Wounds don't need to heal as long as we do (Flower & Prima Fauna)

[ChampionOfTheMorningStar]

Neal shrugged. He hated these questions. "When did you know you were straight?" He raised an eyebrow, following Heito on down the cold chill of the road. They were good at shoveling and slating here Neal thanked whatever god could possibly be the right one for that. If they didn't he would have attach weird little claws to the ends of his crutches. Ice was his enemy.

 

[Selki Seven]

Heito chuckled and shook his head.


"I didn't mean to upset you. I only ask because a friend of mine only realized he was gay in his freshman year of school. He tried playing quarter back with the cheerleader girlfriend and the likes. Anyone who knew him past the helmet and pads could tell he wasn't truly happy playing the straight football star, but he himself didn't realize it until later on." He looked over at Neal and sighs.


"I'm sorry." Heito looks ahead and starts going over in his mind the agenda for the office and the paperwork needed for tomorrow. It would likely be a night of Chinese delivery in the office with an iPod playing some energetic playlist to keep him awake. He almost looked forward to nights like those, where he could bury himself in his work, get things done right, and not have to worry about anything except the tip for the delivery person and the budgets to put on file.

 

[ChampionOfTheMorningStar]

"You didn't offended me, It's just lots of questions like that all the time, I get tired of it and none of them have very good answers." Neal smiled up at him. "So, Saturday right? Dinner?" Neal bit his lip and smiled, now that Heito knew he was gay it was a bit of a test if he kept to dinner plans. It didn't by any means make it a date, but it was a huge step.

 

[Selki Seven]

"It's understandable. Saturday sounds nice, provided the ex-wife doesn't start with her drama. Anywhere in particular you are thinking of?" Heito sighed with relief knowing he didn't ruin a friendship over a question. Would this be a friendship? Early stages of a friendship, maybe acquaintance. Either way, it meant that Heito wouldn't be alone on another Saturday night at home falling asleep in his chair half way through a rental movie.

 

[ChampionOfTheMorningStar]

"There's a restaurant I love, makes great burgers. Thought we would try that? I haven't been there in a while." Neal came to his shop and turned the sign to say 'Open for business' and nudged the door open with his crutch. "How does that sound? You do like burgers? I mean I think everyone likes them but if you don't we can go to pizza place because it is impossible to hate both burgers and pizza"

 

[Selki Seven]

"That sounds nice. I haven't had a burger in ages. Only thing you get when in a huge corporate meeting is an overpriced steak and name brand water." He chuckles and stops in front of the shop for a moment and looks at Neal with a sigh.


"Thank you for going to lunch with me. I enjoyed it." He smiles and nods then goes on his way to the office.

 

[ChampionOfTheMorningStar]

Neal has often been known to say that he missed skipping. He crunched his way vigorously into the store and smiled at Martha.


"He was cute? Shelf is fixed." She said it all without looking up from a magazine she was reading that she had borrowed -stolen- from the rack.


"Yeah, he fixed it, and no He has a wife." She raised he eyebrows as she rose form her - Neal's- seat so that he could sit. "...Ex wife... and not gay." She sighed and disappeared into romance."You are not allowed to rearrange the-"


"- I think I know how to organize! I was a librarian you were a firefighter!"

 

[Selki Seven]

Heito made his way back to the office with a smile on his face and a swing in his step. He liked his new friend and he planned on making this a thing. Once back the the office, his secretary looks at his whistling and smiles.


"You had a good lunch I take it." Lyla smiles and hands Heito some papers and sticky notes. "There are some messages from the ex-wife, an appointment with some... Japanese investor, and the forms for release for the men who left earlier." She smiles and Heito nods and takes them.


"You can release them now. Tell them they can get the day off for half pay or they can get to their office and start actual work. Oh, and clear anything I might have for Saturday. Oh, take the rest of the day off. Full days pay." He smiles and begins whistling as he walks back to his office to start on his work. He chuckles when he lays his suitcase down on his desk and looks at the papers as he sits in his chair and spins around.

 

[ChampionOfTheMorningStar]

Neal spent the rest of his day pretending to fire Martha as she re-arranged the shelves. Admittedly by the time he closed the shop and flopped on his couch, the shelves looked better. He flicked the television to hockey. He didn't love hockey but noting else was on. He thought about calling Heito, but he didn't want to seem like a total stalker-gay-lover person who was in love with him. Because he wasn't. And goggling didn't count as stalking.

