[PRP] Well, this can go one of two ways... (Shiloh & Melany)

[shibrogane]

Melany nodded, and ducked her head, and made a suspiciously wet-sounding sniffle. "Yeah," she said. "I'm sorry I'm such a mess, Shiloh. I'm not usually like this, you know? Maybe you don't... but I'm not..."

She peeked up at him for a second. "I'm kind of tired," she said. "And you've--you've gotta get ready for that meeting, don't you?"

Melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

Shiloh blinked, "Everyone's a mess sometimes, some more than others. Maybe I don't know, but I wanna."

He was silent for a moment too as she tried to dismiss him, but the entire locking process still wasn't sitting right with him. He understood where Melany was coming from, but it wouldn't matter if her body was torn apart by magic in the end. Besides the more pressing fact that it sounded like... "Hey, it's okay to cry y'know, you don't have t9o hide it. Remember when I was a blubbering idiot mess? I get it. It ******** sucks." And that was the understatement of the century.

"At least lemme help you up, okay? I don't really have that much to get ready for either. For the meeting I mean." He sniffed, "But I'll leave you alone if that's what you want. Bed first though. You need me to carry you to bed? Once in a lifetime opportunity." He flexed kind of jokingly.

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

Melany looked up, mortified, but that just confirmed she'd been crying. Was crying. Her gray eyes--not the lambent nightlight-glow of the Spinel Lady, bog-standard boring gray eyes--were red-rimmed and shiny. "It's not okay," she said, "I'm the mom friend. I make sure people are okay, I protect my friends and take care of them, this is... so stupid and humiliating and I'm sorry, Shiloh, I really am..."

Melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

Shiloh looked like he wanted to flinch, but he didn't. Melany was the mom friend; he could see it. Melany was the one who wiped his tears away after sushi. Melany was the one who showed up in the middle of the night to calm Jamie down. Melany was the one who—he couldn't have the memories, wouldn't—probably spent a great deal of time holding him up throughout the entirety of their friendship. He didn't know the Shiloh of this time, past snippets found in his room, but if they were anything alike? Between her and Jamie and Oliver, they were probably the key reasons why he had lived so goddamn long in the first place.

Shiloh was strong for people too, like Jamie. Shiloh had only recently learned how to crumble in front of others—break—shatter—falter. It was a sobering thing to experience, a sad one, a painful one, but he still let it happen. He still embraced it. It shaped him into a more empathetic person.

Melany—she was allowed to break down too.

"So if you're protecting everyone else," His voice was soft and quiet and gentle and weird for Shiloh Beaumont, but it was genuine with emotion. It was the same voice he used when Jamie woke up crying in the middle of the night because he had a nightmare. "Then who's protecting you, huh? Hey..."

He was offering his hand out again, roughed and calloused but not unkind. "I like to think we're equals, y'know? We can take care of each other."

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

Melany put her hand in Shiloh's this time, smudging the back of her other hand over her face. "It sounds so dumb when you word it like that," she said, letting Shiloh help her to her feet. She sniffled, which sounded gross enough that she laughed, half-choked and watery. "Yeah, that sounds right. Sorry, I'm just so used to doing stuff on my own I think... I think I forget sometimes that it's okay to need help."

She sat down on the end of her bed. "Thanks, Shiloh."

Melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

"S'okay. That's what friends are for, right? You slap some sense into me, I slap some sense into you." He trailed off as he helped her over to the bed, very careful as she maneuvered around. "Except you're kinda perma-slapped right now, so I gotta hold off on actual slaps. Hey, I bet you could pack a punch with all that muscle though." He threw up his best set of fisticuffs, throwing a playful 'punch' (see: tap) at Melany's arm. "Pow pow, is it gone yet? Pow."

He stopped himself when he realized he was getting carried away, "Oh uh, sorry." He laughed, tired but content. Melany was strong, and he trusted she'd tell him if anything pressing happened. "Seriously though, send me an email if you need me, ok? Or tell Horace to call me. If you gotta make up a code so he knows you don't need any help, you can. I'll prolly figure it out." He wrinkled his nose, "Well, so long as it's none of that number s**t." Math, remember?

"Speaking of though, I'm prolly gonna wait for Horace to get home so I fill him in, if that's okay. But I can hang out downstairs if you wanna rest."

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

"I broke two of your fingers once," said Melany, half-smiling at the memory. "You tried to catch a baseball without a glove. I had a really wicked overhand... after that, they banned overhand pitching in gym class."

She laughed, a little, and smiled at Shiloh, wiped the tear tracks off her face. "When all this is over, we're going to have a spa day. Nothing's gonna bother us at all, and we can talk about--about stupid stuff that doesn't matter. TV shows, I don't know. And you'll come to my next performance, and we'll graduate college, and all of this will just be in the past."

Melany smiled at Shiloh. "I'm pretty tired," she said. "But if you wanna stay, I don't mind."

Melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

Shiloh was silent for a moment, and then he said "Holy ********, that's hardcore." His face broke out into a mile-wide smile, teeth flashing, expression slightly lopsided. "My parents must've been pissed." It was weird to mention or bring up or even think about his mother and his father, but he was sure it had to be true. He hadn't met either of them in this universe, and he honestly had no desire to; if they were already gone, then good riddance, they were probably just as bad as the ones he had before. "A spa day sounds nice though..." He was kicking his feet.

Gasp! "Does that mean we'll get to walk across the stage?" His eyes were all shiny, "I didn't get to do that when I graduated high school. It kinda bummed me out. I guess that'll be a good second chance..." He shook his head, "I'm really looking forward to seeing you dance though." He bumped their shoulders together.

"We can keep talking until you tell me to ******** off, yeah?" He leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees, "Oh, oh I know, check this out..." He was yanking his phone out, optimistic as he started to pull up pictures of his turtle. "She was so excited about lettuce..."

shibrogane

we can ftb on cute convos unless u wanna add another post!