deercountry | 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! ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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."

11 . clockhouse rebuilding!

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