How lovely the silence of growing things

[Mikko Ashby]

Mik felt like somebody had to keep their chin up—keep their hopes high—and it might as well be him! He'd never been the pessimistic type, anyway. Even in the worst situations, Mik was focused on solutions and not problems. That was pretty human of him, he realized this now that he'd been immersed in the world of magic, but hey, nobody could hold that against him right? (Right?)

Rip didn't respond but that was okay. He had been through a hell of a lot. Taking a life... Mik's hand glided over his hand, as if he could stay it now from doing something terrible. Maybe if he'd been there...

He pressed into the kiss and tasted how sad it was, how lonely. It was lonely to be different, Mik understood that very well. When he was a kid, coming here without parents, there weren't many others like him. He was teased mercilessly for something beyond his control and blamed for it. Rip was in the same situation now; even Mik knew that whatever Keith did wasn't his fault.

"It's not your fault," he whispered over the splish-splash of water. "You're not a killer, Rip. You're my... little golem baby!" A small joke between them; he knew Rip was so much more than a golem.

[Ripper Nightshade]

"...I'm not a baby," he said quietly. Last time Mik called him that, he had been very forward about showing him exactly how much of a man he was. Golem and baby--two things he didn't want to be known as but it had become something of an inside joke between them. Rip's laugh was weak, though. He wasn't feeling a hundred percent okay, it was true.

There was that terrible lingering memory of what he'd done and even though people cared for him, killing somebody was the kind of thing that took time to come to terms with. Even if he didn't do it on purpose. Even if it was somebody else using his body.

Rip sank down, splashing his face with the bath water several times before slipping his hands over his face. Behind his eyes and his nose, he felt sore and tender and he was thirsty somehow. He didn't even think it was possible to cry until he felt dehydrated. He wasn't even supposed to need that kind of thing but he guessed if he used what circulated in his golem body, then... it depleted and needed to be replenished like anything else.

"...what if Cori isn't what they need, Mik? What then?"

[Mikko Ashby]

Nooo he wasn't a baby—one look down confirmed that Rip was nothing like a baby. But that was the joke and at least it got Rip to laugh, however small it was. A little tiny bit of levity didn't hurt and it showed that he was still able to find humor in things even if he wasn't cracking a rib laughing.

Mik edged aside as Rip splashed water on his face, not wanting to be caught in the backsplash. He wanted to soak but he didn't want his hair wet! When Rip finished, his arms went right back around him and one hand slid over his lips. "Shhh. We don't talk about that right now." His admonishment was gentle and he kissed Rip's damp cheek. "We're only here to relax, all right? Whatever happens, we'll find a way to fix things. We've got all these people here, and princes and angels. If they can't do it, nobody can so... hush."

To prevent Rip from speculating and going down That Path, Mik turned his face so that he could kiss him again. Soft, soft, lengthy kisses melted one after the other. Before this, Mik would have been raring to go, eager for physical gratification and intimacy to push their relationship to the next level. But now—right now—it wasn't the time to be greedy or needy. Rip needed him, not the other way around.

He only eased back to catch a breath and nuzzled Rip affectionately, not unlike a kitten would rub its cheek against a human it liked. "We'll take a long nap after this, and everything will feel much better. Okay?"

[Ripper Nightshade]

"But--"

Whatever else he had to say was shushed away by a kiss and if he wanted to speak after that, it was shushed by another kiss. Although his mind was still elsewhere, Rip eventually closed his eyes and stopped trying to talk. Mik seemed to think it was for the better not to and maybe he was right. Rip didn't know. Maybe it was just better to kiss it all away. To just kiss and kiss until they were nothing but lips.

But even those ended eventually and Mik nuzzled him. Rip didn't open his eyes. He would rather just stay in the moment, when they were kissing and for a moment, the thoughts shut up. The thoughts stayed away for a moment longer, even as he Mik nuzzled him and spoke of napping. They would be like the kittens. The kittens were content when they napped.

"Okay..." he said softly back, eyes slowly opening. He brushed his fingertips over the side of Mik's throat. "Okay."

