it's coming from a place of worry and she can forgive that, but only after a couple of heartbeats. only after she searches his face and remembers their first date, remembers that he lost his own. her hands are cold, despite the heater, but she raises them anyway. 

gently cups his face, avoiding the cuts and bruises from bo's fists. a shiver runs through her. 

"i know you are, but we can hold our own. the truth is out there now and there's nothing we can do to change that. all we can do is grow - like bo has."

she bites her lip. "my life is messy, lance. especially right now. he's roman's father and he has to be in the picture. and if you want to be part of this with me, you have to be okay with that."

LANCE VOLLANS

☉

it's beautiful, but it doesn't come close to the view of her own backyard - of her flowers and her greenhouse and all of its denizens. her patch of greenery amidst a town of ash is a symbol she wouldn't trade anything for, nevermind a view like this. but she doesn't say that to lance.

she takes the glass of water and rests her back up against him. "well, good thing i'm staying the night," she says.

after a sip, she cradles the glass to her chest. the other goes up to lance's chin. she peeks up at him, blue-green eyes filled with an array of emotion. "i haven't done this in a while." it's not an admittance. they both know this. but it's a segue, a way of telling him yes without saying as much.

LANCE VOLLANS

☉

okay, maybe giving bo another cocktail isn't the best idea, now that she thinks about it. what's done is done, though, and after five hours, one more couldn't hurt, right? besides, even if he has that blank look on his face, he can at least keep up a conversation, which is more than she can say for some of the other folks wandering around the bars. 

"there's nothing to judge," she quips back, unable to let it go. PENELOPE LIVY 's words still dance around tauntingly in her head: so you still have him on the hook? he grabs at her shoulder, swaying tipsily, and she does her best to help right him without looking annoyed. 

her resolution, at first, she wants to squash down and not answer - let ollie talk and the alcohol blanket over them cover the fact that she's withdrawn from the conversation. but the hypocrisy is too much. 

"mine is to be more honest with myself." 

quickly, she bumps ollie's shoulder and turns the spotlight to him: "so what's yours?"

ollie morales boruta maher

☉

it takes a long time for her to type out that message to ollie, but only because her fingers are shaking so hard with anger. ghastly, primitive anger that comes with flashing eyes and heavy breathing. memories of her father's form come to mind and shift just as quickly, renewed reinforcement to help her stand her ground. 

because when he grew angry, he took a moment. he meditated. he calmed. he breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth, like she does right now. steels herself. tucks the bad thoughts (like how much she would love to sock penny in the face) away and leaves herself calm. focused. 

it takes effort. an incredible amount of effort because penny presses another button with her barbed fingers. 

"he misses you," she says instead. simply and plainly. "he doesn't understand why you won't be friends with him. you're foolish to hold onto anger and to hold onto the past. he's an incredibly good person - one of the best, i think - and your life is worse off for not having him in it."

she shrugs. "but what do i know, right?"

PENELOPE LIVY

☉

okay, so maybe penelope does know something about her. but those are just facts. those are things you'd find on wikipedia pages - y'know, if willow had a wiki page (which she does not). and everyone in town knows about her flower shop and word of the mouth is the bread and butter of business and - 

"excuse me?" she says and nearly spits out her ginger ale. the drink penny had bought for her sits half-drank a hand's length away from her. 

"that's what this is all about? this is why you don't like me? he's my closest friend, penelope." she sets her glass down, fingers tense and white-knuckled. "it probably says more about you if you're talking about 'drawbacks' when it comes to relationships."


she flips her phone back up to see a few new messages from ollie. 

ok

but cn u call her?

& tell her that i miss hr

we dont even have to be frns

i just dont want her to hate me wils

she thumbs back:

i'll tell her. you're at the next bar, right? howling?

PENELOPE LIVY

☉

willow very much doubts she would like her, but she doesn't say that. mostly because there's no reason for her not to like her.

her eyes narrow at him as every tell in his drunken body goes off and she snorts, ready to argue for the sake of arguing at this point (because her frustration has gotten the best of her now). i just figured you don't like being around me. the words die in the back of her throat.

five hours?

this is when her mind is made up. she doesn't tell him yet - that she's taking him home. taking the both of them home, because ollie's gone enough that he's forgotten she's not here to drink. 

"what? no, of course not," willow says, leaping to the defensive when bo looks between the two of them. 

