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Who: Holly (

keywarding) & Skyler (

strikeraid)
What: Holly & Arielle had a playdate but me thinks she's going to stumble on a secret
Where: The Veracruz Residence
When: Forward dated to January 6th | Afternoon
Warnings?: Holly might smack someone in this.

With the idea of going back to school looming for the next day, Holly had finally gotten a chance to call Arielle and have a play date. She'd told her parents and headed over immediately upon finding out it was okay- because she really needed something normal right now.

She'd been turned into a zombie, gotten attacked by gang members and scared her parents half to death by having to wait till the last second to call and let them know she was staying with a "friend" a few days before because of said zombie happenings.

Honestly she was lucky she hadn't been grounded.

With all that stress, it can be excused that she got really tired, Arielle noticing when she was falling asleep watching an animated movie with her. Holly had brought over that yellow costume for her to play with like Skyler had suggested, which had been a blast before they decided a movie would do while they had a late snack. Arielle had suggested she rest in her room, which Holly eventually relented to after she started to gradually slide down the couch while talking.

Fast forward an hour and she was awake in an empty house. There was a note next to the bed on stationery Holly had bought for Arielle for her birthday. 'Gone out grocery shopping. Be back soon.'

She'd never been in a friends house by herself before. What was she supposed to do?

Curiosity won out quickly, she ventured from Arielle's room and wandered. Milo's room was marked with a sign with his name on the door, their parents door was half open with a shot of their big bed announcing it as their room- which only left.

Skyler's room.

Tapping her chin, she glanced towards it. The door was open, the room looking pretty clean and tidy from what she could see- but... Tugging on a piece of her hair she slowly inched into the room as if expecting a fire alarm to go off announcing her presence and how much she shouldn't be in the room.

The farther in she got though, no alarms and no Skyler coming out the closet to scare her, the more relaxed she got.

"His room is pretty neat." She muttered to herself, glancing around. It wasn't super clean, but there weren't clothes all on the floor and the desk was pretty tidy. "Hmmm." Arielle would probably love if she could find a diary or journal from her older brother, Holly knew she would.

Tugging her hair again, Holly slid forward, sitting down at the desk and peering into a few drawers. What do you have to hide Mr Skyler Veracruz?

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"Kero?" Skyler finishes taking the pins out of his hair and puts them on his desk, ruffling his hair back into its now eternal spikes as he takes a seat next to her, which is clearly a signal to Cenabell to jump onto the bed as well. The Meow-Wow bounces around in a circle before rolling over on his back, his tiny stubby legs flailing gleefully in the air. Skyler takes the card and looks at it intently, flipping it over in his hands a few times before shaking his head. "I've got nothing. Is it a tarot card? Maybe your witch told fortunes."

"It looks like one, they're called Clow Cards, or I think they are. The girl, she was supposed to capture them? Something bad was going to happen if she didn't get them all." Holly explains, standing again offering to take the card back.

"I've gotten so much back in the last few weeks, and a lot of memories. It's a little scary." She admits, looking down at the card with a frown before she sits on the bed next to Skyler.

"I was keeping a journal but I've gotten so much back I feel like I'm constantly forgetting something, but maybe that's just the missing pieces?" Sighing, Holly rubs at her head. "I'm sorry, we were talking about your problems and I just dumped all mine."

Skyler hands the card back to her, then drags Cenabell onto his lap, scratching his belly as he listens. The dogcat kicks his tiny legs in bliss.

None of that sounds familiar to him, which is a mild relief. If she has any relation to his other guy's life, it probably would have been so small that it was insignificant. She's safe.

"It's fine." He looks over her, a little smile spreading on his face again. He doesn't claim to care about other people's problems (he does a little too much in reality), but for her, he can make an exception. It's easier to listen to her problems than to explain his own, somehow, and they're pretty similar anyway. "It's kind of overwhelming. If I had to remember everything I've echoed from him..." He slowly shakes his head. "It'd take me a while and I'd probably forget something anyway."

He pauses, collecting his thoughts, then takes his finger and pokes her directly in the forehead. "Remember, no one's expecting you to remember everything. This isn't a test at school. You don't owe anyone anything, and that includes her. So... Take your time and don't worry so much. And I'll be here to help you if you need it. Ok?"