 

[Selki Seven]

The day ended quickly and everyone had left the offices, but Heito stayed in the office with his iPod on high and papers strewn across the office as he began looking at the budgets across the entire company. It was easier than looking at things one by one, and it could be made a game out of if he did it the right way. "What's Left of Me" by Nick Lachey came through the playlist and Heito smiled and began to sing along to it as he danced past the papers and numbers on the floor.


"I'm just running in circles all the time. Will you take what's left? Will you take what's left? Will you take what's left of me?"

 

[ChampionOfTheMorningStar]

Neal opened up the little sketch book he kept as a sort of 'therapy' He liked to put poetry in the drawings. His old therapist -he had fired her, or just stopped going- had recommended he keep a diary. All he would do was draw in the diary so he kept a sketchbook. He put words in, so it was like a-a-a it was just a record of his emotions and thoughts. It helped if he needed it on the bad days, which he did have, fire, any fire, adrenaline, it was bad normally. He put on some music, and began to hum along to the nice little tune. Not thinking much of it.


"Please wrap your drunken arms around me, And I'll let you call me yours tonight, 'Cause slightly broken's just what I need, And if you give me what I want, Then I'll give you what you like "

 

[Selki Seven]

Heito looked at the clock, expecting time to have passed, but it was only 9:37 PM and this made Heito rub his face in annoyance. Some of the men in the office made mistakes in their papers or forgot a number or two, so he had to look into the errors and correct them. Heito went to his desk to grab his suitcase so he could grab a menu from inside it. He popped it open and looked around until he saw Neal's post it with his number on it. He chuckled and looked at the time again before picking up his phone and Dialing Neal's number. Heito hoped that he wasn't waking Neal because then he'd probably feel all sorts of upset. As it dialed, Heito looked through the menus in his briefcase to figure out what sounded nice to him tonight.

 

[ChampionOfTheMorningStar]

Neal was lost in a sketch that looked like lines and words. Very abstract. His phone rang and it felt like a slap in the face. He shook himself and grabbed the phone


In coming call : Heito


Neal squinted at it and looked at the clock on the Tv, it was past 9;00? he answered the call and grabbed a crutch to head to the bathroom to start to head for bed.


"Hello?"

 

[Selki Seven]

"Hello, Neal? I didn't disturb you did I? I was wondering if you'd like to come visit me at the office. I could call a cab for you. I know it is late, I apologize." Heito responded, hoping he didn't wake him up or interrupt anything important. He didn't know why exactly he was calling, maybe just for company in the night.

 

[ChampionOfTheMorningStar]

Neal looked at his own surprised face in the mirror. "Uhh, sure! but is there a reason? It is late, and I met you yesterday... Should I bring my Rape whistle...." He leaned a hand against the sink to steady himself. "... Oh, how tall is your building?" He tried to make the weird question sound casual. He asked this question a lot, since it could be important. He didn't know what would set off the niggling PTSD he dealt with, sometimes tall buildings were a no go. Sometimes it was okay..

 

[Selki Seven]

"Just for company. I'm staying the night here and the time is passing slowly. Having a friend to talk too usually makes the time pass quicker. And you don't need to bring your rape whistle." Heito laughs at his question and began looking through some extra papers and tossing out old ones from the briefcase as he talked on the phone.


"And the building, it is pretty tall. If you are afraid of heights I have some blinds over all the windows. Those can be put down. And we have an elevator. You can use the service elevator to get up here. It is the closest to the door and is the smoothest ride up. I didn't interrupt anything, did I?" Heito dropped the phone in his briefcase and quickly grabbed it.


"Sorry, I accidentally dropped the phone."

 

[ChampionOfTheMorningStar]

"It's fine... yeah I should be fine, I'm not afraid of heights exactly.... text me the address?" He asked fumbling with the single crutch he had brought with him to head to the living room. He thanked the gods he wasn't already wearing his Pj's, he was instead wearing a simple pair of jeans and a shirtsleeve button down shirt. His socks weren't matching though. Not that it mattered. He garbed his shoes and sat down slipping on the shoes he propped the phone in his ear. "I have to hang up now..." He couldn't walk and talk at the same time... only if he was using one crutch which was harder to do then he made it look.

