Forgetful and Foolish

“So, what is it that your dad wants me for?” John asked, as he carefully turned into the Peacekeeper HQ’s subterranean parking garage.

Beside him, Velvet looked slightly startled, pulled out of her private musings. He wasn’t sure what exactly she had been thinking of, but there had been a somewhat alarming amount of giggling from her as they’d driven back. Something made even more alarming by the achievement he’d gotten just after leaving the barrier.

Achievement Unlocked! - U, for Unwinding.
Lend an ear to Velvet’s fear in the place she keeps dearest to her heart, and return that fear with comfort.
The first step down a road paved long ago.
Rewards: +2 CHA.

“...Huh? Oh, yeah!” She faced him, which made her smile and giggle again. Somewhat alarming, yes, but very endearing. “He wanted to make sure you had the basics of barriers down, I think.”

“Really? What more is there to it? You put the hand up, do the thing, kinda… think really hard at it, and then… you’re… in it…” John realised as he said it exactly how little he actually knew, and how stupid that all sounded. “Alright, point taken. Where is he waiting? Because the one meeting room I know how to get to doesn’t feel like the right spot for it.”

“Oh, of course not. We have a few training halls in the basement for that sort of thing, I think.” The blind brunette replied, opening her door and climbing out of the car before John had even finished turning the car off and unbuckling his belt.

Climbing out and chasing after her, John said, “Can you lead the way then? Because God knows- Gaia knows? Whatever, I won’t be able to find where it is.”

“Yeah, I should be able t-” Velvet cut off as the phone in her pocket made a loud pinging noise. She pulled it out and pressed a button on the side, which was clearly specially bound for her as the device began to read out her notification aloud.

“From Dad - I have to deal with an issue with the 3rd squad’s equipment. You and John are free to spend the evening together. Don’t do anything irresponsible, and have fun.”

John raised an eyebrow slightly and slowly said, “Well. I guess that’s not happening then?”

Velvet looked towards him, blushing slightly. “N-no, I guess not…” She paused for a moment “...Do you have any other ideas for what to do this evening, John?”

“Hm…” John thought about it for a moment. “I- I’m drawing a bit of a blank, if I’m honest? But I feel like there was something else going on today…”

Not a real Quest - You’re a terrible son.

Go home and spend the evening doing family stuff

No, really, you suck for forgetting this. All it took was a pretty face and you almost ditched your mom when she was trying to make you feel better about life and connect with you. My dude, seriously. I’m not even bothering with rewards or punishments, I will straight up smite you if you don’t go do this.

“Oh, fuck!” John exclaimed, the quest suddenly reminding him of his promise. “I’m meant to be having a movie night with my mom, I just remembered.” John turned and pulled out the keys again, heading back to Velvet’s car.

He was just about to unlock it when Velvet spoke again, “O-oh! Okay, then. I, er I… take my car, I don’t mind. I-I’ll go and…er-”

Without thinking, still a little frazzled from Gaia’s sharp reminder, John asked, “What are you talking about? D-Don’t you want to come?” He stopped, the driver’s door half open, to look over at the blind brunette in time to see her perk up slightly, and face in his direction.

Seeming almost shy, she asked, “...Would that be okay? Are you sure? I don’t want to interrupt your f-family time.”

“What?” John managed to speak again before his mind caught up, and he realised that he was offering to take a girl home to meet his mom. A girl that his mom thought he liked. A girl he wasn’t sure he didn’t like. An incredibly attractive girl. To go to his house and meet his remarkably liberal mom. His house where he lived.

…

…

…

‘How does that saying go? Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained?’

“S-Sure, of course! But l-let’s hurry, okay? I agreed to be there at s-six.” John stumbled over his own words, cursing the blush he could feel rising on his face.

He almost threw himself into the car to get out of sight, and missed the brilliant smile that went ear-to-ear on Velvet’s face, and the way she practically bounced with each step to the car.

Upon reflection, this could turn out to be a terrible, terrible idea. They’d just parked outside John’s house, and his mind was racing with all the embarrassing possibilities that spiralled from his attempt at taking initiative. What if his mom didn’t like her? What if she didn’t enjoy herself? What if his mom liked her too much? What if- Oh God, what if his mom got out the baby pictures?

An inquisitive tone came from beside him, “John? Is everything okay?”

He turned to look at her, and was struck once again by the realisation that whenever he had begun to spiral in his own head during the past few days, a word from those pink lips, or a glance at her eyes - that’s all it had taken to throw him off his negative track and reset him. For crying out loud, he’d been worrying about her looking at his baby pictures. The girl was blind! He almost chuckled to himself. A girl actually pays him attention for the first time without trying to bully him and the effect is like magic.

With a shake of his head, he stuttered out a response, “N-no. S-sorry, Velvet. I got a little, er… distracted for a moment there. W-we’re here. Just gimme a sec and I’ll come get your door for you.”

He quickly popped the handle and got out of the car, pulling the key out and palming it to lock the car after. John moved around the car and opened the door for Velvet, and offered her an arm to help get out without a second thought. He’d had those manners drilled into him throughout his life by his mom; say what you would about Brenda Newman, but an impolite woman she was not.

