Best Friends Help Locate Lost Minds...Right? ((River Halvorson)) [PG-13]

Technically, Elijah had every right to enter a barrack as he chose. That was a Praetor thing...right? Even if it wasn't, River never hesitated to make her way into his room in the Principia, and fair was fair...right? Of course, the boy's terror had absolutely nothing to do with entering the Second Cohort's barrack unannounced and everything to do with the news he had to share with his best friend. Chaos was full of surprises. For instance; who would have thought that Elijah could be pretty obsessive about lists and facts...be a compulsive neat freak...find himself in a relationship with a guy he had punched in the face a mere four months earlier...just things that made life strange, right? The fact that trumped them all was the fact that none of this was strange to the boy. His father had made him see psychologists and psychiatrists for years before admitting defeat, but those were years the son of Discordia had been studied by leading specialists and stumped them all. Spending so long experiencing people trying to figure him out had led Elijah to accept that his brain was simply impossible. He learned to manipulate his way in and out of sticky situations ("How did you break his arm, Elijah?"..."Dunno...adrenaline rush?"..."You have a lot of those, don't you Elijah?"..."I guess. Do you want to be the ninth psychiatrist to diagnose me with IED? This is one of those stampy card things, right? After my tenth diagnosis, I get one free?"), make people cry, and make sure no one could get past his complicated fortresses. Nothing got past Elijah Emmanual. Nothing and no one...most attempts ended in disaster with the boy having the last laugh. Elijah became a walking contradiction...a shell for chaos and strife...everything impossible, though no one dared to get close enough to make sure. Of course, close enough was finding out his mother was the Roman Goddess of chaos and strife which, although made perfect sense to Elijah, any mortal would throw him and anyone who raised the idea into a loony bin.

River was different. Although Elijah knew nothing about magic, he figured it had to have some sort of order to it. Otherwise it probably wouldn't work. Or so the boy figured. All he knew for sure that was, as close as he and River were, the two saw and experienced the world through completely different lenses. And where Elijah was perfectly content to accept the fact that most things shouldn't make sense, his best friend would not be nearly as accepting in a scenario that presented itself like this one. In all fairness, though, she had been the one to find him after his disastrous first encounter with Jack, hold him as he sobbed, help him through the entire mess and come to terms with so much, yet so little. She had confronted Jack while Elijah was probably curled up in a ball in a corner of his room. She had put up with his angry rants (though the boy had admittedly unfairly left her out of the whole bit where his feelings started changing). This wasn't going to be easy. Because as much as it made sense in Elijah's head, there was no way he could put any of it into words. Hell, he couldn't even get the point across to Jack (though the older boy didn't give him much of a chance between kissing him every few moments, properly stealing the boy's breath away and derailing his train of thought...rude didn't even begin to cover it). A good chunk of the boy's morning had been devoted to making a list of points he needed to hit when talking to River. It had been a frightening realization that no matter what he said or how he said it, Elijah was figuring high odds in finding himself in a very bizarre universe between his best friend and boyfriend. Perhaps being stubborn would be more of a blessing than a curse, for once.

Standing outside the door of the Second Cohort barracks, Elijah stared at the wood for a moment. He took a quick last glance at his cheat sheet (there was no way he was going into this staring at a piece of paper while he tried not to blush too hard). Major points to hit..."River, I know you're not going to like this," the boy murmured, shoving the paper in his pocket. "But this is the way it is. You don't have to like it, or accept it right away...just don't kill my boyfriend with magic or set ghosts on him. I promise, he's already completely terrified of you...please don't make it worse..." this couldn't end well. "And I don't want to end up like a kid between separated parents. No setting schedules for mealtimes or deciding who has custody on what day of the week. We're all adults, and we share. And for the love of the Gods, River, don't kill my boyfriend with magic or set ghosts on him!" Forget fearing for Jack's life and/or sanity, Elijah was pretty terrified for himself. Seriously...the odds were stacked pretty high against him. Magic. Whose brilliant idea was that? Sending a quick apology up to Trivia (followed by a quick plea for her to make sure her daughter didn't lose it), Elijah took a deep breath, put his hand on the door handle and pulled the door open before he could turn around. It would only be indescribable amounts worse if River heard all this from someone other than Elijah himself.