 

[Selki Seven]

"Alright. 1396 East Broadway Boulevard. When you get here, give me a call and I will meet you down if you can't find the service elevator. If you get to it, just come on up to the 20th floor and look for the light. Alright, see you soon." Heito smirked and hung up then put the phone on his music dock and began resuming the playlist. He went back to dancing around the papers and collecting the ones he had already checked over to put into a pile next to his then rearrange the documents that still needed processing and sat them in rows in front of the desk. Heito cleared the top and sat on top of his desk and stared at the papers, not sure what he was missing.

 

[ChampionOfTheMorningStar]

Neal nodded and repeated the address until he hailed a cab. He normally hailed a cab by looking pathetic. People had even hailed one for him in the past, and people constantly gave up their cabs to him. Disability had it's upsides.


"1396 East Broadway Boulevard" he told the cabbie and pulled his collar up, it was raining now. The cab ride was quick as he didn't live that far away. He headed in to the office building, which was indeed very tall, he took a deep breath and found the elevator easily pressing 20. He leaned against the elevator wall and looked up at the ceiling. It occurred to him briefly that he had no idea what he was doing, going off at 9:00 at night to see a man he had only know for a day? He must really be lonely. He shook himself and headed down the hall when the elevator dinged.


"Heito?"

 

[Selki Seven]

Heito sighed as he scratched his head, loosened his tie, and let his feet dangle when he got annoyed that the numbers didn't add up. Heito heard his name and quickly hopped off his desk, rolled up his sleeves, and walked to the end of the hall to see Neal. Heito smiles and walked down to the elevators.


"I'm glad you made it up alright." Heito extends his arm to the hallway and shows Neal the way to his office.


"Sorry if it is awkward me calling you here." Truth was, Heito didn't have many friends in the office or around that he could call. Neal was his first real friend in a long time since Lance. Heito walked into his office and pulled out his wheeled chair for Neal to sit in and Heito took a seat on his desk and crosses his legs and began to look at the papers again.


"How was your day?" Heito asked from his stare at the papers on the floor.

 

[ChampionOfTheMorningStar]

Neal lingered in the office door and looked around. He didn't want to disturb what he was sure were very carefully arranged papers. He looked around. "Is there a place I could sit maybe..." He said looking over to the window. They were very high up here on floor 20. He looked around. "If you don't mind.." He didn't want to move, the last time he had been in a situation involving Heito and papers on the ground he had fallen.

 

[Selki Seven]

"Mhm. I apologize if I'm a bad host." Heito wheeled the desk chair over to the door and motioned for him to have a seat. He smiled and then began clearing the papers from the floor and placed them in a separate pile on his desk. He instead got out a couple of charts and taped them to his window that looked into the cubicles and placed a light facing them. Heito quickly looked over at Neal and pointed to his iPhone.


"If you want, you can search through the music on that and play something. And, you can look through these and see what you'd like. Haven't decided what I am ordering from." Heito handed him a handful of menus then sighed and looked at the graphs again. Nothing made sense. The graphs, the numbers, and the forms were all wrong, but what was the missing link?


"Gah... I can't figure this out. Someone is trying to play with the numbers, I think. It isn't adding up." Heito stood up in front of the window and crossed his arms.


(I posted before that Heito pulled his desk chair our for him to sit in. :3)

 

[ChampionOfTheMorningStar]

Neal flicked through the music and then just put on something random. He sat down laying his crutches on the ground. "Don look at me man, I am no good at numbers..." He looked at the menus and shrugged "I don't really care not that hungry somewhere that sells salad is good for me. Neal gave an easy smile and looked around.


(You did didn't you? Crud sorry! We can just say Neal was being awkward)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[ChampionOfTheMorningStar]

Neal flicked through the music and then just put on something random. He sat down laying his crutches on the ground. "Don look at me man, I am no good at numbers..." He looked at the menus and shrugged "I don't really care not that hungry somewhere that sells salad is good for me. Neal gave an easy smile and looked around.


(You did didn't you? Crud sorry! We can just say Neal was being awkward)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Selki Seven]

(LUL! That is fine. :3 I do that sometimes. )


"Well, you don't have to be. Sometimes it just takes a new perspective." Heito lays on his back on his desk with his head off the side as he looked upside down at the numbers. Heito hummed along to the song playing and looked at Neal then back at the figures.


"So, tell me about you. I know that you are a gay former firefighter who now owns a book store. What are your hobbies?" Heito crosses his arms whilst looking at the pages on the window.