Dr. Alex|Rena

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The woman told him exactly what he knew. That she had no idea what had happened. “Who told you about me?” Geez, paranoid.

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He looked up at her as he went for the clipboard to log the injury. It was useful when keeping track of their inventory. Plus to see if certain people have habits. "Katarena, I'm thee on-site doctor. I was told about everyone's allergies and medical issues. I have them on file. Don't take it personal, it's need to know info. I apologize if you think I'm being a bit too blunt about this, but it's the truth. I already know everyone's medical history so there's no need to get all jumpy because of it, aight?" Alex said briefly, flat and void of emotion as he scribbled some more side notes down on the paper.

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“It’s…hemophilia,” she answered his previous question. “You’ll be able to form your own opinion over the next few weeks, I’m sure.Thank you for your assistance,” she finished curtly and for the first time in awhile. Alex wanted to roll his eyes at his patient.

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Nevertheless he plastered on his "You did it!" Smile and waved. "Have a wonderful day," Alex chirped brightly even though she was looking at her phone. Speaking of phones. He needed to give Charlie a ring. It'd been a few nights already and Jenny was being difficult. He sighed through his nose and set the clipboard down on the countertop. Hopefully Dite had found her way around the place alright. That girl was directionally challenged.

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Dite|Open

She slowly started to tack Johnny up. Cooing to him throughout the entire process, quietly though. She needed to figure out where the try outs were without actually asking. Which meant listening. But all she'd heard so far is that darned barrel racer gabbing on about something or another. She was nearly at her wit's end and Johnny was getting rather anxious from being penned up for so long.

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"Oh stop, you big baby. It hasn't been that long. We've had drives linger than you've been in here." She rolled her eyes. "Just a few more minutes, Kay? Gotta be an eventer in here somewhere."

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She sighed, giving in and whipping out her phone.

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[Dite] Where am I supposed to be going?

[Alex] To hell?

[Alex] idk ask around.

What a load of help the old man was. She looked over the stall door and sighed. This would be an excellent moment to approach someone and ask. Looking around though, she felt even more lost. And the bewilderment had to be showing on her face. Dite lead Johnny out, it was almost a silly sight. The Gelding was tall compared to Dite. If he'd been any bigger she wouldn't be able to handle him. Well. Maybe. He was just a big baby. "Come on. Johnny. You've made some horsey friends. Right? Ask them for us," She nudged him with her shoulder. "I really am not fond of this whole people talking stuff."

Alexander Littlewood | Rena, Conrad, etc etc etc

Alex scarcely held himself in one place at the weights’ resounding crash, only just settling back into himself once the echoes faded away. “Sorry,” he offered reluctantly, gaze now firmly placed on the floor they’d just shattered into. His momentarily panicked breath came out in gasps, and so he rather elected to hold it until the moment passed.

It was becoming all too familiar to sit in this kind of silence with her. She didn’t answer his question - which was an answer in itself - and he couldn’t help but notice how tightly she was carrying herself. “Rena?”

That was all it took to prompt a monologue that he’d have thought was rehearsed if it had been anyone else. It was too all encompassing to have been purely spontaneous; she’d thought about this, and he wasn’t sure whether he should be comforted or alarmed by that fact. “-I think I’m starting to get to the other side of all of this, but I won’t take you with me if you’re not ready to go.”

He glanced at the ground, and then her again, before gathering the words he needed to say. Reluctantly, keeping his tone as measured as possible given the situation, he began. It was almost some type of confession, at least in the way he was meaning it.

“I think there’s some no-man’s land between then and now, and I think we have to find it. I don’t think we can become that Alex and that Rena again - I know I can’t.”

“I think the problem is that we’re not those people anymore. Maybe if everything that happened hadn’t happened, maybe if you didn’t lose your best friend and we didn’t almost die together and I didn’t ignore you for two years, we’d be able to go back. I don’t think you understand how much I wish I could-” and this was where his voice betrayed him, this was where it cracked the slightest bit before he swallowed the emotion back “-but we’re not the same people, Rena.” He risked looking at her, refusing to gauge her reaction or give any of his own. “I don’t know if there’s someone for me to go back to.”

He could’ve cried, if he hadn’t swallowed down those emotions in favour of letting her leave before he broke. “I love you, more.” It was supposed to feel good that for the first time in months, he hadn’t been the one making the emotional confession. It was supposed to feel good that he hadn’t needed to. It was supposed to feel good.

Maybe if they’d figured themselves out before they met each other, this could all have been avoided. Maybe if he’d made more of an effort and Rena less of one, they might have worked out a little better than where they found themselves now. The problem, though, was that there were too many possibilities. Just once - just once, he told himself - he wanted a sure thing. He wanted to hold someone’s hand and know they wouldn’t pull away, know that he wouldn’t run. He wanted to find a place to live and call it home. He wanted to look at Rena and know that he wasn’t the only reason for the pain written across her memories. He wanted to look at her without that pain.

Was that too much to ask?

Without even thinking about it, he knew the answer.

He lingered in the room for a handful of minutes, as if that moment might be frozen long enough for him to relive it. As if maybe, if he stayed there long enough, she might come back. (And, if he was being honest, because he was finding it increasingly difficult to muster up the energy to do anything at all. Still, though, his brain made it impossible to sleep.)

