Falling Falling Stars

17 - Wants

Warnings for: Disordered eating and grooming that creates disordered eating are mentioned here. Thoughts of animal cruelty from someone getting no joy from those thoughts, but no actual animal cruelty (and no detailed memories). Some descriptions of historical self-harm.

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Efnisien didn't know how to respond to Arden's question. He didn't even know what more than a friendship meant. And having Arden look at him with that much focus was disconcerting. The weight of Arden's attention was heavy and direct, like Arden was leaning right into him even though he hadn't moved closer at all.

'Uh,' Efnisien said.

'How about,' Arden said, 'we don't talk about it right now, okay? You've just arrived. You've had what might be called something adjacent to a panic attack. You're looking calmer. So let's...try and enjoy the next hour and see what happens? We already know we're friends, right? So we'll enjoy that!

'Oh,' Efnisien said, staring at him, feeling like he'd been given a reprieve. Arden smiled at him warmly, then reached for two remote controls next to the armrest.

'You want to watch some TV?' Arden said.

'Uh, I don't really... I mean you can pick what we watch.'

Efnisien didn't own a television. He hadn't watched television growing up. If he wanted to watch things, he could look them up on the internet. He frowned, thinking about it. He went to the opera with Crielle, and sometimes he went to symphonies on his own. When everyone talked about the latest shows they were into when he'd been at school, he was usually watching for an opening. But most of the time he was studying, or fantasising about hurting people while sitting in the library.

'Nothing violent,' Efnisien said quickly.

'What about a cooking show?'

'Cooking?' Efnisien said, looking at Arden blankly.

'Mmhm,' Arden said. 'Also, you seem like the kind of person to get bored easily, so I also have...'

He leaned over his armrest with a grunt, then pulled back holding a thing that looked like a giant multi-coloured plastic dice, except where the dots would usually be to indicate the numbers, there were metal buttons. One side had a swirl. Another had levers. Arden showed it to him, then pressed down a bunch of the buttons. They made sounds almost like the mechanical key switches in Efnisien's keyboard.

'Fidget dice,' Arden said, handing it to Efnisien.

Efnisien took it, staring in confusion. Automatically, his fingers depressed some of the buttons and they clicked. He pressed them down again.

'This isn't going to annoy the absolute shit out of you?' Efnisien said, his thumbs moving over the dice until he could feel the levers and move them back and forth. He didn't know things like this existed. Toys just for fidgeting? People thought of fucking everything.

'I see you've been treating yourself like a snack again,' Arden said, and Efnisien looked at him in confusion, and then down to his thumb where Arden was looking.

'Uh,' Efnisien said, tucking his thumb away into his palm.

'That's some nervous habit. You always had it?'

'Like, as a kid,' Efnisien said, until Crielle trained him out of it. 'And then like, the past three years. I guess. On and off.'

'Do you bite your nails? Or just the skin?' Arden said, surging up from the couch towards the kitchen again.

'Skin,' Efnisien said. 'Mainly my thumb and index fingers. Sometimes it's a bitch with transcribing.'

'Oh, that's what you do?' Arden said, turning and looking at him. He opened a pantry door and came back out with a tackle box that seemed to be a much larger first aid kit than the one he had in the bookshop.