Complete ✪ Finweald Fear

[Crimson Ruby]

Lowering her ears flat against her head, with a brief nod as she now took her mug to give an actual sip of her drink, listening to Erick's words and agreeing when he spoke regarding loss and death. Of course, it was natural, and of course, she would want to protect herself from it, but was it really all that inevitable? A sacrifice wasn't a natural death, at least.

"Yes... I meant more of not letting them sacrifice themselves." She said, nodding at the correction, and Erick followed with an answer that showed that Ruby was far from being the only one. And truly, she expected that.

"I... Know there are times I can't do anything about it. But if I could narrow or even get rid of the situations that would lead someone into having to make such a decision..." She sighed, rubbing her neck before looking up at Erick.

"... The times you wished you could be in control... How were they?" Ruby wondered.

@Erick Styker

 

[Erick Stryker]

He shook his head slowly.

"Never great," he admitted. "I had a friend who drank heavily on the night of Prom, back in high school." He stared at the table for a long moment before he continued. It was something he rarely talked about, and one of the reasons he distanced himself from most of the people he knew in his year. He had very few friends from his school days left, especially after he became closed off and isolated himself.

"Most people continued to encourage him to drink more, or played it off, since it was a huge party. When it came time to leave, I told his date to take his keys and that they should get a rideshare home. She was already drunk enough that she snubbed me, and when I confronted them both, I got shoved out of the way. It was a pretty hard hit for me, because I felt like I didn't do enough."

He didn't have to explain what happened next, but he forced it out anyway. "They got on the road and headed for a hotel on the edge of town. At least, that's what we assume, because they weren't anywhere near home when the police found his truck totaled on the side of the road. They swerved in front of an 18 wheeler. The driver survived, but..."

There was a withdrawn look on his face as the guilt tugged at him. He sighed. "...there was a small reception. No caskets." Erick closed his eyes. "It wasn't my fault," he said, "but that's not how I saw it. So I get it. If I had the power to tell them not to, and for them to listen, they'd be alive right now."

He shrugged.

"Free will's a bitch sometimes."

@Crimson Ruby

 

[Crimson Ruby]

Ruby listened to Erick's story attentively, with his words and its start already having plenty of foreshadowing to know what would happen next.

The results, being spoken out loud, were still enough to make Ruby wince and frown, with her ears flattening against her head while she shook her head. "I... I am sorry to hear that, Erick..." She said, looking at him and slipping a sigh, especially when noticing the look on his face.

"You did what you could, it isn't like we can force people to do as we wish..." She muttered, for a moment noticing that this was what she should be telling herself, and this was what Erick was telling her all this time.

Subconsciously, she was aware, but that didn't make her any less regretful...

Just like Erick, right now.

"... Maybe we should start being a bit more... Forceful? And get people to listen to us or something." Ruby said, partially joking but not quite managing a smile. "I don't know... If free will is that much of a bitch, maybe we should get rid of a portion of it."

@Erick Styker

 

[Erick Stryker]

"They call those tyrants," Erick laughed. "People who assert their will over others and dominate them. Western tradition dictates liberating their heads from their necks." He winked, his somber expression seemingly evaporating back into more lighthearted, joking mannerisms. "When you start taking away people's ability to make their own decisions, they get upset. They get angry. Even if they're not sure what to do, even if they don't have a definite way forward. Even if your way is functionally, and obviously better than whatever is laid out ahead of them. People don't want to be told what to do."

He shrugged helplessly. "I guess a better way to think about it..." He paused, leaning his chin on the open palm of his hand as he watched the woman fail to smile. "...if someone didn't give you the freedom to choose, would you be happy?" he asked. "Regardless of whether or not you got to continue living as a result. Regardless of if you inevitably found happiness later- would you be happy then? Would you be able to live life the way that, in that moment, you had wanted? Or would you be forced to compromise?"

Erick closed his eyes. "...and if you compromised, would you really be happy with what you ultimately got? Or would you just be content? Glad you're not dead, but always wondering what might have been if you'd been able to do it your way?"

This was ultimately the argument he'd had with his father that led to him giving up on the farm. If he'd carried on the family business, his future would have been secure... but would that make him happy?