But by the time he’d come to terms with the fact that not only was she gone, he’d also lost most of the night’s sleep and any possibility of napping during the day, it was late enough to do something vaguely productive with his life. (At least, that was what he’d elected upon seeing that the night had passed the two am mark.) All it took was a shower, a change into a fresh set of clothes that were significantly more suitable for the next day, and a trip to the barn with the idea of planning the next day and running through everything and anything that could and would go wrong. This was thrown out the window when he sat down with the intention of going through the timetable, and woke up an hour later to a string of twanged profanities a few feet from his face, and a light kick in his face as soon as the owner of said curses noticed he’d woken.

“The rumours are true. He lives.”

“Conrad. Good to see you.” Every inch of his body reeked of the same arrogance Alex remembered. Neither man had added any inflection to their voices, nor did Alex have any intention of doing so. Awkwardly, he dusted himself off and ran a hand through his hair in some attempt to appear presentable.

“I hear you’ve had quite the time after that disappearing act.”

“So they say.”

The Aussie stared at him unflinchingly. He wasn’t sure whether his ex-trainer was about to box his ears or treat him to the death glare for another age, until Conrad broke the tension by going in for a hug that lasted too short to be comforting and too long to be a greeting. Conrad looked just as uncomfortable as he felt when they detangled their arms.

“Please never do that again.”

“Point taken.” Conrad’s face didn’t even flicker.

***

Tryouts had gone as well as they could have, given that he was sleep-deprived and certainly not in his right mind. (It hadn’t helped that Rena had been watching alongside Sullivan initially, and then disappeared with a concerning amount of blood pouring from her arm.) Emily had coerced the three of them to try out for their respective ‘A’ teams, on some basis that they were “underplaying their talents”. He still wasn’t sure what she meant by that. Luné wouldn’t have been his first choice, but the mare was an honest horse at the very least. She wouldn’t go out of her way to make his life miserable, and that was all he could ask from a horse he’d met the day prior. That was all he could ask of anyone.

Given that the arenas were all occupied with tryouts and their respective riders, Alex decided to call it a day for Luné. The mare had already started drama with two geldings during their warm-up, and he had no intention of letting her leave any more bite marks for the rest of the day. This left more than enough time to meet the horses he was supposed to be riding, possibly be forced to talk to a few owners who’d arranged a meeting earlier, and get down to the actual riding part of it all. The only bright side he could see was that, provided all went well, he wouldn’t have to communicate with the owners any more than necessary after this.

Rena | Alex, Drew, Ivan, varied others

A few days passed, and Rena found herself submerged in the cold, far too early in the morning. She and Sullivan were driving a few of the horses down the hill to Riverwild prior to the scrimmage beginning at 0800, which meant the open schooling started at 0630, which meant it was only 0500 or 0530 now. She hadn’t gotten much sleep at all. For as much as she was pushing down everything that had happened to her and trying to maintain some facade of numbness and indifference, her lack of ability to sleep or live in any sort of silent peace betrayed her wishes to remain competent. She was getting exhausted, and there seemed to be no hope, no rest in her future. The only small victory she’d seen this week was that she’d finally found a church she liked here after two weeks or so of looking with Sullivan. He had been raised Catholic, but had fallen away from any kind of faith for a lot of his younger years. When he met Rena way back when in Virginia, he had just been trying to get involved again, and she made it easy for him. Since then, the pair of them had always gone together, and she got the feeling that, though he was generally excited to be back with her and some other members of the original group, it was for that reason that he was most happy to be reunited with her. She made it a habit to challenge him spiritually, and to help him become a better man. On the other hand, she just enjoyed having someone consistent to go with her. She’d gone alone since all the Petrovas had scattered, and it never felt good to her.

The only other highlight of her week–it was more of a miracle, really–was that Ivan hadn’t somehow managed to die before she’d gotten to spend any time with him. She knew her luck, and though it was easy for her to err on the side of optimism, that tended to manifest itself by Rena expecting the worst and being pleasantly surprised by the mediocre. It made sense, with the amount of things she’d been through in her lifetime. Thus, a good part of her mind suspected that it would be like the movies, where her reunion with her brother would be short lived and followed quickly by some sort of death or dying or incurable disease. So far, the only dying that happened was by Rena, from embarrassment of something he said or did that was an unspoken societal no-no. For example, Ivan explaining to an old, confused German woman on the bus that he’s learning how to tell the difference between when someone’s pregnant and when they’re not. Her poor English led to even more miscommunication when she thought he was calling her fat, which led to Rena having to de-escalate the situation in German just moments before her younger brother got mauled to death by a little old lady’s handbag. Things of this nature had become a regular occurrence, rather against her will.

Still, some level of guilt and hard feelings were beginning to set in regarding her relationship to Ivan and her role in his life. He needed more role models in his life, more people to adopt him and teach him how to get by in normal everyday life. Not that anything at Stadt, or anything associated with a Suta or a Petrova would be normal. She was tired of constantly guiding him and chastising him and picking him up when he unintentionally hurt someone or got hurt himself. His big heart and overwhelming sense of empathy were his greatest blessing and also his greatest curse. His lack of social and physical awareness could get him into situations that were unintentionally hurtful to himself or others, then his guilt and empathy took over and he became greatly troubled by the consequences. Many times already he had extreme highs and lows as a result of the learning curve he was forced to manage. Still, Rena was hellbent on finding him people he could rely on. People that would be kind and soft and understanding, and would stick by him.

