Riley just closed his eyes, it wouldn’t be that overwhelming, or maybe he just needed to know what was happening. He wasn’t that sure anymore.

She more or less let him do his own thing. Her eyes, however, glided up when she heard how the chair scraped over the floor and then he started walking towards the door. Her brows furrowed as she didn’t understand what he was doing. Then he teleported out. She let out a soft sigh, then she moved her eyes back to her book and started rereading the line that she had been trying to grasp before he had gotten up. It didn’t take all that long before a new small pop was heard, and Riley was standing in front of her. Now, normally she would think that people would get shocked by someone suddenly teleported in front of them. But she had been trained not to flinch at unexpected situations. Which was why she just let her deep brown eyes glide up from her book towards Riley. That was standing there with what looked like wet paper towels. Would you mind?. “Oh” she got out, licking her lips as a small smile tugged at her lips. “No, sure, I’ll help, sit” she made a chair move with her telekinesis, from one of the tables towards him so he could sit down. Then she turned her own chair, so she was facing him. She took the wet paper towels and very delicately started whipping away the blood. Her eyes focused on the task at hand.

Riley sat down on the assigned chair. He didn’t think twice about how she used her telekinesis to get the chair, and when she started to remove the blood from his face, he at first tried to look somewhere else, because for a slight second, he had looked into her eyes and felt so drawn that it scared him. How could eyes be so consuming? It felt like she could eat him right up. Eventually he believed it was a little too odd to look somewhere else, so he grabbed one of the wet paper towels and started to wipe his hands and knuckles clean, which would also make it easier for her to see if he had any on his eyelids or brows. “Thanks,” he mumbled.

She didn’t really think about how close they were, nor what kind of thoughts were going through Riley, as she carefully and gently removed the now dried blood splatter on his chin. If anything, it gave her something to do, where she could completely turn off her own mind. Unconsciously her teeth pulled in her bottom lip and started chewing on it. When he looked down, she noticed that there were a few drops of blood around his left eye. “Close your eyes for me” she whispered, letting go of her lip. She waited till he did it, and with a new paper she started drying off the last drops of blood. When she was done she leaned back, and titled her head, looking to see if there was anywhere else that she was missing.
“Oh” she exclaimed with a low voice “There are some underneath your chin again, and by your ear, one moment” she let her slightly cold fingers glide under his chin, to turn it in a direction where she easily could see where the bloodsplatter was.

He closed his eyes as she told him to do so and felt how the wet paper towels cleaned around his eye. When he heard that she leaned back, and didn’t seem to clean anything anymore, he opened his eyes again, blinking a few times. He only just got to look up at her when she exclaimed that there was more. A soft chuckle left him, and he raised his chin a little so she could see what she was doing. Her cold fingers and the cold water gave him chills. Down his arms. Luckily this was hidden by his long sleeves. He followed her guiding fingers until he was positioned in a way that made it easier for her. “Next time I’m taking you out we’ll need your jacket,” he mumbled to her shortly looking towards her. If she seemed to be confused, he would simply tell her that her fingers were cold.

He managed to get a short laugh out of her. Now, she understood it was because her fingers were cold. But instead of asking him if that was what he meant or telling him that she was sorry. She went with; “So you’re taking me out next time? What, like a date?” she teased, as she moved away, after she had found the last splatter of blood and had made sure that there was nothing left. Her eyes glided towards Riley and felt how her smile widened a little when she looked at him. She liked his eyes; the green was almost hypnotising. And there was something about werewolves’ eyes, they seemed wild, free. But something about Riley’s, it made her stop and just look at them. Like a pond, where there was darkness and unexplored things in the dept. All you had to do was to take a step and plunge into the cold waters.

Riley felt like all blood left his face as she asked if he was taking her out on a date. See, that was another thing he wasn’t really ready for. Or at least he didn’t feel like he had prepared for anything like that. He furrowed his brows and for once tried to calm himself and act like an actual confident man. “Yeah, sure,” he said, with a little curl on his lip. “We can go to the zoo,” he suggested. One should almost believe that he had gotten some kind of control over his slight anxiety about questioning his sexuality, but maybe… Just maybe he had to take a step and try to figure out what he liked.