That was his decision to make.

He wouldn't let anyone take it from him. "It's ultimately selfish," he said at last. "It ignores how everyone else feels, and what they want. It leaves behind bitterness, anger, sadness... but we only get one candle to burn. Sometimes the flame is too hot for everyone else."

He wondered, sometimes. Was it worth bearing the burns? Was it worth the painful memories? His friend Chuck, who died in the accident- would he rather have him back? That night, Chuck was going to be with the woman he'd spent years of his life fawning over for the most memorable time of their life. The woman he'd wanted to one day wed and share a life with. It might have been the night where their firstborn child would have been conceived. They'd taken that chance, ill-advised though it may have been.

Selfishly, they'd made their decision and died. And selfishly, Jimmy wanted them both back. None of them got what they wanted.

Now Jimmy carried their memories, and they rested.

Life wasn't fair.

Isn't fair.

"But you know," he asked, his eyes now sidelong fixed on the woman again with a playful smirk.

"...If free will is that much of a bitch, maybe we should get rid of a portion of it."

"...in some rural parts of the Midwest, that could be considered a proposal," he teased.

@Crimson Ruby

 

[Crimson Ruby]

Ruby instinctively rubbed her neck at the beheading's mention.

At the same time, Erick's words struck a bit too close. The growth of upset and anger, the probability of what other people had planned for her being potentially and 'objectively' better for her... And yet... There she was. Running away from family and friends, going all the way to another country just to follow what she wanted because she didn't want to be told what to do.

Her lips frowned, pausing while glancing away. "No." Ruby's ears lowered. "I would never be happy. Not there." A sigh slipped from her lips.

However, with the drop of another joke, Ruby looked up at Erick and twitched her lips before she laughed lightly. "A proposal is tyranny too?" She leaned against the chair, looking up at the ceiling. "... Back then in my home, it probably would be." Ruby shrugged.

"Here? Hmm... I don't think so." Ruby lowered her eyes again. "But for some I'd say it doesn't even need to go that far to be a tyranny."

@Erick Styker

 

[Erick Stryker]

"Some people are just free spirits," Erick said with a shrug. "Time 'em down any way at all, and they'll never be happy."

He watched her quietly for a moment as he nursed his drink a bit more, still quietly and internally chastising himself for failing to realize that some of his less impressive monologue had made it through into "normal" conversation. It was a little too late to ask her to forget he'd said anything though.

Or was it?

Time to slip that in. Casually. "Sounds like you had it pretty rough," he sympathized. Whereas he'd been given the choice about his future and ultimately walked the path he wanted, the more he heard about Ruby's life, the more he realized that she had to reject certain things and make hard sacrifices to attain the same level of freedom. "The freedom you have now," he asked, tracing the lip of his mug with a finger. "Would you trade it for anything?"

He knew that once someone tasted that forbidden fruit, the desire to go back was almost non-existent. If someone tried to tell him he could have the farm if he just gave up on his dreams, he'd call them a liar. He'd already stopped chasing, and there was no world where his father would just let go of that slight. Actions and reactions. The world worked on the principle of causality.

It was a law that he desperately wished he could undermine at times. To change the past; or to direct the course of history with a careful, guiding hand. The power to dictate the fate of others, and ultimately, of himself. Did that make him a tyrant?

"...so, what's the over-under we'll never mention the sperm cell analogy again?"

Or, not so casually.

@Crimson Ruby

 

[Crimson Ruby]

"I see." Ruby tilted her head. "You sound like quite free-spirited yourself... Considering everything you told me. I wonder if I am the same." Her eyes dropped to her mug. Considering how tied she was to others, rather than doing things carefreely.

"Maybe, because I don't... I don't know anything I would trade for my freedom right now." She admitted, crossing her arms while she pondered if that answered the question she had just done to herself, feeling a contradiction of emotions flowing in her heart and mind.

Before things got too serious in her mind, however, the mention of the sperm cell analogy nearly made Ruby choke, looking at Erick with a reddened face again, with her tails swaying and slapping his leg softly under the table as a retaliation.

"I honestly don't want to be known as someone who has witnessed that," Ruby said, smiling faintly and taking a big chug of her drink, enough to finish it off before gesturing for another mug to the barmaid.

