cold world out there

— 

Liv was beginning to feel as though their conversation was futile, every attempt of hers to talk overshadowed by his cryptic words and the overwhelming feeling that she shouldn’t have come. It wasn’t because he’d hurt her, but because it seemed like it would have been better for him, too. Neither of them knew what to say, so she contemplated leaving — to avoid causing more damage, to take the easy way out. But nothing about it felt easy, not when unspoken truths plagued her mind, and would do so even if she turned on her heel. “But you didn’t. You didn’t leave me alone, and I came.” She spoke, her features softening as she walked over and sat down next to him, finally turning her head to face him. “You told me you texted me because you wanted to see me. Well, I came because I wanted to see you, despite everything. I never wanted to be left alone, Koda. Not then, and not now.”

—

No, he hadn’t left her alone. It would have been better in the long run sure if he had just tossed his phone and lost her number when he began to crave the nights to reach out and see her. Touch her. Remember her. Koda knew better than to think that he was anything but a fucking mess when it came to screwing everything up in his life as he let out a bitter laugh when he was done with his drink. He set the empty bottle down on the coffee table that was before them both now that she sat down beside him, staring at it rather than the eyes on his face. “You deserve better, you know that? Someone that ain’t gonna yank you around when they’re feeling lonely and then pushing you aside when they remember what a fucking piece of shit they are,” he told her as he glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. “It ain’t fair to you but the thought of getting close to you... I couldn’t do that. I thought — I thought that if I walked away that you would too and then you’d realize that this thing between us was nothing more than two lonely people trying to be a bit less lonely.”

—

A part of her had come prepared, expecting to be blamed for how things had spiraled out of control. Maybe that would have been easier, because then, Liv could have held onto her anger. As it happened, it was slowly blending with the heartache she’d attempted to separate herself from. After a moment of surprise, brows creasing into a deep frown, Liv tore her gaze away again. “Why did you do it then? If you don’t blame me because it was rightly deserved. Why let it come to this in the first place?” Her voice still held vestiges of irritation. She fell silent for a while after he posed a question she didn’t want to answer, knowing it would come at the expense of her defenses. “Nothing’s changed. I never wanted to ignore you.” She spoke at last, but still didn’t move to face him. “You deserved it at the time, but it didn’t make me feel any better. I just… I didn’t understand what I said or did to make you walk out like that. Like you just didn’t care. I still don’t understand.”

—

“It’s ‘cause — you didn’t do or say anything, not on purpose at least,” he told her after a beat, unable to meet her gaze and instead decided to try and finish off the beer in his hand. When it came to talking about how he felt or shouldn’t, Koda knew when it was better to keep his mouth shut even if that hadn’t been the case here with her. If anything, he shouldn’t have even texted her after she ignored him at the festival because it was exactly what he deserved when she deserved none of what he did to her. “It probably would have been better if you had done. something to fuck things up but instead, that was all me. Still am, just by asking you over when I should have left well enough alone.”

▬ 

“I apologize, I had no intentions of doing so. I was merely teasing you, but hey! I can make it up to you by… buying you a drink some other day?” The grin was plastered over her lips before she chuckled lightly. “Honestly, I’ve only been here once and it was with my ex. It was a strange day,” not that this one was any different. Or the past few days, to be more precise. Laurel looked around, and nodded. “I really just need to break anything that isn’t something that I bought to myself for my apartment or the studio, you know? So… that television!” She winked at Koda before reaching closer to the electronic to hit it, urging for that sound of it breaking.

—

—

While he was giving her answers, none of them got to the core of what was actually wrong. If they had left things the way they once were, easy nights and no hard feelings, she could have shrugged it off, moved on. Liv had attempted to do just that, go along with the example Koda had set and pretend they hadn’t crossed the boundaries of casual a long time ago. She’d gone to the festival adamant not to let him get to her, to focus on her date instead, and a hell of a lot of good it had done. The less they talked, the more he was on her mind. “No, I don’t know. How am I supposed to know when you don’t tell me anything? This isn’t about the festival, this is about the fact you ignored my calls and texts long before the festival took place.” Her eyes darted to where he was sat, moving towards him. “You don’t get to blame this on me. You walked away first.”

