deercountry | 11 . clockhouse rebuilding!

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11 . clockhouse rebuilding!

Who: Those who have offered to help rebuild the Clockhouse, and anyone else who'd like to pitch in!
What: An open mingle log to repair after fires and floods.
When: Throughout September, precise dates not specified.
Where: In Gaze, at the forest's edge.

[ When the weather and chaos dies down, work on the Clockhouse picks up. The building was once an old Deerington mansion, luridly green and eccentric; age faded it into half a ruin, and July's fire did the rest. August's flooding came fast and hard, and now there's very little left to salvage.

The first step has been a damage assessment, with volunteers picking through the structurally unstable ruins, finding singed fiction novels, crisped houseplants, and a weird number of melted grandfather clocks. Demolition goes quickly, while Ozpin stands by and does not even try to control the situation.

Volunteers are needed to design the new structure, carry in materials, and build... and then to decorate and enchant what they've created. The few Sleepers with genuine construction experience provide direction, Ozpin sometimes among them, but things are largely chaotic. A few Sleepers provide snacks and cheerleading.

This is a mingle log. Please feel free to make a toplevel, and comment with your character's contributions below! ]

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"Sorry, I - "

He feels a little bad for laughing like this. Laughing at Ange, especially. But how can he not? The mental image of Ruby scooping her up, of doing reps with Ange as an unwilling barbell is just too hysterical not to appreciate.

At least he doesn't have to sit down to do it. If he was shrimp-curled up on the ground, then this would be way more embarrassing for both of them. But probably more Ange than him.

"I'm so- I'm sorry, I - just picturing it is getting me."

Ange's jaw drops.

"Are you laughing?"

Look at how she's asking it. As if Shiro isn't laughing right in front of her eyes, obvious for the entire world to see. No, apparently Ange is so stupified by his reaction, and the sheer betrayal it obviously is, that she has to question the reality playing out right before her eyes.

Are you laughing, indeed.

"Shiro, I'm telling you about the woes of my life, and you're laughing?"

Yes, because clearly helping your girlfriend with training is such a terrible thing.. Clearly a true burden...

(She's just being dumb and dramatic because she's embarrassed, really.)

"I'm sorry!"

He's trying so hard not to laugh. To stop himself. One hand is over his mouth, and the other around his torso. It's a desperate, desperate attempt to keep himself from laughing even louder. Trying to calm himself down so it doesn't make things worse.

"I - I'm sorry!"

That seems to be all Shiro can manage to say in this moment. Around the hand clamped over his face, anyway.

This utter betrayal. It's not even a slight laugh! Look at it, he can't even hold it back, it's that kind of laughter! The kind that completely takes over.

Ange huffs, and the bridge of her nose wrinkles into an outright pout a moment later. It's so tempting to use her magic here, just a slight curse of revenge, but Ange likes to tell herself she's better than that. She's going to be responsible with her magic, rather than being like the witches back home.

Which means she's instead taking on her most Offended Teenager look here - despite technically having outgrown her teens. Apparently that has happened physically, but not mentally yet, because the look is perfect. Crossed arms and all.

"Are you done yet? I'm going to un-invite you to the wedding, you know!"

Ah, yes, Ange.. the wedding you haven't even sent out invites for, girl.. How can you un-invite poor Shiro when he hasn't even been invited yet?!

Hey, it's mission accomplished! Sort of. Ange says the magic word - "wedding" - and Shiro's laughter cuts off mid-inhale.

He looks like she just punched him in the chest, quite frankly.

"Wedding...?"

Yes, he is well aware of Ruby and Ange. He'd have to have lost his mind not to be. But this is the first he's heard of any wedding.

"You guys are...?"

"Of course!"

Ange huffs, crossing her arms over each other. Apparently she doesn't realise the full impact of these words on him - still way too caught up in her own huffy mood over his laughter, even though the latter has subsided at this point.

"We already got engaged ages ago. It's not like we can drag that period out into forever." Not that Ange didn't technically view them as married already, somewhere between their blood bond and the promise they made to each other all the way back in Deerington.

But you got to formalize that stuff at some point. Regardless of how much Ange hates social events.

Shiro's gone silent for a long moment. Yes, he knows when they got engaged. He remembers Ange and Ruby both mentioning it. And this is, legitimately, the first he's heard of the actual ceremony. He's left standing there, dumbstruck.

Are... are his eyes getting misty?

"That's..." Yes. Yes, they are. "Ange that's wonderful."

Oh no, Shiro do not cry, you big oaf.

Ange is - initially - so caught up in her own little mental huffy world that she doesn't quite notice what kind of reaction her words are causing in the man.

It takes a moment or two, and then Ange properly looking back at Shiro, for her to realise what's actually going on. It seems to make the huffiness about her fade, replacing the emotion with something more akin to surprise.