"... What you had in your mind at that time... I can't believe I was looking that bad to a point that became necessary..." She shook her head.

@Erick Styker

 

[Erick Stryker]

He stopped to consider for a moment whether or not her assessment was correct. There were few things he valued as much as his ability to make decisions for himself, but given the opportunity to take a job doing something he loved, he would not hesitate to tie himself to that. Humans were a paradoxical sort.

"Maybe so," he agreed quietly when she said that she wondered whether or not she was the same.

The poor girl nearly choked on her drink when he mentioned his strange speech from earlier, and she slapped his leg under the table. She imbibed a healthy amount of booze before she continued, and he reached up to knead his temples with one hand.

"Honestly, I'm not sure whether you looked bad or I just forgot that was a really strange metaphor to make," he muttered, his voice dropping several levels. "I've heard people give that pep-talk before. The really strange, cringe, Midwestern Lutheran types who get all biblical and holier-than-thou. The booze probably ran away with me."

He found himself on the verge of laughter suddenly. "I can imagine the look on my mom's face if I told her that I gave that speech to a pretty girl."

Erick cleared his throat and took up a falsetto. "Young man, if you're trying to impress a woman, you never lead with that kind of talk. Didn't your father teach you anything about how to treat a lady? I swear, your generation has no sense of decency."

The blue haired youth grimaced.

"Going off my track record here, she isn't exactly wrong."

@Crimson Ruby

 

[Crimson Ruby]

"Maybe it was both." She concluded, taking the new mug and going for another gulp before placing the mug down.

Ruby frowned and shook her head. "No, I... I will take the sperm talk over these pep-talk anytime." Her ears lowered along with her expressions, reminding herself of fairly incovenient individuals that helped her to get tired of a lot of things.

Her tails swayed, with her ears twitching at the unexpected compliment, that warmed her cheeks in a more positive way than the weird speech did.

"Yeah, I am starting to agree with your mom." Ruby said, finishing another mug, probably in a quick rate before gesturing for another, side glancing Erick with slightly blurry eyes before pausing and facing him, allowing her sight to focus better.

"Are you telling me you are trying to impress me?" She asked, tilting her head while licking the ale's foam out of her lips.

@Erick Styker

 

[Erick Stryker]

"Hm? Oh, no, I was just pretending to do that thing moms do when they embarrass you in front of other people," he said, now uncertain if that was a thing moms in general did, or if that was just something his mom did. How unpleasant that realization would be, with all of its glorious implications to unpack.

Time for another ale!

Erick took a sip of his own drink, albeit just slightly more slowly in pace than Ruby. "Yeah," he muttered, "I think I am starting to agree with her, too. Not a hair of class between the lot of us," he said, indicating his entire generation. He placed the mug down in front of him and put a hand over top of it, signifying that he was not going to take another sip for a bit.

If there were a problem with Erick's boundless exuberance and personable nature, it was made much more prominent by the addition of alcohol. He'd already started to say things that were ridiculous. Now it seemed that signals were starting to mix up, and if Ruby's response was any indicator, he needed to lay off of the jokes.

...at least, the rational part of his brain that was still uninhibited was saying something like that.

The not so impressive part that had already succumbed to the sauce was slurring his speech at a crawl, not enough for him to notice, but just enough that anyone listening could hear his carefully masked Midwestern drawl slipping back into his words.

Damn. Had he told her she was cute? He didn't mean to say that out loud. Not while they were drinking. What terrible timing! Oh well.

"This ale likes to sneak up on ya, eh?" he asked suddenly, staring down at his mug.

@Crimson Ruby

 

[Crimson Ruby]

The next mug soon was delivered to the table, and Ruby was quick to pick it up and start working on it. Truly, she was ready to give that barmaid plenty of cardio that night. "I see. My mother wasn't too different." She turned the ale down her throat, pouring it without restraint before letting it go and sighing. "Granted. She wasn't joking or just wanting to make me embarrassed whenever trying to force an engagement on me." Ruby huffed.

"Hey... I am classy. I'm just not in the mood for it." Ruby retorted, taking the mug again and showing how classy she was... By chugging the drink once again.