—

She wasn’t wrong. Koda knew it even though there was a large part of him that wanted to place the blame on her and leave it there, rather than go through the motions that had led him to the questionable choices as of late. Ones that often circulated around Olivia as he watched her for a moment before he went back to stare at the beer in his hand. “Nah, I don’t blame you. I never blamed you for ignoring me at the festival, ‘cause it was rightly deserved at the time,” he spoke, a mumble that slipped through with a rough edge. Hadn’t he done it to put the distance back there between them? And yet, he had been the one that could barely keep from reaching out when the silence had gone on for too long. “So what changed?”

— 

Kinda clear. Olivia scoffed at the notion; nothing was clear to her when it came to deciphering what was going on between the two of them. In theory, her powers ought to make that easier, and while she could see his aura, she couldn’t put her finger on what it meant. That was the problem whenever people weren’t being entirely truthful with her; she knew as much, but she was no mind reader. Moments like those made her wish there was a button she could press to pause her magic. “I’m pretty sure the best way to let someone know you want to see them is by putting in more effort than sending a text every now and then.” She finally answered, averting her gaze. “Fair. Right.” She shook her head lightly, still not daring to look his way. “Is that it then? Is that what you wanted to tell me at the festival? ‘Sorry I ignored you, I just didn’t really care beyond the casual sex part’? Could have told me via text, too.”

—

            “You know if that were true, that it wouldn’t even be a text.” Maybe more of a drop by her apartment in the middle of the night with hopes of being able to spend the night with her, keeping everything casual between them. It had been the plan. How many times had he told himself it was the best for both of them to keep it that way? But then things got complicated too quickly to where he bolted rather than even send her a fucking text. “Look, I — I wanted to talk to you at the festival too, but you... well you didn’t want to talk to me so I fucking took that and left you alone.” But he hadn’t been able to stay that way for too long even as he glanced in her direction for a moment before he moved to fall back to sit down. If she were nothing more than a casual thing, then it would be a hell of a lot easier to see her again. 

Carleigha frowns faintly and turns toward him. She couldn’t help but worry about him. Granted she’d been a bit worried since the night of the full moon. She didn’t know him well but still she hated to see anyone struggling. “When I say its always with you, it doesn’t mean it has to be consistently pulling you under. You need to talk about it, get it off your chest. It helps to lessen the burden on you. I know that sounds dumb but it helps. There are only a few people who know all of what I’ve done but knowing that I can talk to them when a run or baking isn’t helping makes it easier to breath…or not tear someone’s throat” 

—

Koda snorted under his breath, fully aware that she was only saying what he had heard half a dozen times over even before he ended up back in Astoria. Too many people told him that he needed to talk about what he was going through, but the only people that mattered weren’t around anymore to listen to him. He’d lost them and they weren’t coming back. There was no amount of conversation about the pain that would help fix the mess that had been left behind because of the loss, not even trying to run away from it with Carly pulling him ahead. “It sounds good in theory, but every time someone tries to set me up with one of those shrinks then they make me feel all crazy and got this need to jump out of of my own god damn skin.” So he took to drinking away the pain, or throwing himself into work whenever he could. “Not that I feel the urge to tear anyone’s throat out. It’s more like throw as many punches as I can before I get someone to hit me back harder than ever.”

Raine laughed again, watching Koda suffer. Which he had technically done to himself, but it was still worth laughing over. They understood self-destructive tendencies. They understood it better than others, and they also understood that sometimes you had to accept those tendencies and just go with it. “Oh, definitely, definitely enjoying this.” They got the water bottle that Koda was pointing at, took the cap off and gave it to their friend. “Ye poor thing, anything else to settle yer pain? A little kiss maybe?”

—

            “I’m pretty sure if I asked for anythin’ else that it’d come with some strings attached that are bright an’ shiny,” he commented around the lip of the water bottle before he downed more than half of it in a couple of gulps. Sure, he had been there asking for what the other delivered on but it didn’t make the fall back down to the ground any easier. Not when he was constantly searching for a way to feel nothing at all. Koda grinned as he lowered the water bottle a bit away from his face. “An’ just like that, you manage to make a joke out of my pain. I could be dying here an’ you’d want to kiss and make it better.”

set: saturday afternoon location: diyu smash room availability: closed | @kodadawson​​

“I promise you that next time you’ll be one choosing what we’ll do next, which I assume might be going out for drinks?” It was one of those days that Laurel just needed to be around people while trying to let go of all the sadness and anger that was building up inside herself. Though it was unusual to invite someone over the smash room, her ex had showed that place for Laurel and it had been the best one to head to whenever she needed to let off some steam. “Do you want to be the one breaking stuff first? As long as you won’t choose that television that I already got my eyes on, I have no problem with waiting.”