[Mikko Ashby]

"Okay. Good." He kept his voice quiet, soft. No loud noises, no shouting, no exuberance. Not right now. There was a time and a place for being energetic, this was emphatically not it. See? Mik could be subtle.

"Do you think they'd let us bring Star over?"

Now there was a thought! They had this place all to themselves, didn't they? And it didn't take much to raise a little kitten here. Not like one single kitten made a lot of mess... Besides, Mik was a tidy boy and he wouldn't let anything ruin this beautiful, cozy little apartment.

His smile at Rip was soft, but a touch mischievous. "We could treat this as a trial run for when we get a place of our own." Plus he thought Star would be a nice distraction for Rip, if he had something to take care of, to keep busy with and to keep his mind off of what he'd done.

[Ripper Nightshade]

"Oh... Do you?"

For once, his eyes lit up. Earlier, not even the mention of Star or Queenie could cheer him up but now... The idea of seeing her again... He knew he was still quite emotional but he couldn't help it; he felt weepy thinking of her. He had come to think of her as his kitten--his own pet, even though he told Mik to make sure she went somewhere nice he secretly wanted her to come home with him. Just... not with Keith. Not with somebody that could hurt her.

Nobody could hurt her here, though. Right? And now they had those fancy spells on them. He allowed himself to hope.

But the mischievous smile and the comment after... Rip looked over at Mik. A place of their own? As in, not Mik's aunt's place? Honestly, it had been hard living there. Mik's aunt clearly didn't care for him. She tried to be nice but the way she looked at him made him uncomfortable. And she definitely, definitely didn't like it when Rip touched Mik in front of her. He learned that lesson very early on when he'd laughed after a meal as Mik joked with him as they cleared the dishes and Rip so happened to give Mik's nice looking rump a nice little grab.

The noise that came out of Mik's aunt...

And then after that, she seemed to patrol the place. If Rip was discovered in Mik's bedroom, she told him to go to the guest room. And even when they tried to be alone in the guest room, they heard her coming down the hall and Mik had to hide under the bed. It was... frustrating, to say the least, especially for a golem made for a certain job and accustomed to a certain amount of time doing said job. Now that he had a choice in it, he couldn't even do it!

But was that why he said that? People got places of their own for more serious reasons, didn't they? To... start families of their own?

"Don't I..." he said shyly, "Don't I need a job first?"

He heard Mik's aunt say that a lot. She thought Rip was homeless, jobless, and mentally handicapped. Those were her words for him. He seems nice, Mik, honey, she said but he's homeless, jobless, and obviously mentally handicapped. Sweetie... You're only going to hurt yourself."

Rip didn't know why any of that meant Mik would hurt himself. But she was right. Rip was homeless and jobless. And he didn't know what she meant by mentally handicapped but maybe she was right about that, too.

[Mikko Ashby]

Aha! He knew it would work! Rip definitely perked up at the thought of Star being with them! Mik felt proud of himself—he knew Rip pretty well by now and it was showing.

"They seem like super nice guys! I'm sure they'd say yes." Like... all guys. All gays. That was pretty funny, although birds of a feather, as they say, tended to flock together. Even though Mik had a fair number of straight friends, he didn't feel as close to them as he did to his gay friends—Lieve and Cori, for example. They just had more in common he supposed.

But it was cute that all the other guys seemed to have someone. Soul mates? Were they soul mates? Niall's guy was super serious, though he held Niall gently. Rhys was a total sourpuss and he had an attitude, but the guy with him obviously adored him (even if he kept sneaking peeks at Mik). Poor Jack though. Mik didn't see what Brayden Smith looked like but damn, this apartment said so much about who he was. He couldn't be an ugly troll. And Cori of course had pretty Lieve who went all mama bear on him at the drop of a hat.

And then there was Rip and Mik. Mik and Rip. The two oddballs—a golem and a human. They weren't soul mates though, which also made them different, but that was okay. In this very moment Mik felt as connected to him as he ever felt. With all of his boyfriends, he'd never felt this close to them. They were good relationships, he wouldn't lie, but they weren't like this. Not like how it was with Rip.