The show gave her a greater opportunity to figure out who those people could be, considering a large majority of the people she knew well enough to pass judgment on were present for one reason or another. Only the ‘B’ teams were competing, but there were others–like herself, for example, who was there to co-coach the eventing team with Sullivan. Her role was not one that had been formally requested by Emily, but Sullivan needed the help, and the more she played an active role in the team’s comings and goings, the more she became an official assistant coach on that team, among all the other ones she was formally head coaching and sub-coaching. Drew had also organized a small army of ‘C’ level members–mainly eventers–to come and support the team, and for some obscure reason, Sullivan especially. It was like they all wanted to see him blush and stutter, and flattered as he was, he asked Drew to herd her crowd away from the bleachers and not be quite so loud given the touchy nature of all of the horses. He also politely requested that anyone wearing body paint that spelled his name out put their jackets back on. Rena wasn’t sure how he could manage all of that so well, and still manage to be so incredibly polite. She would have had at least three mental breakdowns. Still, Drew’s act of insanity caught the young woman’s attention, and it struck her as something Ivan would have loved to be a part of. She wasn’t sure if Drew was anything at all in terms of consistency, but she was certainly the least judgmental person Rena could think of, and she could definitely take a joke. Rena wasn’t sure she’d ever seen Drew get butthurt about anything, so, at the very least, it was worth a try.

Unsurprisingly, Drew agreed to go out with them after the competition, under one condition: she got to choose where they went. Swallowing every hesitation, she agreed. She knew immediately that agreeing to go somewhere Drew Meyer chose was a bad choice, but still, she agreed. It was for Ivan, who was the most open-minded person she could think of besides Drew. He wouldn’t mind. However, she didn’t feel safe going alone, knowing the night would definitely end with some sort of nudity, lack of sobriety, or any other taboo activity the American woman frequented. So, she asked Sullivan to go too. She considered Alex, but decided that it was a poor choice. Not after the speech she’d given the other night, not after he’d done absolutely nothing to respond to it either way. Things were even more awkward given that she was co-coaching him now. She hoped it wasn’t incredibly obvious that she avoided coaching him at all costs, and tried to ignore his presence to match the way she felt she was being ignored.

It was no shock that Sullivan also agreed, given the feelings he was harboring for Rena and, in general, his giving nature. He’d seen how tired Rena had been, and how she was putting all of her effort into trying to protect her brother. She had nobody to support her, and he tried to step in where he could. Sometimes he felt like he was co-parenting Ivan with her, and admittedly, they made a good team.

At eight or nine that evening, Rena opened her door to find Sullivan waiting for her in the hallway. His hair was still wet, and it was darker and curlier than usual. He was wearing a nice dress shirt and pants, and smelled strongly of cologne. Even if they both knew they were destined for a rager, it was relieving that they were both dressed for a formal event and would look equally out of place. Like him, she’d spared no expense on her appearance. Her hair was up with curled ringlets framing her face, and she was wearing a silk dress in a dark color that complimented his outfit. It was hard not to find anyone attractive when they looked like that, Sullivan included.

“Look at you, I’m impressed.” She crossed her arms, brown eyes filled with something unexplainable. “Very dashing.”

“This old thing?” Sullivan’s eyes glimmered, flicking over Rena’s frame as he spoke. “You look beautiful, Katarena.”

The sides of her mouth turned upward, but she stayed silent as if she didn’t know how to respond. She turned and he followed down the corridor, towards the ground floor. When she arrived, she found Drew in the lobby in some obscure band t-shirt, and wasn’t the least bit surprised. It also appeared that she’d dyed her hair again in the last few hours since Rena had seen her, with streaks of different colors mixed in with a more natural color that may or may not have been her natural hair color. Ivan was nowhere to be seen, which wasn’t surprising.

“You’ll have to forgive Ivan, he’s a bit of a diva sometimes.” Just then, the elevator door chimed. Ivan came out in a shirt that appeared as if it was from the 1970s, and was maybe a dress shirt in a past life. Now it was practically see-through, and Rena couldn’t think of any occasion it was appropriate for, unless he was trying to be a stripper.

“It’s Britney, bitch.” He looked directly at Rena, revealing a gleaming white smile. She was surprised the girls here weren’t swarming him yet. “Did I use that correctly?”

“I don’t know how to answer that.”

…

The evening went by faster than expected, considering the fact that it was the group hangout from hell. Somehow, Drew managed to find a place that was both a cafe and the most seedy aquarium Rena had ever seen, and every five to ten minutes they watched one of the cooks pull out a fish from the tank to kill it and cook it for a guest, who was watching the entire thing. Ivan seemed more amused and entertained than Rena had ever seen him. She, on the other hand, didn’t touch her plate. After a solid hour of trying to relate to Drew, which Sullivan was entirely incapable of and Ivan was entirely too capable of, Rena and Sullivan made the executive decision to go home. They tried to get Drew and Ivan to go with them, but Ivan began to protest and Drew confidently stated that the night could not end so early, and that she would take care of Ivan and make sure they got home safely. After some convincing, Rena agreed. After all, wasn’t that what she wanted?

Sullivan held the door for Rena, and the pair of them slid into an uber. None of them had cars yet, and it would have been a strange experience to try to get one of Emily’s drivers to bring one of the team buses down. It was dark in the taxi, but street lights illuminated glances back and forth between Rena and Sullivan. There was an unspoken tension between the pair of them–there had been all night–and it felt easier to remain in silence than to try to make awkward conversation and work around it. They stayed fairly silent on their way up to their rooms, but the tension lingered, and Rena felt herself being pulled into the emotions he had for her.

