And be one traveler, long I stood

[Deleted]

Oriel waited for the offended yelling to ensue. After all, a normal woman who was groped by a seventeen year old boy like him after he’d just thrown a hissy fit would likely think that it was a ruse the whole time, a distraction just so he could get into her pants. Oriel wouldn’t be lying if he said that he’d used his outbursts in the past as a means of sneaking into a woman’s bed. Whether sex followed was beside the point(sometimes it didn’t!) the point was that he got something from it that he didn’t get all that often from anybody, especially not from the people who were supposed to give it to him. Just take it from wherever he can get it, right?

Oriel hid a small smile as his head was tucked down while Percie removed his hand from her pretty little rump. He blinked up at her, his eyes stinging with the movement. “Yeah,” he lied.

I’m sorry. I shouldn’t’ve done that. You okay? I thought I hurt you… He wanted to say these things, but….it just seemed wrong for him to do so. It wouldn’t be taken seriously, anyway. You weren’t allowed to fuck up and lose it that bad and then expect it to be brushed away with a few concerned words and apologies. Things didn’t work that way. People didn’t work that way. This would just be another reason for an adult to think he was no good and hopeless. Something else for them to hold over him and begrudge him with.

Still, he huffed out a halfhearted laugh at how she feigned on dismissing his actions. This woman wasn’t going to let him forget this. “He’ll be fine,” Oriel rasped out, clearing his throat before continuing. “He knows I don’t love him for his fat ass, or rather lack of.” Oriel shifted and turned his face down to bury it in her lap.

[Percie Hobbes]

Percie hummed out a laugh and leaned back on one hand as the other began to pet through Oriel's hair again. The tension in the room slowly dissipated as only the quiet hum of her computer, the fan and the air conditioner echoed in the quiet room. There should have been the ticking of a clock but that had been broken almost immediately when Oriel had started throwing things. She'd have to buy a new one later, the white noise was missing something. After several minutes had passed with Percie alternately petting Oriel and rubbing his back she attempted to try and get him to open up a little.

"So kiddo, what's going through this head of yours?" She pondered gently, fingers drifting through his hair, massaging in certain places. "If you don't want to talk about it it's okay, we can just sit here awhile longer," she allowed, her fingers never leaving his hair as she leaned forward and her newly available hand rested on the floor at her side.

[Deleted]

Oriel closed his eyes as she started tracing her fingers in his hair. He didn’t know why, but having his head rubbed and scratched was always very calming for him. Soothing. It was one of his few physical weaknesses. If Phoenix, the scrawny little thing, ever wanted to subdue his muscle-bound boyfriend, then all he had to do was scratch the top of his head, and Oriel would be out like a light. And Phoenix knew this too. But Oriel couldn’t let anyone else know that, right? He should probably stop her.

Just a few more minutes.

He blinked his eyes open slightly when she spoke again. At first, he didn’t say anything. He didn’t want to trust her with his secrets. But at the same time, he wanted to trust someone. If he told Percie, then there was the risk that he’d just be troubling her needlessly with his insignificant problems. Like he did everyone else.

Oriel must’ve breathed in and breathed out a total of ten times each before he finally opened his mouth to say something. “….I ain’t worthless,” he stared, with a tension in his voice. Oriel cleared his throat again, but it did little to relieve the burn that came as he spoke. “…just ‘cause I ain’t got a mom, or a pop, or nobody else don’t mean I’m only good for the streets. Just ‘cause I can’t read easy, don’t mean I’m stupid. And just ‘cause I’m a fucking fuck-up, don’t mean I ain’t trying….” Oriel was breathing hard through his words, every other one coming out shuddered and pitched like a child’s sob. He buried his head again and tried to concentrate on her head scritches again to calm himself down.

[Percie Hobbes]

Percie was surprised that Oriel actually answered and her heart broke a little at his words. Perhaps it was worse than she thought, everything going on through this young man's head. "Oh sweetie," she sighed as kindly as she could, bending over the body still strewn across the floor, head in her lap. One hand still stroked his hair as she curled the other over Oriel's back. "I'm sorry that people think that about you and I'm sorry I can't change that, but mostly I'm sorry that you think that I think that way about you," she murmured. "I was angry and I said some things I shouldn't have, so what else were you supposed to think?" she sighed.

"But Oriel you are better than this, you are not a "fuck-up", not at all," she told him emphatically. "And I am so, so sorry that I made you feel that way," she sighed as she gave him the closest thing to a hug that she could manage. Percie didn't have a problem apologizing for this, as far as she could tell, offering him the money to talk to him had been what had started this in the first place. She still stood by her earlier opinion that Oriel hadn't exactly given her anything else to go off of but was now beginning to realize that she had unintentionally fed into whatever problems Oriel had experienced in his short life. She kept petting him even when she pulled away from the hug and didn't press him for any further comment.

