I'd Give Up The World For You

Rukelion stayed on his bed hating himself until Daisy hesitantly knocked on his door asking if he wanted dinner. He wasn't hungry but the way she sounded when she asked killed him so he went down and forced himself to eat a few bites anyway.

Normally he loved her cooking but right now he may as well have been eating sawdust. He was that out of it.

"Thanks for the food. I think I'm going to go back upstairs," he said quietly.

"Leo, wait!" Daisy called after him, grabbing his wrist.

Rukelion turned back to look at her, tired and confused, when she got on tiptoe and hooked her arms around his neck. Before he could even ask what she was doing she was kissing him. And not lightly either!

His poor mood instantly vanished. He didn't care why she was doing it; all that mattered was that she was. His head emptied of all the thoughts that had been torturing him upstairs and he let himself imagine for that moment that she loved him even half as much as he loved her.

Eventually, Daisy pulled away and breathlessly asked, "Can we talk?"

He docilely let her take him by the hand and lead him to the sofa where he sat obediently in a daze. She hadn't kissed him like that since the day he got back from Zel and that was only because she was so excited to see him.

What made her do it this time? Had she finally changed her mind? He didn't dare get his hopes up but…

"What do you want to talk about?" Rukelion asked faintly.

Daisy sighed and slumped against the back of the sofa. "I knew it. You were in a bad mood because of me, weren't you? Don't try to deny it; the air around you is completely different now."

He couldn't deny it but he could explain himself. "It was more a matter of Conrad gushing about the girl he's seeing without end for days than anything you did."

"No way! Is it that girl he bought flowers for a while back?!"

"I assume so. He hasn't been seeing anyone else to my knowledge. And I would have heard about it because he goes into his dates with excruciating detail."

Daisy marveled and shook her head. "Who would have thought he was a romantic? But I guess that's kind of a sidetrack. Why would that upset you though? It's normal for friends to talk about that kind of thing."

"…that's what he said." Rukelion couldn't believe those two were on the same page here. "And perhaps I wouldn't have been so annoyed if things were going better for me but it's kind of hard to listen to that sort of thing when you're at a relational stalemate."

"Oh. So that's why you didn't want to see me when you got home."

Her voice was subdued and there was guilt running through it. That really wasn't necessary. She hadn't done anything wrong; it was his fault for uncharacteristically letting his emotions get the best of him.

"I needed to clear my head, that was all. I said I would give you however much time you needed and I meant it. But I do have to ask…why did you kiss me like that?" Rukelion asked in confusion.

Her answer wasn't what he was expecting. "I was testing something. Two things actually."

"What were you testing?"

"Well…I was testing whether or not you were upset at me for being too slow figuring things out and it turned out I was right," Daisy hedged.

Rukelion turned to look at her with a frown. "You said you were testing two things."

"…the other thing I was testing was how I would feel about it. It has been a while since you got home so I'd know it wasn't solely from overexcitement at the very least. And it wasn't, as I suspected."

His confused heart skipped a beat. "As you suspected?"

She let out a small, wry laugh. "Yeah. So I can cross that off the list. I've spent the last month trying to figure out whether or not I've just been missing physical affection or if it's actually you and the scales are tipped in favor of the latter.

"I thought stepping back from the heavy stuff would help and it has. It's helped me notice the little things more, like how bad it is for my heart when you look at me a certain way or how I'm more relaxed when you're nearby.

"So I can say with confidence that I'm attracted to you but I kind of hate myself for it. Stupid, right? It's what you want and I know that but I still feel like a total creep for being interested in a kid even if no one else knows about it."

Rukelion's heart nearly flew out of his chest. She admitted it! But feeling guilty about it was bad. She wasn't supposed to feel that.

"I'm not a kid, Daisy," he said firmly. "I'm a major in the military and almost a lieutenant colonel, I've fought in two wars, and I'll be twenty soon. My childhood ended before I even met you! What do I need to do to prove it?"

Daisy sighed. "I understand feeling like your childhood ended too early…I really do. Mine did too. But when I met you, you were a kid that I felt like I needed to protect as an adult. Where I come from age dynamics are different. People who are romantically interested in children go to jail, Leo. I can't get rid of that mindset so easily.

"I want to. You have no idea how much I want to! It would be so much easier if I could cast my inhibitions away and be with you properly because against my better judgment I'm dangerously close to falling in love with you."

Huh. That would explain why she had always been so disgusted by her much-older suitors even though they were closer to her in age than he was. They thought she was fourteen so in her mind they were doing something bad. No wonder she hadn't wanted to get married to any of them!

She couldn't think like this though! If she did, they were both going to be miserable unnecessarily.

"How old do you have to be to be considered an adult in your world?"' Rukelion demanded. Here it depended on whether or not you needed to learn a trade or sell yourself out to work for someone else early but the general consensus was thirteen or fourteen.

"Technically, eighteen though there are certain things you can't do until you're twenty-one or even twenty-five," Daisy explained. "Do you see my dilemma now?"

He furrowed his brow. There wasn't much he could work with there. He had only hit one of those ages. But come on! Things were different in this world. Why couldn't she see that? People could get married as young as fourteen here! He hadn't gotten married until five years after that when he would be barely considered as an adult in Ohio.

"Come on, Daisy! That is such a minor technicality," Rukelion complained.

"Maybe so but it's still messing with my head."

"We aren't in your world. Things are different here. Even if people did know how old you actually were no one would judge you. That sort of thing happens all the time!"

"Yeah, with creepy older men marrying teenage girls. I don't want to be one of them! Though I suppose I already am…" Daisy trailed off and cringed.

"You are not!" Rukelion insisted. "You're completely different from them. They harassed you even when you told them to stop. I'm the one who fell in love with you first so if anything blame me but don't blame yourself."

"Why would I blame you?"

"For making your life more difficult and unintentionally making you feel guilty."

"Leo, that isn't your fault. I'm the problem here."

He shook his head. "No. If you're going to claim there is a problem here period—and I honestly don't think there is—then it's on me. You wouldn't be dealing with any of this if I had kept my feelings to myself."

Daisy frowned but didn't seem to have a response to that. It took her a while to say anything back. "…you have very faulty logic."

"What a coincidence! So do you."

She pouted at him and even though this conversation didn't seem to be getting anywhere he couldn't help but grin at her. She said she was dangerously close to falling in love with him. That was the best news he had heard in months!

"Leo, I—"

"Just do what you would want to do if you didn't have to worry about anything else," Rukelion said firmly. "The only person who cares is you."

Several emotions crossed Daisy's face. Annoyance. Helplessness. Determination.

"Fine! You know what I want? I want you to kiss me like you mean it and screw the consequences. Come at me. I don't care anymore. I'll just go ahead and be a—"

He cut her off by kissing her before she spouted more nonsense and potentially changed her mind, pulling her into his lap in the process. She did say to kiss her like he meant it.. He had to make it count.