“Goodnight,” Sullivan’s eyes were downcast, studying Rena’s face. There was something behind them she couldn’t place, something deep that stirred something in her chest. He didn’t really make any effort towards going into his room, he just lingered near her.

“Sullivan, I-”

He took another step or two towards her, listening intently. “Hmm?” She didn’t finish her sentence, her eyes were locked on his and she made no effort to leave, either. But, the difference between this and all of the times she’d been here with Alex was that Sullivan actually did something about whatever was between them. He took another step forward and closed the gap between them, waiting for her to respond. She could still back out if she wanted to. They were in close physical proximity, but not close enough to kiss if she didn’t want to. Yet, she pulled him closer to her by the collar, kissing him as if it had been her plan the whole time. There was no hesitation from her. In fact, he was the one to break the kiss, blue eyes gentle and caretaking of her, making sure she was okay. His eyebrows were furrowed, concerned about her. “Rena, are you sure you-”

“Yes,” she replied, “yeah.” She had her hands around his neck and the pair of them stumbled into his room, knocking things over as they fumbled around in the dark, unaware of the placement of any of the furniture. Suddenly, Ivan and Drew were in the least of her thoughts, and anything her brother did was no longer her concern. In the morning, she’d have much greater things to be concerned about.

Ivan | Drew

Ivan had been enjoying the night with a certain childish delight that was difficult to put into words. Given that every event Katarena had invited him to thus far was some sort of business mixer that involved stuffy collared shirts and bitchy women who treated decency like it was something to only be given to attractive men they wanted to sleep with, Ivan had protested his sister’s requests for a few hours before giving in. Every expectation he had about what the night would look like had been thrown out the window nearly immediately, perhaps before they even left the premises. Drew was nothing like the other girls here that he’d met in every way. She had some sort of carefree spirit that was magnetizing to Ivan, he’d never met anyone like her. Not that he’d met many people at all, but there was something about her. She lacked boundaries, she lacked the rigidness that sustained everyone else here. Everyone else seemed as if they were three seconds from a breakdown, Drew seemed as if she was constantly living in one, and was happier that way. She feared nothing. She lived for herself. She was absolutely the most interesting person he’d laid eyes on thus far.

“What does your shirt mean?” He asked her, in the midst of dinner. “Is it some kind of religious symbol?” In his peripheral vision, Ivan saw Rena and Sullivan glance at each other, and he realized quickly that he had misjudged the situation. He was filled with shame, and his face fell. Trying to learn the ways of the world in his twenties was so much more difficult than anything he had ever endured. Every academic concept Bobby had ever put in his path, he’d easily understood with minimal explanation. He’d memorized five different translations of the Bible in the span of a year, and could still recall them at any moment. But living in Bobby’s basement for almost eight years of his life–perhaps the most crucial of them all–put him at a great disadvantage, and filled him with a kind of hurt he couldn’t speak about. He’d never done anything ‘hard’ before, and this was unbearable.

Still, Drew was extremely engaging with Ivan, and any time he misjudged something or spoke with a lack of education, she let it roll off her back. Even if he felt shame from Rena’s silent judgment and the feeling of disappointing himself and her, Drew seemed to genuinely not care. At times, she even said something weird of her own to counter something he said that made his sister flinch, which made him feel more easy around her. Still, he was filled with nervousness. He only wanted to make the people around him happy. He didn’t know how to do that. It’d always been easy to please Bobby, but now he was subjected to a large group of individuals who weren’t all looking at him like the most incredible specimen to ever walk the earth. Life in the real world was hard. Really hard.

To his surprise, Rena allowed him to go further along with Drew. Perhaps she felt guilty, or bad for him. It seemed like Rena didn’t like Drew, and he wasn’t sure if he was reading it correctly or if it was another one of his misjudgments. He happily agreed to follow along after her like a duckling, especially since her choice in meeting place had been so magnificent. “I love fish,” Ivan chirped happily, walking beside Drew on the inside of the sidewalk. “I’ve never seen anything like them, they squiggle when they move. I love them. I want a fish. They didn’t even squirm when the cook guy beheaded them. They seem like passive creatures. I think I’m a passive creature. Maybe I’m a fish. Maybe if I was a fish, I’d be all different colors and people would come up to me because I looked cool. Maybe if I was a fish, Rena would be impressed by my rainbow scales. Or maybe someone would eat me first. Bears eat fish, did you know that? And cats. And elephants, I think.”

They wandered the streets for a little while until his new friend pulled him into a big building with bright flashing lights and a bouncer outside. “Hi, big, tall, scary man. You have a really pretty smile.” Ivan was almost his height, but wasn’t half the muscle the man was. He also had a boyishness about him that the bouncer couldn’t have resembled if he tried. The man asked for their identification. Drew showed hers, and when she looked at Ivan, he beckoned for her to come closer, and childishly whispered in her ear. “I don’t have one of those. Bobby said the big, scary men would come and get me if I had one. But I know I’m older than twenty. Rena told me how old, but I forget. My birthday is in the cold season.”

The woman tried to charm her way in, and failed. Terribly. However, just as the bouncer was about to send them away, an older man in flamboyant garb stepped out from inside the club. “Let them pass, he’s with me.”

“I don’t know you, but-” Ivan looked him up and down. “I LOVE the sparkly dot thingies on your cowgirl boots. And your wig. It’s beautiful. I wish I had a wig like that.” And before he knew it, he was being pulled inside by the hand to dance with the man, being offered drinks left and right by that guy and a variety of others. He didn’t understand what the phrase ‘gay club’ meant in any language, let alone German.

