Ringa Linga Ring (Rue)

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Oriel was feeling....like a man dancing on the clouds of heaven. Or something like that. Anyway, enough with the metaphors, the point was that Oriel was feeling good and happy and like he had the right to brag about his happiness to any-fucking-one he wanted!

And there was one person in particular he really wanted to "brag" his newfound happiness to.

Oriel had been doing a bit of avoiding recently, particularly of this guy, especially ever since he found out just who that cotton-ball head was to his beloved pixie winged fiancee. And not just brag, but cleanly rub it in his face. For the guy who broke Phoenix's heart and left him the complete mess he was that turned him back to his drug addiction...hell, Oriel was letting that guy off easy. He was lucky Oriel liked him, otherwise....otherwise, Oriel wouldn't even be making this confrontation, because he would have no guarantee that he wouldn't kill the fucking yigger.

It was before club practice. No doubt the squint was helping out the drama teacher again. At least, Oriel hoped he'd find him there. Oriel hadn't been showing up to club recently. What was the point? He wasn't allowed to perform in anything anyway. Stupid restrictions. But Oriel wanted to find this guy, hence why he was roaming towards the building today. He entered through the doors and 'lo and behold, there he was, right where Oriel expected to find him.

Oriel smirked. "Hey, Rue-Paul," he called to the man, twitching his finger towards himself in a "come here" motion. "Need to talk to you. Got a minute?" Oriel was already cackling inside.

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Rue was getting into the swing of things, now that he'd been volunteering at Hammel for a few months now. Sure, there were still trouble kids, and a few of them didn't really respect the older guy like he hoped, but Rue didn't push it too much. They were teens, after all, raging with hormones and a rainbow (literally, for him) of emotions - what could one expect?

He enjoyed it, though. The drama club, at least, was something that students did for fun, and most of the time they were nice and happy and energetic. There were always one or two that didn't fit, of course (namely one in particular, who he hadn't actually seen recently), but it was great for the most part.

Rue still didn't realize his past lover still went to Hammel. He didn't go many places other than the auditorium very often, and no one had reason to think he had any connection to the pixie. Therefore, he was completely oblivious when the student he hadn't seen in a while and was a bit worried about suddenly appeared before practice and motioned at him.

"Oriel," he greeted, his voice colored with his surprise. He resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the nickname. "It's been a while. Good to see you." He stood up from where he was sitting in one of the back chairs, rubbing the back of his neck with a curious tilt of his head. "Yeah, I have a few minutes before I need to be available for anything. What can I help you with?" Rue walked forward to stand before the younger boy, slightly amused (and a tad annoyed) that the kid was a little taller than him. The lion stalked around his legs, but, Rue noticed with a curious jolt, was a much different color than the last time he'd seen it - there was still a good portion of red there, but among it was a smattering of orange and, most curious of all, a large cloud of pink. ".... Something tells me something good happened," Rue guessed, looking back up at the boy's eyes with an oblivious smile.

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”Good to see you”

Good to see you? “Well, yes, good to see you too, now that I think of it.” Kinda. If only for the bomb he was about to drop on him. Oriel gave the man a theatrical-ish bow of greeting.

Oriel sneered. This little…goody-goody…fucker. The way he was so polite all the time made Oriel believe that he was just a big fat fake. There’s no way someone was that reasonable. And if they were, they were just a bunch of self-fooling posers. That’s what this guy was, a poser. Otherwise, he would’ve at least tried to make sure Phoenix was alright after he ditched him.

Thinking about that was swelling his anger….urge to kill rising….breath in…breath out…do not kill Rue, he told himself.

Instead he beamed a smile at the shorter(ha ha!) man when he brought up the “something good” that had no doubt happened. A person didn’t even need a fucking aura reading/empathy power to see that. “Yes, you are. Abso-lutely right about that, my good plati-nerd.” Funny how he became more insulting when he was in a good mood. “And! Dare I say, I must say…it was all thanks. To. You.” In far more ways than what he was going to reveal to this guy…at least, not just yet.

Yes, Oriel was being a dick. But to him, this guy deserved it.

“After all, if you hadn’t encouraged me to go and get out there…I might never’ve considered making this move.” Oriel bowed his head. “So yes. Thank you.” Oriel pulled out his phone and started flipping through the pictures with a giddy, bratty grin. Boy was he in for a surprise! Oriel sniggered.

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Okay, something was definitely up. Rue wasn't the fastest-thinking of people, but he was very observant, and it was obvious by the change in Oriel's behavior that something big had happened. And positive, which Rue thought was a good thing. He chuckled at the younger boy's little bow. "No need to be formal..." he muttered, amused.

