5 : BlindSighted
Elliot caught Scilius' shoulder while he made his way outside. Scilius flinched, but turned with a smile once he recognized the friendly claw.
"Where you gonn'a leave without me?"
"Nah," he wouldn't dare.
"So where're we going?"
"I live a few blocks down, that'ish direction." He pointed off behind him.
"Well, go then," she nudged him."
They started to move on, but a voice halted them both.
"Elliot!" It was Cecil, of course, trying to rain on Scilius' parade. "Where you goin'?"
"I'm going over to Scilius' house today."
"Oh," he looked a little bothered, "you didn't tell me."
"Didn't think I needed to tell you everything." She spoke with a fake bite in her tone.
"We always walk home together."
Scilius couldn't tell for sure, but he thought he saw Elliot's blurry head nod towards him.
"It's one day."
"Alright," he said after a few seconds, "see you later."
"Goodbye." She turned and Scilius realized he was supposed to continue walking now.
He had to keep himself from laughing, chuckling even.He's such a bitch, he thought, if only I could have seen his face. He still wasn't sure if Cecil is, was, wanted to be her boyfriend, or whatever, but that had been glorious for him. That's right walk home, look who she picked over you. He stopped his thoughts. _That kind of sounded like one of mom's rants, bleh. _
Elliot nudged his arm, and then handed him a small brick, with a hundred or so keys on it.
"Is this your calculator?"
"Yeah," he told her, noticing his poorly formed script on the back. "Where'd you get it."
"Umm, I'm pretty sure Daniel might have taken it." She paused for a minute. "Then threw it in the toilet." Scilius dropped it on the ground before she could say anything else.
"Gah, YOU touched it?"
"I was joking, Scilly, did you break the screen."
"No," he had inspected it.
"I saw him take it the other day," she paused for a minute, "I just grabbed it from his bag at lunch."
"Ah, thanks, then."Wow, he thought, she really did that for me? For his own personal experiment, he let his tail tap hers as it waved, and she didn't protest.
Walking down the frigid streets of his suburb, they turned on the street holding his single story house with a rather unkempt lawn. The other houses around it didn't outshine it, though.
"This one?"
"Yeah, red door."
"Looks nice."
"Thanks." He wasn't sure whether that was a real compliment to feel personally proud of. "The one in Arizona was better." He said it a little somberly, the air nipping at his head.
"Your mom chose it?"
"Definitely. Only she'd go for something so minimal."
"Where is she?"
"Work." He was unlocking the door.
"Where does she work," she dropped her schoolbag on the floor, so did Scilius.
"The HL lawfirm. I think she's a small claims lawyer."
"Nice, does she know we're here?"
Scilius thought for a second. He told her last night, he was pretty sure. She had many questions to ask along with it, most of them he could only try to dodge. "I think so."
"Is your dad home?"
"No." It took him a while to answer. Elliot didn't catch his hesitation.
"Where does he work?"
"H - He doesn't."
"Oh, where is he then?"
"Back... in Arizona, somewhere."
"I'm sorry," she blurted out, catching on somewhat.
"It's fine," he sounded more relaxed.
"You sure?"
"Yeah."
There was a dreadfully awful silence, and awkwardly not making eye contact, before either one of them spoke up again.
"So where's your room?"
"Oh, down the hall." He started walking, and she followed. He opened the door, and let her in first.
"Cool bed."
"Actually, it's warm." He had a smirk on his snout.
"What?"
"It's heated."
"No way!" She jumped onto the bed to feel it, and after she did, Scilius walked over to sit next to her.
"You don't have one?"
"No!" She was rolling in the covers, "and my parents keep the temperature in our house freezing."
"I thought most reptiles in colder places had one."
"Poor me." She gave him a pitiful look.
"Poor you." He smiled, and both his and her tail waved.
"Can I borrow it?"
He laughed, "if you wan'na carry it to your house. It's in the mattress itself."