“You are very…friendly!” Ivan was trying to dance with gangly limbs, on his third drink but was surprisingly handling them quite well. He still seemed no less sober than when he’d entered the establishment an hour or more prior. “I’ve never been in this kind of friendship before,” he added, as the lights flashed around them, and multiple men danced seductively around him, touching him in ways none of Rena’s friends ever did. “Ooh, that tickles! Hey, I learned something about myself! Rena will love to know I’m ticklish. Hehe, I didn’t even know I knew what that word meant.”

A little while later, Ivan emerged from one of the back rooms with his shirt ripped and the bottom of it unbuttoned. His perfect hair was messy, and he was either blushing or his face was flushed from the alcohol. He spotted Drew across the room with some woman, and stood there, mesmerized. Eventually, he locked eyes with her, and she excitedly waved at him and called him over. They were two sweaty bodies in a sea of sweaty bodies, lost in the lights and the vibrations of the music. Drew introduced him to the woman as her friend, and he tried to converse with her in a friendly manner though it proved difficult in that environment. The three of them danced and partied for a while, drinking until Drew was stumbling around. Being so tall, Ivan was handling everything far better, and was still sober enough to know that Drew was ascending the realms of consciousness without him.

“Hey,” his hazel eyes flickered across her frame as she lost her balance on flat ground. Strong arms fell to catch her, keeping her up until he felt she could maintain her balance again. She locked eyes with a stranger across the room, and he thought he could see her crying. “I will protect you, Drew Meyer.” It was the most heartfelt sentiment, and he did. Keeping an arm around her waist to support her and offering the other one for her to use to steady herself, Ivan led her through the crowd and out into the night. Snow was starting to fall gently again, and he sat her down on a park bench beneath a big tree. Protectively, he wrapped his arms around her, both to comfort her and keep her warm. “What’s wrong, Drew Meyer? Do you need a doctor? Rena said it’s important to go to one when you don’t feel like yourself. I’ve never been to one before, but I’ll take you right now if you need one. Anything for you, Drew Meyer.”

She looked up at him, tears gently streaming down her cheeks. He brushed them away with his thumb, smiling a kind, heartfelt smile down at her. Rena did this to him sometimes when he got upset about something that had happened. Strangely, he could not recall ever seeing her cry, or even getting close to it. “I will always be there for you, Drew Meyer. That’s what friends are for. And so far, you’re the best friend I’ve made yet.” In a gentle, compassionate way, he leaned in and kissed her. “That was a good friendship kiss.” A snowflake fell on his long eyelashes as he watched her intently, as if she was the sun and the moon and the stars and everything in between. “Much better than the friendship activities those men introduced me to. I’m not sure if I enjoyed them or not, but Rena said sometimes it takes practice to find out what we like and don’t like. I know right away that I like you, though.” Keeping his arm wrapped around her, Ivan looked around at the snow. “The world is such a beautiful place, and I am so lucky to be alive in it. What’s your favorite part about being alive, Drew Meyer?”

Drew Meyer | Hunter, Rena, Ivan

“I’m bored.”

“It’s four in the morning, Drew.”

“But I’m bored.”

There was a sigh from the other end of the line. Vaguely, it occurred to Drew that Hunter might have been asleep before she called him.

“Bother someone else your own size, wouldn’t you. I’m going back to bed.”

“You’re actually gonna-” A mutter that sounded suspiciously like a curse - the possibility of which Drew dismissed immediately, given that it was Hunter they were talking about - and a dial tone told her that her older brother had just hung up on her.

“Prick.”

Naturally, that left her only one alternative: if he wasn’t good-natured enough to entertain her, she’d simply have to find someone else to either talk to or hook up with. (The latter was possibly the only thing that Hunter couldn’t help her out with; as much as she hated to kink-shame, she had to draw the line at incest.) Preferably both, though in her varied experience she’d found it was better to keep those separate. At just past ten in the morning, her options were significantly more limited than if her energy surge had happened to fall at night. (For some odd reason, everyone seemed so much more enthusiastic half-drunk at 2am. She still hadn’t cracked the Stadt code as to why.)

Now, glancing up and down the passage outside her room as if someone was about to come stumbling down for her to play with, her gaze rested on the door opposite. Ivantie Suta, or so it read. The amount of riders that’d dropped off the radar in the first week was actually astounding. As far as she knew, she hadn’t had the luck to come across that particular one, other than the confounding rumours about him that she couldn’t make head or tail of. (She couldn’t care less, as long as he wasn’t nearly as uptight as his sister. They could figure it out as they went along.)

Her knock went unanswered for a whole thirteen seconds before she gave in, and opened the door herself. Unsurprisingly, it was deserted; she couldn’t imagine what circumstance in which this Ivantie person would refuse her. (It didn’t come from arrogance, but more from a place of distinct self-confidence that was the opposite of naivety. Generally speaking, men weren’t quick to say no to her, even if it was at some ungodly hour during which any self-respecting human would still be asleep.) Shrugging to no one in particular, she found a loose scrap of paper on his desk - which wasn’t hard, she only had to pick from the pile of random papers she had no idea where he’d found - and scribbled down a name and a number. If he wanted to, he could come and find her. Drew Meyer. Call me xx

***

Now, sitting opposite Ivan in a bar that she’d managed to persuade Rena was perfectly safe, she barely remembered that. Her hair, a dull pink quickly fading into its true colours, was hanging half in front of her face as she sipped her single shot, relishing his fanatic gaze on any new piece of information she gave him just as much as the strange looks she was getting from the whole sipping-a-shot-glass thing. She had to convince his sister somehow that she, too, was safe, if she planned on Rena leaving. There was something intoxicating about the way a smile would spill from his face at the slightest comment of hers, about how little he seemed to know about the ways of the world, and how much that made him cling to anything that might help him figure it out. There was something intoxicating about being wanted.

