Lou [The Arcana/Julian Devorak AU]

Four

Julian's POV

Uh, heh. I was meaning to ask her that and she just took the words right out of my mouth.

"First things first though."

I kinda figure where she's going with this.

"What's your name?" She asks, her hand leaning on her chin in obvious interest. My name was nothing special though.

"Uh, Julian."

"Hello, Uh Julian." She giggled, making me roll my eyes.

We continued to chat as we made it back to her place. She was actually...nice to talk to. Different from the townsfolk I met from the other islands that were just plain rude or didn't want to talk to some "low-life pirate" like me.

I watched as she fumbled with her house keys and pushed the front door open. In a flourish, much like I did earlier teasing her, she showed off the small foyer. I wasn't able to take a look before, but now? I kind of regret not doing that. I take a step inside and really take a look around as she followed behind.

I looked at the portraits on the wall of people, [Assuming they were from her family.] from the interesting rug designs that really made the room....more. I think my favorite part of the room was the light itself, protected by a glass cover in a neat sort of way, not like your typical chandelier. Lou was quiet during my observing, probably just watching the reaction show on my face. 

"Ah, uh, sorry." I muttered, a little too quickly. Lou smiled.

"It's fine, you're just curious. I like that. U-um, well, you know where the guest room is..." She stumbled, looking away from me and I thought I could see a slight blush on her cheeks. Cute.

Getting out of that funk, I say good night and give her a warm smile. She smiles as I turn my heel and go upstairs and back to the guest room to sleep.

x x x x

"A pirate? You want to become a pirate? Have you lost your damn mind?" My mother spat, slamming her big cooking spoon on the table. 

"Now, now, Gia-" My father started, but my mother cut him off.

"Don't "Gia" me. The boy's supposed to study in college and become a doctor or a lawyer like all the rest of my family. That's how it goes. Anything other than that is just a childish dream."

I felt the tears falling down my face before I could even help it. It wasn't fair. Grandpa was a famous pirate, always traveling the high seas, and going on interesting adventures. It made me want to be just like him and make my, well, dad proud. I didn't want to be like the rest of my mom's family.

"See, look, now you're making him cry." 

"Good, that'll get some sense in him." She snarled, pushing me aside and leaving the room. The only sound you could hear was the sound of my ugly sniffling. She was the one asking why I wasn't doing too good in school and I gave her the honest answer.

I turn my head and watch as my father's face becomes my mother's face, and she just starts laughing. And laughing. Didn't she just leave the room???

She stands up, and then slowly walks closer to me. Her grin was getting worse, the corners of her mouth reaching all the way to her eyelids. 

"You've been a very bad boy, Julian." She chants, as I turn around and book it, hot tears still fresh on my face. What was going on?!?!

"Julian? JULIAN!" 

No, no, no, I'm not turning around and responding to her-

"JULIAN!"

I gasp loudly and lurch forward, trying to recollect myself and steady my breathing. 

It was a dream.

I look over and noticed Lou, now in a light pink night gown with her hair down, looking worried. Shit. I wiped a few beads of sweat from my forehead and avoided her gaze.

"Nightmare?" She silently questioned. I nodded. The next thing she did was unexpected. She grabbed my hand, pulling me out of bed and leading me back downstairs now in her kitchen.
I watched as she turned her kettle on and prepared some more tea.

"Did you want to talk about it?"

I stayed quiet. I didn't want to bring up my mother, it was just too personal. I don't know what she had against me, just that from day 1, she hated me....

She must have noticed that she hit a nerve, turning around and tending to the kettle. I was thankful for that. Maybe one day....I could tell her. But not today.

"Here you go!" She says as she turns back around and smiles, handing over the cup to me. I smelled the tea, it was honey tea again. I took a sip.

"I, uh, don't have a lot of visitors so I don't really have a wide range of tea selections." She once again faced away from me, getting herself a cup, and sitting across from me, sipping quietly.

She says that, but I noticed following her to the kitchen I saw a grand dining table with 8 chairs. She must have had company before but....not now. She was nice enough not to budge on my mother, so I didn't feel like it was my place either to assume and ask.

I wanted to lighten up the mood, even just for a little bit.

"Was it always your dream to sell....leeches?" Yeah, let's bring back Benji and his friends.

She stopped drinking her tea, putting the cup down on the plate and putting her hand on her chest as if I offended her with that question.

"Yes.......and no."

I must have gave off a look that said something like "Really? Tell me more..." because then she moved her chair closer to me, a short laugh coming out of her.

"When I was a kid, I wanted to be an astronaut."

Well God damn, I didn't want to laugh but....I did. I was laughing so hard I thought the tea was going to shoot out of my nose and she was going to have a nasty, snot disaster to clean up later. She wasn't mad though, she smiled and looked down, cupping her hands together.

"I got in my aunt's library and researched everything about an astronaut. One day, my aunt caught me in her library and said, "You know you need to take a lot of school to become one."

"And...what did you say?"

"I didn't go back to the library and told her I didn't want to go through all that. I guess....it felt like a fantasy dream job to me. School and all that...I can't sit down and focus. I need to constantly be doing something. I remember walking into town the next day with my mom and saw a man who was selling leeches. I was just a kid, remember, so I never seen one of those before until I accidentally broke a bottle and my mom had to pay for it. I raised that leech like it was my own, with my mom's help of course."

"And....I don't know, at that point on I just had a fascination for them. So, here we are."

Hearing about how she came to be with leeches and had help with her mom made me a bit sad that my mom didn't approve of what I wanted to be, I'm sure it wasn't every little kid's dream job to become a pirate, but I was tired of the same doctor/lawyer deal. I  wanted adventure.

I was all alone after I ran away from home. I told my little sister to not contact me unless it was really important, to send me a letter. And she did....about our father's passing. My mom disappeared when I came back for the funeral. I didn't question it, she probably knew I was going to the funeral and didn't attend for that reason.

"Julian? Are you alright?" 

Getting back into focus, I look over at Lou and notice she drank all her tea and was again looking at me worried. I shifted a bit in my seat and took another sip of tea.

"I'm alright....I think your profession is really cool."

She smiles, and then gets up and starts to wash her cup, putting it on the cup rack and turning back towards me as I finish up the rest of the tea. There's another awkward silence passed between us as we don't know what else to say to each other.

"Follow me, I think you'd like this."