"W-Wait, are you crying?"

This is some sort of ironic mirror of when she asked about him laughing a few moments ago, huh. Even the emotion behind it is entirely different. Not judging him like for the laughing, but instead--

"Shiro, you can't cry..!" P-Please! Not over her, at least?!

"Just a bit - Maybe."

He's wiping his eyes. He's totally trying not to cry. And, honestly, only doing a marginally better job at hiding the tears than the laughter.

When he manages to throttle some of it down, scrubbing his face on the back of his hand (his real hand), there's a grin on his face instead. He's teary-eyed and beaming at her.

"I'm so proud of you guys."

"Proud enough to cry?" It's a protest, yes, but there's no real intensity to it. It's more just Ange's awkwardness taking shape in words, unsure of how to deal with the idea that anyone could ever be proud of her - especially when she hasn't had parents to do exactly that for the longest time now, after all.

It's a hard sentiment to tackle, and her gaze nervously slides away from Shiro, her cheeks glowing with a glittery darkblood blush that Ange refuses to acknowledge.

"B-Besides.. is it really something to be proud over? I mean, we're just getting married.."

(Or maybe she's downplaying things, because she doesn't know how else to deal with any of this.

You know, the traditional Ange way of handling things.)

"Yeah."

The answer is simple. Absolutely simple, and sincere. He's definitely proud of her enough to cry. Even if it's not openly sobbing, it's just tearing up, his voice a little thick and choked up.

"Ange... think about everything we go through, here. Everything we went through in Deerington. It's hard enough holding onto a casual friendship, let alone... more." A relationship. A girlfriend. And now a wife. "And you two have made it far enough to get married. That's - that's huge."

Also they're like family, so of course he's going to get emotional.

.. maybe she asked for this.

No, she definitely did ask for this, right? She shouldn't have asked him that question, not even in any rhetorical sort of way, because of course Shiro would give such a sappy answer to it. The kind of answer that makes it hard for Ange to even hold the other's gaze, instead letting her own gaze drop, staring at her shoes like they're suddenly the most interesting thing in the world.

"We promised to stay together," she mumbles. "Back in Deerington already."

And she knows it's not that easy. There are plenty of people who promised to stick with her, and now they're all gone. Disappeared in Deerington, going home rather than moving on to Trench, walking back into the sea here.

She knows it's not that easy, and yet--

"I'm just doing my best to live up to that promise. I can't let Ruby down."

At least her voice is a little softer now. Less dismissive, especially since there's emotion sneaking its way in there, showing a bit more of Ange's true feelings rather than just the embarrassment of a moment ago.

"I just want to be with her because I love her."

It's never that easy, no. You can promise everything, to everyone, and still wake up alone one day. Or you can watch the person you'd promised to stay with disappear, drowned, dead, vanished into the dark while you did everything you could to reach out and catch up. But he doesn't need to tell her that. Ange knows. He can tell, just by virtue of their time in both worlds.

You'd have to be heartless not to, or so isolated you had no connection to anyone.

He's taken a step closer, and taken a knee. She's not meeting his eye, so he won't ask her to. He'll just get more to her level, instead. Because he's so proud and so happy for her it feels like if he doesn't at least reach out, he's going to explode.

"I can tell," he says, very gently. As if to keep anyone nearby from accidentally hearing the little heart-to-heart. "I understand."

He remembers I'll work on my half. A greenhouse at the end of the world. Roses in a bowl. no matter what happens, no matter what I say, don't say... or can't say. I'm not going to lose you.

He understands very, very much.

"You know, at some point, I'll have to give one of you the 'shovel talk'," he says, after a long moment, in an attempt to lighten things up. Turn the talk away from Ange having to bare her feelings even more. "I hear that's something family members do."

Oh, whoops. Yeah, they're both basically family by now, as far as he's concerned.

Dangit, Shiro. Why did you have to get down like that? It's really hard to not look at him when he does that, considering she'd otherwise have to look right over his head, and that'd just make her look like she's trying to ignore him.

And she's not! It's just-- this is kind of embarrassing, and a lot, and Ange never knows how to deal with her emotions when they suddenly turn out to be a lot, threatening to spill out in embarrassing ways.

So she sucks in a breath before trying to meet his gaze, even though she can't quite keep up her usual pokerface. There's a darkblood blush on her cheeks, and the look in her eyes is softer. More emotional.

Not even just because of the stuff Shiro is saying about the wedding, or about her and Ruby, but--

"Hold on, you can't just slip stuff in like that."

Something family members do.

No matter what Ange may already have been thinking about Shiro all this time, those words are a lot for a girl who has had such an intense relationship with the concept of family.

"Are you saying that's what you are now..?"