“My shirt?” The music made it near-impossible to hear, or maybe that had more to do with the fact that she was sitting directly beside the speaker. She leaned closer, watching as his face fell indescribably and vowing to fix that by any means possible. “Nah, that’s just the Nirvana logo. Basically a religion, though.” She wasn’t sure whether he’d been joking or not, and didn’t really care. “Hey, I’m gonna try ditch your sister and co, okay? Don’t think they’ll be a fan of the next bit.” It took far less than expected to persuade Rena that she was both sober and trustworthy enough to keep Ivan safe - objectively, she guessed it had less to do with her own charm - which, in her opinion, was perfectly refined - and more to do with the way Sullivan had been eyeing Rena for half the evening.

About halfway through explaining that Kurt Corbain was not, in fact, the new Pope, she decided that she’d never tire of his naivety. Reyes had been intense in every way possible, right from the beginning, and she still wasn’t quite sure how to settle into conversation as herself. Ivan, with all his glorious childishness, was easy; he expected nothing from her, and so every time she said or did something it came as a surprise to him. There was no prior persona she had to become in order to get his attention. And after listening to the rest of his thoughts, and rambling just as much if not more in return, she was convinced that he’d slot perfectly into the gay bar they’d just arrived at. (It was one of the few places where she could both hit on hot women with full intentions of following through, without being stalked by too many men twice her age.)

“Reg, he’s with me. He’s like, basically my age. I can vouch for him.” Despite having spoken to him five times in the last week, the bouncer showed no signs of budging. The lack of the whole sexualised-by-older-men thing meant that her attempt at flirting with him to get Ivan through failed beautifully, which left her with no choice but to let him take her place in that particular position. He seemed sturdy enough to hold his own - plus, she’d already made eye contact with a brunette across the room and needed to reassure herself in her desirability as soon as possible. Ivan could hold out his own, she was sure.

A few drinks - she wasn’t counting, she never did - and one hotheaded, messy kiss later, things were looking distinctly less certain. Vaguely, she knew she needed to find Ivan, if only to make sure that she got home safe. Katya, as the woman had introduced herself as, was only a temporary measure.

“Ivan!” The pulsing beat made her increasingly-hoarse voice incoherent even to her own ears, but somehow he still turned. From the looks of it, he’d indulged himself just as much as she had. He almost looked cute when he was messy, in a puppy-dog kind of way. His hair was unrulier than before, and as soon as he was close enough she reached out to touch it. “Where were you?” She didn’t wait long enough for an answer. “Ivan, meet Katya. Katya, this is my friend.” She hoped she was pointing to the right people at the right time. Everything was fuzzy, and too loud for her liking. Just a little too dizzy, and a little too lost, to feel as at home as she had less than a moment prior. And so naturally, she did as anyone would: she started laughing, anything to change her mood from outwards in.

“Ivan, I think-” She stumbled before she could finish the thought, almost expecting to hit the ground before she felt someone holding her up. Something like an alarm bell was ringing in her head - that she was drunk, that a man she didn’t know was holding her too close for comfort, that she didn’t remember saying yes. That suddenly, she couldn’t remember telling anyone where they were going. Wasn’t this supposed to be safe? She didn’t feel it anymore. There was something about the way she didn’t even struggle that made her feel guilty of something she never committed.

Reyes always liked it when she closed her eyes, but they slipped open unconsciously. Of course it was Ivan. Ivan, in all his boyish, innocent ways, would catch her if she fell. It was that same innocence that meant that she didn’t try to escape, no longer out of futility. Instead, she turned her face away to make sure that he didn’t notice the tears that had somehow begun streaming down her face, and didn’t let go of his hand. That attempt soon proved in vain; he seemed to read her mind and guided her outside, away from the crowds and noise.

And it was there, in the sudden stillness, that she could breathe. “I- it’s fine, I’m fine.” Wiping her nose, she laughed hollowly. “God, I’m a mess. I meant this to - I don’t even know, I just didn’t mean for this to happen. I’m sorry - I’m so sorry I dragged you into this-” Her need to apologise paused only for his lips to meet hers for an instant, and then it was gone. She almost pulled him back to her, if it could only change the vaguely concerned look he was giving her. She wanted the infatuated Ivan back, not the one who pretended like he genuinely cared about her safety. She knew that act all too well, and it was distinctly more uncomfortable to not know his intentions than to know that they would hurt her.

“Fuck, Ivan. Don’t mess with me like– wait, what?” Any half-hearted teasing she had in mind to hide her obvious distress disappeared at his next words. “Ivan, did they do anything to you? Wait, no. Never mind.” Her gaze still followed his with furrowed brows, but she decided that topic might be better in the morning with a clear head. Instead, she found herself leaning on his shoulder against her better judgement. She didn’t know what he wanted from her, and it was terrifying. But she was shivering, his arm was around her, and it somehow felt easier to keep it there than open the can of worms of pulling away.

