[Gambit]

[attr="class","alpha"]

[attr="class","beta"]

^{"My darkest own made a creature,"}

_{"That feeds on the fear of everything I can't forget~"}

^{"It walks beside me, gun against my head,"}

_{"So I look terrified 'til I've paid the debt~"}

Gambit stopped trying to assure her but could only give her a rather helpless look in reply to her words. Instead of making her feel better, the words that usually pleased the people in his life had only made her cry.
"You've never done anything to me I didn't like." He said quickly, which was still a truth despite the pain that had come with the kiss. He knew the reaction had been his fault and had nothing negative to do with her, he liked her, but he was broken and well aware of it.

When she asked permission to hug him, Gambit stared at her like she had spoken a different language at first. Besides not being used to such questions, he wasn't sure why she was so upset over what he wanted. If anything, he felt like she was the one needing comfort. It seemed like she was upset for his sake, but he hadn't felt anything for years now when it came to doing things other people wanted. He wasn't even sure what he wanted anymore, he couldn't remember.

Instead he scooched closer on the bench and put his arms around her to carefully pull her into his lap and against his chest, hugging her and gently patting her head affectionately trying to calm her down as best as he could, yet equally worried he'd only make things worse.
"I knew that since you helped me!" He kept his voice happy and soft as he spoke, trying to be cheery to get her to smile again. "Sorry if I offended you, I said that cause I trust you, that's all~" It was a lie and he knew it, something like trust had never mattered to him, but he said it with all of his heart regardless.

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[newclass=.beta]background-color:#50182c;color:#f8dde8;padding:20px;line-height:15px;text-align:justify;letter-spacing:2px;word-spacing:1px;[/newclass]
Beau,

[Beau]

[attr="class","AudenContain"]

[attr="class","AudenHidden"]a close connection

[attr="class","AudenBody"]

Beau

She felt so stupid for crying about something like this. She was crying for him, because he seemed so used to it that the idea of it didn't even phase him. She felt so sad at that... What had happened to him in the years that they had been apart that he cared so little about himself? "Are you sure about that?" She sniffled, but stopped her thought process and climbed onto his lap easily. It felt so safe in his arms, she immediately nuzzled into it and felt her body soften. These were the hands that they had held so many times, and the arms that they had embraced.

She wanted to just let everything go in those moments and confess it all to him, but that wasn't really fair. She'd just shake her head. "You left..." Belle would whimper out into his shoulder, but not provide any more context for what she meant and moved on. "I want you to want to do things too, you're important to me, so important." She would lean up a bit and look at him, trying her best to just calm down.

Looking down to her hands, she gasped a bit to see that the tips of her fingers had started to turn gold. Hopefully before he could notice, she started to think about something else. Rotten fish. Dead flowers. Stinky socks. She'd look back at her hands and it wasn't going away. Again, she would think of other things, in the deepest thoughts and memories she had. She thought about when she had to move away from her favorite school, from her favorite teacher. With a breath, she looked down and saw that it had finally went away, but not before getting to her wrist.

With a few more breaths, she would calm down a bit more and just look at him. "I'm a mess. I'm sorry that I'm keeping a secret from you." It wasn't fair to him. With another little hug, she would pat at his shoulders. "I hope that I can tell you when it's the right time. I'm sorry I act like I know you, like I care so much... I hope that when I do tell you that you won't leave."

Notes

↭ Blue dress.

Gambit, Beau

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[Gambit]

[attr="class","alpha"]

[attr="class","beta"]

^{"Why do I break everything I touch,"}

_{"So low I need a pick-me-up~"}

^{"I'd rather be sedated,"}

_{"Happiness is overrated~"}

"Very sure." Gambit responded firmly. He may have been confused to hell and back over the course of the last twelve or so hours, but Belle had made him quite happy. It was a nice break from his life, and he was thankful for it. Even if he hurt like hell inside, to him it was like facing the thorns to enjoy holding a rose.

He wasn't sure what the words were supposed to mean, but he assumed it had something to do with what Kysaly had said the night before about him reminding her of someone. It made things make a little more sense... maybe he had made her think of that person putting themselves down. His expression softened as he thought of how kind of a person she was, and he smiled at her warmly when she looked up to him.
"Thank you."

After a few heartbeats he looked down to check on her when she went silent, only for his gaze to be pulled immediately to the golden hand in her lap. For a moment, it was as if someone had pulled the plug on his mind. His thoughts blanked and all he could do was silently stare at the golden skin before it suddenly vanished as fast as it had come. He glanced away in a daze shortly before she looked up, his mind screaming too loud for him to form thoughts.

He tried to hear what she was saying, but he couldn't focus on anything besides the oddly soothing sound of her voice. He felt like he was leaning over a black abyss and if he tried to think it might tip him over the edge. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew his eyes were burning brighter than they had in a long time, enough that his vision had been tainted by the magenta color he had come to both hate and love.

He closed them and struggled to stop himself from spiraling, trying to block out the sounds of unseen horrors he could now feel lurking closer as his fear grew. Stop. Stop. Please. He wanted to be anywhere besides here, yet nowhere else at the same time. He tried to keep his face turned away from Belle, but his heart was racing so fast that he doubted it mattered. She would notice. He'd make her sad again. He had blown it.