"I could just stay over more often then, that'll be more fun anyway. You're here."
Scilius blushed, and he was pretty certain that she had done the same. I wonder. He nudged her tail with his again. This time, her tail tapped back.
"So, art school, huh?"
"Yeah," she sat up, excitedly.
"That was a cool eye you drew." I mean, the greyish blur looked rather impressive.
"It was a sketch, I've done a lot better."
"Can I see." He said in an inflection.
"I don't know." She sounded a lot more eager than she tried to pretend to be.
"Please? I'm sure they're wonderful."
"Okay," she pulled out a touch screen phone and dialed a code in, handing it to Scilius afterwards.
Scilius swiped through the images, which all seemed very blurry to him,but in a rather cool way, he noted. The graphite lines, which he assumed would look scratchy, became a smooth blur, and he noticed, there was distinct shading along with it. He could only tell that most drawings were figures, while some seemed more cartoon-y.
"That's a drawing of my hand... that ones a skull... and that ones a tree."
Each time she explained one he'd nod and give a compliment.
"You can't even see them can you?"
Scilius stood there, knowing he was caught. "Maybe..."
"Haha, wow. Thanks th- Not that one!" She shouted and grabbed her phone back. Scilius was only scrolling through each side, and thought that "that one" had only been one of the other drawings.
"What."
"That one's... not very good."
"I'm not going to judge."
"Nope."
What was that picture? She hid the phone straight into her pocket, tail bent taught between her legs. Scilius sat there for a minute, not talking, until Elliot broke the silence again.
"So, biology right?"
"Yeah," he woke from a daze of silence, "studying insapients and stuff."
"Why's that?"
"They're cool, I guess." He thought for a minute. "They're not spoken, you know, their like a sapient who doesn't express their emotions. They don't have them, though, that's just a projection. But, it seems so easy to identify with them.
"Because they're like you?"
"Yeah," he felt exposed, talking about his opinion of himself. "I've never been a real 'friend' kind of scale, you know. I barely had friends back in Arizona, I just spent my time outside with myself. I'd do the same now, but it's too damn cold. So, inside by myself."
"Not anymore." She put a claw on his, tail waving slowly. His waved frantically.
Scilius felt the room he was in fade away, and for some reason, found himself in an ally.Riverside mall? He was alone, with her, sitting on what for some reason was really warm and soft concrete, her claw holding his. He scooted himself, next to her, and let her lay a shoulder on him.
"Still alone, though."
"You are?"
"WE are still alone, and I think I like that better." He smiled at her.
"My parents want me home soon." Scilius was disappointed. He knew she'd have to leave eventually,but this soon?
"Aww."
"I can come over some other time."
"Soon?"
"Very soon." She smiled at him.
They left the house and Scilius let her lead him down a few blocks. He was making sure that he could remember the path back to his house. To his surprise, Elliot only lived two streets down, a quick stroll away. They both stopped at the front step of a two story house, with a steep sloped roof. She turned to him.
"Thanks for having me over. The bed was cool."
"Warm. Thanks for coming." He made her laugh.
Perfect moment, Scilius thought. Every romance he'd seen - he could probably count them on his claws - would insist that he'd kiss her now. He himself would insist that he'd kiss her now. The sun is setting to his left, the wind blowing at his right. He was slowly making his cardinal step towards her, to set in motion what would be his first - no, well technically second - time. Stop thinking, go with it.
"Hey, you're home."
Scilius thought he was being caught by a parent, but apparently not so. Strangely enough, Scilius recognized the tall blurry red figure.Cecil?
"Hey Cecil."
"Dinner's almost ready."
"Alright." She turned back to Scilius, who was still thinking.
"Have a great night."
"Y - you too." He was still looking stupidly at Cecil.
"'Night," Cecil said reluctantly to him, to which Scilius returned a wave.
Then Cecil and Elliot both disappeared behind the door, and Scilius turned at nearly crawled his way back home.
No way.