it's always have and never hold; you've begun to feel like home

[pointzerothree]

All things considered, between the killer toys and the fall he took while climbing through Olive's window, Eduardo knows full well that four weeks in a cast is really nothing at all when it could have been so much worse, when it could have been Olive instead of him. That doesn't make him any less relieved to finally be done with the damn thing

Comments

[floozyfacade]

Olive glances up him with a smile, wry and fond and relieved. "You're welcome," she answers, "again. For everything." He doesn't need to say it once more or even any of the last few times it's been said, but she knows better than to fight it, and in the end, she prefers that gratitude to other options, like being taken for granted, though even in her head, that one's laughably implausible. If she's done anything worthy of his thanks, than she can only be glad in turn. It hasn't been the easiest of months for them to get through, but they've managed as well as she's come to suspect they always will - turned on their heads, but still climbing their way out in the end, side by side.

"How's it holding up? Does it still hurt?" She doesn't want him overdoing it just to spare her his weight or something silly like that.

[pointzerothree]

"No," Eduardo answers with a shake of his head, the response more instinctive than thought through, though he does mean it. It's an odd feeling, but to say that it hurts would be massively overstating the matter, and when she's done so much worrying about him already, he doesn't want to give her any more reason to. This is normal, nothing he wasn't already prepared for. "I mean, it's, you know, a little weird - muscle atrophy and all that - but it doesn't hurt, no." He smiles a little, fond, vaguely amused. "I'm fine. I can't say I ever thought walking normally would feel so strange, but I'm fine."

[floozyfacade]

It's because the break wasn't as bad as it could have been, Olive knows; she understands the medical reasoning, if only because she listened very carefully to all explanations. She still can't help the slightly irrational worry that the cast is off too early or something and he's going to get hurt again. He seems to be doing fine, though, and the walk home will at least give her a chance to keep an eye on him. "No more crutches," she says, grinning. "Or Duckie trying to treat your crutches as toys."

[pointzerothree]

"Is it bad that I think I might miss that?" Eduardo asks with a laugh, self-deprecating. It's as close as he'll come to a truth he isn't ready to yet admit to, that he liked staying with her too much to really want to leave. He's said for a long time that with Olive is the closest he's ever really felt to having some kind of home, but that's nothing compared to having actually lived with her, even knowing all the while that it was a temporary arrangement. Especially after everything that's happened recently, too, all that he's lost again, it's hard not to be drawn to the appeal of that. Still, the very fact that he is is all the more reason not to say so. "Not the crutches, obviously, but Duckie trying to treat them as toys was kind of adorable."

[floozyfacade]

"I spoiled her," Olive admits, as if that's in any way a secret. She thinks, all things told, she's done a good job of training her dog, getting her house-trained and keeping her from eating homework or fabrics or shoes. Some things still slip through the cracks, though, and Duckie tends to have rule of the house; Olive can't help herself, she loves that dog too much to always say no. "She thinks it's all hers. But it is kind of adorable. I, uh... I think we'll all miss it

[pointzerothree]

Eduardo smiles, fond, glad to hear it even if he can't think that she means anything by it. She's the one who said it would be like practice, like playing house, and he has no reason to believe that might have changed; to do so would only be taking advantage of the generosity she extended in inviting him to stay with her for the month anyway, belittling the offer by wanting something more. Besides, he doesn't, for that matter, really even know what he wants in the first place. Back home, he'd be a college graduate, less than a year and a half away from twenty-five, closing in on the time that one is supposed to think about these things, but that's no cause to rush now, nor does it make him any more prepared to consider a step like that. She's eighteen, anyway, and while their age difference has rarely even mattered at all, it's still just proving that he shouldn't push here, shouldn't act on the strange impulse that leaves him reluctant to return to his own hut. It's not like it will make much difference when she's still right next

[floozyfacade]

It's an opening or something like it, but Olive hesitates, her mind not yet made up (or trying to undo the part of her that's sure, maybe). It's not a conversation, she tells herself, to have out in public on the walk home anyway. She doesn't like it, though, imagining him leaving again, even if she's known it's been coming since she asked him in the first place. He's right that he'll be nearby and that should be enough; it was for most of a year. But the last month, while far from perfect, has been idyllic in its way.

It's not the kind of thing anyone should jump into, though. It's a big step, not in terms of the gravity of their already serious relationship, but because rushing into cohabitation can change a couple, even ruin things if they aren't really ready. Olive worries at her lower lip, considering this as she glances over. "Yeah, no," she says, "God, I am so glad those things are gone. They really get in the way."

[pointzerothree]

"They were pretty annoying," Eduardo says, almost a touch reluctant, like he's admitting something major. It only makes sense that he wouldn't have liked them, of course, when he had to walk miles around the entire island on them, and when upper body strength is never something he's had a whole lot of, but it still feels like admitting defeat or being ungrateful, and the last thing he wants is for her to think he regrets what he did. The truth is, he'd have spent another month or six or twenty in a cast in the name of keeping her safe, and he knows full well how lucky he got, too. Being off the crutches now, it seems to make them that much more inconsequential, but also to point out just how frustrating they really were. He'll focus more on the former, inasmuch as he can focus on anything right now. (If she hasn't said anything, he thinks, then nothing's changed, and he has no reason to expect anything else in the first place. This is normal, and he's being ridiculous.) "Not too terrible, though."

