A Rumored Troublemaker and A Control Freak's Attempts At Bridge-Rebuilding

William stared mindlessly at the screen in front of him, as the last few pages of what was supposed to be his two page essay about Japan's economy slowly filled themselves with words, which, in some way, was unsettling all in it self, considering that the page count in the left corner of the screen had just turned from eight it had been sitting on for a while, into a solid nine. It was not, however, he thought to himself as he wrote the last few words of a very convincing conclusion, as if anybody was ever going to know, but him. The essay was almost three weeks overdue, and the teacher had long gave up on bothering him about submitting him, already having written him off as a lost cause. He was not Tavish, he thought, raising his eyes slightly towards his room mate before allowing them to return to the screen, saving one fail and opening another, to do all of his work admirable, and on time. He simply hated the silence, and had his headphones not emptied from having been used as a solid shield between him and the rest of the world for the last two days, he would have never even thought about using the keyboard as their replacement.

And there was also the fact that he could not even use distracting Tavish from his work as a means of distracting himself from his own, from ever since that day two days ago, when he had fallen apart completely before building himself up again into that strange state where he was both himself and not, he could barely look at the other man, for even the smallest of glances, like the one he had thrown the other's way right now, set of a chain reaction of emotions in his chest, emotions he was not sure he could handle, or understand.

There was anger, he thought, the mindless moving of his fingers never stopping as he typed out a title to a literature essay he should have submitted two weeks into a school year. He was not even sure he had read the book it was supposed to be about, but, once again, it was not as if anybody was ever going to see the things on which he would be working right now, though only until his headphones had charged again.

Then again, with him, there was always anger. What was strange this time, however, was that underneath the anger there was something he could not put a name onto, holding it back. Conflicting with one thing which he had set as a basis of his life: he hated everybody but Spirit and Warrior, and everybody but Spirit and Warrior hated him right back.

It was almost painful, in a way, he thought, frowning and biting into his lip as the pressure of his fingers against the keyboard letters turned even stronger, the speed at which he was typing even faster. Not physically, he thought, at least not really, but it was giving him headaches and making him want to punch something, that was not Tavish while also making him want sit quietly on his bed, or underneath his covers, hiding, until he could understand.

Spirit and Warrior were not of much help, still high strung and affected by what had happened, the Destruction almost coming out again, the six new lines now decorating the somewhat pale skin of William's forearms. He would be too, he could admit that much to himself, especially in this mindless state in which he did not think, but simply listen to the tick-tacking of the keyboard while letting the time pass, if only he would allow himself to be. He had slept poorly in the last few days, nightmare after nightmare attacking his mind, leaving him boneless and tired under the morning Sun, though he was determined not to show weakens in front of the other man again.

A bitter smile tugged at his lips as he bullshitted this way through the third page of his would (not) be essay. Perhaps he was affected, after all, even in his waking hours, only not in way that even he himself could recognize, at least not at every moment of every day.

He refused to raise his head again when Tavish had called him, having just worked his way through the latest surge of that strange emotion he could not yet name. It was not, though, like he had spent all too much time focusing on it rather than on how to get rid of it, for with it came some more than unwelcome thoughts of how, perhaps, just maybe there was someone out there who could be just as messed up as him.

Shaking his head he continued to ignore Tavish even when the older man laid his book aside and stood right in front of him, blocking his light and casting his shadow over him. He almost laughed then, at that thought, but managed to hold himself back in the end. He would not laugh. He would not look up. He would not feel, or think, or do anything but fake his way through papers nobody but him was ever going to read And he was especially not going to try, and fail, to explain all of this to Tavish.

(The fact that he had stopped calling him college boy even inside his own head did not escape him at all. He simply chose to ignore it, just like everything else)

''William'', a voice from his past echoed along the words that Tavish was speaking to him now, ''why aren't you talking to me?''

Even the tone was the same, he noticed, or at least so similar that it made his fingers stop where they were previously flying over the board, for that tone, in his head, meant that who ever was using it cared enough to ask him what's wrong rather than try and demand the answers out of him by threats of falling grades or calling his parents, which, in the end, never came true anyway. And the idea that anybody but Spirit, and Warrior, in his own way, could be using that voice with him was so foreign to him, that it made him close his eyes for a moment, for he needed the dark in order to be able to focus on, and deal away with, all the strange emotions that it caused within him.

It was first than any previous time it had happened during the last few days, when glances of Tavish made his chest tighten in a way that would reign in his rage, his insults, and even thoughts in a way nothing else had ever before. Or at least nothing that had come from another human being, Spirit and Warrior both having their own ways of dealing with him when he was at the very peak of his destructing behaviour. It confused him, this fact that Tavish now had a similar effect, if not a full blown one, on him after having literary seen him fall apart, almost letting the darkness which resided in him out. (And it was made even worse by the fact that usually what confused him angered him as well. Now, with his seeming inability to feel anger towards Tavish, or at least not destructive anger for he was still plenty annoyed with a man for a variety of reasons, it was once again not so, which in turn confused him even more.)