“Ivan, it’s way too late to answer deep shit like that.” Once it became clear that he had no intentions of letting the question drop, she reluctantly answered. “Right now? You. I’m so goddamned tired, and you haven’t left yet.” And then, quieter, “I don’t want you to leave.” (She didn’t want to think of him, but she couldn’t help but remember Reyes asking her the same question; and her offering just about the same answer, though she couldn’t have drawn any other similarities between then and now.) “Can you - stay? Just for a little. I don’t care if we go back or we find some crappy all-night diner or whatever, I just…don’t leave? Yet?”

Kiera stood in the asile of the barn. She watched her mare, Holly, before walking towards her stall. Holly tossed her mane as Kiera (Her owner and rider) stepped next to her stall. It was a very sunny, breezy day, and Kiera wanted to spend some time outside. Before she left the barn, she unlatched Holly's stall and hooked a lead rope to the mare's lime green halter. "Good girl! I'll let you graze for a little, while I finish reading my book." Kiera led the big black horse to the pasture and opened the gate, releasing her into the grassy field. Holly shook her mane and her hooves pounded the ground and she galloped around the fence line. Kiera admired her gorgeous girl. The way her eyes shimmered in the sunlight, and how her mane flowed with the cool breeze. She was all Kiera ever wanted. After finding a comfy place to sit, Kiera opened her large chapter book and flipped to the last chapter. "Okay, where were we..."

Holly nickered cheerfully and stopped in the middle of the pasture. She leaned her muzzle down to the fresh green grass and munched away, leaving small patches bare. The sun beat down on her shiny black coat, leaving her beaded with sweat. Holly didn't mind the hot weather, as long as there was a slight breeze, which there was. Her eyes gazed over to Kiera. The girl was still holding the big hard rock with paper in it. What was it anyway? Holly cocked her head to the side curiously.

Jensen Eliopoulos | Camden Blue, Karla Kleine

Pulling the strings on his hoodie tighter as he opened the small hatch leading up to the roof, Jensen watched his steps carefully to make sure he didn’t slip and fall on the ice that had accumulated through the last series of snows. He lifted his gaze to find a fluffy-haired brunet and a woman with glossy, straight black hair sitting beside each other to one edge of the flat surface, legs dangling over the side. The woman was wearing a heavy winter coat in a dark color, but he couldn’t particularly make it out, even with the bright light of the moon and the stars. She had her legs crossed, one hand holding the cigarette at her lips.

The boy was wearing an expensive, warm winter vest over a hoodie like his own. Despite the obvious quality of his clothing, it seemed the boy had redesigned both the hoodie and the vest, or at minimum had painted abstract patterning over what used to be a solid, fairly normal outfit. Everything of the boy from his clothing to the soft, peaceful expression on his face spoke of his mother’s love for him, though it was evident just by how they spoke of each other and acted around each other. Though he wanted to be the good kind of person who was happy for the man, he had never been that guy. The thought of how loved Camden was made Jensen sick.

“How lucky am I, surrounded by rich boys gone broke?” Klara’s intelligent green eyes looked over Jensen as he approached. There was something so judgmental about her, yet so carefree and loose. He didn’t trust her in the slightest, but he didn’t trust Camden, either. He was just too nice, too wholesome, too pure for this world. It had to be fake. Besides, why the fuck would the golden child be hanging out with him and Karla of all people? There was a rumor going around that he was just trying to evangelize Karla, and another that he was trying to get close enough to find out what kind of drugs she was dealing the other riders so he could report her to his mother. He wasn’t sure that he believed the rumors, but he wasn’t sure he didn’t, either. Maybe if he had grown up in a different way with a different family he would be sickeningly innocent and naive to the ways of the world, too. He didn’t think he’d ever been like Camden, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to be. But, Camden aside, he needed to find out if the rumors about Karla dealing under the table were true, not for the reasons it was presumed Camden did but for his own personal gain. Getting something to take his mind off the nightmare he couldn’t wake up from and get his head clear again was well worth the agony of being in the same room as the golden boy. He couldn’t stand him, though he’d never talked to him. It was just his aura, the way people spoke of him as if he were Jesus Christ himself back from the dead, or heaven, or however the story went (Jensen had never stepped foot in a church in his entire life).

Jensen sat down in between the pair, sighing a heavy, wordless sigh. He glanced around suspiciously, as if the world was out to get him, though the aura around them was peaceful. Not even the horses beyond them seemed to be making any noise, nor the buses and cars in the circle, nor the people that were typically out and about at every hour. A lot of the new athletes would come in and ride under the lights of the outdoor on the warmer nights at any hour, especially given the small size of the one arena that had been built and the fact that they hadn’t fully adjusted to the German time zone. More winter snow had delayed the construction on the massive indoor off to the other side of the property, so several of the richer athletes had bribed their way into temporarily boarding at Riverwild down the mountain. It seemed as if the snow would never stop, and the winter would never end.

“Smoke?” Karla offered a cigarette identical to the one in her left hand, which she pulled from her pocket.

“Please,” he replied in an emotionless mumble, holding his face still as she lit it for him.

“It’s funny how I’ve been sitting here for fifteen minutes and you didn’t offer me one.”

“Shut your mouth, little baby American. You ruined my peace.”

“You’re lame,” Camden retorted, pouting. The bright, beamy grin never left his face. Jensen wanted to wipe it off his face. Surely he wasn’t always happy. In fact, he thought he’d seen him quiet more often than not. Why was he being so extroverted today? What did he want?

