Room 330, Wednesday Evening

[genesishero]

Evan had gotten his first voicemail today since... well... since he'd come to the island, really. He'd been out walking Ozzy, and he'd just missed the call, and was actually almost excited to see that it had been Yeul to leave the message.

Until he went to listen to it, and was met, first, with the sound of his own voice in his own message to anyone who called.

... Especially if it's you, Ma and Pa. I haven't heard from you in ages.

It hit him like a baseball bat to the chest, and he was out of breath as he hit the button to play back the message that was there for him. There, Yeul's voice, promising him in a voice incapable of lying that no matter what, she would never be afraid of him. She probably had no idea just how badly he needed to hear someone say those things. He listened to her message through once. And then, after a moment's hesitation, he listened to it again. And again.

He was going to have to change his own voicemail message soon so that it wouldn't blindside him again. But before that, he was just going to sit there, curled up on his bed, listening to someone telling him that he was a good person over and over and over, and struggling not to cry.

[OOC: Open!]

Comments

[3girls-1core.livejournal.com]

Honestly, only a masochist would go ANYWHERE today other than straight back to her room, where she could hide and hope her roommate wouldn't try to strike up a conversation. And yet, here Sholeh was, standing outside Evan's room, debating whether to knock and chat, even though she'd have no control over what she was going to say.

She was a smart girl. Surely she'd turn around and go back to her nice, safe room.

Knock knock.

She was such an IDIOT.

[genesishero]

Oh, Sholeh. Oh, silly, silly Sholeh.

Evan gave another little sniffle, and hastily wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand as he stood and went to answer the door. If he didn't look like he'd been crying, maybe he wouldn't have to answer questions about it. Right?

... He looked a little like he'd been crying as he opened the door, his ice-blue eyes rimmed with red, and his smile a little wobbly as he saw who had knocked.

"Oh..." Sniff. "Hi, Sholeh. I was just..." Reading? Playing with Ozzy? Doing homework? "... Crying."

...

Oh, that was a pained look that bordered on mortified, right there.

[3girls-1core.livejournal.com]

"You look like it," Sholeh informed him, because tact was also in short supply today. At least by her wince, she knew it? "I'm sorry I interrupted. I shouldn't even be here today, because I'll probably just say something stupid and spill secrets that I shouldn't, but I wanted to see you because I miss you, even though it's only been a few days."

Oooor...she could just slink down the hallway and never be seen from again?

[genesishero]

"I miss you, too," Evan offered, opening the door a little wider. "And if you come in I won't even ask after any of your secrets, I promise. We can just sit in silence, if you want. I... don't want to be alone right now."

[3girls-1core.livejournal.com]

"I really appreciate that," Sholeh said gratefully, coming inside at his invitation. "I guess that means I shouldn't ask why you're crying then, right? I mean, if you want to tell me, that's fine, but I don't want to ask any questions you'd rather not answer."

[genesishero]

"It's... mostly nothing bad," he admitted, his voice falling quiet. "Mostly it's happy stuff, I guess. I got a voicemail from Yeul, because I think she wanted me to know for a fact, since nobody can lie today, that she really isn't ever going to be afraid of me. I needed to hear that more than I think I realized."

He hesitated for a moment, and then added, in a voice that was a little quieter still, "And I really need to record a new answering message."

[3girls-1core.livejournal.com]

Sholeh looked up at him with sympathetic eyes. "Yeul is very kind," she said softly. "I'm so glad she left you that message. I'm not afraid of you, either, you know."

She couldn't say that she'd never be afraid, because that was untrue, but she wasn't afraid of him now.

"Why do you have to record a new message?" She hadn't heard his. Sholeh didn't know much about telephones.

[genesishero]

Evan bit his lip, and then kind of looked down at the floor.

"I could play it for you," he offered, already poking at the buttons on his phone again, and putting it on speaker. "It... kind of speaks for itself."

Literally, really, as his message started to play again.

He wasn't looking up.

[3girls-1core.livejournal.com]

Sholeh didn't really see what was wrong with it. Until the last line.

... Especially if it's you, Ma and Pa. I haven't heard from you in ages.

No wonder he was crying. Sholeh's own eyes brimmed with tears and she sniffled. "That's--that's--" Forget words. She was drawing him in for a tight hug.

[genesishero]

Evan dropped his phone. The floor was a good place for it to be, really. If it was on the floor, it wasn't in the way, and he could wrap his arms around her a few times and bury his face in her shoulder.

It was... what it was. He didn't have words, either. He was just happy that she was here.

[3girls-1core.livejournal.com]

The worst thing about Truth Day? Sholeh couldn't even tell Evan that it was okay, because it wasn't. It might BE okay, someday, but that wasn't a certainty, either.

At least she could offer, "Shh, shh, I'm here, I got you," instead. That was...something.

[genesishero]

"I know," he murmured quietly. "You're not Ma and Pa, though."

He hated that he said that. He hated it so much. For all that it was true.