"You could get a job, there's plenty of openings around town. Well not right now, but... I mean I have enough saved up to get us a cute little place to stay in while you look for a job. It might have to be kind of small though. There's this studio apartment I've been eyeing for us..." He cuddled Rip on a surge of affection, imagining their life together. Mik pressed his cheek to Rip's and smiled. "I think a tiny place wouldn't be that bad. Like... it'd be cozy, wouldn't it? And we don't have a lot of stuff anyway, so it wouldn't be cluttered at all."

[Ripper Nightshade]

"I think so, too," he said. He was much cheerier, with the thought of their kitten companion here with them. Admittedly, when he was at the shelter, Mik spent so much time with her that he sometimes worried that maybe he was going to spoil her. Or did he annoy her? But Star seemed quite fond of him, too. When she heard his voice, she ran for him and jumped on his leg! And when he held her up to his face, she purred fiercely!

He missed her, now that he thought about her. But he thought Mik was right. The guys seemed pretty nice. Nicer than they had any right to be, given the circumstances. Rip was grateful for it. More than he ever thought he could ever express.

Small didn't bother him, as long as he didn't mean cardboard box small. (And he knew that he didn't; Mik wasn't about to move them into a box.) He smiled as Mik pressed his cheek against his. He closed his eyes for a moment.

"I don't have anything except you and Star and Queenie..." And a handful of clothes. But he had nothing of his own to bring into a home, anyway. So it could be tiny and it wouldn't matter. He opened his eyes as a hand slid over one of Mik's. "Then I won't be homeless and jobless and mentally handicapped..."

[Mikko Ashby]

"Ex-cuse-me," Mik said in that displeased sassy tone he took when somebody said something horribly insensitive in front of him. "You are not. Mentally handicapped." The very idea! Rip wasn't touched in the head! He wasn't missing any strings up there and anyone who thought so—yes, including his Aunt Shel—was just plain blind.

There was nothing wrong with Rip. Nothing wrong with him physically, nothing wrong with him mentally. He had a different way of thinking than other people but that was because he was held captive as a sex slave by a deranged asshole who wanted him to be someone else. He was new to this world of humans and there was a lot he didn't understand but he learned quickly!

"There is nothing wrong with you," Mik sniffed as he turned his hand over to clasp with Rip's. "You are perfect. You're just innocent, that's all. Besides, it doesn't matter what other people think of you. It only matters what I think."

And Mik thought Rip was all that.

[Ripper Nightshade]

"I'm not even sure what it means," he admitted. He had only heard it from Mik's aunt and Mik had sounded every bit as offended then as he did now. It didn't sound like something good to be, then. What made her think it? Mik didn't think it, at least. And... Mik was right... did it really matter what she thought?

Well... maybe a little.

"I just don't... I don't want your important people to not like me." He wasn't sure how to put it. People important to Mik, important to his life--he didn't want them to dislike him. He didn't want to be the reason for arguments or rifts in relationships. That was the part that mattered to him, so much more than being whatever it was she thought he was.

[Mikko Ashby]

"It means we don't say that about people," said Mik primly with his lips pressing into a thin line afterward. That was not a nice thing to say, even if it was phrased as delicately as possible by his aunt in that moment. She wanted him to be happy and successful and to have a loving partner... and Mik didn't see why that excluded Rip from his life.

He knew that the age thing factored in heavily into his aunt's misgivings. At first she didn't trust Rip's intentions and... admittedly being caught by her a bunch of times didn't help their cause. She was sure Rip was grooming him, even if Mik tried seducing Rip a whole bunch of times. Then when she got to know Rip, she found him undesirable because he had no home, no job and he saw everything in his own unique way.

Was it better though than fooling around with some guy his own age, who wasn't going to appreciate him and value him the way Rip did? Was it better to have someone inexperienced to fumble with, rather than having a real man around? Mik didn't think so. He preferred Rip's innocence, but also his confidence whenever he got that certain Look in his eyes. He liked their energy together; they meshed in a beautiful way.

"My important people will accept you if they really love me. And they'll accept you, for me, once they stop being judgmental. So you just... focus on growing your soul and raising our babies, and I'll deal with everybody else." Mik's hand landed on his chest, over Rip's heart. He stroked the area gently like he was petting Rip's soul somehow. "I'm not giving up hope that I can be your soul mate," he whispered softly, wistfully.