"i told you. i'm driving him back tonight, which...ollie, i'm driving you back tonight. i'm not drinking, remember?" she takes the sazerac and looks down at it, gives it an experimental sniff and then holds it out to bo. 

"sorry i lost you at the other bar, ols. glad to see you made it here in one piece though." she bumps his side playfully and sighs, hoping to ease the tension. the liquor really isn't helping either of them lie. granted, maybe she's the only one who notices.

guess she'll find out if they start exchanging blows. 

"bo was asking what assignment you were doing in town," she says, by painful way of conversation. 

boruta maher ollie morales

☉

his house is cold. when she steps through the threshold, it doesn't feel like a house. a house, as she's come to know it, is loved. it has creaky floorboards and scuffed paint. it has mismatched furniture and trinkets on the walls. hers is filled to the brim with greenery, with hanging ivy and sunlit plants hanging over the kitchen sink. 

if you'd walked her here blindfolded, she would have presumed she'd just walked into an airbnb. 

but she chides herself and says she's just being difficult. that she's imposing herself on him. that she's just not appreciating the differences between them. 

"yes please," she chirps and starts to slide into a barstool, but then stops, caught off guard by the view from the back of the house. she scuttles over to the bay windows and fawns over the landscape.

"this is beautiful," she says in awe. 

LANCE VOLLANS

☉

she does a bit of a stutter-stop, not having realized just how close he was following her. the crowd is thinner here and she can here him a bit more easily, but the relief there is short-lived. 

when you are suddenly aware of the expression you want to make and all you can think is don't make that face. why am i making that face? what's wrong with me? 

yeah, willow feels that right now and her nose scrunches. cathy. callie. or it could be caitlyn or cassie or anyone. it doesn't matter because at some point down the road, this was going to happen. she's thought about it, in the abstract sense. played scenarios in her mind. 

but it's been years and he hasn't had a whiff of anything serious. she always thought maybe...

"okay," she says. "good. i mean, it's fine. if that's what's happening." the look on her face doesn't quite match the sentiment. she finds them a spot by some windows and settles into a plush seat at a cocktail table.

"and i asked why because i'm pretty sure i watched you see me and then immediately turn around." it's hard to see his scuffed cheek in the light, courtesy of her boyfriend. "and i don't want to ruin your night out." a half-hearted laugh. 

like i did your last one. 

boruta maher ollie morales

☉

willow wishes she had another glass of champagne in hand - one, to settle her nerves and two, to have something to do with her hands. she places them on the iron railing, but that's a mistake. it's cold to the touch and her fingers stick so she pulls them back again and hugs herself, bracing her back against it instead. 

guilt crawls through her (but it's not as much if she had gone to the slice with bo...). 

"called him out? lance, the past is the past. he's a different man now." she thinks of those glowing, smoldering eyes, far-flung somewhere else. she shivers. "you're both captains so it's not like you even work together very often, right?"

granted, she has very little understanding of how the ranger hierarchy works.

LANCE VOLLANS

☉

"pawmi?" willow repeats. it could be a nickname for all she knew, but it doesn't seem like one, given the pelipper's name is frank. lo and behold, she has no idea what the little creature is when frank opens his mouth and reveals it. 

willow coos and smiles down at the little rodent. "you're so cute. don't worry, sweet thing. i won't hurt you." tilting her head, she looks up at maisy: "it's not hoenn native, right?"

@maisy

☉

willow thinks her answer was sufficient, so she doesn't really understand the slow confusion on bo's face. again, she looks down at the drink in his hands. he can't really be that sloshed, can he? a big man like bo? it should take a lot for him to get drunk. 

his answer makes her frown. "from slateport. in the freezing cold. after bar-hopping." she sighs and someone roughly shoves past her. she stumbles up against bo, nearly spilling his drink all over herself. hands out on his chest to steady herself, cheeks hot, her brows furrow. 

being in a drunken crowd when sober is not fun - it only took her twenty-seven years to experience it and about ten minutes to decide she hates it. 

"come on. it's crowded here," she says and does a bit of a turn before another very real possibility dawns on her. maybe he wasn't trying to go back home tonight. another of penny's snarks snaps at the next few selfish thoughts and she huffs out a breath. 

"unless you're here with someone. sorry, i just saw you and didn't even consider...should i go? do you want me to leave you alone?"

boruta maher ollie morales

☉