She pushed the mug on the table, sniffing and twitching her nose. Her face was mostly rosy, and her eyes hardly managed to focus on anything if not the table, Erick, and that wholesome drunk world the two of them created for the heart-to-heart talking.

"Really do..." She frowned, looking at the mug that once again was on the verge of emptiness.

"... But it is fine... I think this thing just makes us more honest... In a very blunt way." She half smiled, letting out a brief chuckle.

@Erick Styker

 

[Erick Stryker]

"Oh, of that I've no doubt," Erick quickly raised his hands in a warding gesture to show he was not making any accusations to the contrary when she mentioned that she was, in fact, classy. Though "not in the mood," she had still given him no cause to believe otherwise. He watched with a lifted eyebrow as she slammed back her drink. Her pace was much, much quicker than his. Was she on a collision course with inebriation?

Eh... not my call to make. She was an adult, he wasn't going to stop her. "More honest?" he repeated, his drawl now apparent with no attempt at hiding it. "I dunno, I wouldn't call it 'honest' so much as I would 'unfiltered' at this point. I'm worried I'll end up saying something more embarrassing, or incredibly damning," he chuckled with a wry grin on his face.

Truthfully? He didn't feel like there was much he shouldn't say. Erick was almost always an open book, and Ruby was his friend. She was in a bad way right now, and if she felt like drinking was what she wanted to do, and there were things that she wanted to tell him behind that wall of booze and bad decisions, then he was going to do his best to hear her out.

Even if he ended up with a hangover.

Wait... did this type of augmented reality even give hangovers?

"Or was there something you felt like being blunt and honest about?" he asked, curiously.

@Crimson Ruby

 

[Crimson Ruby]

"Something embarrassing is fun, you are cute when being embarrassing-" Ruby said, with a devilish chuckle and another attempt of a chug- Though there was little to no content in it, forcing her into an anti-climatic state and waving her hand for another one. "One meow-re!" She ordered, then facing Erick.

"... Incredibly damning, this sounds more interesting though." She muttered, twitching her ears and wiggling her fingers eagerly at the newcoming mug, eyes glaring at it greedily before she pondered about the questions.

"There is so much..." Ruby cleared her throat. "... But I guess... It is more to myself than to others." She scowled a bit, shaking her head before going for another sip.

"... I think I need to... be more honest with myself... So I can be honest with others, yes. Because I need to settle a lot of things..." Ruby sighed, resting her chin on the table and looking at Erick.

"And... And I need to grow stronger. Yes. Stronger in a lot of ways... So a lot of level grinding, I guess-" She giggled followed by a hiccup.

@Erick Styker

 

[Erick Stryker]

"Cute, huh?" he teased, "you like it when I embarrass you? You sure you're not the masochist?"

He threw a wink her way and collected another drink from the barmaid, who only shook her head when she happened to overhear the comment he'd made. Erick paid her no mind, offering no more than a gracious nod in her direction before taking a sip and turning his full attention back toward Ruby.

When she mentioned that she was interested in what he might say, he smirked. "I wouldn't worry," he assured her. "It's not like I have Astorean state secrets. Nothing I say could potentially hurt anyone."

Anyone other than himself, at least.

The mood shifted when she began to look inward, toward herself. There were many things she was holding on to, by her own admission. He had no knowledge of her outside what she had presented freely and openly, so he didn't know where to begin asking questions. Instead, he rested his chin on both hands and watched, listened.

There was a slight frown when the tone shifted from introspective to joking again, but he should have suspected as much. "As anticlimactic as that was, it's not wrong," he mused. "We all need to keep getting stronger. Level grinding's never a bad plan."

He closed his eyes and rested in that same position quietly for a few moments.

"You're not the type who likes to let your guard down either, are you?" he asked. "Once bitten, twice shy? Trust issues?" he inquired. "Not to be rude or pry, of course. You can tell me to back off."

@Crimson Ruby

 

[Crimson Ruby]

Ruby swayed her tails, tilting her head slightly as she smirked. "Depends on who is doing it." She winked back, with warm cheeks that no longer could be discerned from the drunkness or from embarrassment. Her eyes shifted to the barmaid, huffing a chuckle when she shook her head.

