skinner orville

cw apply. mild spousal argument

Ruth Orville to Skinner Orville - Lenny Lokahi to Skinner Orville.

It’s raining tonight. That much hasn’t changed for the last few days. Every now and then the sun will rear into view and offer a glimpse of a UV over 3; but just as quickly are the clouds that clothe it. Skinner doesn’t mind it, not usually. If anything, the patter of rain pelleting against glass is a comfort. An inevitability amongst chance and risk.

But it’s not just raining tonight. Thunder shudders the house, striking the ground near his backyard. Skinner flinches and bites his lip hard enough to taste copper. Quiet nights he could handle, he’d spent enough time between them to know how. But it’s raining tonight.
“Never marry, Skinner, never do it. Fuck! Men ain’t worth shit! Not your time, not your energy, not your life, or even a damn prenup!”
Skinner sits cross legged, his covers pushed to the side. He’s old enough to understand the weight of her words, but still young enough to flinch at each clap of thunder. “You know better than to wind up like your father, don’t you?” Ruth crosses the room, heels padding against the carpet where she’d forgotten to slip them off. “You’re a better man than him, baby. Oh, I know you’ll be,”
Skinner steels a glance around his room. “...I like dad,”
“Ugh, right, right, I know you do,” Skinner can watch her teeth clench in real-time through the gauges in her cheeks. Molars grinding hard enough to squeak. “He’s your dad, of course you love him. Ugh, not that’d he’d know what to do about it. Your father just looves fucking over the people who love him! Like me!”
She flops onto the ledge of his bed, perching at the lip before falling backward into the mattress. Sprawled out and furious besides Skinner who can only blink and swallow.
“You know, Skinner. For the longest time, I imagined myself so much… well, more. I always imagined more,” She rolls over onto her back, staring at the popcorn ceiling. “Big wedding with a dress that’d trail behind me. Those fancy lace veils and a cake. It would be strawberry; a strawberry cake.”
Skinner blinks. “Did you get it?”
“What, the wedding?” Ruth turns to look at him, cackling at the sincerity. “Fuck no! Haha! Oh, baby, of course not! Price couldn’t do that for me. Price was never that kind of man,” Her head lolls back into place, counting the shapes in the ceiling above her. “But I knew that when I dated him. I knew that when he proposed, and I knew it when I had you,”
Skinner rolls on his side to meet her there, raising a finger to meet her hand right before it tugs away. “So what changed?”
She pauses, thinking. Considering. Her eyes go a bit wide. “Nothing,” She mumbles. “Nothing changed. I don’t know why I expected him to,”
“So… Then why are you mad at him?”
“...I don’t know,” She breathes. She sounds farther away, more distant. “I don’t want you to be like him, Skinner. I want you to have that wedding. I wish on it,”
He stares up, eyes narrowing like he’s trying to find something like a star amongst ceiling and drywall. “I wish for a wedding. With, a big veil. And a dress, for, um, the bride,”
“And a cake,” She mumbles, wrapping herself in Skinner’s discarded blanket. Curling into the foot of his bed. “A strawberry cake,”
Ruth is snoring.
It’s raining tonight.
“It’s not tha thunder that can hurt ya, y’know. That’s just thah noise,”
Lenny is on the other line. Her voice smooth where it crackles into static. “I ain’t scared of it,”
“Of course you’re not,” It sounds like she’s giggling. “I’m glad you called me,”
“Really?” He tempts, “How so?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Lenny weighs the words, and Skinner can see her now. Looking off and chewing on her fingernail. “I just… didn’t imagine you’d call me for something like this,”
“I called Chase too,” Skinner blurts. When Lenny doesn’t reply, he follows up with: “But you seemed like a better option,”
Her words arch like a question, “You called Chase for comfort,”
“Sure,” He shrugs, “He can be… comforting,”
“Right,” Lenny giggles, again, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Still. Even if I’m a… second choice. I’m glad,”
“Anyone would be,” She can hear the smile in Skinner’s voice. “Hearin me at this hour? You must’ve seen a shooting star, Len,”
“Maybe,” There’s a shuffling noise as she rolls over in bed. “I would wish for you.. If there was, you know. A shooting star,”
Skinner snorts. “Good, smart man,”
“...Would you?”
“Would I what?” He blinks, owlishly.
She pauses, swallowing hard. “Wish for me…?”
Skinner barks out a laugh. It’s all the answer she needs. It’s raining tonight, and it’s the only thing occupying the silence between them.

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