"Y-you're everything I have. I have friends too... Yeul and Victor and Wade and Angel... But you're closer to f-family..."

[3girls-1core.livejournal.com]

Family? It was entirely possible that she was reading all of Evan's signals the wrong way. She managed to clamp down on that thought before it escaped her lips, though.

"I know I'm not. I'm sorry they can't be here and that you have to change your message. I wish I knew how to make you feel better."

[genesishero]

"They can't be anywhere," Evan murmured quietly. "They were never real. They were lies, like everything else has been. But you're not a lie, and what Yeul said isn't a lie, and... I like today, for that. Tomorrow, I won't be able to believe in anything again."

Ow, that hurt to say.

"You can't make it completely better," he added. "But it hurts a little less when you're here."

[3girls-1core.livejournal.com]

"You can still believe in us tomorrow, Evan," Sholeh told him softly. "Cause the things we say and do today will last till tomorrow. And not all our honesty comes from today."

Warm and sweet and comforting words. Too bad she had to keep talking.

"I don't always tell the truth about things, but it's not because I want to lie. But my si--my secrets."

[genesishero]

"-- Are secrets," Evan said quickly, wrapping his arm around her one more time, stretching so that he could press a finger against her lips. "They're your secrets, and they're none of my business unless you choose to make them my business, and I care about you way too much to let you tell them to me when you aren't ready to."

He bit his lip, and then gave her a tiny, wobbly smile.

"Secrets are okay, if they won't hurt anyone. I... I trust that you won't hurt me."

So very many people already had.

[3girls-1core.livejournal.com]

Her lips were soft under his finger, slightly parted and wet from where she had licked her lips during her little speech.

There was one part of her secret that could hurt him. She had mentioned it to Ulrik just this very afternoon. "I won't," she murmured under his finger. "So long as we never fall in love."

[genesishero]

Well... that was good, if what Evan was looking for was to be knocked breathless all over again. He froze, his face etched in worry and a lingering pain mixing with a new, unexpected one, and he exhaled, moving his finger away from her lips.

"So long as we... Why would that have anything to do with... anything?"

It was better to ask and ignore that pang.

[3girls-1core.livejournal.com]

"It's forbidden," Sholeh said, damning this stupid day to all of the bad places she'd ever heard of. "For my people to fall in love with outsiders. There are consequences."

There was no hiding the fear in her eyes as she mentioned those consequences, or the shudder that passed through her.

[genesishero]

It would have been difficult to miss that shudder, arms wrapped around her as they were. It put a different sort of worry into his eyes, something scared for her almost as much as he was heartbroken over so many other things...

"Should I let go...?"

He bit the inside of his cheek, hard, trying to keep himself from saying that he was already more than a little enamored with her, that she had been there for him and was just the sort of girl he'd always hoped he'd meet, and she had the most beautiful smile, and...

"I... don't expect you to fall in love with me."

For a million little reasons.

And another pang in his chest.

[3girls-1core.livejournal.com]

The choice between Evan and her sisters was no choice. She couldn't bear to be like Allone, all single-faced bitterness and regret, abandoned by the man she'd chosen mere weeks after she sacrificed her sisters for him.

"Please don't," she whispered. "I don't want you, too. I like being held like this. You make me feel warm and safe. I just...I have to be careful. The choice--"

She shook her head, refusing to say more. "I don't want you to let me go."

That was true in a number of ways, some she wasn't even willing to admit to herself.

[genesishero]

"I don't think I can let you go entirely."

Clearly, he wasn't just speaking about the literal, physical definition of that phrase. His voice was small and a little sad, even as he tightened that hug that he'd wrapped her in.

"I care... I care a lot." He bit his lip. "I think I'd be too scared to tell you I love you. Even before you told me that. I like you, though. I really, really like you."

[3girls-1core.livejournal.com]

"I like you, too," Sholeh whispered. "And liking is okay. Lots of, umm, things are okay." Perhaps her blush and averted eyes would tell him what 'lots of things' meant, because she wasn't about to say it aloud, truth day or not. "Just not love. Which I never really expected anyway. Not like that. Not for me."

[genesishero]

"But you would be so easy to fall in love with," Evan murmured, seeing her blush and turning his own gaze toward the floor. "You're smart, and gentle, and kind, and pretty..."

He kind of tapered off at that, chewing on his lip.

"You... I could see a lot of people loving you. I..." He bit his lip again, hard.

He wasn't going to say it. She didn't need him crying at her because he was coming to realize that he had never really been loved. If Fantomex had loved him, he sure had a funny way of showing it. And everyone else he'd thought had... hadn't even been real.

"It... makes me very sorry that I'm not one of your people."

[3girls-1core.livejournal.com]

"Don't say that," Sholeh said, this time covering his mouth with her fingers. "You...you don't know that. If you knew what we were, if you knew the truth, you wouldn't want to be one of us. Most people don't even want to be near us. They hit us and hurt us and send us away. Sometimes they even kill us. Because of what we are. It's why we keep our natures a secret. So that we can try to live in peace."