A modest blush on her downturned face, the blind brunette took his arm, lifted herself out and, without batting an eye, continued in one smooth motion to link his proffered arm with her own, pushing the door shut with her foot. She turned her face to him and asked, “Shall we? You’ll introduce me properly, right?”

Unlike the endearing slight red on Velvet’s cheeks, which John suspected to be at least partially intentional, his own cheeks felt like they were literally on fire. Perfectly reflecting his inner embarrassment, a feeling that only intensified upon understanding that he was going to have to introduce a girl to his mom… and that it was his mom they were talking about.

“Er, V-velvet? O-of course I’ll introduce you, but, er…” John trailed off, trying to apply that high intellect score to finding the right words to explain the natural disaster of barely socially acceptable behaviour that was his very ‘free’ mother. “Just… try to, er… keep an open mind? With my mom? And, er, ah, don’t mind her if she says anything… well, anything weird. Okay? Okay!” He pushed forwards over his own nervousness, inadvertently giving Velvet no more than a moment to register what was said before they were at the door and going into the house.

“John, what do you m-” Velvet barely managed to ask before Brenda’s voice called out from the house.

“Helloo?? John, honey, is that you?”

John raised his voice slightly to call back, “Yes, Mom! One second!” He turned and tugged off his jacket, tossing it onto the rack, then turned back to Velvet. “Do you want to leave your jacket or anything here, Vel?”

“No, I’m fine,” Velvet replied. “It’s quite a light one, rea-”

She cut off as Brenda’s voice came calling out again, “So, how’d your date-day go with that girl? I didn’t get a chance to meet her, but she looked just adorab-”

Brenda walked into the hallway, drying her hands, and stopped herself from continuing what she was saying upon seeing Velvet. “Oh! I’m so sorry, dear! We haven’t even met, and here I am gossiping about you.” She gave a motherly smile to the girl. “I was just so surprised this morning that John was going out to meet with a girl. You can call me Brenda, alright?”

Velvet turned towards Brenda, a small smile on her face despite the whiplash she must be experiencing from how fast Brenda just reversed the situation. “Hello, my name’s Velvet. It’s nice to meet you, Ms Brenda.” John almost felt sorry for Velvet. He had never heard someone sound like they’re trying so hard. Honestly, he couldn’t even tell what it was she was trying to convey, but that was most certainly not how she had behaved the rest of the day when they were alone. Even when they were with Lord Brighton, she’d not been so stiff and uncomfortable.

John was certainly his mother’s son, judging how swiftly she picked up on that discomfort. Brenda raised an eyebrow at the girl, and after a moment said, “Dear… you don’t have to impress me, or look like something you’re not. I trust my boy’s judgement of character, and if he invited you in, then you’re certainly welcome as you are, okay?” She moved around to Velvet’s side, giving the smaller girl a gentle hug. John could have sworn she whispered something too, but… it was probably nothing. Hopefully. God, it was hopefully nothing.

“Besides, I can see the way he looks at you, and that’s a more than glowing review.” The hug hid the way Velvet’s body shivered suddenly at Brenda’s sultry whisper. The thought of John’s eyes on her made her breathing hitch slightly. The maternal woman holding her let out a tiny chuckle. “You just be you, and watch him stammer for you, ‘kay, dear?”

Brenda stepped back, letting her hands linger on Velvet’s slender shoulders, a point of contact that Velvet greatly appreciated whilst she regained proper control and stopped the shaking. “Alrighty, why don’t we just go ahead into the living room? I’ll make up some snacks and drinks, and then we can decide what to watch.” The older woman steered her through the house whilst speaking.

As she let herself be guided, Velvet wondered why it was that she felt such a powerful reaction to the young man that had saved her. It felt so natural to her, like a warm coat on a winter’s day. Thinking back, she almost couldn’t relate to herself before she met him.

…Was she… was she in-

She was pulled from her thoughts, and willfully shook them away as Brenda took her hands from her shoulders and spoke, “One minute, I’ll just go grab those snacks. Stay put, you two. I won’t be far, so… if you do anything fun, do it quick!”

John called out, his voice hitching slightly with embarrassment, “MOM! I- Urgh, annnd she’s gone.”

Velvet couldn’t help the honest giggle that escaped her lips at Brenda’s antics, even if there was a blush she could feel climbing her cheeks. “Your mom is, uh… friendly, isn’t she?” Velvet tried to be as polite as she could when saying that Brenda was sort of mental.

“S-She’s frien-? Yeah, uh, sure. W-we’ll go with that.” Gaia, she might not be able to see his expression, but his voice was so cute when he was embarrassed. And, strange though it might sound to anyone else, but the way that the gold and purple hues of his aura became tinged with a soft, quiet pink? That was endearing.