[Deleted]

Oriel felt that seed of anxiety that always existed in the pit of his stomach start to grow again as he spoke. There was so much emotion behind those word, despite how short they seemed. He could have gone on, and on, about how the world jilted him on so many things. He could have told stories, explained specifics, because they always wanted specifics. If they didn’t get specifics then thing may as well have not have happened. He may as well have been lying. And besides, how credible was the word of a boy who couldn’t keep his temper in check? Because he went off on fits of rage more times than he could count, for as long as he could remember, the things he got upset over were just the yowls of an immature child. Dismissible. Not worth listening to. Because kids didn’t know what they were talking about, they were just kids.

He tensed up again, feeling the anger start to swell again as the woman rattled off her apologies. Apologies for things she had no business apologizing for. Trying to reassure him even though she still knew nothing about him or the things he’d done. “‘c-course I am….’cause….t-this kind of shit…k-keeps happening.” Which pretty much meant that any progress he made was erased in the span of a few minutes. “…an’ I can’t stop it…”

Oriel swallowed, considering whether or not to go on. How much should he trust this woman with? “T-that’s why…” he started again, his words wanting to catch in his throat. “That’s why…my mom didn’t want me…an’ why…they took my sister from me…an’…” Oriel didn’t continue. He couldn’t.

[Percie Hobbes]

Percie's heart broke a little as Oriel slipped back into a self-depreciative state. She didn't know what to say anymore to make him feel better about himself. If he felt that was the reason his mother left him then he'd must have been thinking it for a while. No words from her (an almost total stranger) were going to change his mind. But it wasn't in her nature to give up. So they sat there for a little longer, Percie's fingers refusing to leave Oriel's hair as she pet and separated the strands.

"Those people are wrong sweetie. You shouldn’t let their opinions dictate how you perceive yourself,” she informed him. “People are going to form opinions of you no matter what, so as long as you know you’re a good person inside their opinions don’t matter and they shouldn’t impact how you perceive yourself at all. All these people you know right now? Other than the few really good ones, you’re probably never going to speak to them again so what they think doesn’t matter.”

She heard an almost immediate wordless protest and kept going. “Nah I mean it! Everyone says that you need to do all these things in high school, have all these experiences, meet all these people. Screw it. If it’s not for you, it’s not for you. Some people do better in a large group of friends and some people do worse. Some people who’d be perfectly fine off on their own with one or two close friends suddenly become underage drug users because they’re pressured by society to ‘fit in’ and ‘be cool’. The truth is, we as a people don’t guide our youth in the right direction. You know the day I manifested, it’s a funny story,” she smoothed some hair away from Oriel’s ear so he could hear her better.

“I was twelve. My brother was already going to Hammel and anyway the principal’s daughter, “Maribelle” was my classmate. I saw her stealing someone’s lunch. She was really spoiled too so I didn’t really like her and I TOLD HER that I saw what she did. Then she lied about it and I got SO angry that I looked her right in the eyes and I saw it. I saw her taking the lunch again right there in my mind. So we really started fighting about it, like throwing punches and stuff. I was always getting into trouble at school, getting into fights, saying things I shouldn’t, I threw a baseball once and shattered a window…and that was just in elementary school. Anyway…so I when the teacher finally separated us and I told her why I had just given “Maribelle” a black eye and bloody nose, she lied to the teacher! So THEN we had to go see her father the principal. WHO by the way should have been objective enough to listen to both sides of the story but nooooo.” Percie took a breath and exhaled sharply though her nose in a snort.

“Her father naturally believes her and calls my mother to tell her that I’m suspended for fighting and lying and that maybe my parents should ”do something about that.” He said I was a troublemaker and that I’d never amount to anything decent. But he was wrong; ironically, his inability to uphold justice is what inspired me to be a police officer and later a detective. I am not going to lie that on the day I graduated from the police academy I might have gone to the school in my shiny new uniform and thanked him for his help all those years ago. The shade of purple he turned was amazing,” she sighed.

[Deleted]

This was dumb. This was stupid. Oriel was just being a big fucking baby and he knew it. And no matter what she said, Oriel was probably just bugging the hell out of Percie. Just being an big, fat inconvenience to her, especially after he trashed her office. Now she had a trashed office and an overgrown baby burying his face in her lap. It’d be best if he just…left. Went away where he didn’t have to bother anyone anymore.

But he couldn’t will himself to move. And he just continued to cling to her lap, keeping his eyes closed and letting her run her fingers through his hair.

He kept his eyes shut as she began to speak. Were it possible, Oriel would roll his eyes straight into the back of his skull, her words were so damn cheesy. Like she was reciting it from a self-help book. He vocalized his scorn with a scoff.

