Sleeping Beauty [WMMAP Fanfiction]

Chapter Thirty One: Get Out

"I brought you food," he began, eating said food with a fork. "It's mine." 

Still a bit unsure of how to treat her after... figuring how she liked him, and that she'd been unresponsive for months, he tried to act as he was pretty sure he did with her, before everything started going wrong. 

"Alice." He fiddled with the fork, tapping the finger food he had on a little plate. "I'm really sorry." Letting go of the fork for his other hand to keep from falling, he scooted closer and touched her forehead. "I don't even know if you can hear me. But-" As he hovered close to her face, he noticed a little bead of water. Her eyelashes are wet, he noticed. 

Then he was pulled. 

It was a library he stood in, replacing the room he was just in. His food was gone. Alice was cowering away, and if not for whimpers, he wouldn't have noticed her feeble figure. He should've been worried, or upset. But he was only relieved to see her awake for once.

"Alice." His voice was chiding. Happy and calm. But she didn't share his sentiments. Her shoulders stiffened instead. 

"... et.. out."

It was a despairing voice he barely caught. A bit wondering, his smile remained.

"What?" His foot stepped closer. Seeing that, her shoulders raised.

"I said to get out!" suddenly screaming, her hand stretched out. Soaring past him was a powerful gust, with manifesting ice.

"I won't." He could sense something was wrong. He took another step forward. She stood up defensively, looking aggravated, yet sad at the same time. 

Shoving, forcing, denying. She was trying to blot out her anguish, and feel only anger. 

Her hand grabbed a thick book, and flung it at him. Like a child, her composed self was gone as she started to throw books off the shelves at him.

"Get out. Get out! Get out!"

The floor began to cover over in frost. It was becoming dangerous. He knew that. 

But, with her right in front of her, he didn't want to let her go again.

I'm sorry for not realizing sooner.

He pressed on. Her pain, her circumstances, he either ignored them, or didn't notice. But he knew it was the former. It was waved in front of him so many times, and he wanted to ignore it. To keep a little film of things being alright just a little longer, he shouldn't have done that.

I'm sorry that I'm really a brat sometimes.

Wind started to whip around them.

"I won't!!"

He was only a meter away from her. It was too close for her liking, that a magic circle appeared in her hand. Raising her hand over her head, as if to pierce through everything above, he knew he was definitely in danger. He could even lose his life right then and there. But— 

"GET OUT!!"

Gritting his teeth, he threw himself forward, regardless of the threat. His arms went around her, pulling her close. Even then, she kicked and writhed to get away from him, like his touch alone burned her.

Holding her firmly, the best he could, his hand raked through her hair. "I won't," he whispered.

——If she really wanted him gone, he would've been kicked out the moment she noticed him. 

She was suddenly quiet. She wasn't saying anything, only crying again. "Hate me," she whimpered, much like a child. The wind was dying down. "So I can leave."