He really wants to hug her when she asks that question. To reach out and embrace her and let that be the answer. But, really, knowing what he does about her - about what she went through in her world, that's not enough. Not for this.

"Ange, with all we've been through by now...?"

His expression is wry, a little more than just amused. Warm. A little uncertain. If she shakes her head, if she shows any sign this is too much, that he's overstepped, he'll take it back. No hard feelings. Then again, this is Shiro, and he doesn't really know how to have hard feelings where his friends are concerned.

"I kind of feel like there's not much else we can be."

He won't presume to be a parent to her. Not like Will or Eddie or even Ryan had considered him. Ange feels more like Chloe - or like Keith. A sibling.

If she'll have him.

Shiro may not be the one to reach out for a hug here, but Ange is. And the fact that he's gotten down for it makes for the fact that she's not clinging to his waist or something, finally at a more appropriate height for all of this.

She doesn't even say anything - not at first. She just moves forward, wrapping her arms around him, clinging to him. Her face hidden over his shoulder, so even the expression on there isn't visible.

But the hug itself says enough, right? Especially when it's Ange initiating it on her own.

"This is dumb," she mumbles, but her voice is so tight that it almost sounds like she might just cry. Or be crying. Again, it's hard to tell with the way her face isn't visible right now.

It's hard for her to not get overly emotional about this anyway, given how important the concept of family is to Ange. With just how long she's been chasing after it, unable to properly process the loss of her own.

"But I'm-- I'm glad."

Oh.

Okay then.

It absolutely does say enough. He doesn't ask for any more. For anything more. Just loops those arms around her in turn, holding onto her just as tight. He's grinning, his head bowed over the embrace. This means a lot - not just because he knows her history. His own family has cracked and shrank, lately, whittling down to bare bones.

Having someone else, another friend, another member of their little family... it means so much.

"Yeah," he says, finally. His own voice a little choked. "Yeah, me too."

For a few moments there are no further words shared. It's as if Ange is content with just this for the moment. Just hugging Shiro, practically clinging to him, even if it's in silence. Calmly breathing in and out as she takes this in. Sure, she was close enough to Shiro that it doesn't really matter what specific label they put on it, but calling it family is..

.. well, it's always a lot, even though it's just a word. Technically.

It's only after those few moments of silence that Ange slowly manages to speak up again - while still not letting go of the other. She doesn't care that anyone else who's helping build the house here might see. It feels unimportant in comparison.

"I guess it's only natural that it'd end up this way."

After all this time. After all they've been through.

"We're still here, after all." The both of them. Despite the move from Deerington to Trench, despite everything.. Despite how long they've known each other, they're still here.

They're family, sticking together.

No one really seems to be in this area, thankfully for her dignity. If there were, he'd be happy to step back - not because he wants to. He doesn't, actually. He wants to hold onto a member of family a while longer. As if to solidify the fact it's true.

He's content to wait here, like this, until she's ready.

"Well, you could have hated me," he teases. It's either that or get all sappy on her all over again. "Or gotten tired of how stubborn I am. I hear that's a real possibility."

But... after all they've been through. After everything. All the pitfalls, the monsters, the curses and the nightmares... they're still here. They're building a home for her, for her life as a partner.

Okay maybe he's getting a little sappy. At least in his own head.

"Yeah. You're kind of stuck with me."

"That's okay. I like it."

Being stuck with him, that is. Sure, there's something to be said about Shiro's stubbornness, especially the way in which it seems to cling to every single bad habit of his.

But even that is just a part of him. A part of him she's grown so used to by now that it's almost predictable, a sign of how well she's gotten to know him over time. Sure, maybe they don't know each and every single detail about the other's life, but they don't have to.

What matters most is what they have here now. This place is their home now, after all.

(It's why she still doesn't let go, content to cling onto him for a moment longer, to linger in the warmth.)

"Just you being here.. that makes me happy. You don't have to do anything else, other than just being you."

Because that's enough. Because Shiro - at his core - is such a kind and warm person, the sort of person Ange just never met back in her own world. The kind of person she needs to have around. Maybe that's what makes it so easy to think of the other as family, considering her family was the only place she ever had that warmth in the first place.

"I'm going to remember it the next time you're telling me I'm too stubborn."

He will, but also won't. He'll remember what she said in those moments, sure, but out of amusement. Maybe tease her a bit. But, more importantly, he'll remember them in the darker times. When it's so hard to think of anything positive at all. She's stuck with him.

Family is stuck with him.

"And... I'll figure that out, someday." Knowing other people think it. Knowing other people believe it, it's one thing. Maybe if he hears it enough, it'll finally sink in. He'll finally accept that somehow, he's enough. "But hearing it? Especially from family?"

He's getting sappy again, ugh.

"Helps a lot."

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11 . clockhouse rebuilding!

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