21 Guns

Juliet had wandered out to her favourite spot on the lawn earlier than usual that day - the sun, although begining to sink, hadn't quite gotten to the point where colours would shoot across the sky.

Stashing her assorted items behind her before laying back on the blanket. She had a probably half an hour or so before anything interesting would happen, so instead of sitting up to make sure she had a good view, she laid back on the blanket, closing her eyes. Taking a moment to soak up the last rays of sunlight.

Only... the warmth was so soothing, that the young girl managed to doze off; she was completely oblivious to the approaching footsteps.

"WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU'RE GOING?!"

Wincing at the yelled words, Zander continued running, pulling a grey ARMY tshirt on over his chest just in case Julie decided to be as observant as usual. Hugging the small square package to his chest, he continued on his sprint, noting with dismay that he was leaving earlier than usual. She probably wouldn't even be out yet...

His sprint slowed to a halt before the blanket, blinking down at the girl before flopping down beside her, still breathing hard. Laying on his stomach, too wary of his back, he reached out and tickled her stomach to wake her, placing his other hand over her eyes.

"Guess who?" He murmured in her ear, a grin tugging at his lips in spite of himself.

The girl, mumbled slight, swatting at the hand as she tried to squirm out of reach.

"s'op'it," she mumbled still half asleep, and an unconscious giggle escaping her lips. Slowly she pulled herself awake, opening her eyes only to find she could see anyways.

SHe rolled her eyes, and laughed a little again, "The grim reaper? No-no Santa? Or how about..."

She grinned slightly, her teasing tone softening.

"Happy Birthday Zander."

Curling into her, he rested his head on her shoulder, dropping his hand to drape his arm over her middle. "Yeah yeah. I'm Santa.... in the middle of August." His hold tightened in a half hug.

"Meh." He grunted, rolling off her and sitting up quickly to get off his back. Unknown to him, a slight smear of red started to slowly spread through the grey fabric. "I'm older. Big whoop." He glanced down at her, reaching for the square package at the end of the quilt that he'd dropped. "Brought us something."

"Hey, it could happen," she teased, patting his arm in a half return of his hug, "Maybe I have just been so good this year he had to come early."

She raised an eyebrow, smiling slightly, "Did you?" After a moment she use her shoulders to push herself up into a sitting position, turning her neck to see what he was getting.

"Oh look," she teased, "You're even wearing a shirt for the occation. I was begining to think you didn't know what a shirt wa-"

She froze in her flippant remark as she caught sight of something on his shirt.

"Zander, don't move," she all but breathed as she pushed herself onto her knees to look closer. "Is that..." she reached a hand out to grab the shirt and then thought better of it. "Why is there blood on your shirt?!"

He grinned at her, placing the square package before her proudly. "I made us cup-" He paused at the look on her face, his gaze sweeping her questioningly as he froze. The emotions drained from his expression as he glanced over his shoulder, his eyes catching on the slowly growing stain. It's changing size showed that it wasn't just a stain - it was growing larger because he was still bleeding.

"Relax Julz." He sighed, rolling his shoulders slightly, wincing as the fabric brushed his injury. "It's nothing." He faced forward again, head hanging. Flopping onto his stomach, the boy looked out into the horizon, expression still vacant. "Doesn't even hurt." He lied quietly.

The girl continued to stare at the stain - the growing stain.

"I will not relax," she stated indignantly. Her concern making her more demanding and outspoken then she was on a regular basis. "You're bleeding and your lying. It hurts, I'm not blind, I can see."

She frowned slightly before leaning forward grabbing the end of his shirt and tugging lightly, "Take it off."

He closed his eyes, resting his chin on his folded arms. For a moment, he didn't move, simply letting the breeze ruffling through his hair relax him. "You're overreacting." He murmured gently. "It's... nothing."

He looked over at her, sighing before sitting up. He crossed his arms over each other, fingers curling under the hem of his shirt. "Don't freak out." He ordered, glancing over his shoulder at her. "I'm almost completely sure you'll think it's worse than it is."

Without further ado, he slowly lifted the thing off of him, slowing down as it reached the middle of his back and gingerly pulling it off, careful to not let it brush the bruise that surrounded the oddly shaped burns that covered his shoulder. If one was to look closely, they'd notice that each burn would have had a uniform circular shape - much like that of a cupcake pan - if his shoulder hadn't made the pan hit awkwardly. The skin around each burn was a sickening blue grey and purple, and the burns themselves were red.

He crossed his legs beneath him and turned toward her, shaking his head at her reaction. "It's okay! Really! I've had much worse-"

Juliet just crossed her arms waiting for him to follow her orders, "Which totally means you're just lying to me to calm me down, and my reaction is perfectly spot on."

