willow doesn't often do things on a whim. she's a creature of habit, but that doesn't come as a surprise to many. to those who know her, at least. and with her dinner date suddenly gone because of 'important ranger duties,' she'd decided to take lou out on some of the ashen trails near fallarbor.

and by the time they pass meteor falls, lou is picking up his gait, happy to stretch his legs. willow brings him to a steady canter, grinning at the wind tearing through her hair. 

when rustboro's skyline greets them, she pulls lou to a stop. he nickers and stomps the ground once, turning in place while willow deliberates. and then, thinking, well, i'm already here... she spurs him on. 

hooves clatter on cobblestone and then slow on grass as willow angles him around bo's small front yard. a neighbor peers out the window at her and she waves sheepishly. it's not hard to miss the blastoise and its trainer spraying the side of the house. 

at first willow thinks bo's doing some sort of late-fall cleaning, but the smile drops from her face when she sees the graffiti on the wall.

"bo? what is that?" she asks as she slides out of her saddle. 

boruta maher

☉

he raised the dish soap to squirt some into the raging stream water that jetted from his blastoise’s cannons. it hit the wall with a force that immediately began to fade the mark—but would it leave a scar? maybe he’d have to go get paint, which would suck on his night off.

lost in thought, his shoulders jumped at the voice behind him. willow’s voice. why now? shutting his eyes in defeat, he then turned to look at her. at first, he was quiet. solemn. contemplative.

”uh, well…”

shit.

”you wanna come inside?”

willow atkins

☉

lou knickers beside her and willow instinctively raises a hand to his big head, hushing and consoling him while the blastoise sprayed torrents of water on the side of bo's house. that humongous R does something to her, even as it fades. her jaw sets, but her green eyes brim with concern and worry. even a little bit of fear as they finally meet bo's. 

she swallows and doesn't move for a heartbeat. and then her hand goes to her belt. she withdraws lou's ball and returns him to his capsule. and then she takes her time clipping it back on, staving off the moment she's been waiting for for years.

truth. insight to boruta's past, if that's what this is. please don't let that be this. but she doesn't even know what she's hoping for. she's so out of her depth here, she can't even fathom what something like this means. 

"yeah. okay," she says. she walks past him and up to the door. pauses and turns her head. "i'll wait inside...clean it all off before someone else sees it."

boruta maher

☉

the neighbor had already seen it. at least, he assumed it had been the neighbor. he looked over at the house across the street again, feeling a little off about the fact there had been no one there when he’d turned to the voice.

”yeah, okay.”

he had meant to leave the blastoise outside to clean it off. now, he’d stand with it to appease her, anxiety building in his chest as he stared at the grass. unable to look at the striking letter in front of him again, for the shame that enveloped him.

it was a part of his identity he didn’t want to acknowledge anymore, and yet, it would always be there—spray-painted on his home or not.

while the letter faded, he found himself now wishing it would take longer, so he could piece together the proper words. there was no way he could ever tell her everything. would the wrong thing slip?

too soon, blastoise had taken care of it. ”thanks, dude.” he returned it, nearly dragging his feet on the way inside again.

his eyes looked for willow.

”uh, you want something to drink?” moving for the kitchen, he noted, ” i think i just have water… unless you like charjacola.”

willow atkins

☉

her hands are shaking. her hands are shaking and she is wringing them because she hates that they're shaking, but she can't make them stop. roman's therapist - bless her heart - has recommended breathing exercises for her. and she'd written it off, thought it silly, but she tries it now. alone, in boruta's home, her breaths lengthen and eventually she can get by with just fiddling with her shirt of her woven bracelets or her hair. 

she busies herself with looking at the furnishings of the apartment, wondering at how odd it feels she's not more familiar with the interior of his place. wondering why she feels that's odd. 

he always does this to you. makes her question herself. makes her thoughts scatter. makes her wonder what if?

what if he has a secret he hasn't told you? 

her heart sinks and she swallows, green eyes flicking up when he enters the room. she smiles weakly. 

"those are terrible for you, y'know." a pause. "wait, is that why roman's been asking me to buy them?"

boruta maher

☉

terrible for him. "yeah..."

so, water. with a chuckle, he went to pour her a cup with ice as he knew she preferred.

”maybe. i don’t give them to him, though. that sounds like a nightmare.” which meant roman was asking her because he said no, but that was fine, because he didn’t have to deal with the consequences of the twelve-year-old troublemaker on ungodly amounts of caffeine.

going to hand her the glass, he asked with a nod towards the living room, ”here. you wanna sit down?”

though he mostly did a good job at hiding it, someone who knew him like willow did would find the look in his gold eyes unmistakable. scared, like the uncertain gaze of a teenage boy she’d once known. it may have been increasingly clear that the conversation they were about to have was a very serious one.

willow atkins

☉

her fickle attempt at humor gets swallowed by the terse atmosphere. under the table, her hands wring again, thumbnails biting into cuticles. she offers a weak smile at his comment and an even weaker smile still when he gets her a glass of water. condensation slips down her fingers, reddened thumbs. 

words are hard to come by right now so she nods. her throat is full, stoppered up with fear and anxiety and a dozen other unspoken things that have been piling up between them.

in the living room, she looks between the small, but comfy-looking couch and the armchair. her hesitation is painstakingly obvious, but eventually she opts for the couch. her spine is rigid and she perches right on the edge there, as though any minute she might bolt.

not that she intends to do any such thing.

and as though saying it will make it true, she says, "i'm not going anywhere, bo. i just...want the truth."

boruta maher

☉

not going anywhere. try as he might to internalize that sentence, it didn’t work. not in the slightest.

he followed her into the living room, taking a seat in the armchair with the stuck lever which he pulled to face her, sitting at its edge. his tall shoulders hunched a little, fingers near his knees, and tattooed thumbs tented. downright contemplative.

was there a right way down this shitty road?