She looks a little surprised at first, not because Skyler was being nice, she kind of always gathered he wasn't as bratty as he put off- but that he was offering to help her. Any bit of niceness always seemed to be because she was Arielle's friend, this however has nothing to do with his little sister- but no matter the reason she smiles and nods.

Holly needed to hear that, because getting things back she could handle, but memories that weren't her own, some that even included look-a-likes to Ethan- that was scary.

"Thank you Skyler." Holly replies, "I haven't forgotten about this." She leans forward just a hair and pokes the center of his chest very, very lightly. "But I won't ask more on it. Just please be careful, I don't want anything bad to happen to you."

Once she's said her piece, her hand drops down to Cenabell and scratches it's belly with him. "You're such a cutie, I wish I had one just like you."

"Oof". He rubs the spot where she poked her, wincing as though she'd punched him, but smiling all the same. "I hear you."

If you asked him why he was doing this, he'd preface it with a lot of bluster - Holly's a girl, and she's also a kid, and she's one of Ari's friends and he owes it to Ari - but in the end, it's mostly because he doesn't want to see her life go as badly to shit as his own has. He's trying to catch all the shitty stuff before it reaches anyone that he wants to protect. Thus the dive into the deepest part of the deep end. It works for him for right now. But meanwhile...

"Cenabell's a Dreameater," he says, rolling up his sleeve as Cenabell flops around on his lap happily, revealing a dried up scrape on his elbow. He usually lets his injuries heal on their own if they aren't too serious because he doesn't want to arouse too much suspicion, but he can make an exception here. "A magic dogcat who comes from a dream. He knows tricks. Hey, Cena - Heal."

Cenabell rolls onto his legs and barks twice. A shimmering green light accompanied by a soft jingling noise surrounds both him and and Skyler, and suddenly the scrape melts away into smooth skin. Skyler scratches Cenabell behind the ear. "Not that heel, dummy."

Laughing, Holly leans closer to watch the trick, her eyes widening as the glow surrounds Skyler. It's like one of those magic shows, except a hundred times cooler, no a thousand times cooler.

"You have your own personal healer, like in those games Taylor used to play." She comments mostly to herself, speaking about her oldest brother, the one in college and who was completely not cool at all anymore.

"Cenabell, you are wonderful!" Holly praises the little dreameater, petting it herself with loving strokes. "How long have you had him?" Would she get Kero back? Would she wake up one morning to a little stuffed animal floating around her room? Or worse that lion form he had in that one memory?

It was enough to give her a headache.

Skyler nods! He mostly wanted to get the little demonstration out of the way in case he ever had to leave Cenabell with Holly... He knows how to heal himself, and doesn't necessarily need Cenabell around. Better for Cena to stick with someone who needs that talent.

"Since September. The magic was an extra echo - I bet he'll learn how to do all sorts of things." Cenabell wiggles and barks happily under her hand. "He's pretty easy to hide. He's pretty smart and he looks like a toy when he's standing still."

...! Speaking of that. Skyler turns to her and scoops Cena up in his arms, sticking his chin on top of the dog's head right next to its horn. "Do you get echoes off him too? I mean... 'Cause the little animal friend you had looks like a stuffed animal, right?"

Rubbing at her neck, she nods. "I actually just did get one. He was floating in my- well the other me's, room and explaining something about capturing these cards... which I'm going to assume is what the tarot card is." But capturing? Does that mean she had to fight things for them... or maybe fight the cards themselves?

"His full name was Cerberus but the other me shortened it to Kero. It's kind of a cute name, right?" She's toying with her hair as she talks, she's started to let the forelocks grow a little longer then the rest of her bob cut.

"Kero..." Well, he doesn't know about cute, but it's much less of a mouthful than Cerberus. "I wonder why you needed to catch them, though. It's just a card, right? It's not like they could fly away."

"Something about a calamity? Something very bad was going to happen if I- er.. she didn't get them all." And now that she thinks about it, she did get that memory of her being frightened.

"I think it happened, or was going to happen. I got a memory the other day when I got turned into a zombie and she was scared of losing her friends, but she had to do something to save them." Yes she did just mention zombies and just keeps going because for her, it's old news.

He immediately checks himself as she does - not her, the other girl. Didn't he just get done telling her that she didn't owe her anything?

... He narrows his eyes. "Back up. Zombies? When?" This seems like something a little more immediate than some calamity that happened to some other girl.

