The Blue Trident

Chapter 6 : Water

Riptide manages to entertain himself, while Polaris is absent doing whatever she's doing. He flips through channels once again having no interest in the advertisements playing on the current channel he's on. When he decided there's nothing good to watch, he turns the TV off and simply sits on the couch doing nothing. The low rumble of the air conditioning in the background is somehow calming and occasional sound of fabric moving when he alters his position starts to get annoying. Letting out an exhausted and bored groan he gets up, off the couch and decided to go what the North Star is up to.

Going up the stairs at a normal pace, he walks faster down the hallway until he is standing outside Polaris' door. He raises his hand in a fist to knock but then hesitates. It's quiet. Too quiet. There isn't the shuffling sound of feet moving, or any sound at all that shows a living thing would be living in there. He opens the door quietly and fails to see Polaris. She escaped? She wouldn't do that would she? She wouldn't just leave. He opens the door a little more and finally sees her curled up in a ball, huddled into the wall in the corner, in a position that looks anything but comfortable. He goes inside the room and sits down beside her, hearing her soft breathing.

She said she didn't sleep, but here she was. I guess the fatigue caught up with her. Her face looks troubled and when he looks a little closer he can see she's slightly shaking. He picks her up from the floor and places her freezing body onto the soft duvet of the white bed, lifting her head slightly to rest it on a pillow. He grabs the knitted grey blanket and puts it over her. When the blanket hits her she clutches onto it, like she'd never let it go.

Though he could look at her peacefully sleep forever, he didn't want to seem creepy, or... stalkerish. (A/N Yes, I know that isn't a real word) He takes one last look at her sleeping body. Her hair spread around her, her long eyelashes getting tangled together and muscular body curled up comfortably. Riptide leaves the room making sure to close the door quietly. He goes down the stairs, and seeing as it's six in the evening, he decides to get started on dinner, keeping in mind that Polaris hadn't eaten much today.

Riptide finds himself thinking about her every waking moment, and for some odd reason he is okay with this. He doesn't mind he's memorised every detail of her face, from her lively brown eyes, to the three scars under her right eye. He doesn't mind that he can only think of what she's possibly going through, or what happened to her in the past. He knows it's weird to be obsessed with someone after such a short period of time, but he can't help it. She's just so mysterious.

As he pours the spaghetti into a cream bowl, he hears light footsteps coming down the stairs. He fights the urge to immediately look at her when she enters the kitchen. It's dark out now, and the kitchen is the only room with the lights on at the moment. Riptide sets the spaghetti down on the kitchen counter beside the stove for it to cool down and turns to face Polaris.

"Look who decided to wake up." he says mockingly, smirking.

The side of her lip twitches but she doesn't smile.

"Did you put me on the bed?" she asks.

He nods and sees her let out a sigh or relief. Her frown is replaced with a smile, it looks forced but it's a smile nonetheless.

Polaris sees the spaghetti sitting on the counter, and instinctively feels guilty.

"You should've woken me up," she says, "I could've helped."

"You were too adorable." Riptide answers, he doesn't realise what he said until he see the scowl on her face.

He can see the slight tint of pink her cheeks now have, and can't help but smirk at the effect of such a simple compliment.

"I'm not adorable." she says defensively, her scowl now replace with a glare.

"Whatever floats your boat." he chuckles.

A flash of hurt crosses her face but it's gone as soon as it was there. Polaris looks down at her bare feet, strands of hair falling into her pale face.

"Water," she says, confusing him as he waits for her to elaborate, "water used to float my boat."