Perhaps it was the fact, he thought, as his fingers slowly started moving again, only this time they were not forming words, their movement now truly mindless, and only there in order to fill the silence, defending him against the weight of Tavish's presence. Perhaps it was the fact that he did not seem to be in any hurry to run away, William thought, even after all that he had seen, that did this to him. He did not want to think about the implications of that however. Perhaps it was simply the fact that no one had ever been there before to see him in that state. Even in his previous room, the poor deer girl had been away when William broke down cursing. If it was so, it should be shame that he was feeling right now, shame and hurt pride, which as much everything else did, usually made him angry, not reign in his anger. And he had already isolated those two as a thing separate from whatever it was that was making him act this way, and then proceeded to ignore them until they went away.

No, it was not shame that made him ignore Tavish, or his pride, or anything that he had know before, really, which meant that he would continue to ignore them both, probably until they both went away. Thus, William continued his mindless typing, a string of gibberish words now filling the screen in front of him as he continued to ignore the man standing in front of him. Somewhere to his right, he heard the wolf sigh, and wondered whether this would be one more occasion on which Spirit would choose to speak instead of him. Much like his summoner, however, the spirit remained silent.

Eventually, William felt more than he saw his room-mate move away from his bed, tracking the progress of the other man by his shadow, and the fact that it was no longer covering the light, and half of the William's screen. The tightness in his chest, however, increased as he did so instead of easing, the tension in his shoulders rising up high again until it reached the point at which he could no longer focus on the movement of his fingers, despite the fact that they had not even been forming proper words for at least last two minutes or so. Stopping, he tried to focus on his screen again, on emptying his mind the thoughts, and feelings tormenting him so. The screen, however, suddenly seemed all too bright, and the gibberish he found there irritated him more than it should have considering he had just used it as a shield against the world.

Slamming the laptop shut, he snarled, the anger in his chest finally being allowed to rise, whether because it was now directed towards him self, partly, and the innocent machine sitting on his lap instead on Tavish, or because it had finally reached the point at which not even his new-found leash could not control it, he did not know, and did not care to find out.

Standing up, he throw the machine he had just been using somewhere to his right, both dreading and hoping for a loud cracking sound which would indicated it had fallen off his bed, broken. On one side, he needed to destroy something, and the one thing he would usually try to tear down in order to went the frustrations plaguing him, was both unavailable and the source of the said frustration. On the other side, it would be hard to continue to ignore his room-mates existence if he had nothing to use as a shield against him, for both music listening, and mindless homework typing required him to have a functioning laptop available at hand. (For some reason, simply leaving the room all together did not count as an option he could consider open. He had tried it that first morning, spending the hours Tavish had spent locked away to his computer, making presentation after presentation, in an angry stroll through the woods. The only thing that walked had left him was an even worse mood and several splinters painfully embodied into his skin.)

Once on his feet however, he stopped, staring hard at the floor as he tried to consider what it was that he was actually trying to do. He could leave the room again, but the cuts on his knuckles have not healed yet and he was at least 12% sure that he still had at least tree splinters hidden somewhere under his skin, despite the fact that both he and Warrior had looked over his hands trice. It was phantom pain, apparently, but he did not know why. He, however, also not inclined to turn it into really pain again by punching yet another tree. He could find a person to hit, he thought, someone equally eager to bleed as he was to make somebody bleed. He was, however, somewhat hesitant to do that too, for in his state of mind and heart it was a bit more likely than usually that he would end up being the one who was left bleeding on the floor for all that he had Spirit and Warrior to protect him from that. They, too, were not back to their usual selves either, after all.

Then, just as he was about to let out yet another growl, his hand already searching for something he could break but did not need like he needed his laptop (which had, (un)fortunately survived its fall), a voice he did not recognise suddenly filled the room. His head rose immediately, singling out the source and looking for a new person with an instinct of someone who was used to new people being trouble more often than not.

This, however, meant that his eyes had ended up on Tavish again, for the source of this new voice had been the laptop in front of him, and William cursed himself for not noticing the slight buzzing of the voice which indicated that it was not a real person that had somehow gotten passed him, appearing in his room, but simply a call, made over the Skype, probably.

And then, yet another thing happened which made the feeling in his chest seem even worse.

Come on, introduce him already, somebody he assumed to be young and female demanded over the artificial connection. You told me before you'd introduce him, she said, as William's eyes finally locked on Tavish and fucking refused to move even as everything he was on the inside screamed at them to do so. His chest felt even tighter than before, the feeling heavy, like a stone tied around his neck, or in his throat. Tavish had said...what? To whom? And even more importantly...