—

            “I know you’re only jokin’ but I take offense to the fact that you think my only personality trait is that I’d choose to drink over hike myself to death or — whatever this is that we’re about to do.” He grinned as he spoke, seemingly ignoring the fact that he did want to grab a drink or two before hitting up this place that was swarming with too many people. The only thing that they had going for them was that they were alone in the room, rather than surrounded by all the laughter and loud noises. “Are we supposed to be taking turns? This ain’t one of those free for all places? I can take some of those vases ‘cause they rightly expensive and I wouldn’t mind breaking some shit that won’t cost me an arm and a leg.”

— 

“You wanted to see me.” Olivia echoed, her voice more stern than she had intended it to be, not because she wanted to go easy on him after weeks of radio silence on his part, but because she didn’t want to make a scene. Liv was a natural at taking care of others, because she had done it all her life and because she was good at it. It gave her a sense of accomplishment, a certain warmth she took in knowing she had helped another. Helping herself, however, did nothing of the sort. Her own needs were always too much, too confusing, so she tended to swerve them as much as she could. Around Koda, though, that had always been more challenging than usual. “You have an interesting way of showing what you want.”

—

           “Yeah, thought that was kinda clear when I asked if you wanted to come over tonight,” he managed to get out, though he knew that even before he finished speaking that it might not have been the right thing to say. Not when he could tell that something was off and rightly so, considering that he might have bolted when things went from casual to a bit more serious in too quick of a time. Or at least it was too quick for him. There was too much wrong in his head to be any good for anyone, but that didn’t stop the way that he wanted to see her or be around her, especially when she was a quiet place in all the chaos that was in his mind. “That’s... fair.” He could have told her that he did try to warn her months ago, but instead he chose now to be quiet and took a sip of his beer. 

—

Her gaze flitted to the kitchen for a moment, too, unable to shake the semblance of a smile that clung to her lips. “Yep. There is a shocking amount of butter in those. And eggs. So they’re probably radioactive by now.” She took note of the distance between the two, literal and figurative, of course she did, and while her mind told her it would likely make the conversation they were about to have easier, something in her still protested. “It’s alright, they’re just brownies.” Liv shrugged. Perhaps, if things were different, she would have told him she could always make a new batch for him.

“I’ve had stuff go bad when I couldn’t find anyone to share it with.” Regret followed mere seconds after she uttered those words, so she averted her gaze, only briefly finding his to take the glass of water and mutter her thanks. She sipped quietly, her jumbled thoughts growing loud once more, only coming to a stop when he spoke again. Liv didn’t respond, instead, she took another sip and set the glass down on the nearest surface. She hesitated as she thought on her words, the silence between the two she once found comfort in now just deafening. Finally, she glanced up at him again. “Why am I here, Koda?”

—

Small talk was the bane of his existence and a huge part of the reason that he avoided as many people as possible, because they were the ones that asked too many questions that he didn’t have the answers for and Olivia deserved plenty of answers. Ones that he didn’t have even after all this time as he glanced at her and away again, trying to figure out what to even say that wasn’t something that he would just deflect. “You’re here ‘cause... well, I wanted to see you an’ you’re here ‘cause I guess you wanted to see me too,” he managed to get out, even if it sounded all kinds of wrong and confused on his end. “Or maybe that’s what I was hoping for.”

+

Selin wasn’t sure what compelled her to bring herself to meet with Koda. However, it didn’t sit well with her knowing that he was alone and acting differently in comparison to the usual banter the two had. Something happened and she was going to get to the bottom of it. Rolling her eyes, she flopped on the seat next to him and stared off into the distance. “I’ll be honest, I don’t normally chase a side piece.” she bluntly stated before meeting his gaze. “Sure, if you’re treating. I’ll also keep this simple and sweet, the fuck has been up with you?” 

