fandomtownies | Book Haven, Tuesday

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Book Haven, Tuesday

What a drab, miserable day it was out there. Evan frowned out the window as he straightened out the books, watching the rain drizzle against the bookstore windows. It kind of set a mood, didn't it? People graduated on the weekend, and there were only a handful that Evan really knew well, but with weather like that, it was kind of like the island was mourning over the people who were leaving.

... Or maybe he was looking too far into this. Weather was really only weather, after all. Unless Storm was involved somehow. Which, of course, she wasn't.

Shrugging, Evan got back to straightening the books, and then dusting around the shop, wondering to himself about who was leaving, what sort of people might come to the island next weekend, and where in the world Sholeh had been hiding for the past week, now.

[OOC: This isn't late, honest. It is open, though!]

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Sholeh had been...mostly hiding herself away for the past week, actually. It made no sense, hiding away from everyone and everything she would miss when they left, but the thought of facing everyone with the knowledge that she'd be leaving hanging over her was more than she could bear.

But the deadline for leaving was drawing ever closer. Today, they'd been our looking for the bridge that would take them home. Because the link between Fandom and Tryadnea was weakening, the bridge had moved and this afternoon had been spent tromping through the rain in the park searching for it.

They couldn't stay much longer than another day or two before the link snapped, leaving them stranded in Fandom forever. Sholeh wasn't telling her sisters that the idea was tempting. They weren't telling her that they knew that already.

Soaked and shivering, Sholeh tromped passed Book Haven, too far gone in melancholy to look around.

And lo, the person he'd been worried most about slogged by the window of the shop, and Evan blinked a few times before dashing out the door after her.

"Sholeh! Sholeh, come in out of the rain. It's miserable out there!"

Why yes, he was already shrugging out of his jacket so that he could put it around her shoulders once she came inside. Because she was going to do that, right? Come inside?

There was probably nothing more pathetic in the world than a sodden bunny caught in headlights, which, interestingly enough, was exactly what Sholeh resembled at that moment.

Startled, she turned at Evan's voice and, eyes wide, almost tripped on her skirts as she tried to stay stock still and run away at the same time. She managed to keep her balance, mostly through an excessive amount of stumbling, and also tear a giant hole in her skirt, also as a result of said stumbling.

Sholeh was having a very hard day.

"Evan? I..."

She just wanted to go inside and get warm and dry and have cocoa and snuggle and cry.

Oh. Oh, hey, let's keep that stumble from turning directly into a fall, shall we? How fortunate that Evan had a pretty impressive reach with those noodly arms of his! The rest of him stepped up to join his arms, and he pulled her into a hug, soggy or not, before nodding back to the shop.

"Hey, hey, easy. It's okay. See? Everything's fine," though judging by the look on her face, Evan wasn't so certain that was true. He swallowed and smiled and barrelled on regardless. "We'll get you inside and cleaned up... I have a change of clothes in case I got caught in the weather, you can change into those while your dress dries, it'll be fine."

Honest. Just fine.

Nothing would ever be fine again.

Okay, that was a little melodramatic. Things would one day be fine, but it would take a very long time for either of them to feel that way again.

Sholeh nodded against his shoulder and let him guide her inside. The bookstore was warm and looked so friendly and cheerful that some of the threatening tears escaped her eyes and slid down her cheeks. They burned on their way down, at least until she scrubbed them away. See? This was why she was trying to avoid everything and everyone she scared for. Seeing him, here, where they'd both been so happy it hurt.

"You don't mind me wearing your clothes?" she sniffled.

"No, not at all," Evan promised, reaching back behind the counter without leaving her side and grabbing the bag he'd brought his clothes in. "You're soaked and freezing, and I'm not wearing them right now. Why should I?"

He might wonder why she hadn't brought an umbrella outside, but mostly he was just worried about her and why she seemed so upset right now.

"Sholeh... what's the matter?"

"Evan, I..." She trailed off, then shook her head. "Let me change first," she said. "Once I start..."

Once she started actually finishing sentences, they'd probably be there for awhile.