[Ripper Nightshade]

"If they really love you," he echoed. If they really loved him they would accept the people who were important to Mik. It made sense. And. Rip was one of those people to Mik. An important person. And he needed to focus on his soul. And babies. Rip wasn't sure about the baby part. But he knew that Brayden wanted the same: for him to grow his soul.

"Babies?" He questioned, though it came out sort of distracted as he looked down at where Mik was touching his chest. Over the heart. Underneath this living clay, this flesh... there was a soul shard where a heart would be. And it thrummed with magic. Magic that had been given to him by a terrible person but now it was it's own magic. It was Rip's magic.

"I want you to be," he said, just as wistfully. "I wish you to be."

But he didn't know how it worked. He didn't know what it took. How would he ever know?

[Mikko Ashby]

"Star and Queenie, of course," Mik laughed, knowing he sounded crazy referring to their pets as babies. Well he and Rip weren't financially capable of supporting real kids! Some day maybe Mik would foster a child. He fostered kittens and puppies; it made sense to foster children too, to give them a chance at a happy home.

But first—he needed to make a happy home for Rip. And it was kind of encouraging that Rip wanted him to be his soul mate. He wasn't pining after Brayden Smith? He really wanted Mik? Well gee... wasn't he just the most adorable person ever? That was such a sweet sentiment!

"I guess we can ask the others. They found theirs right? Then they can tell us what it feels like." Would it be something obvious? Like the way his heart felt glad when Rip was close by? Or was it more subtle than that? Was there a... spell or something to let them know? Magic was so complicated!

Mik splashed around a little, then impishly flicked some water at Rip, grinning. "Even if I'm not, that doesn't mean we can't be together."

[Ripper Nightshade]

"Ah..." He half smiled, feeling foolish. For a second, he was afraid Mik meant kids. Actual babies. Rip didn't know much about children. All he had were somebody else's memories of being one and he had very little interactions with children.

Honestly, Rip didn't know what he wanted, in regards to love and soulmates. What happened with Brayden was utterly devastating--to the point of driving him damn close to suicide. He would be lying, too, if he said it wasn't still there, lurking in the back of his mind. The desire to die. The desire to no longer be here, with his unnecessary, redundant existence. It hurt to know that he hurt Brayden and it hurt to know that even if Brayden loved him, it was just because he loved everyone, not because he was special.

And so he wished that the third person who treated him like a person--Raphael and Allie had come first--was his soulmate. But in truth, he didn't know if he wanted any soulmate. It hurt too much. But if he could choose one, wouldn't it be nice if it was Mik?

"Yes..." It was different for all of them, though. They were... they were special people. They weren't a human and a golem. Did such things have soulmates? Humans, yes. Golems? It was unheard of. It was like... a toaster having a soulmate.

"Pah!" He blinked back a splash of water that caught him in the eye, then smiled, despite his dark thoughts, splashing Mik back in retaliation. He didn't know what to make of Mik's words. Were they a resignation that there was no soulmate for him out there? Not for Rip, of course. For Mik. Mik probably had one. Maybe he just didn't meet him yet. But for now, he was holding onto Rip for some reason.

Reaching up to touch Mik's face, he said, "You mean until you meet your real soulmate?"

The problem with being a golem, soul or not, meant that he wasn't meant to be here. Which meant... he wasn't meant for somebody else. But Mik had to be. There was somebody out there for him.

[Mikko Ashby]

Mik laughed and wiped water off his face, then primped up his hair and fluffed it because even in a bathtub all naked, he had to look his best. In case... he didn't know, someone came bursting in. He could be naked; he couldn't have sopping wet hair in his eyes.

"What?" He had to pause and think about that one. "My soul mate..." Then Mik frowned. "No. No that's not how things work. I could meet my soul mate tomorrow probably. But I wouldn't... leave you. Or just toss away what we've been building. I could be friends with the guy."

The water splashed as he made an impatient gesture. "I mean it sounds nice and all but I'd rather choose my own soul mate, or... whoever I feel like being with. Who says that soul mate guy is even the best one for me?"