Why?

''I heard'', William spoke, his words escaping him before he could remind himself that he was not speaking to Tavish, that he was ignoring him, him and that weird, strange feeling in his chest he got whenever he looked at him (like right now, their eyes locked in a silent battle as William stared with disbelief at his room-mate while his room-mate...he was no longer sure about anything Tavish did. He just wasn't. And that irritated him. And scared him. He was usually good at guessing how people will act towards him, as it usually fell in one of the two categories: anger and disappointment. Tavish fitted into both and neither at the same time and that...that was the same category that Spirit and Warrior fell in and yeah, no, he was not thinking about that he reminded himself for the one hundred and fiftieth time since he woke up)

''Why?'', he asked then, unable to hold back the question no more than he was able to hold back the answer, his disbelief and surprise, his confusion and anger all showing in his voice, clearly and separately, and then together, though the anger had a taste which was different from anything he had ever known before. The bitterness of it had faded into confusion, into sort of helpless state where he wasn't able to do anything but stare and wait for an explanation.

Which was kind of what he was doing right now, eyes still wide, a black storm of emotion showing through them even more clearly than it had in his voice. He was not even thinking about the girl right now. Little girl. On the other side of the screen. That wanted to meet him. The Summoner. The troublemaker. The problem child. Just because. Just because her god fucking thrice damned brother had told her something that made her want to meet him.

He wasn't thinking about her. He was not thinking about the fact that she could hear him, the skype connection naturally going both way and his voice being loud enough for everybody in the next room and the hallway to hear him with no problem at all, let alone somebody on the other end of a extremely strong network connection which ran through the doorm.

''What did you...'', he began, his words now having escaped any and all control he had over them. He was...stunned. Honestly...stunned. On the floor, the wolf which had spent the last two days mostly lying motionlessly on the floor, dealing with his own set of emotions and scares, slowly raised his head towards his charge with hope.

''You told them about the amount of pizza I can eat'', William parroted after Tavish his eyes still wide and swimming with emotions, though his voice was starting to show the first signs of being back under his minds control, though how much good that would actually do was still debatable, for his mind was currently in the process of trying to process statements such Because you deserve friends or Told her you reminded me of Finnegan who he assumed was Tavish's little brother. Family meant nothing to him, not after the way he had grown up, but he had a theoretical idea of how a normal family should look like, and what an older brother should feel for a younger. So for him to hear that... he wanted to break, but he did not know how, because this was not breaking down under the weight of his anger but his mind refusing to work because it was so unfamiliar with the situation that it could not come up with a reaction. So unfamiliar in fact, that it could not even find a way in which to break and shut down.

Then there was also the fact that there was a little girl staring at the screen somewhere wanting to meet him, and he might be an asshole in general everyday situations, but this, somehow, did not feel like one (he had never had much contact with children younger than himself, especially not those who were not snobbishly rude and coming from rich families like himself. In fact he was not sure he had ever talked to a child which was actually a child, smiling and warm and bright. There was no precedence to how he would act, he who was made from jagged edges and sharp corners but somehow, he knew he would hold his tongue and glares. If for nothing else then because it was Tavish's sister and that...yeah, that started yet another train of thought the did not wish to embark on)

There was little voice in the back of his head trying to get his attention once he had actually gotten over the facts he would not think about, which said that if Tavish had told them how much pizza he can eat than he must have talked to them afterwards, after his breakdown and after seeing him in the almost-made-yet-still-functioning-state which followed. He had talked to them afterwards and still the only thing he could think to tell them was that he could eat three halves of a pizza in one sitting.

''Mister Wolf?'', he said, rising an eyebrow at Tavish, his voice and eyes suddenly filled with amusement and mirth rather than the wide eye confusion which had been there a moment before. It was still there, too, underneath the other emotions, but he was not about to greet the girl with that look in his eyes, not when she seemed inquisitive enough to be bound to ask questions.

''Honestly, Tavish?'', he said, finally leaning closer to the screen so he could truly step in front of the camera and be introduced to the girl. ''Is that how you introduced my spirits? I swear if he told you Warrior is a ninja, I will be putting spiders in his bed'', he promised, having learned of Tavish's weakness towards the crawling creepers some time ago. The said not-ninja moved silently so that he was standing by his side, something in his shoulders having changed slightly in a way which spoke of him himself feeling some kind of mirth as well, which in truth was the progress worth singing praise to considering how all of them had felt during the last two days. From somewhere by his side, the wolf laughed as well for the first time in days.

((somewhere in the back of William's mind there were words still echoing.

For now.​

His mind however was not yet ready to deal with them. So he focused on teasing Tavish and the fact that he would have to hold back his tongue and not curse in front of a damn barely-teenage girl...

Yeah, that should be enough to occupy his mind for a while))