He really wasn't cut out for being around people that didn't like his fear, he couldn't stop it yet he felt like shit for how it bothered Belle all the same. The only thing he wanted right now was to not be sober, and to be around the kind of people he couldn't hurt. Yet with Belle in his lap he couldn't run, even as his brain screamed louder than the voice that was scared of hurting her feelings, it wasn't louder than the one scared of hurting her physically.

With a sound that was half-whimper, half-laugh, he fell onto his back on the bench. Leaving her in his lap and instead simply trying to cover his eyes with his arms in barely-contained panic as he fought to calm down and not think all at once. He tried to smile knowing his mouth wasn't covered, but a part of him knew it probably looked closer to a grimace.
"I'm sorry, don't be sad please.. I'm just, ignore me.. haha."

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Beau ,

[Beau]

[attr="class","AudenContain"]

[attr="class","AudenHidden"]a close connection

[attr="class","AudenBody"]

Beau

Oh, he noticed. The way that Gambit looked at her, or perhaps the way he didn't look at her, he noticed her hands. She tried her best to keep a face of someone that hadn't noticed that he had noticed, but it was hard to do that. He wasn't going to like here, was he. There was fear in her eyes, but there was also panic. If she wasn't on him right now, he may have ran away. No, he would have ran away, just like he did before.

She'd watch as she contorted his face, seeming to be happy and sad all at once. Belle wasn't fully sure if he understood everything, but she wanted to be there for him. She would watch him fall backwards and see his eyes glow before he covered them, she would grab onto his cheeks. "Hey, I'm here, you don't have to give into what you're seeing." Still, she was unsure if it was a good time to try to comfort him. She knew what his eyes glowing meant and she wasn't going to let him go through it alone. She did that for a little bit, before she felt that perhaps her presence was making it all worse. If he had seen her hands, those fears were probably about them. "I'm sorry. I never wanted to hurt you." She would speak, weak. "You saw, didn't you." Her voice was so weak that if he wasn't paying attention, he may not have heard it. Belle looked down to her hands and sighed; they started to shake a bit, and she realized that the fantasy was over. "I just... I wanted to try one more time before you... Ran away again." Trying her best to keep it together, she would take a deep breath. "But I can't keep you here, I never could." With weight in her movements, she would slowly get off of him and sit beside him, letting him be free to do whatever he pleased. They would keep their eyes on Gambit so that he could go to her if he wanted to, but Belle doubted that. At least it was nice while it lasted, but if he was going to run away when they were madly in love, he was for sure going to run away if he was confused as to who they were. Right now, they were a stranger in sheep's clothing.

Notes

↭ Blue dress.

Gambit,Beau,

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[Gambit]

[attr="class","alpha"]

[attr="class","beta"]

^{"Yeah I could die,"}

_{"Now that I've been floating~"}

^{"High upon the smoke,"}

_{"In your eyes~"}

Gambit felt soothed by Belle, yet his fear didn't recede. You saw, didn't you. The soft words evoked the golden skin once more in his mind and he felt like his chest would burst. Part of him wished it just would, he was shocked by the sudden urge to disappear that rang through his head.

When she moved off of him, his body slowly tensed like a spring as he fought between the need to flee and the want to know why. He was never like this. He hadn't been for years now. Somewhere in the back of his head a part of him knew what it meant. It was what caused him to be torn now, yet he couldn't put it into a thought. He was too scared to come to terms what the thought would mean.

Instead, he rolled back into a sitting position and dropped his arms from his face, his expression distressed but mostly just deeply sad as he looked at Belle and tried desperately to ignore the things lurking behind her.
"I'm sorry I'm a coward-" He tried to smile at her and leaned his head forward against her shoulder for a moment as he forced himself to speak. "_{-please give me another chance...}"

With that, he rose to his feet and in moments vanished down a narrow gap between the souvenir shop and the building next to it, still clutching the melon necklace tightly in the fist pressed against his chest. He couldn't think, but his feet would lead him where he wanted anyway.

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[newclass=.beta]background-color:#50182c;color:#f8dde8;padding:20px;line-height:15px;text-align:justify;letter-spacing:2px;word-spacing:1px;[/newclass]

[Beau]

[attr="class","AudenContain"]

[attr="class","AudenHidden"]a close connection

[attr="class","AudenBody"]

Beau

Belle didn't expect much now. He was going to leave her and it was going to hurt more than she could imagine. Still, she sat there and watched him, wanting to make sure that it was his choice to leave, and not anything that she had done to make him. Well, she had done a lot of things to make him act the way that he was now. Her face was sullen, devoid of any happiness, but still gazed at Gambit with love.

As he moved and placed his head on her shoulder, she got excited for a moment. Was he going to stay? Really? A small smile with perk up on her lips. When the idea of giving him another chance came up, she would nod without hesitation. "Of co-" before her sentence would come out fully, he had up and left her. Her hand would reach out, small glimpses of gold immediately fading away just like him. She lowered her hand in defeat and just stared at the ground.

It was a lot of him to process, she knew that, but she wanted to help him through those emotions. Now, she had no clue if she was going to see him again, and giving him another chance would be kind of hard if that was the case. "Why even say that if you're just going to leave me alone again, Dede?" She spoke to herself, clutching onto the necklace that he gave her. She was half tempted to rip it off and stomp it, but instead held it like it was more delicate thing in the world. "I'll always give you another chance. Again and again, even if you keep breaking pieces off of me every time, until I'm nothing." Burying her face in her legs, she'd sit there for a few minutes, get up, and weakly walk back to the café.

Notes

↭ Blue dress.

Gambit,Beau,

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