Oh. Oh! Yeah she should probably explain that one better.

"Um. I was out shopping at the end of December and met this lady, I thought she was sick but she wasn't. She bit me and I .. turned into a zombie?" Her voice has slowly turned questioning, because this sounds weird as heck to say after she's calm and she had the time to get over how scary it'd been.

Clearing her throat, Holly shows him her hand and the small teeth marks on the fleshy part. "It really hurt."

He takes her hand and looks at it, studying the bitemarks... Then he looks up at her. Very seriously.

"Do you just want to take Cena home with you tonight?"

"But he's yours!" She protests, shaking her head. She couldn't possibly take Cenabell home with her over something like that.

"I've been fine recently, I think I filled my 'crazy things' quota last month." She says with a laugh, smiling at him. It was sweet he offered, and he was so serious during it.

"Yep. Meaning that I can do what I want with him. Meaning I can lend him out too." Skyler gives her hand back and scoots back and past the bed between them. Cena waddles over and splays his fat self down happily. "Well, if you ever get yourself in danger again, you know who to take for back up." Skyler's mild expression, which had started from the beginning of what he said and spread all over his face, drops again. "Just... don't make a habit out of it."

"I don't plan on making myself into a super hero, Skyler!" Holly replies with another laugh, shaking her head at the idea while she leans forward to pet Cena more. "I'd be horrible at it anyway. I was useless with the Blood Keys, I think I accidentally hit one and I almost apologized!" She continues, tilting her head. The words 'I am so so sorry' had been on the tip of her tongue and had Ethan and Banagher not be shouting at her to run, she probably would have apologized.

"Speaking of them. I'm not kidding, please be careful. I trust you, but just be careful." Her gaze is directly on him now. If anything happened to Skyler, she's not sure what she'd do. He was like another brother to her.

Skyler... well, he doesn't laugh, but he does try to hide a grin. Despite his feelings about the Keys attacking her, that does sound pretty funny. "If you're going to be a magician and you wanna help, you'll find a way to get into trouble. Just let me know before if you can. Cena and I can only get to your place so fast."

Skyler sighs and rubs his face, looking at the ground as he drops his hand to his lap. He can't promise anything in good faith. "I'll remember. It's... gonna be fine." He doesn't sound as sure about that as he'd like, but he screws up his gumption, inhaling deeply and giving her a smile. "Don't worry. Better me than you, right?"

Unfortunately, Holly seems to get into trouble fairly quickly, no calling for aid time allowed.

At the smile, Holly frowns at him. Shifting on the bed she leans forward and gives him another hug. It's light, not nearly as strong as the one just a few minutes before had been and it's over quickly. "I'd rather it not be anyone, Skyler. You're not expendable. Please remember that." She says as she's pulling away, a hand on his shoulder.

-- Was she reading his mind or something? What she says blindsides him, his face dropping its smile as he jerks around to look at her when she pulls away, studying her face, looking for something. Does she...? He doesn't want to ask. He's been living with so much doubt and self-deprecating belief that anyone could look at him and see something worthwhile that he's too scared to ask. You know. Just in case she's just being nice.

She means it. And even if she doesn't mean it, he wants to believe that she does, and he doesn't want to break the illusion.

... Getting around saying that all out loud is going to be impossible to pull off, though. He struggles with his mouth, trying to get it to smile again instead of turning downwards. He has no control over the emotion around his eyes whatsoever, and they are not smiling. (At least he doesn't feel any tears coming on? It's the doubt that's doing it. If he had no doubt in his mind that she was being sincere, he would have way less self control.)

"'Course. I'm kind of a big deal. Right?"

There's a brief moment where she looks really sad, she's always had a kind heart, and sometimes her family says she cares too much, but how can you not? Taking a breath, she forces a smile. Something bright and shining.

"Of course you are. There's only one Skyler in my book." She says with not quite as much cheer as she had hoped for, but it's something. Holly can't understand why he would ever doubt himself, sure he's been a brat sometimes, but she never saw a villain.

... He's not sure how he's making her so sad, but it's something he'll find out later once he gets his head out of his own issues. But seeing her trying her best to stay positive does a lot for his spirit. Forget money and health and that pile of bullshit, all he needs is a smile.

For right now, he grins when she does, more easily this time, and reaches over to ruffle her hair. "Better believe it."

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