Her gaze never wavered, biting her lip as she watched him pull the shirt up. SHe hadn't been sure what she had been expecting, his words not comforting her at all. However when she actaully saw what was on his back...

Her face visibly paled, and she was sure her hands were shaking a bit. The skin was... was... she hardly thought one could call that skin, so burnt and bruised there barely seemed to be a section of it that was some colour of the rainbow - or at least not a colour skin was ever supposed to be.

"Zander," she breathed softly, a hand half reaching out before she flung it back to her chest, terrified of causing him more pain. "How can you... are those burns."

She continued to look at him for a moment longer, feeling completely helpless as to what too...

"What do you mean you've had worse?! How can- what can... worse than.. worse then that!"

Zander sighed, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose. "Knew you would have this reaction..." He sighed. "It's why I wore the bloody shirt in the first place." He narrowed his eyes at her, raising to his feet and rolling his shoulders, wincing as it stretched the burn/bruise/cut. "Could have been the frying pan..." He muttered, mostly to himself.

"Probably should just... go..." He gestured in the general direction of his house, picking the package that was obviously a present from behind her. "Eat the cupcakes, okay?" His brown eyes were sad as they met her hazel ones, and then he was gone, running back toward his aunt's house. Back and past. Into the city of Azorat.

"Could have been...?" the girl repeated in a disbelieving mumble, not really listening to him, for a weird sort of buzzing was taking over her ears. How could anyone...?

Why would anyone...?

She swallowed back her confusion, her shock, and was about to order him to stay put as she went to get something... anything... to help, but he was already standing, why was he...?

"Zander, wait," she called half heartedly, fumbling to her feet, but she was too slow, he had already taken off, "Please, Zander don't -!"

It was foolish, he obviously didn't want her help, and she was obviously the much slower of the two, but she couldn't help it, she just couldn't not-not do anything.

Not again.

She took off after him, calling his name only twice before she was too out of breath to bother; it was only another few moments before he had disappeared from site completely, and she had no idea which way to turn to follow. Still... she tried long enough to get herself rather lost, before admitting defeat.

As she spent her time wandering back home, she kept looking over her shoulder, hoping that maybe he'd come back.

Worrying about what would happen if he didn't.

She finally sank back onto her blanket just as the sun blinked out of the sky, bringing in the nightfully. Funny... the day she'd come out early, had managed to be the day she missed the sunset completely. In the dark, she pulled open the box, staring down at the two lonely cupcakes.

Juliet wasn't a foolish girl, in fact, in her moments of pride she liked to think she was quite smart. She could see the shapes of those marks, even slightly distorted. She could figure out what happened.

She stuck her finger in the iceing of one of the cupcakes, looking at it for a moment before licking it off.

She had failed to save Cecile, when they had been taken; she had just sat by and done - done nothing. She had let her die.

Juliet never wanted to just do nothing again.

A single tear dripped down the young girls face as she laid on her side, and arm wrapping around the box of cupcakes she couldn't quite bring herself to eat.

She stayed like that until she fell asleep.

Irony.

The way the sunrise looked was stunning. The difference between darkness being pushed away by the colors and replaced by the gold of morning and darkness creeping into the colors, choking them, replacing them with black was obvious. Sunrise was much brighter, with more orange and yellow tinged colors, while sunset usually leaned toward reds and blues. It was stunning really.

From his place on the edge of the quilt, Zander watched as the color pallet of the world slowly changed before him, birds woke with song, squirrels started chasing each other. It was like a scene from one of those Disney movies he hadn't been allowed to watch - he'd read them, Snow White, Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast - or from some soap opera that actually had a happy ending.

Irony.

He didn't move as the girl behind him stirred, preferring to stay in his seated position - knees to his chest, arms around knees, chin resting on arms - and just... watch the sunrise. Pretend like nothing had changed. Like she wouldn't look at him differently now.

Where else did he have to go?

"You didn't spend all night out here, did you?" He asked quietly, almost to himself, though it was quite obvious she had. He had walked past earlier that morning - hours ago - and saw it for himself. He supposed her caretaker had put up wards or something, he could feel them hanging in the air around her. The silk shirt he had tugged from that clothesline had been left at St. Mungo's, and they'd replaced it after healing him. The standard 'I got into a fight' had been replaced with 'We were attacked'. It felt weird to say. He'd only added himself on after they saw the burns. The button up shirt was too comfortable - he wasn't used to it, the fabric was too... just comfortable. 100% cotton. Madness.