—

           “If it makes you feel better, I’m not usually chased either.” Most were content to let him go because he wasn’t worth the shit that he was known for putting people through, which made it all the more obvious to him that Selin being there was unusual. And not something that he fully expected after all that had gone down in the past few weeks. He chuckled under his breath, enough so that he felt genuine even though he knew that it had everything to go with his inability to even communicate with others outside of work. He barely made it over to the fridge to grab them both a beer when she spoke again, leaving him to freeze just long enough to prove that her words got to him before he grabbed the drinks and came back to where she had sat down earlier. “That’s a complicated question with an even more complicated answer. It would be easier to ask what isn’t the fuck up with me ‘cause then I could answer it,” he spoke as he handed over the bottle.

―

It takes Scout a minute to process the words coming out of the shifter’s mouth. Her first instinct is to ask what he’s running from because what other explanation could there be? Scout wasn’t a witch that could read aura’s but she could tell when someone was nervous about something, and she wasn’t flattering herself thinking she was the reason. Koda wasn’t someone like Atlas who could appear at her door and proclaim that he was going to whisk her off on an impromptu vacation for no reason. Koda’s brand of impulsivity usually came hand in hand with a cause. 

But her impulsivity sometimes didn’t need a rhyme or reason - at least that’s what she was telling herself in that moment. She regards Koda for a moment before grinning and retreating into her apartment, leaving him in the doorway. “I could probably take the next couple of days off. Close the door behind you.” Packing is normally such an ordeal for her but there’s the notion of haste in the air. She throws a couple days worth of clothing and underwear into a duffel bag and changes out of her sleeping clothes before throwing those in after them along with her wallet, phone charger and the small toiletry kit she used for travel. Scout emerges moments later, lugging her duffel over her shoulders. “Did you think to pack food or were you just planning on raiding my kitchen?” 

—

All he needed was to get out of dodge for a few days, that’s all. And Scout was for the perfect partner in crime if he could only get her to agree to it in the first place. So when she didn’t necessarily laugh in his face or slam the door, Koda knew that he was one step closer to getting her to go along with him as he offered her a cheeky grin. “I knew you would say yes,” he commented before he slipped into her small kitchen while she packed for a few days on the road as he had done earlier in the morning. Though when he heard her voice again, he let out a small, nervous chuckle before he shut her fridge. “We can grab stuff along the way, ‘cause we both know that I didn’t think about shit other than grabbing a few things before I got here.” Not to mention that she told him no, that he was bound to take this trip on his own and cared even less about taking care of himself then. At least with Scout, there was a reason for him to get food and a place to stay while they traveled the road.

—

“Hey not bad - do you want a sticker?” Mateo asks Koda with a laugh, unfazed as the same kid that had ran into Koda runs straight into him, promptly falling on their butt. Almost in perfect harmony, their eyes begin to well up just as Mateo reaches down to scoop them up and right them back on their feet. “Hey, you’re good - nothing to cry over, hm?” The kid gives a big sniffle before nodding and grabbing onto Mateo’s leg in a pseudo-hug before rushing off again, the tears that had appeared disappearing as quickly as they had come. 

“If you can fight fires you can probably handle kids. I have full confident in your abilities.” The kids in the daycare barely seemed to pay any attention to the shifter that had walked through the door. He was none of their parents are guardians after all - so what was the point in diverting their attention away from their very important games? But with Mateo’s full attention on Koda, suddenly dozens of pairs of eyes were flitting curiously towards him. In classic Mateo nature, he barely registers it. “If you don’t mind sticking around a bit we can head out from here. Or I can meet you later. It shouldn’t be much longer.” 

—

            “Somehow I don’t think fires an’ kids are the exact same thing here, Mateo,” he commented with a bit of a look at his old friend after watching the exchange with one of the smaller kids that seemed to flip a switch from crying to fine. There were too many of them to keep count of which he was glad that he didn’t have that job or he was more than likely to lose most of them throughout the day even with the walls and door to keep them in. “No one should be leaving me in charge of their kids, period and end of story.” Though even as he spoke, Koda made an exaggerated movement to step over and around some of the smaller kids that were staring at the two of them. “Do they blink? I don’t think that one is blinked yet,” he pointed out one in particular before he turned his gaze back towards the other. “I.. I can do either. I can stick it out or I can head out now, which might be safer for these small.. things.”