Okay, so she hadn’t thought that he would actually agree to go on a date. If she had to be honest, she had only said it, because it had felt right and sort of a bad joke. Now, it wasn’t a bad joke, because he had agreed. How the hell was she supposed to get out of that one? Deny it, go on it, hope that the date fell sort? What if it didn’t, what if they had great chemistry and then he would either leave her, or she would end up breaking his heart? Because apparently that was all she had ever been good at. “Okay so, I” she felt how her hands flexed before turning in to fists. “I have this really bad habit about joking and make things uncomfortable, and, I would love to go with the zoo with you, but like, friends, because, you know, the person that died, we were sort of dating and I’m not sure – I just have a bad habit about breaking peoples heart or getting them into trouble, and you seem really nice and – I’m rambling now, oh god, just kill me now” she murmured and closed her eyes before she placed her cold hands against her face.

She had just been joking. He gave her a slight nod and tried to keep his smile while she rambled. “Woah, hold your horses, princess,” he chuckled with a slightly wider smile. This was perfect, because then they would be able to just hang out without Riley having to worry if he was ‘playing her’ because he didn’t know what he was attracted to. “I’m not going to kill you,” she said taking a moment to make sure she understood that he wasn’t going to do that, even though he knew that it had also been a joke. “We can go to the zoo as friends,” he tilted his head a little to see if she would be coming out of the cage she had made of her hands. “You’re cool, Aurora. Don’t doubt that,” he said quite confidentially.

She scrunched her nose as he called her princess, but it also turned her embarrassed expression into a softer and more relaxed one. A small chuckle left her, as Riley determent that he wasn’t going to kill her. She was so close to tell him, that he didn’t couldn’t because it had already been done. But that seemed a little too dark to share already. The only one that really knew what had happened, had been the people present and Aaron. Because she had told him when he had found her in the forest. Aurora looked through her fingers after she had spread them. “Zoo friends, is better than detention friends” she mumbled, moving her hands from her face. “I’m sorta cool, I can be cooler than this meltdown” she assured him giving him a soft smile, clearly being more comfortable than she had been moments ago.

Riley nodded, agreeing that a zoo friend would be better than a detention friend. “Way better,” he replied, his voice cracking once, which made him clear his throat. He squinted his eyes, clearly in a jokingly matter. “I’ll believe it when I see it,” he teased. He looked over at the paper towels they had used and grabbed them. “Bin,” he said before he with a small pop disappeared and appeared close to the door. He hadn't thought that much about the teleportation and therefore stumbled over his own feet, falling while he threw the paper towels into the bin. “I'm okay!” He assured her and got up and walked back in her direction, “So, when will it suit you?” he wondered and put his arms out to the sides.

She couldn’t help but pull out her tongue at him, when he told her that he would believe it when he saw it. “Asshat” she huffed in a jokingly manner, nodding when he told her that he was going to go to the bin. But she couldn’t help but pull a smile when he used his teleportation for that. Maybe she should have done the same, when she had the same ability. Then she would have had more control over it. But there wasn’t really a reason to think about that anymore. She just had to look forward, even though it seemed to be nothing there. At least it was hard for her to visualise that things would ever get better.
She was just about to get up, when he fell when he told her that he was alright. A soft chuckle left her and she shook her head a little. “Oh, ehm” she pulled out her calendar and looked at it. “I’m free next weekend? Or it has to be a day after school” she said with a small smile, looking up at him to see if he knew when he would be able to go to the zoo. Who would have thought that a detention would lead to a new friendship?

What a pretty name she gave him. He was the asshat, and she the princess. What a match. Almost like the old fairytale The Pig Boy. He could hear how she chuckled about how he had fell and told her that she was okay. She mentioned next weekend or some day after school. “The weekend is cool,” he said, though he was open for whatever she wanted. “I can pick you up at Aaron’s or Elisabeth’s?” he offered and scratched his neck a little. “Or you can come to my place, if that’s better?” He wasn’t completely sure where Aaron stayed at the moment, but he was sure he could figure that out with Elisabeth. But of course, if Aaron lived far away from the zoo, it might not be the best idea.