Which only led into a long….long…wordy story. Fuck, this story was long. But….it was stupid…all it did was prove to him that people were stupid. People were sick. People were shit. And this world was shit. “I hate that…” he grumbled. “Why the fuck’s that always happen, anyway? Like…the more money you got, the better dressed you are, the better grades n parents you got, the more trustworthy people seem t’think you are. Like it’s impossible for the fucking Miss Preppy Cheerleading slut to lie through her pretty, pearly teeth.” Nope, that role was left to the degenerates. The people from poor households, who didn’t look the part. Because if you have piercings, you were a slob. If you got bad grades, you were a liar. If you didn’t have fancy clothes, you were a thief. And if you had tats, then of course you were gonna murder someone.

It was all shit. “Fucking bullshit.”

[Percie Hobbes]

"You're preaching to the choir kid. Do you know how many rich assholes I had to argue with when I was a cop and again when I was detective? Too many, not including the number of "loiterer's" I ended up taking to shelters? I tried not to arrest them when possible and you wouldn't believe how pissed some people got about that," she heaved a sigh, leaning back on one hand again as the other moved away from Oriel's hair to rub at his back a little. Her leg was falling asleep but she didn't want Oriel to move before he was ready to, and it really wasn't so bad sitting here doing this, it felt nice.

"But," she continued quietly, "despite all of that, I got up every morning and put on my uniform and I did my job to the best of my ability. I upheld the law and I did what was right. I fought with supervisors and sergeants; I harassed the DA for warrants and took immense pleasure in shoving people into my squad car in handcuffs, especially those rich jackasses that thought they were above the law. The point in this Oriel is that nine times out of ten the world is going to be against you and that ten out of those ten times you need to get up and do your thing anyway.”

[Deleted]

Oriel snorted as she continued her “story”. Not so much of a story, but a point of view. One which he’d never bothered to hear before. “I knew you were a fucking cop…” he muttered with the tiniest of smiles. Part of what Percie said was what he’d expect from a cop: that they enjoyed taking people in who had ‘broken the law’. Oriel already knew that. He could see it by the look on their face when they shoved someone into the car. So he’d gotten the impression that cops just enjoyed imposing their ideas of right and wrong on the general public. Or rather, the lowlifes of the city.

Oriel was certain that that’s how they categorized him as well. He was just this punk kid who liked to cause trouble, run around with hoodlums, stick his nose in places where it don’t belong, and swipe a thing or two from the local market. They’d pick him up, take him back to whichever foster home he was at, then do it all over again. Oriel was convinced that Percie would have done the exact same thing they did. “It’s what I try ’n do…” he admitted, shifting so that he was sitting up. His cheeks were still damp. “Just hard when everything out there roadblocks you from going anywhere…” And by everything, he meant people, the universe, even his own issues were holding him back. And he didn’t know how to get around it all. Slowly, a little bit at a time, but when looking at that massive wall, it was far too easy to get discouraged, especially when one of those things knocks you right off, forcing you to start all over again.

Oriel sniffed up his running nose, and wiped his eyes with the back of his hands. That stupid cat came bumbling over like a bouncing ball of lard and started nosing Oriel’s free hand. Stupid cat….Oriel gave it a few head scritches.

[Percie Hobbes]

"Ah well, you'll get there eventually," she murmured with a soft smile as she watched him pet her cat. She was interrupted from saying something else when her stomach growled loudly, right into Oriel's ear. "Hm, I appear to be hungry. Would you like to eat with me?" she asked curiously. She didn't really want to let the boy out of her sight at the moment. She knew that if he wanted to leave she'd have to let him and at this point it would be good for him to go back to Phen. The comfort the other boy could give him would be far better than what she could offer him. "I can't cook though so I'll have to order something in. Do you like pizza?" she asked as she watched Watson rub against Oriel a few more times before wandering off. She nudged Oriel's shoulder to make him sit up and then got to her feet, holding her hand out to him to offer him help up himself.

"Let's go upstairs, it's way more comfortable and the take out menu is there," she added brightly.

[Deleted]

Eventually…..eventually seemed like some far-off fantasy, like a goddamn fucking unicorn. When it’ll happen, no one could tell, least of all the one who wanted, needed it most. Oriel gave the cat a full-bodied pet.

The moment was ruined by the sound of…. Oriel snickered. “You got a fucking dump truck rolling around in there?” He rolled onto his back, lounging now against the woman’s lap with a stupid boyish smile and the leftovers of tears in the corners of his eyes. Yeah, he was feeling better. Mostly. He was surprised at the offer to join her for food, though. “You sure?” he asked suspiciously. “I can eat pretty much anytime, anywhere.” He had a stomach, he did. Pizza? Pizza sounded good. Oriel nodded.