She tried to give him a reassuring smile, but it fell short by several leagues. "I'll be right back," she whispered, grabbing the bag and heading towards the ladies' room. She returned ten or so minutes later, damp hair pulled back into a braid, Evan's clothes comically large on her. He'd grown a lot in the years he'd been at Fandom. She wasn't sure she'd realized how much until she'd put on his shirt and had it hang to her knees almost.

Evan managed to hold back too much of a smile at the sight of her in his clothing, at least. He was still worried about her, but there was something about the way she was swimming in his spare clothing that made him... happy. Weirdly, stupidly happy. He couldn't put a finger on it.

"You look much warmer now," he offered.

"I feel a little better," she confessed. "Though I think I might have single-handedly murdered a tree with all the paper towels I needed to dry my hair."

Her smile this time was still a little wan, but managed to still be a smile. "You've gotten bigger. I don't think I'd look so funny in the clothes you wore when you first got here."

"I think you'd probably be pretty cute in those shorts, actually," Evan decided, his tone fond as he stepped up to wrap his arms around her a few times. "You're pretty cute now."

Sholeh wrapped her arms around him, too, looking up into his warm, blue eyes and realized that she had been 100% in the right to avoid him while she could. Because there was no way she could possibly deny the way she felt any longer.

"Even, I--" She swallowed hard. "I'm leaving. We're leaving. In just a few days. We got a letter from our mothers...Tryadnea's drifting away...if we don't leave soon, we'll be stranded here forever."

Oh.

... Oh.

Evan swallowed, the warmth in his eyes not leaving, but something else tired and hurt and a little lost making its way there as well. He couldn't breathe. He could hardly think.

"Leaving." Drifting. Stranded. He couldn't go with them, not without risking the lives of Zee and Zhari. And Sholeh couldn't stay here. There wasn't anything here that was more important than her home.

He got that.

It still hurt.

"H-how soon?"

"Judging by the bridge...just a few more days. I doubt it will last through the weekend."

Her voice was small and she swallowed hard.

"That's what I was doing today. Searching for it. It had moved, from where it was when we arrived. We had to find it so that we'd know where to go when we..."

Left.

"When you went to cross it," Evan murmured. "Oh."

Oh.

He didn't know what else to say. He'd known that this was going to happen eventually, that she'd have to leave. She'd told him time and again that it was going to be the case.

"You know, I... always kind of figured I might know what to say when you came to tell me this."

He had nothing. Begging her to stay was the only thing he could think of, and that was a horrible idea. So he just pulled her a little closer and held on tight.

"I always knew what I couldn't say when this time came," Sholeh said, voice almost inaudible, except her face was pressed against his neck. "But now that it's here, I want to say it more than ever."

"Me too," Evan murmured, running his fingers tenderly through her hair, "and I know you would, if things were different. I understand why you can't now."

There were lives at stake, all for the sake of a few words. Tryad law was a cruel joke, it seemed, but there was nothing that the likes of them could do about it. Nothing but cry and wish it could be some other way.

"I love you."

Sholeh's voice was very low and she couldn't look at him. Swallowing, she cleared her throat and said it again.

"I love you."

"I..." Wow. He'd heard her say those words before, yes, but that was during that time when everyone was someone else, when she had no sisters to worry about, when everything was wrong, one way or another.

Everything seemed wrong now, but for very different reasons.

"I love you, too," he murmured, holding her a little more tightly. "I'll miss you. I'll miss you so much..."

"It just seems so stupid not to say it anymore," Sholeh confessed, finally peeking up at him. "I love you whether I say it or not, so it's just dumb not to finally tell you. When I'm me and you're you so that, well, it's something real. For you to hole on to."

Because she wouldn't be there to be real and held anymore.

"I'll hold on to it," Evan murmured, nodding and leaning down to rest his forehead against hers. "It means... it means so much to me, Sholeh..."

She was the first real, living person to ever say those words to him. To mean them.

He just wished the circumstances were different.

"I should have said it forever ago," she murmured, before kissing him gently. "I thought that if I denied it long enough, I could hide it...but that's not how it works. I've loved you for months now, Evan, and I'm sorry you'll only have the next few days to hear it."

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Book Haven, Tuesday

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