"Aw, that's bad. Here I was thinking I would get my hands on valuable information." She laughed quietly, muffling it with another tackle on her drink.

The drinking didn't last long, with his question making her pause.

"Yeah-" She twitched her nose.

"I mean. I've lowered my guard plenty of times. Didn't I do a bit ago?" Ruby said, frowning slightly when realizing it herself as she spoke. "But all of it is kinda hard. Even if I like you." She said, looking at Erick.

"Opening up to my family went wrong all the time. Opening up to a lot of... Offline friends went wrong sometimes." She admitted, swaying her tail.

"I thought online could've been worse. People can get quite merciless in here." Ruby said, knowing he wasn't like this, but still...

She finished her drink once again, feeling a strange, metaphorical weight getting her to lean on the table.

"Sorry."

@Erick Styker

 

[Erick Stryker]

"I'm a steel trap." Erick made a motion feigning zipping up his lips and tossing away a key. "Won't get a thing out of me until you melt the doors. I hear jet fuel melts steel beams though, maybe that'll work." He peered into the drink and realized that ale seemed to be working just as well, if not better than the aforementioned method.

"Mmm." the youth swirled his drink around in the mug and stared at it as it sloshed to and fro. "You did," he agreed. "And I'm not saying I don't appreciate your trust in that way. What I'm saying is, there was a point where you pulled back, and I noticed it."

He glanced up with a sad smile for a moment. "But only because I knew what I was looking for, because I do it too," he added, by way of consolation. The words "I like you" almost seemed to fly over his head, or at least, it might have seemed that way to Ruby. If she was looking for a sudden and flustered reaction, she wouldn't find one.

He wasn't ignoring it, but if he acknowledged it, he might miss the chance to give her a real response to her thoughts. So as he continued to listen, he decided to give her the most honest thoughts he could on the matter at hand. "Family does have a way of putting the worst on their own," he spoke in a softer voice now. "They always have the best intentions, they say, but the way they drop things on you... it can be pretty hurtful."

He reflected on his time in high school, and at times, the other kids could be pretty brutal there, too.

More so, even, than strict parents. Bullying was a very real thing. He glanced sidelong at her now, wondering if she had been having problems with anyone like that in this world. Her words implied it might be the case- but she'd tell him... wouldn't she?

"No need to apologize," he said reassuringly. "I just wanted to see how heavy your thoughts were, and if you were trying to hold them back for my sake. If you just don't want to talk about it, I won't push you to. We can just enjoy our drinks and have a relaxing evening, if you'd prefer."

Even if she likes me, huh?

Okay, so he couldn't hold back the blush for that long. He tried though!

@Crimson Ruby

 

[Crimson Ruby]

"Steel trap? Yeah." Ruby squinted for a moment, tilting her head and ending up resting it on her arms. "But I wouldn't want to force anything out anyway. You need to tell me when you want to." If he wants to. Regardless, Ruby had no interest in trying to seek any secret from anyone, as much as her curiosity was as big as the one from the creature her beastfolk traits vaguely mimicked.

Her ears then twitched at his affirmations and were her in her normal state, she would've remained quiet. But alcohol didn't make her only become more open- "Pulled back? If you know that, when and how?" She asked lifting her face, a bit defiant, tilting her head and side-glancing at Erick, something that quietened when he mentioned he did it as well.

Leaning away, she tried to drink as both impulse and disguise, meeting an empty mug once again before calling for another. Really, she was missing the count of how many she had gone through.

"Hurtful is an understatement." She bit her inner cheek. "They are the ones you should expect the most support from." Ruby shrugged, giving a brief nod as thanks for the next mug, holding it and glancing at it for a moment, finally halting her fast-drinking pace for a moment.

"I think I can enjoy the drinks, but a relaxing evening won't be coming anytime soon, maybe..."

@Erick Styker

 

[Erick Stryker]

"I appreciate that," he said honestly. "I don't think friendship- or any kind of healthy relationship, for that matter, should be any other way."