Oriel rolled over again, off her lap and on to his front where he pushed himself up. By himself. “I got it,” he said to her offered hand. “Upstairs, huh? You sure you ain’t just trying to lead a handsome, irresistible underage kid like me to his doom?” Oriel cackled. It crossed his mind that he should probably call Phoenix to let him know where he was…probably not what happened. Phoenix didn’t need to know about that. But…the Asian boy wasn’t going to be able to have Oriel around to escort him home…and that worried Oriel. “I need to tell Phoenix where I am,” he said glumly as he followed her to the upstairs. “He’s probably worried…and scared and cold and lonely and might not know the way home...”

[Percie Hobbes]

"Yes a dump truck called my stomach," she informed him as she withdrew her hand and turned to lead the way through the door in her office, across the small entrance and back out again into the back of the house where a small kitchenette and storage area awaited them. There was a small bathroom and another closed door under the stairs that she pointed out. "That's a dark room. If you ever have film you want me to develop I can do that. It's something of a hobby," she explained. Watson came in on their heels from the other room and shot past them up the stairs.

She lead the way up the stairs into an open space that contained a living room with an impressively sized TV with a couch and an arm chair arranged around it. A small dining table with a few chairs sat outside a galley kitchen that would have been spotless had there not been two weeks’ worth of dishes in the sink and an unhealthy layer of dust on most surfaces. "Go ahead and call your boyfriend, I'll order pizza," Percie told him as she took one of the menus and her landline phone over to where pantry was to order and give the younger boy some privacy. She had chosen not to address the raunchy suggestions because it was an indicator that Oriel was more or less returning to normal. She’d much rather swat a hand away from her ass than a vase away from her head.

[Deleted]

Oriel’s eyes explored the house as they walked through it…the parts that Oriel hadn’t thrown a tantrum in and left it looking like a goddamn hurricane hit it. Hurricane Oriel. That had a nice ring to it. “A dark room…For “film”…suuuuure,” he drawled out, as if to suggest it was ‘dark’ for another reason entirely.

The place was nicer than he thought it’d be, however. Then again, Oriel didn’t know what a cop’s house was supposed to look like. The only place he’d gotten a glimpse of last time was of the couch and coffee table, and then the rear end of Phoenix’s supposed ‘dad’ as the two boys fled the scene. The memory made him smile. “Alright,” he said, nodding. What was he going to tell Phoenix? Oh, well. He’d come up with something. Oriel took the next few minutes to ring the pixie. His heart seemed to lighten in his chest upon hearing the older boy’s soft voice. Oriel reassured him that he was okay and he should just go back to the school. Oriel would be along eventually. He didn’t want Phoenix to come over to Percie’s and start asking questions about the state of the woman’s office.

Oriel returned to the kitchen when he finished and leaned against the counter. He brushed a finger against the dusty surface. “Hmph…bet there’s enough dust in here to make a sandbox,” he muttered with a smirk. Wasn’t she supposed to be an adult? Didn’t adults clean? The filth of it all was starting to tickle within Oriel the urge to power clean it.

[Percie Hobbes]

Percie finished ordering and pressed the disconnect button on her phone. She looked at Oriel's face as he considered the state of her apartment. "Yeah probably," she agreed readily as she walked past him to hang the phone up and put the menu back onto the fridge. "Are you thirsty? I ordered drinks with the pizza but I've got some stuff..." she opened and peered in. A large pack of beer and several wine bottles were in the fridge along with some moldy bread and a jar of what appeared to be marmalade. Frowning she shut the door. "Never mind, you're a kid, kids need to drink water." she said as she opened the cupboard and saw she had no clean cups. She looked over Oriel's shoulder and glared death at the amount of cups stacked into the sink.

“I think I have some coffee mugs around here,” she said instead, turning to open another cupboard.

[Deleted]

Drinks? Yeah, now that he thought of it, Oriel’s throat was pretty parched….from that stupid tantrum that he wished he could erase from his memory. “Yeah, sure…” Oriel trailed off as he peered over Percie’s shoulder into the fridge. “……..you growing a bio-weapon in there or something?” Oriel shook his head. “It’s fine, I don’t drink anyway. Actually, don’t like soda much neither, so water’s perfect.” Water, juice, milk, and gatorade were the only things Oriel drank regularly. Coffee sometimes, and maaaybe tea. Oriel didn’t think she had any of those things.

He watched as she wandered about the kitchen looking for cups…and failing…watching her was really starting to irk him. Actually, no, it did irk him and something in him just snapped. “What? You can’t spend two fucking minutes cleaning a couple of glasses?” Oriel rolled his eyes. “Know what? Just go fucking sit over there like a good little girl and leave this to me, got it?” Oriel waved his hands, shooing her away from the galley.

“The fuck you keep your soap n’ shit?” Oriel asked, kneeling to the cupboard below the sink.