"Hey, Riv?" Elijah called out, glancing around. At first, no one at all seemed to be there, let alone his best friend. That would be beyond bad. Going through this anticipation a second time? The boy might head up the nearest mountain and live out life as a celibate hermit. Of course, the universe loved to mess with Elijah these days, and the reality was even worse than the worst thought up scenario. Truly, the only thing that could possibly be worse than River not being there was the unimaginable...a thought that Elijah hadn't even allowed to cross his mind. But how would he find his best friend any other way than perfectly still, cross-legged, holding her crystal and imagining her little pixie blue mind bubble. How perfect that the boy walked in on River in a trance. But damned if he turn back now. Marching loudly over to River's bunk (combat boots were always good for making a grand entrance), Elijah came up beside his best friend. In a soft voice, hopefully the perfect frequency, the boy chose his words carefully. "River...I am undeniably stupid for doing this, but after the past two days, this is the least stupid thing I've done. Resurface right now, or I swear, I will turn up the radiation so damn bad your ugly pixie blue bubble will pop in ways you can't even imagine. Sincerely, Elijah."

River smiled calmly as she settled into her usual position on her bed. She wasn’t intending to perform any actual magic this time, but she still needed to get into the right mental state to do what she wanted. Her magic was slowly improving, but she still protected herself behind a thick, stable mental bubble. Honestly, if viewed from the outside, that bubble probably looked more like one of those big rubber balls that kids pulled out of wire crates at Kmart. That was fine and dandy for the time being, but it wasn’t a good permanent result. Somewhere along the line, the daughter of Trivia knew it would hinder her abilities. How long would it be before a spell couldn’t work through the wall and it bounced back at her? What if she needed to pull out of a trance quickly, but it took too long to disable her bubble? Either case could be largely disastrous. As she sunk in this time, she blew her bubble, positioned herself where she needed to be, and got to work.

The mental River pulled a few loose threads out of the blanket covering the bed and started to weave them together. When she was content with the strength of the weave, she pulled, expanding the tiny square into a new, larger blanket. She shook it and tossed it up, watching it meld into the bubble surrounding her. If she looked closely, she could just barely see the fibers hidden within the pixie blue covering. Smiling, she set to work on the second part of her task. Reaching out, she grasped the very edge of the bubble. With just a little bit of effort, she managed to peel up a thin layer, much like separating the layers of a tissue. Pulling carefully, she peeled the layer off from the whole of her bubble until she had an odd sort of sheet surrounding her. She balled it up and placed it just to the side before reaching for another layer. After four layers, her woven fabric finally started to poke through. She shoved it deeper into the wall and continued to pull more and more layers from the bubble. Finally, after more than a dozen layers, she sat back to admire her handiwork. She was surrounded by pixie blue Super Balls, but her bubble finally resembled what she wanted. It was still a bright blue, but it was as thin as a soap bubble. She picked up one of the Super Balls and chucked it at the bubble wall. It was a relief to see it slide through the wall without breaking it to bits, but it was even better to see return and ricochet off the outside of the bubble. Smiling, she started gathering all her Super Balls and mashing them into one.

Suddenly, a little light off to the side caught her attention. It blinked out, but then returned, flashing like the light on a radio tower. She grinned widely, instantly recognizing the light for what it was. She was so deeply connected mentally to two people that they showed up like lights in her mental field. Only one of them would blink like that, though. Elijah’s radiating meant that he was never a steady bulb. He always flashed in and out. River had learned by now that the speed of his blinking was related to how badly he was radiating. Thankfully, he wasn’t flashing like a strobe light yet, but it was still enough to make her disable her bubble. Anything more than a constant, slow blink meant he probably had to talk to her about something. She slowly took down her defenses and pulled herself back to the surface, just in time to hear Elijah whispering in her ear. “I’ll have you know my bubble is not ugly,” she retorted as she reached the surface and opened her eyes. “Here. I’ll prove it.” While the trance was still fresh enough, she pushed the image, hoping Elijah would at least get a mental glimpse of the bubble she saw. If not, she’d show him next time. Sliding back on the bed to make room for him, she continued, “In all seriousness, what’s up? If you turn up the radiation much more, you’ll be competing with Chernobyl. Sit and talk.”