It was strange. John’s question earlier about her blindness had made her think, and… she found her blindness strange. It made her realise that she always thought of her blindness as something that had happened to her, rather than the natural occurrence it was. Her ways of interpreting the world through aura, feeling and emotion were thought of as if they were adaptations, rather than her natural method. Actually being able to see the thread of magic in the world around her was something nobody had really been able to understand when she explained it, even Asta. It felt just like that when she was trying to explain why she found John… attractive in her own mind. It felt like she was, well, trying to describe colour to a blind man. It was as if-

“Here we go!” The cheery tones of John’s mother cut through her introspection, and she realised she’d left John in what was likely an uncomfortable silence for the past minute or two. She’d have to make that up to him. “That’s snacks, some drinks, and company sorted! I hope you two don’t mind if I stick around for a little longer? I know you’re probably just waiting to get some, ahem, alone time, but-”

“Mom! Stop! Please stop talking!” John held his breath a moment, then slowly let it out in a sigh. “We’re here because you wanted to do a movie night, remember? But I-I… almost forgot, and promised I’d be with Velvet until Eion came to pick her up. So, I, er, I figured that s-she could maybe j-join us?”

“Ohhh, I see! Of course she can! As if I’d ever say no to spending family time with my son’s… friend.” Brenda delivered the final word after a long pause, and with a certain emphasis that made what she actually meant abundantly clear. Velvet felt the woman’s attention directed at her then. “So, Velvet dear, what…”

Velvet wondered for a moment why the older woman had stopped speaking, and then realised that her hands were shaking slightly, and her muscles had frozen. Swallowing an unexpected lump in her throat as she made herself relax, the blind brunette said, “I… I’m sorry. I-I, er, I can’t really watch anything? I don’t know, uh…” She mentally cursed the nervous, panicked stutter that she couldn’t stop. And more than anything, she hated that her blindness, which had always felt so natural, felt so damned wrong.

John cursed himself. He was a fucking idiot. He didn’t even consider, or think to point out to his mom, that Velvet was blind. And now she was crying and his mom was right there and-

With a seemingly impossible mother’s intuition, Brenda swept the dainty frame of the girl into her arms again. “Shh… shhh… Honey, it’s alright. I should have asked.” The pair of them gently rocked as Brenda helped Velvet to come down from the tense anxiousness.

It suddenly occurred to John that, in the past couple of days, Velvet had been kidnapped, almost ****, rescued, then had run around to the Order and spent the entire day with him: essentially a stranger that happened to be in the right place, at the right time. It was impressive she was still so casual about it all, and that this was the first true crack under that pressure.

She deserved a chance to have some carefree fun, but what could they possibly have for three people that’s friendly for the blind? Movie night is obviously a no-go. He and his mom had tossed most of the board games they had away last year, after a leak in the attic ruined half of them. There wasn’t a chance in hell that he was going to suggest drinking as an alternative. Knowing his mom, she’d suggest a game of strip poker to embarrass him and Velvet. So what- That was it!

John quietly left the living room and made his way upstairs to his room. He paused on entering, and looked around. It was strange, honestly. Just two… almost three days ago, he’d left this room with a magic gift from some random, unexplained bullshittery, without a care in the world other than how to get lunch at school. And then… an ****, a ****, several hours of what was apparently the magical equivalent of black market unwilling blood donation, stopping a ****, then… killing a man. A ****, sure, but he had still been a man. Maybe with a family back at home. He might have been a brother or a father. Maybe a husband or boyfriend. He had definitely been someone’s son.

There was a strange disconnect he could feel inside. That computer with the empty cans of pepsi littered around it. The bookshelves with his textbooks and the various fantasy series he enjoyed as a kid, and still enjoyed as a barely-adult. The bed with sheets in **** need of a change and a box of tissues conspicuously sticking out from beneath it. It was all his, but it didn’t feel like it was. It felt like he was looking at it all as if from the outside. Even looking at this disconnect, it was as if they weren’t his feelings, but someone else’s. Whoever lived in this room before, they hadn’t been there as cuffs drained the soul from them. They hadn’t been there when Toby had cut him. They hadn’t been there when he’d broken open Toby’s skull for threatening Velvet. They hadn’t been there as the knife plunged into his gut, hadn’t felt it slicing apart his insides-

John **** the introspection away. It wouldn’t help him. Not now, not then, and not in the future. Instead, he knelt down by the shelves to rifle through the assorted bric-a-brac until eventually- “Aha! Gotcha!” -he found what he was looking for.

He left the room without a second glance, closing the door to the room, and to his thoughts, with a soft click of the latch. Then he headed back down the stairs to the living room.

He stepped into the main room, to find his mom had moved back to her own seat. Both of the women turned to face him, and he raised what was in his hand to wave it at his mom whilst speaking, “I knew I had these lying around somewhere. Playing cards with braille on them. You remember that one time you thought you were going to have to entertain that co-worker, err… Sharice, I think it was? You offered to look after her blind kid during that meeting, but it turned out she was deaf, not blind?”

Brenda’s eyes rolled alongside the dramatic sigh she let out, “God, yes. All that worrying and preparation, and all I needed to do in the end was play Frozen with the damn subtitles on.” She brightened as she looked at Velvet. “Still, I’m glad it happened if it means a solution here!”

An achievement popped up in front of him.

Achievement Unlocked - Quick of Mind, Slow of Foot.
Think fast on your feet and find a solution to a bad situation in the moment.
Rewards: +1 CHA, +1 WIS