When she recoiled a bit (less obviously, but still) at his words, he reached for his drink and took another sip. Her defensiveness was more than enough affirmation that he hadn't missed the mark, but then, he had only picked up on something subtle. From the beginning of the conversation, she was more than willing to speak on the situation at hand: her depression and the feelings of inadequacy surrounding the events in Isulus. As they continued to drink, she opened up a bit more about her family, and the less than stellar life she'd lived in China, under oppressive parents who didn't want to let her live her life the way she wanted.

She quickly navigated away from that when it started to bring down the mood. At least, the mood as she read it between them. He'd noticed. He noticed because it was the same thing he did when people started to drag the conversation down back home, when he was younger. It was a buoy in the sea of youth, a tactic used by social butterflies to perpetuate the fraudulent, albeit cheerful and alluring aura of adolescence. Rather than face their demons, they romanticized them, pushed them away, and lived turning a blind eye.

It was what ultimately led to problems in adulthood. Rather than spending their formative years learning to cope in a healthy way, they chose to backload those problems and leave them for their adult selves to slog through. He knew that better than anyone, because that was who he was.

The Him who he desperately wanted to leave behind.

"It wasn't anything specific," he told her honestly. "Not like you withheld anything or lied or tried to evade something I'd said. Rather, I meant that it felt like you completely withdrew. It felt like you reverted to self-depreciation. Like you unconsciously stopped and started to process things in the negative again."

He could agree with her about parents, though. Family at large, even. They should have been there for her and allowed her to grow, like gardeners cultivating something beautiful because honestly, that was what parenting was supposed to be.

"I think I can enjoy the drinks, but a relaxing evening won't be coming anytime soon, maybe..."

"I dunno," he said, kicking back in his seat and closing his eyes as he sipped more at his drink and let his shoulders sag. "I personally believe that relaxation is something you make happen, since it doesn't come all on its own. You push everything to the side, and you take a self-care day."

He opened one eye and glanced toward her.

"Ever heard of doing that?"

@Crimson Ruby

 

[Crimson Ruby]

Ruby rose her mug. "For healthy relationships." She toasted, albeit only took a small sip of her drink, sealing the fact she was actually slowing down... Though perhaps it was way too late to step on the brake.

The answer that she didn't really expect to come then reached her ears, and her lips pursed as she leaned away and pondered about it. "... Maybe I do have a very bad habit then." Ruby slipped a sigh, rubbing her neck and sniffing before glancing at her mug, taking a brief sip of it, and listening to Erick's words once again.

"Self-care day? I don't think I've ever had that." Ruby muttered, trying to remember the last time she actually decided to say 'screw this' to everything...

... And failing to remember when it was the last time.

"To think that even relaxing would be a hard task." She chuckled, shrugging slightly and looking away.

@Erick Styker

 

[Erick Stryker]

"Amen to that," he lifted his mug slightly, sipped at it, then replaced it on the table.

He listened to the way she admitted that, perhaps, she might have a bad habit and smiled to himself. It was more than nothing, even if it was half-hearted acceptance. Perhaps in time she would face it- but tonight wasn't the night for that. "Everyone's got something," he shrugged.

And then, she said that she didn't recall ever taking time to care for herself. He stopped and glanced at her, brow furrowed as he considered the implications. He imagined the levels of anxiety that came with holding everything in and never taking even a day to let the tension out. He recalled how that had treated him in the past, and he watched her now through an entirely new lens. With his fingers steepled, he rested his elbows on the table and looked at her directly.

"Ma'am," he said evenly.

To think that even relaxing would be a hard task.

"Ma'am," he repeated, his voice much more serious than usual now as she looked away. He wanted to command her attention here, to be sure that she was listening. "I don't know who told you it would all be fine," he said, "or that your problems were best kept to yourself, but they lied to you. It's okay to not be okay. It's okay to cry."

His voice was considerate levels of controlled, just enough that someone would have to be actively listening to hear. He was careful not to be overly loud, or to sound angry. "It's okay to need time for yourself. And it's okay to take that time. You can't look for an escape, because your problems follow you wherever you go."

Erick placed his hand on hers again, this time squeezing a bit more firmly, yet still managing some degree of gentility. "Take that time to yourself to release the stress, to clear your head, and to come back at your problems with focus. If you need help figuring it out, or just someone who can be there while you do figure it out, you can call on me."

@Crimson Ruby