in which bella dearly wishes to be less interesting

[subtly_artistic]

Bella successfully manages to stay in all weekend except for when she joins packs of students headed for the dining hall. If the elves are still stalking her, she doesn't notice them. On Monday, the subtle artist elf is present in their shared course, and looks at her, but doesn't bother her - Bella leaves with another classmate anyway.

Traveling in packs is quite effective, she decides.

Except she doesn't do it in her own dorm.

It's pouring rain outside Tuesday afternoon and Bella doesn't want to go to the dining hall. She has some stuff in her room - not serious groceries, but enough that she can heat up some broth and noodles, liven it up with a handful of miscellaneous dried herbs, and call it soup. She is hanging out in the kitchen doing this when Brad from down the hall, the same fellow who attempted to interrupt Celo at his baking, chooses to bother her.

"Hey, Isabella."

"It's Bella."

"But your full name's so pretty," says Brad. "You should go by that instead. So Isabella, let's go out tomorrow, I'll show you a good time in town, we'll have some fun."

"No," says Bella, "thank you, and it's still Bella."

"Isabella's prettier. Like you, you're pretty. It's not like I asked you to make like a nymph or something, I just want to take you out," says Brad. "Is it the money, I bet it's that, I can cover it, we can go someplace nice and you can get whatever you want."

"It's still no. It's still Bella."

"Don't be such a bitch, you never have plans," snaps Brad, "what are you going to do, eat at the dining hall and re-read your textbooks, you can come out with me."

Comments

[subtly_artistic]

Bella holds him. Here you are. You're here, it's just you and me.

[pythbox]

It should perhaps not come as a surprise that, under the circumstances, he feels strongly positive towards her.

[subtly_artistic]

She's not surprised. She carries on kneeling there, hugging him, occasionally repeating his name.

[pythbox]

It takes some time, but eventually he is thinking not very much about his trauma and very, very much about his incandescent love for the person who is hugging him and comforting him.

(Perhaps a little surprisingly, given his species, it is not primarily a sexual kind of love. He feels about her the way he feels about - sunlight. He doesn't want to fuck sunlight, but it's warm and bright and good and he likes to bask in it.)

At about the same gradual pace, the crying stops.

[subtly_artistic]

...Sunlight.

Bella decides she likes to be sunlight. That works for her.

"You're okay," she murmurs.

[pythbox]

"Guess so," he murmurs back.

He appears to still be in her lap.

He decides he's not doing anything about this just yet. Physical contact helps, at least if it's the nice kind, and this is.

"Sorry," he adds. "I - thought I could handle him. Turns out I couldn't."

[subtly_artistic]

"It's okay."

[pythbox]

"Okay."

Hug. Definitely hug.

[subtly_artistic]

Yup.

And:

"D'you want the rest of your soup?"

[pythbox]

He laughs shakily.

"Yeah, sure."

[subtly_artistic]

Up they get.

Soup.

[pythbox]

Soup! Soup and hugs?

[subtly_artistic]

That might be awkward to manage simultaneously.

[pythbox]

Soup and some kind of touching, then, if Bella doesn't object. He'll settle for holding hands.

[subtly_artistic]

Bella will hold his hand. "Everyone already thinks we had sex," she remarks.

[pythbox]

"...Does that bug you or something?"

[subtly_artistic]

"It's not true, and even if it were it wouldn't be any of their business."

[pythbox]

"Well, yeah," he says. "But I'm a nymph. Of course people are gonna think we've had sex."

[subtly_artistic]

"As in fact they do. One person believed me when I told her different."

[pythbox]

"Good for her," he says, smiling.

[subtly_artistic]

Bella sighs and drinks the last of her soup. "So, Brad is a problem, apparently."

[pythbox]

"He sure as fuck is," says Celo, with a little shiver.

[subtly_artistic]

"The thing about thinking about me really hard to get my attention still applies. He's not a subtle artist and I got really good at downing people who weren't shielding, in Utility Psionics the other day."

[pythbox]

"Yeah," says Celo. "Will you be okay if he gets you alone again?"

[subtly_artistic]

"If he'd touched me he would've woken up alone an hour later with a headache from the part where I didn't catch him when he fell over."