His eyes stayed on the horizon as he held up his present, taking a carefully measured picture of the sunrise. It made a clicking sound, capturing the moment and showing it on the small screen as he looked down at it. "Thanks for this, by the way." He said, keeping his voice at the same quiet tone, though quiet gratitude shined through like golden sunlight. His next words were loaded, just short of being bitter, only slightly on the awed side.

"You shouldn't have."

Juliet woke to the sounds of birds singing, and a cool morning brease dancing over her. She mumbled slightly to herself and rolled, trying to snuggle deeper into her bed - keep away the draft.

It was only as her bed refused to let her snuggle, feeling more like grass than matteress, that she remembered the night before, and realized that it was in fact grass.

She had fallen asleep in the yard.

"Hmm?" she squinted, opening her eyes slightly, but upon finding the growing light too bright for her still tired eyes, she quickly closed them again, rolling closer to the sound of the voice, "I didn't mean to; I just... wanted to wait, in case you came back and then I just... fell asleep."

It took her brain a few moments to process what she had just said, and what it meant for who she had been talking to.

She sat right up, blinked at the boy for a moment, before letting out a squeal and throwing her arms around him, too excited to think about anything else for the moment.

"Zander! You came back!" Her brain recalled why he left in the first place and she pulled her hands off him quickly, "Oh my god, I didn't hurt you did I? Sorry... I didn't mean... I just..." calming down slightly, she leaned foward and forced her arms gently around his middle, lower than she recalled the wound being, and smooshed her face into his shoulder. "You came back."

She glanced at the camera, which he had just finished taking a picture with, and shook her head slightly, "You're my friend - yes I should have."

He offered a half shrug before tensing right before she attacked, cowering... before he realized it wasn't an attack.

A hug.

She wasn't angry.... she was- was-

Worried?

Struck by the sheer impossibility of this small fact, he didn't specifically process her words other than to shake his head. He wasn't hurt anymore. They'd healed him at St. Mungo's. "I'm not hurt." He gently lifted the camera and flipped it around, taking a picture of the two of them without bothering to pull his lips up into a smile. He set the camera aside with immense care, pulling his arms back around his knees once more.

He tensed as her arms wound their way around his middle, unconsciously relaxing slightly and leaning into her hold as he realized it was just another hug. Just Julz being Julz.

"But- I don't have enough money to pay you back-" He argued, clearly distressed. "I don't- I need the money for- for- clothes and school books and-"

She decided to ignore the way he tensed before every hug, like he expected her to do something far worse than embrace him. She was starting to pull this altogether anyway - she had had certain suspicions before... just from the way he spoke. But now...

"You don't have to pay me back, silly," she rolled her eyes, and tightened her hug for the briefest moment, still having yet to pull away. She was rather content where she was, "Its called a present for a reason; you're supposed to take it and just go "Thank you Juliet; I always knew you were the bestest ever"."

She giggled slightly to herself at her half joke, and then let her gaze drift over to the sky, watching the last of the sun lift up over the horizan. It must have been beautiful. She was kind of sad she had managed to sleep through most of it.

"I'm glad you're okay," she said softly, deciding it best not to bring up a conversation on where he disappeared to, and how he was now okay. She paused for another long moment, "I'm sorry I-I... I got all... that I-that I freaked out. Its just... I mean... I saw it, and-and it reminded me-" she stopped and paused for another moment, closing her eyes against memories; when she continues again her voice was even softer than before, almost as if she was speaking to herself.

"I didn't help her - I couldn't help her... but it's all the same... in the end... I didn't help her and she-she-she... I didn't want the same thing to happene again, happen to y-" she swallowed back her words and shook her head slightly. This wasn't about her, and all this. She was just trying to apologize, make things better... somehow. "I'm just sorry."

"Thank you Juliet, I knew you were the bestest ever." He repeated in a slightly awed voice, though he tried not to let any emotion through. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back, resting it on her shoulder. "This is the nicest thing anyone's ever gotten me, you know."

He frowned, turning his head toward her slightly. "Hey." He murmured softly, eyes blinking open. "It's not your fault. Don't be sorry about it." He bumped his head against hers gently, tone reproachful. "It's still my birthday, you know." He said softly. "We should celebrate." He hummed in thought. "What do you think of a carnival?"

Juliet couldn't help but chuckle slightly, "And that's why I'm the bestest ever - you'd do well to remember that."

"I'm sorry," she mumubled and blushed, before giggling at that, "Or am I not allowed to be sorry for being sorry?"

Running a hand through her hair, she turned to him with a slight grin, "A carnival?"

She couldn't remember the last time she'd been to a Carnival. She glanced over at the house for a moment, before decideding that Mad would know... somehow... and grinning back at the boy.

"Lets go to the carnival!"