Retrace bxbxb

Seeing Yourself

It was harder than he imagined to make his eyes open the next morning. He was starving, still having eaten nothing since the previous morning, but the bed was so unbelievably comfortable. He'd never even slept on anything besides a stiff cot. Not that he was ungrateful, but now he knew exactly why people spent so much money on such things. 

A soft knock echoed from the door, then Rule's voice slipped through to him a moment later. "Am I going to have to come in there and wake you myself, Hari? You've already missed breakfast." 

Aw. 

The idea of working on an empty stomach, again, made Harper groan into his pillow, drawing a laugh from the other side of his bedroom door. "I saved you some of mine, as I ate a large dinner, so best get up quickly or I might get hungry again and decide to finish it off." 

Harper didn't need anymore encouragement. He jumped out of bed and hurried to get himself dressed for the day. The moment he considered himself presentable, he opened the door to a grinning Rule. 

"Hey there, lass. Good morning." 

It was hard to focus on Rule when Harper's eyes had already found the tray of food sitting off to the side between two large chairs in the sitting room. The scent from it made his stomach growl loudly, drawing another laugh from Rule. 

"I can see that I'm not the most important thing currently. Fill your belly, then we'll go over what I need you to do today, alright?" 

Harper nodded absently, not even remembering to turn toward Rule respectfully, and instead nodded in the direction of the food before hurrying over to it. He did remember to take a seat before picking up the plate of eggs, ham and porridge. The food had clearly been picked at, but it was obvious that it had also been way too much of a portion for one man. 

"Matilda seemed to think that I needed two portions, even though I swear I remembered to inform the chef early this morning that we would need two plates, and thus, two separate portions." Rule said with a hint of a chuckle in his voice as he dropped into the seat next to the small table nestled between the two chairs. 

"I swear that woman isn't nearly this bad to new people. Yesterday was more a test for her than for you. I wanted to see how far she was willing to push someone new. She got quite frustrated when I recently refused to hire one of her relatives that had a theft on their record, and I assume now that she thinks I'm already hiring you, that she needs to make you look bad in order to get back at me." 

Too engrossed in his food to respond, and with a full mouth, Harper just nodded at Rule's words, earning himself a pat atop his head from the other man. "You're such a sweet lad. So forgiving." 

Harper shot Rule a look, drawing a smirk from the man as he raised an eyebrow. "I'm glad you're still chewing or I'd probably be being put in my place right now for that jest, hm?" 

Nodding, Harper swallowed, scowled, then refocused on his breakfast. He wanted to reprimand the man, but honestly, he didn't feel like he should right then. Rule had clearly saved him breakfast and allowed him to sleep in. If he wanted to joke around a bit, he would let the jabs pass. 

"Arthur would be staring at you in shock for not defending yourself. Perhaps you really are a lad and you're just tired of us poking at you." 

Fighting a grin of his own, Harper shrugged his shoulders as he finished off the portion of eggs and turned his attention to the large slab of seared ham. 

"You sure eat a lot for a little lady." Rule continued, likely catching on to Harper's bit of playfulness. 

  Finishing up the pork, Harper finally took in a deep breath and relaxed back into the large stuffed chair. It easily swallowed his thin form, but Rule looked quite at home in his as he leaned on the armrest, smile firmly in place as he waited for a response.