She nodded with a slightly brighter smile, even though a pang of guilt formed in her chest for feeling some sort of happiness. Almost if she needed to punish herself with feeling unhappy and sad all the time. Not wanting to forget Nick or move on to quickly. It was just a bundle of unanswered questions. All the time.
Aurora tried to push away the feelings for now and thought about his question about where to pick her up. “Well, maybe it’s easier if I meet you back and your place” she answered nodding. “I think it makes more sense, if we are going to the zoo” she nodded, wow, going somewhere. She hadn’t done that for what felt like a lifetime. How many times could a person live? She blinked a little, when she realised that she had zoned out. “Sorry, did you say something?” she asked, looking towards Riley with an apologetic smile. How long had they even been here now, when could they leave? She looked towards the clock, wow, an hour already? Seemed like time was flying at the moment.

He gave her a slight nod as she mentioned how it might be easier to meet at his place. “Yeah, certainly,” he said with a little curl on his lip, glad that she wanted to go, even though there of course would be a chance that she would never show up. He noticed how she zoned out a little and laughed lightly as he noticed how she got back, “Nothing important,” he said. “I’ll just see you at my place,” he said with a smile. He picked up how she was looking at the clock and did so too. “Do you know if the teacher would tell us to leave or if we just have to decide when to head to class ourselves?” he wondered, looking back at her.

She nodded giving him a smile. “Well, I hope we’ll see each other before then” she chuckled, knowing there was quite some time before they would go on this, friendly zoo date. Might be nice to get her mind completely off things. Who knew, maybe it would even get her out of the slump that she had been over the weekend. She hit her mentally in her head over that thought, remembering herself that she was a safe place now, and it was okay to mourn. It wasn’t a weakness, and it was something that took time.
She shrugged when he asked if she knew about the teacher would come when they could go. “I actually don’t know” she licked her lips, looking towards the door scratching the back of her head before turning towards Riley. “Might need to be here until next break or something?” she theorized; she had never gotten detention when she had been at the academy last time. So, this wasn’t really something that was familiar to her.

Riley chuckled a little as she mentioned that she hoped to see him before their trip to the zoo. “Probably for another detention,” he laughed a little thought wasn’t really the one who got the most detentions. It had happened once in a while, but mostly before he had covered other peoples’ asses before. Riley believed he was done with doing that.
A grimace formed over Riley’s face as she explained that she didn’t know when the detention ended. He had truly hoped that she would have known, but there would probably just be a teacher who would pick them up at some point. “You might be right,” he mumbled and scratched his jaw a little thoughtfully, looking towards the door. He leaned a little back in the stool he was sitting on before he looked towards Aurora again. “What do you think of Aaron?” he wondered. Now he could  have asked about his sister or Elisabeth, Walter or simply just any of them, but he believed starting with what would be her father figure now might be a good place to start.

She couldn’t help but let out a small laugh, when he mentioned that they might see each other in another detention. Well, they might. Besides hadn’t they both gotten detention every break for the next month? So, there was a high probability that he was right, that they would in fact be seeing a whole lot of each other the next couple of weeks at least. Hopefully they could both stay out of more trouble, even though she wouldn’t mind getting to know Riley more. But even she could see there would be better ways in doing so.
She looked up when Riley asked what she thought of Aaron, she didn’t even realize that she was smiling right away after he had asked. “I really like him” she said letting out a small sigh while nodding. “His very… I don’t know to put it, he just has this air around him, and even though he has some seriously dark powers, he still very warm – which just means he’s a good person you know?” she chuckled scratching the back of her neck. “Does that even make sense? I feel like it didn’t make much sense” she laughed shaking her head and took in a deep breath and exhaled again letting her eyes find her fingernails, that she slowly started to clean.