“You’ve never smoked cigarette in life,” her accent was thick, but she was clear on her thoughts on Camden. Jensen felt more at ease with her than before, but it also wasn’t awful to be sitting beside Camden, either. He hadn’t forced him to talk, which was more than he’d expected from the man. Maybe he pitied him. Maybe he remembered what had happened the first night he’d been here.

“Have too.”

“Let’s see, then.” She took the one out of her mouth, offering it to him. “I will not waste good cigarette on stupid little American boy with something to prove.” When he inhaled, Camden started coughing, proving Karla’s point. “Do not lie to me again, boy. I will wring your little neck like chicken.”

Glancing down, Jensen noticed the glass bottle sitting beside Camden. To his own surprise, he spoke to the boy on his own free will. “Pass the vodka,” he gestured to the object beside the man’s leg. “But you drink first, I’m not dealing with you sober.”

Ivan | Drew

“Ivan, it’s way too late to answer deep shit like that.” Once it became clear that he had no intentions of letting the question drop, she reluctantly answered. “Right now? You. I’m so goddamned tired, and you haven’t left yet.” And then, quieter, “I don’t want you to leave.”

Seemingly very, very pleased by this answer, Ivan seemed to be struggling to stay seated and maintain a supportive body for Drew to lean on. He was fidgeting in his seat and seemed to be three seconds from jumping out of his seat at any given time. “I’m positively tickled by that answer, Drew Meyer. Did I use that correctly? I learned that from an old man at the park yesterday. Have you seen the park? It’s frozen right now, but the old man said that in the summer there are ducks. Ducks! Can you believe that, Drew Meyer? And! You can feed them!” His eyes flickered around brightly, unable to remain focused on just one thing. “Have you ever fed ducks, Drew Meyer? Are ducks real in America, where you’re from? Where in America are you from? I want to visit America. They have restaurants there where you get your food in your car. In your car! I’ve never gotten food outside before. Bobby used to bring me down everything I needed to eat on a tray. I watched him die, you know? I cried a lot. I tried to jump off a really big bridge because, number one, I wanted to learn how to do swimming, and, number two, I read that that’s something that people do when they’re sad. But Rena’s friends rescued me. They seem really nice. Do you know Rena’s friends?”

A few moments passed, and Drew seemed sleepily and comfortably snuggled into his large, warm frame, and though she was responding to his endless barrage of questions, he wondered if she was close to sleep. Though he didn’t quite understand the concept of social awareness in any of its entirety, the next words out of her mouth seemed to come out of nowhere. “Can you - stay? Just for a little. I don’t care if we go back or we find some crappy all-night diner or whatever, I just…don’t leave? Yet?”

“I would never leave you, Drew Meyer.” The words were of the utmost genuine nature, there was no possible way that they could have been falsified even with his inherent innocence and naivety. “Do you know what false promises are? I don’t, but I think they are when someone doesn’t tell the truth. I don’t know how to make those, Drew Meyer. I think you’re my best non-sister friend. Will you be my best non-sister friend?” After a brief pause, he added, with all the excitement in the world, “I would be absolutely betrothed to go to an all-night diner with you. Is that the one with the car track train things that go really high and then drop far into the water? I’ve always wanted to go to one of those! I hear there are a lot of them in America, where you’re from. What’s your favorite part about America, Drew Meyer? Top eleven favorite parts, actually. I like that number. I want it to be my favorite, but I can’t ask it. I hope if I could, it would say yes.”

A little while later, the pair arrived on foot at a diner a few blocks over. The town was small, but featured a fairly significant nightlife due to the college presence. They were able to find the restaurant with little difficulty, and arrived shortly despite Ivan’s insistence that they stop and look both ways at every empty crosswalk, and that he and Drew had to hold hands in order to stay safe and not get lost or stolen by strangers. When they arrived, they quickly realized that only one man was working, and he only spoke German. Despite the fact that neither Drew nor Ivan did, Ivan quickly stepped in, comfortably speaking in a similar tongue that the man seemed to understand. Oddly enough, when he spoke that language, he was much less boyish, and much more serious and prompt with his language usage.

“Bobby gave me books to replace the friends I would have made if I was allowed outside. He said that books were much better friends than real people, and they were always worth my trust and attention. I didn’t know there were a lot of different ways to talk until recently, I thought they were all just different based on people’s thoughts. If your thoughts had their own language, what would it be like, Drew Meyer? I wish I could read a book that your brain wrote.” When they went to sit down, Ivan gestured for her to sit beside him rather than across from him. “Sit here, Drew Meyer. I want you to be close to me.”

Keira sat under the tree in the shade. Holly on the other hand was bucking, spinning, and rearing out in the pasture. The girl overheard a group of people talking. She was very talkative, but didn't want to interrupt them. Holly trotted up to the fence and bobbed her head up and down in excitement. Keira reached into her bag and pulled out a juicy red apple. As she tossed it to Holly, Keira glanced over towards the barn. There, she saw a group of people. Why hadn't she seen them before? She just shook her head and placed her gaze back towards her book. Holly curiously watched the new humans. Her ears pricked forwards. The mare figured that they were just friends, and she arched her neck back down to the grass. Keira read the last few pages before getting up and walking to Holly. She hopped over the fence and calmly approached her mare. Holly forced her muzzle into Keira's hands and nickered cheerfully. Sniffing her hands, Holly found there weren't any snacks. "Sorry girl. I gave you an apple already." Keira said as she stroked Holly's velvety nose. Holly snorted in disinterest and pawed at the dirt. Keira sighed lightly and managed a slight grin.