You Always Build It Better the Second Time Around

Chapter 7 - Appreciation

We make it back to the house pretty late after spending even longer just admiring the view from the roof of that building. It was beautiful with the star-littered sky and light-littered streets. However, home isn't the same. It's darker and less welcoming.

Mikaela mentions something about the shrine being too dead to bother with anymore, and as I make it to my room, he slips into his office to write something on his list. He has a list of things he wants beside the list of things he needs. And then he has another list somewhere for me, though he hid it from me after I threatened to burn it if he didn't get rid of it himself. Knowing him, there's no way he got rid of it like I told him to.

Since the first night of the screaming woman within the forest, I've continued to hear it at night. It's never during the day that I hear the screaming, and Mikaela still doesn't hear it. I think he's caught on to me about it, though. Only, I don't tell him what's been going on and only sidestep or avoid talking about it. I don't want to make him worry about me. Besides, I've gone longer with only a few hours a sleep each night, so I don't have to do anything about it just yet.

Mikaela leans on the doorway to my room with arms crossed and eyes half-lidded with an I-know-better-than-to-believe-you type look he's been wearing most nights more often than not. "So," he begins. "Are you going to tell me what the deal is?"

"No. There's nothing wrong," I hastily reply, not sparing even a glance in his direction. The gods know I'd cave in if I looked at his eyes. And Mikaela's already a god. Damn my luck. "If you can't hear it," I mutter, "then it doesn't matter."

"Yeah, you said that the other night, too," he presses with a bit more force in his tone. No doubt he's fed up with me at this point.

I snap a glare in his direction, rising to my feet from my place on the ground, my voice doing the same. "Can't you shut up and let me protect you!" I snap in defense. He falls silent due to shock. Neither of us were expecting me to shout at him like that. "My apologies," I mutter. "I'm just a bit tired is all. Please don't worry about me."

"Tired people do a lot of weird shit, but you don't typically yell at your god to shut up and let you protect them."

I fall silent, my breath being held after a sharp inhale of realization of what I've just said. There's no doubt about it. It's been what? two? three weeks since we've met? And I can't help but want to be worthwhile this time. I'm not good enough to protect anyone that I care about. With Koba, he turned on me. With the children of the people he and I used to slaughter by the masses, I would always stay behind to apologize to their corpses after he found where I hid them. Every time. He never brought it up to me, but I know he knew since the beginning, because every time he would make me kill them, and then like tradition he would soak my hands in the blood around their bodies. After all those years, I grew accustomed to death and blood, but for some reason, Mikaela's blood is something I don't ever want to see; nor is his death, or him ever getting hurt. As a fox, my instinct with something precious of mine is to hide it away; as a human, that is wrong for me to do.

"I've never..." Ah. Great. I'm crying again. "...Had someone to care for in a while." I wipe my eyes with my arm, my sleeves getting wet by doing so. "But when I do... I always put them above myself. Always. But I'm weak. So maybe it's not such a bad thing that you're as stubborn as I am. It's always blood in the end, so it's actually better if you don't put you're life in these dirty hands."

"You're pretty fucked up, I hope you know," Mikaela interrupts my little self-pity party as he walks into the room and stands before me. "These hands can be as dirty as hell, but I don't care. You're a damaged good, and it's not your fault." He lifts his hands out of his pockets and holds mine in his. "But I also hope you know that I don't mind if you are. Fucked up, damaged, or otherwise," he mutters, his arms around my waist, pulling me into a sudden and unexpected hug.