Contrary to what Oriel thought, what he saw was the real Rue. Quiet, soft-spoken, painfully patient. He hadn't always been this way - he'd been much harsher when he was younger, actually - and it took a good deal of effort to keep himself in his calm mindset, but he had it pretty well-managed.

What was coming, what Rue didn't know about, was going to knock that center of balance very off-kilter.

His smile turned even more bewildered as Oriel responded to his question. "Well... I'm glad to hear that," Rue said, raising an eyebrow. He gave the younger boy a moment of a stern look at the new nickname, slightly irked, but not enough to say anything. If Oriel kept it up, he might. "Thanks to me?" he asked with bewilderment. "How is it my doing?" Rue didn't have a clue what the student was talking about. He supposed he'd encouraged the kid to try some things, but... Was that really worth thanking?

Making a move... Alright, so it did have something to do with his encouragement. That was good to hear! "It wasn't me that had the guts to go out and do... Whatever you did," Rue retorted with a smile. "That was all you." He just gave the guy a little push was all. The older man was still painfully oblivious to what was coming, but he did look curiously at Oriel's phone as he brought it out and started fiddling with it. "So... Are you going to tell me what you did, or do I have to wait for picture proof?" he asked, small smile still in place. "I do have a lesson to help lead in a couple minutes."

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Yup, keep the praise coming. It was all him, wasn’t it?? Despite feeling like this guy was full of shit, Oriel liked hearing the kind words of support that Rue seemed to give so easily. It really made him wonder how genuine it was.

Still didn’t excuse the fact that he was a douche for ditching Phoenix.

“Picture proof,” he said shortly, still poking at his phone. Shit, he had a lot of pictures! And many of them not appropriate for explicit descriptions. But finally, Oriel reached the photo he was searching for and held it out for Rue to see, sliding casually up next to his white-haired buddy. “Check it out,” he said.

The photo was of Phoenix’s left hand, with the ring set right there upon his ring finger. “Beautiful, ain’t it?” he said with pride. Oriel gave Rue a moment for that to sink in before switching to the next photo. “Here’s another angle.” The second one was a deliberate smack in the face to the older man. It was one where his lover’s hand was held up in front of him, and Phoenix’s happy face, dripping with tears of happiness, could clearly be seen behind it.

Oriel gave Rue another moment, to let that sink in.

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Picture proof. Okay. Whatever this was, Rue assumed it would be something he would be proud of the kid for. Maybe… Winning some sort of award for his volunteer work? Or… Getting a job, and this was a picture of him in his work uniform? Rue really had no idea. When Oriel finally found what he was looking for and slid next to the older man, he eagerly looked at it, not expecting what he saw.

A… Ring? “Oriel….” Rue said slowly, trying to understand what this meant. “Is that…. An engagement ring?” Well… That would explain the pink in his aura, certainly. Rue barely had time to process this before he was hit with the next image, and that was the one that really hit him hard. Phoenix was always somewhere lingering in the back of his thoughts. Not always enough for Rue to realize it, but there all the same. So when the image of his past lover came up, the older man’s eyes widened, and he let out an involuntary gasp, taking a step back and nearly dropping the phone in the process. But… he couldn’t drop it. He couldn’t drop him. Not again.

“Y-you…” Rue took in a shaky breath, eyes never moving from the picture. “You… Know… Phennie?” Not just knew, but…. Was in a relationship with him? No… Was… Was getting married to him? How was the aura reader supposed to react to this!? If Oriel could see the bear that was Rue’s aura, he’d see the usual green had been splattered with a rainbow of other emotions and were swirling around tumultuously. “… I’m assuming….. He’s told you…. About me,” he finally added breathlessly. Oh, he could only imagine the things the poor pixie had said…. “How… Long have you known?”

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“Mmmhmm,” Oriel hummed, his eyes scrutinizing Rue’s reaction to the image. He was waiting for the big one, though. The one that showed the deliberate slight against the white-haired man. The man who abandoned Phoenix and left him in the sorry state that Oriel’d found him in. Was Oriel bitter? Yes. And malicious. This wasn’t Oriel’s normal game. Why would it be? He’d already won! He wanted Rue to know that, and to know exactly what he’d given up, and what he could never have.

The look on his face, the step he took back, was all that Oriel needed to see to know that he’d gotten the message across.

Oriel, however, was no longer cackling with glee and instead wore a flat expression on his face as Rue stuttered out his words. “…..only ‘bout a month,” he admitted, holding his hand out to take the phone back. “Should’ve known sooner, honestly. Phoenix’s got a shit-ton of sketches in his sketchbooks. Thought your face looked familiar, just couldn’t place it.” Oriel closed the phone and returned it to his pocket. He crossed his arms. “And no,” he informed the student teacher. “Phoenix does not want to see you.”