[floozyfacade]

He's been far more patient than Olive would be in his shoes. She's never dealt well with the injuries she accrued as a kid, running around outdoors and falling out of things or on the ground. The way she saw it, skinned knees just seemed like the price paid for adventures. She kind of still feels the same. And it's hard just to sit still in spite of the bumps and bruises when there's still more out there, even here on the island.

"Well, either way, it's over now," she says. "No matter having to deal with that. Which is, you know, it's good timing, if it really is going to snow like everyone says." No matter how many times she hears it, no matter what she's seen, she's still skeptical.

[pointzerothree]

Eduardo heaves a sigh, mostly exaggerated, as much for the inevitability of the snow itself as for how illogical he finds it. Three winters and a fourth autumn at a New England school didn't make him any more appreciative of the cold as it is, and if that weren't enough, the fact that he still can't figure out any possible science for the sudden annual appearance of wintry weather makes him dread the season that much more, despite having known from the start that he would probably never be able to make any sense of it. The only saving grace of the whole thing is getting to see it as it happens, hopefully, and find out if there are any answers that way - that, and the fact that he won't be on crutches when it freezes, just like she said.

"God, that would have been a nightmare," he says, all but rolling his eyes. "I would've just had to not leave the hut ever." He's used to that after a month, the hut instead of his hut, but it's only after he's spoken that there might be too much implication in those words, or maybe he's just

[floozyfacade]

"And then you'd be Duckie's new chew toy," teases Olive. "That would be a nightmare." It's more than the hypothetical about her dog's unnecessary teething habits. He may not be quite as keen on exploration as she is, but he's even less inclined to be idle. Keeping him cooped up for that long would drive him crazy with boredom and frustration, and she's grateful for both their sakes it's not a scenario they'll have to endure. "I mean, it's gonna suck as it is, walking so far in the cold and the snow. I don't even know how to walk in snow, is it like on the beach? That's an honest question, I really don't know."

[pointzerothree]

"It's nothing like on the beach," Eduardo says on a heavy exhale, the shudder he manages to suppress somehow evident in his voice. He really fucking does not like snow. "With snow, it's - it's heavier, so it gets more tightly packed, so it doesn't just move around like sand does, but then it accumulates, so, you know, you take a step and then there's snow up to your shin. It's a pain in the ass." God, he doesn't even know what they'll do to clear the boardwalk, if they'll even be able to at all. The thought only makes him dread the onset of their makeshift winter even more, glad though he still is that he won't have to endure it on crutches. "Plus it's really cold, obviously, which doesn't help at all."

[floozyfacade]

Olive pulls a face, then stops abruptly to kiss him, trying not to be too amused by his obvious distaste for it all. "It'll be fine," she says. "At least the buildings should be warmer and, I mean, we don't have to become recluses, but we don't really have to go out that much either, right? We'll be fine." She means to enjoy it as much as she can, though, even if she goes running home quickly to get warm. Even winter must have its charms if she looks hard enough, and at least Eduardo has experience on his side.

[pointzerothree]

"Of course we will," Eduardo says, hand settling at her waist as she kisses him. He's survived worse - he really doesn't think a tropical island winter could be worse than a Boston one - and Olive, he's sure, could get through anything. That doesn't mean he wants to have to deal with any of it. (It's all the more reason to stay together, some traitorous part of his brain thinks, to save them the trouble of having to trudge in the snow from one hut to another, so spending the night together wouldn't have to be something discussed or planned. Just going back to the idea is so fucking stupid, though, and he refuses to let it take his focus.) "With a lot of shivering and staying in, but we will."

[floozyfacade]

Hand covering his as she starts to walk backwards, Olive laughs. "And a fire in the fireplace?" she teases, hopeful. She knows how he feels about the subject, but she, for one, isn't planning to waste the opportunity to build a fire that's actually necessary and linger in front of it against the winter cold. That it sounds like there's only one fireplace is unimportant, she tells herself. It isn't like they'd build two separate fires to sit in front of, and it would be awkward to use a possessive in that sentence.

But she wants it, yearns for it, to do all that with him, to share it all. Maybe it really is in large part because she doesn't have any other home now, because he's the mainstay in her makeshift family here, because she wants somewhere they belong, but what's so wrong with that? At the very least, she thinks, she owes it to herself to suggest the possibility and discuss it, see where they both stand.

"And hiding under the blankets?"

[pointzerothree]

"Yes," Eduardo says, grinning, his nod only the tiniest bit reluctant. He isn't a fan of fire, it's true, but in fireplaces designed to hold them, he doesn't think that will matter so much. There's something seasonally appropriate about it, and if that's what she wants, then he'll have no trouble going along with it. Besides, anything that will help keep them warm isn't really something he can be opposed to. He's interested by it in theory, but he really is not cut out for the kind of weather they have coming, and he sincerely doubts it will be any different for her, no matter how much fun she might find some of it at first