#oafpara 6: chess

[aidenoconnell]

chess.

It feels like the week drags on, or at least the next four days. That’s the timeline Rickie gave Lucie to get the forty thousand and prove herself to be worthy of Rickie’s little inner circle. Not to mention Aiden’s working on the Canadian contacts which is really just him and August putting themselves into place for when Rickie actually wants to do something about it. 

Everything is like a game of chess, strategize and always thinking three or four steps ahead. But Rickie is smart albeit irritating because he does too. So there’s solutions and plans A, B and C with a bunch of what ifs as well. To Aiden, some of those involves what happens if something happens to Luci and he doesn’t know why he feels so fixated on finding solutions to problems that haven’t risen yet. 

One day at a time, or at least he keeps telling himself that. 

It’s a little bit of a quiet morning as Aiden showers and makes coffee, almost feels like a normal day. Except for the fact that his job takes up a good chunk of his brain. Aiden rubs his eyes and gets a bowl and the box of cereal he likes, milk from the fridge and leans against the counter as he crunches and chews. 

Hopefully today goes well for Luci.

[aidenoconnell]

lucifitzgerald​:

Luci lets out a soft laugh, sticking her hands in her pockets because that’s…exactly what she ends up doing sometimes. Holing out in her tiny apartment, going over notes, ordering take-out with a movie playing as white noise in the bathroom. When she’s home home, Sun always attempts to lay on her papers to get her full attention. Other times she pastes things directly on her ceiling above her bed.

She nods a little, “Yeah, I’d love help. It’s not much, but I thought just…” And she hopes this doesn’t sound weird, “We could just hang out?” Luci doesn’t want to admit she doesn’t want to be alone, but also getting to know Aiden better is…something she’s been thinking about. “I have all these ingredients for red velvet cupcakes too–san cream cheese.” She grins, “If uhm, if you’re interested.”

Aiden nods, pushing himself off the car and stands but up straight. He sort of laughs at the ask, not in a rude way but kind of like what is a normal night realistically? Hanging out with someone and not (trying not) to think about work? Kind of a miracle at this point. He thinks he might have supposed to meet August later but... maybe he can push that to the side for now. Or bump it up.

“Sure,” he agrees with another nod. “I’ll bring pizza or something,” he says in exchange for the cupcakes. Aiden smiles a bit too and the more he thinks about it, the more he feels like he’s actually looking forward to it. “You should go ice you lip.” He says, turning to go back around his car.

[aidenoconnell]

lucifitzgerald​:

Luci gets like this, dedicated, wound up, only able to focus on what she’s passionate about. She admittedly almost forgets about the fact that her lip is bleeding…has bled, whatever. A sharp breath leaves her lips as Aiden steps closer and puts napkins to it. He’s…so much taller her, she can feel the heat of his body from where he’s standing. And these butterflies in her stomach as he concentrates on her, not the case, but her.

She swallows, allowing herself to sink into that, allowing herself to feel because…honestly, going through that with Rickie was terrifying. Regardless that Aiden was close, something bad could have gone down. She closes her eyes a moment, 

“Feels like I’m always thanking you for something.” She says, offering a small smile.

Aiden shakes his head a little bit. The good news it that it’s not a deep cut and with just some ice and ointment it’ll be fine within the next few days. Still, it’s not nice to have some reminder of it... and knows a thing or two about scars of his own. Mentality, physically. “Don’t need to thank me for anything,” he comments and checks over her lip again but the bleeding has subsided. 

He balls up the napkin and takes a step back for a moment, exhaling and leans against his car that isn’t too far away from Luci. “Have Ryan make a report about it, so people know he’s beginning to show violence,” Aiden tells her. They need to keep everything on record, even the smallest things. “Rickie’s agitated and he underestimated you. He’s lost because the people around him are falling apart and he’s being forced to trust us even though he doesn’t want to.”

And that’s the hard part, maintaining everything. Maintaining the facade for long enough.