Everything & Nothing

little things - ducaleon e.

Stop, stopstopstop!

Just stop thinking about that!

This might very well be the twentieth time that Ducaleon asserts himself to cease bringing up the memory of that occurrence. Lying in bed, his sole goal for the moment is to fall asleep, and his trials of achieving that short-term goal are hindered by his brain continuously cropping up the images of his very naked rapture—his treasured rapture that happens to be his apartment-mate as well. The proximity of them living under one roof makes things plentifully difficult for him because Tempest Richards is one hell of a tormenting distraction.

From last afternoon's shower-time casualty with her, he concludes that he is indisputably caught in the quagmire of loving her as well as avariciously yearning for her. Seeing her cowering in the corner of the bathroom, frail and injured, had awakened an aggressive sense of gentility and reliability in him. Ducaleon had lifted her into the tub with the utmost tenderness he could muster, charily making sure that he didn't hurt her furthermore. She'd felt so small and light in his arms, like a tiny, broken bird. The water had washed off the foam that had covered most of her body, revealing her rosy-fair skin, and as a result, making his throat feel like the Saharan landscape. At that moment, she'd looked so ethereally beautiful, like an angelic maiden experiencing divine ecstasy; eyelids heavily falling due to the blow she'd suffered to her head, her tresses buoyantly fanning out in the water and creating a flaming halo around her small face, her willowy frame laid unclothed and open for his sight. The light dusting of freckles over her cheeks and nose, between her collarbone and breasts, on her stomach and hips—where most would see them as flaws, Ducaleon had thought and continues to think of them as complementary to her loveliness.

Ducaleon had tried his best to make her arm's relocation as painless as possible, but her wail of agony when he'd pushed the ball-ended bone into its socket was heart-wrenching for him. She'd cried silently for some time afterwards, gently rocking to-and-fro in the tub as she cradled her still aching arm close to her chest. He'd wanted nothing more than to pull her into his lap and hold her there till her tendons' twinging passed and until she felt better, but he knew better than to do something that'd give her the wrong ideas. For her own safety, he had to keep his distance from her.

Her passing out in that bare state in his arms was especially problematic. As Ducaleon had put her to bed, he had tried to be quite courteous, however, he couldn't help but let his gaze linger over her for a while as he tucked her underneath the covers; taking in her svelte dishabille, ever so coyly wrapped in just the one towel he'd put around her. Though Tempest comes off as bony and thin in her typical outfit of oversized plaids and cargo-pants, holding her that time has made him dissolutely aware that she is subtly curvaceous and supple in all the right places, in all the right ways—thus making him rave for her in disturbingly blasphemous aspects. And presently, all his mental exercises of erasing her nudity from his memories go in vain, since these are the only pictures that pervade all his contemplations throughout the night, as though he is inadvertently meditating on Tempest and her enthralling bodily attributes.

Brought back to the present by his 3:00am alarm, he concludes that his 'tormenting distraction' of an apartment-mate hadn't let him sleep all night. Sighing, he sees that it's time for his second job at Havoc Wreaked. He hates—no, he totally detests—the job with all his being, yet he has no other choice; he is bound to it by his financial liability. Havoc Wreaked is no place to feel regret, guilt, and sadness about what he does—those emotions and the harsh repentance is to be left for later in the day, when he's done and over with his time in that hellhole.

Raidho receives him at Havoc Wreaked's entrance, the neon sign to it glowing a painful red and blue. His friend/manager/medic-on-scene is always ready with the same script of condescension. "You're late. Again! You know, while I stick my neck out in front of Carlisle, accounting for your promises to not delay in the future, you go on right ahead and come friggin' late. Every fucking time! Why, man? Why are you so intent on having me dead?"