It only took a moment for Elijah to freeze.  The weight of the situation hit him like a ton of bricks...River detested Jack.  She loathed him, she...oh Gods.  She wouldn't just put up with this.  Because no matter what her best friend had to say, no matter how much the boy explained the situation, River wasn't going to deal well with it.  Maybe Elijah should just keep it hidden.  A secret relationship with Jack...very Romeo and Juliet...a tragedy, no, that was no good.  This had to happen, appropriately, and without anyone dying.  The boy had to rediscover whatever dumb courage fueled him here and see this through.  Besides, keeping this from River would be terrible.  Elijah would have to give in his best friend card for that one.  He didn't want to do this.  But he had to.  Because above all, River had been there.  She had put up with the son of Discordia throughout everything.  This entire time...not just with everything that had happened with Jack, things before...the boy's tearful coming out, rants about things that made sense, that didn't make sense, and not just the bad, all the laughs, random conversations in Latin because Elijah was too moody to speak in English, times where the daughter of Trivia would let herself into her best friend's room just to talk or to cheer him up.  And there was no way in hell Elijah would let all that go because of a boy.  Well...it wasn't like Elijah was going to give Jack up.  Entering into some strange, alternate universe.  As if the whole half-blood thing wasn't a fantasy story in the first place.  Now the boy would be seeing the dark side.  The scary side of this all.  "All for you, Prince Charming," the boy mumbled under his breath.  Well, he wouldn't be doing this if he didn't think Jack was worth it.  River would be fine, even if it took a little while.

And then it was happening.  River was speaking, bringing Elijah back to earth.  "Horribly ugly," Elijah teased anxiously.  "I can think of a million better colors than pixie blue," he said with a slight smile.  Might as well try to ease the (one-sided) tension while he could.  Soon enough, everything would go insane.  The whole thing with Elijah's mother being Discordia complicated things...easing the tension was the complete opposite of everything in the boy's nature.  Gods...in his attempts to ease the tension, Elijah was probably making things even worse.  He was definitely radiating more already.  River would know...she always knew.  When his best friend gave him a mental glimpse of her bubble, Elijah chuckled, try to ease himself.  "I'm not sure the color fits," the boy snorted.  "It's awfully light and airy, don't you think?" wait...that wasn't a good way of getting River in a good mood.  Maybe, it was?  Just teasing, being silly?  Lighten the mood...yes, that was how to go about it.  Although the boy wasn't sure where the line was with this sort of thing, so he should probably stop.  No more lightening the mood...just going with the flow.  Going with the flowing and being honest.

"It's...uh..." Elijah lowered his head slightly as River moved over on the bed.  With a deep shaky breath, the boy sat down beside his best friend, leaning back against her side.  This was going to be fine.  River would have whatever to say about whatever and then she'd be happy for her best friend.  But if this was going to be fine, why was Elijah so terrified?  And why was he radiating so badly?  This was horrible...River was his best friend.  His best friend!  She would be fine!  There had to be some way Elijah could keep a balance between River and Jack, and he was definitely stubborn enough to not put up with bracchae from anyone!  River was the boy's best friend and Jack was his boyfriend.  This would work just fine!  With a steadier breath, Elijah lifted his head high.  "River...I know you're not going to like this, but I'm dating Jack Wheelan now and that's the way it is!" rushed words that probably hadn't even made sense.  Oh Gods.  That meant the boy had to say all that over again.  No.  No.  Not again.  Slightly queasy, Elijah moved his gaze to somewhere above River's head.  But there was no progressing if the basic point of it all hadn't been made clear.  Okay...time to try again.  Returning his gaze to his best friend, the boy moved slightly closer to the older girl, taking her hands.  Maybe Elijah could channel some of River's calm.

Except things didn't work like that.  Elijah had to deal with this.  Forget competing with Chernobyl, the boy was relatively certain Hiroshima and Nagasaki had nothing on him.  "In case you didn't catch that," Elijah said slower but much more hesitantly.  "I kind of just said that I'm dating Jack Wheelan.  Not that I'm kind of dating him...I am dating him...but I kind of just said that I'm dating him...in so many words...because...well, you know, that's kind of just how things work, right?" Elijah could feel himself getting more and more anxious, squirming slightly.  "Funny, though, huh?" now all that was coming out were tense half-thoughts.  "You know, funny...after everything...and...well, just...just funny," oh Gods.  That was it.  The son of Discordia wasn't going to allow himself another word until River responded.  The more he said, the deeper the hole he was digging for himself.  Eyes darting back and forth, Elijah let his gaze fall back on his best friend.  Don't say anything...don't say anything...right.  No words...instead, the boy just offered his best friend a shaky smile and slight nod of his head.  Hopefully the hard part would be over quickly.