”i fucked up, will.” he looked at her, memory rushing back through years. ”with you, roman…” with a deep sigh, he continued slowly, ”but there’s some other stuff too.”

he was just dragging it out now. it felt like everything he’d worked for was about to fall apart. what was going to happen after this? would she go to authorities? would he lose his job? would he lose them?

clearing his throat, he resolved to just get it over with.

first thing’s first. ”before i joined the rangers, i was in team rocket.”

willow atkins

☉

those tattooed hands. they've never looked intimidating to her. even that day of his return, all she could do was smile at them. at how ridiculous it all was. but maybe if she'd taken a moment to tug off the rose-tinted glasses, maybe if she'd put the shutters down and let all the light in, she would have seen what's been hiding in the shadows. 

is it better this way? knowing it was always there, in some capacity? 

he is facing her and he is looking at her while he says it. and oddly, finally, that lump in her throat dislodges. she swallows tersely and nods and does not offer much now, for the moment. she looks down and to her lap. 

to her hands that know only how to grow and how to cultivate. to build and craft and make. to fix. she looks them over, forward and back, and then tucks a stray lock of hair behind her ear. 

"is that..." she clears her throat again, not expecting the sudden wave of emotion that rocks through her.

"is that why you...waited so long?" to come home?

boruta maher

☉

he watched her reaction, unsure what it meant. her question was heartbreaking.

”not entirely, no. i was only in for two years.” which actually sounded like a while to be a part of a violent criminal organization once it left his mouth, and the wording felt dumb.

he explained, ”my family joined when they came to hoenn. my dad lost his head after my mom passed, i guess.”

there was a pause, as his brain told him now was not the time to justify his absence, but it came out anyways.  ”will, i waited because i didn’t think you wanted me around. your dad definitely didn’t.” and oh, how he regretted backing down from samuel atkins that day, years in the past.

bo quieted for a moment, his gaze pulling off of her and to the floor. that was not the can of worms he had meant to open, but he continued anyways, ”eventually, i figured i could try to be a better person, and maybe that would change things. it just took me a long time to realize that. i'm sorry.”

willow atkins

☉

two years. "gods, bo," she whispers, but otherwise allows him to exhaust the rest of the story. or, well, not the rest of it. two years working for a crime syndicate - the details of which she can't even begin to fathom - sound long and arduous. she'd thought, before, that after however many years together, maybe they'd be able to walk through the past.

and now...

her eyes harden at the mention of samuel and she struggles not to bristle otherwise. because he had made it known, to the both of them, what he thought about willow's decision to keep roman. that awful aftermath of a month is kept tucked away in a journal, fringed with pressed flowers.

"of course i wanted you around," she says, voice cracking around the edges. "i never stopped...wishing you'd walk down the road." but guilt crawls inside her, hot on her neck. young and dumb and still in love, she'd convinced herself he'd come for her eventually, but to pick up the phone herself, to put pen to paper - that had always been too much.

not that she knows about samuel's letter of reconciliation, of the changing/wasted leaves and years passed.

but they're not there anymore. the past can't be changed, no matter how many hours they spend pouring over the pages. she holds on to the edge of the couch and stares down. 

"why now? after all these years, why are they coming for you now? bo, are you in danger? is - " 

her stomach drops and she darts a hand out, fingers tense, jaw taut. absolute terror takes her over. "i - the man. it was a man roman stabbed. he came by the house. bo, i thought something was off when we talked, but this. i - are we in danger?" 

panic continues to flutter. "we have to get roman. i need to call adelaide. bo - " 

boruta maher

☉

bringing up her dad was something he regretted with immediacy, and yet an apology for that didn’t come, because there was still bitterness. there was also no mention of the letter. how could he possibly tell her that he’d known for years? that samuel had come around after all, and that by that time, he’d been too far gone in wasting his life to act on it?

coming clean was difficult. he figured some things were just better left unsaid. for a quiet moment, he just hung his head. and then he waited, and watched the mother of his child process and stumble through realizations.

something in his expression shifted at the mention of the man from the soiree, but he didn’t interrupt, until she started spiraling.

”will, just hold on. none of this is new. it’s gonna be okay.”

he said it with confidence, despite the new tide that was already rolling in on him. the guilt that he’d previously been struggling to breathe under had been cut with fear.

”when did he come by the house?” his eyes were narrow, skeptical as she was in the tilt of his head, and unable to hide it despite himself.

willow atkins

☉

she's half-standing, patting down her pockets for her phone, when bo pulls her from her thoughts. she pauses, considers him rather harshly, and then sinks back down into the couch. this time she lays back into it, fingers draped over her face. her breath whistles as she sighs with intent.

"um. a few days ago. he had roman's jacket. he's...he said roman was staying with him. that's where he was, bo. when he ran away." and talking through it makes her second guess it all. they're not connected. they can't be connected. in the moment, it had rubbed her the wrong way, but she hadn't picked up the phone and called bo. she'd let it fade into the background, into that untouchable past.

that damned month - all she has are the pities of a stranger to go off of. anything could have happened to roman then.

"it could have been nothing. the conversation - he - was so off-putting. he treated it like it was...like it was normal that roman stabbed him. i feel like i'm crazy right now. like i'm making something out of nothing."

she stops and she rubs her thumbs against her jeans. she'd taken her muddy shoes off and left them by the front door so she drags her knees up and curls, knotting up the anxieties so they don't stretch out of her. and forcibly, she bites out:

"ro can't come back here." and realizing what she'd said, her gaze flickers. it softens. she goes to reach a hand out and then curls it on her armrest instead.

"what do i do?" she whispers.

boruta maher

☉