private and california never felt like home to me

In the back of his mind, Ravenpaw knew Dovepaw was being difficult. However, he could not help but be ruffled at the blatantly stubborn remark. "You know the answer to that." He grumbled, allowing the weakness in his resolve to be shown at his bitter reply. He would never figure Dovepaw out entirely.

The rant brought the onus away from Ravenpaw for a moment and his paw brushed over one of the batches of dried herbs listlessly as he listened. Any RiverClan cat would tell to Dovepaw's face for him to leave if he hated it so badly. Ravenpaw knew well from the reactions of others how they treated cats who tuned their back on their Clan. Even if it wasn't a good fit for them, they would still be shunned. Ravenpaw had absorbed part of that mentality into his own character to forget his own inferiority. "You put so much trust in me when you say these things, truth or not, you know..."

He would not tell Dovepaw to leave. His favorite brain puzzle would be gone, and he would miss him terribly. Dovepaw could not know.

What an idiot. Ravenpaw thought to himself, scoffing as Dovepaw threatened to dissolve into an uncertain, hot-skinned mess underneath all of that fur. "You do not find my features beautiful?" He said, grin faltering and widening again. Ravenpaw's bushy tail brushed across the ground, swiping over his paws. "The way you replied seems to indicate otherwise. You're clearly obsessed with some part of me. I hoped at least I would figure out which it was."

​
 


The fact that there was something addicting about it could not be denied, even by a temperamental and injured Dovepaw. He did not want to eat still, and so the mouse remained untouched by his side. It was probably only a matter of time before he caved, but Dovepaw was too proud for it to be yet. He snorted, obviously putting on a show of it. "Y-You love t-telling p-people things w-without telling m-me," he grumbled. "If y-you were g-going to tell anyone, y-you a-already would have." The words were unusually confident for the normally meek still-apprentice, as if he knew this for sure.

Silence passed between them, both of them knowing something about the other that would remain unspoken. The atmosphere, however, turned to something decidedly more strange.

"I d-don't know what y-you're talking about," Dovepaw insisted hotly, recoiling. "Wh-What—why? Wh-Why are y-you even asking? D-Do you f-find me b-beautiful?" Classically deflecting the question, Dovepaw knew he was arguing unfairly. "I," he choked up. "I'm n-not o-obs-ssessed with you."

​
 
"If I were to tell anyone," Ravenpaw corrected, his teeth gnashing in a snap. "You would be dead." It was not so much that Ravenpaw enjoyed having paws over another's life, but more attributed to his basic apathy. What was said within the medicine den would stay within the medicine den. There was no rule for that, but Ravenpaw decided at that moment, staring Dovepaw in the eyes, that his position implored him to a stance of neutrality.

How far that could be held up was a matter of time.

The ache in his brain began to expand as he listened to Dovepaw prattle and deflect. His antics were impossible to pick up on. Ravenpaw was not sure if it was usual nervousness or that Dovepaw was trying to hide something. With his character, it could be either of them.

His dull eyes lightened for a moment, lips curling over teeth, seeing the opportunity to get back at Dovepaw.

"Yes. I do." He said as if he were merely speaking about the weather. Ravenpaw turned his back to Dovepaw and sifted through marigold.

​
 


To be perfectly honest, Dovepaw took Ravenpaw's correction as a thinly-veiled threat. Perhaps it was unfair of him to do so, but he had gotten particularly used to being on-edge with Ravenpaw—wanting to correct, outwit, outsmart everything he said. It burned Dovepaw like an angry, spitting fire; bile in the back of his throat. "A-And y-you'd be dead if I h-hadn't s-saved you f-from falling off a cliff." He spoke softly, not angrily but certainly not pleasantly. "S-So, I g-guess we're even. In that r-regard." Not in any other regard. Ravenpaw had still lied to him. Dovepaw had not lied to him.

Left bewildered (which Dovepaw hated when it came from Ravenpaw), he recoiled further in on himself. "I—" he sputtered, obviously caught off guard and completely unsure how to continue with the interaction.

"W-Well—well—g-good f-for you. Wh—What, you—y-you w-want me t-to s-say it b-back?" Dovepaw was obviously deflecting, hiding his response, stammering: all of it. "A r-reward? F-For being nice?" He scoffed, trying to regain his composure.

Again, his stomach growled.

​
 
Ravenpaw scoffed.

"Any cat would have saved their Clanmate from falling off the gorge. Even if he hated him." In a flash, he relived the moment once more—white-hot fear racing through his veins, wide eyes staring into Dovepaw's own. For that brief moment, he was the most vulnerable thing on the planet. And his life, clearly, had been placed within the pad of Dovepaw's paws.

You're not special for that.

But he could have watched him fall. He could have. Ravenpaw was sure that the guilt of such an act would have driven Dovepaw, stubborn, but as sensitive as he was, into insanity.

"My reward is that you eat. Kindly, I ask. I will not ask you to... 'say it back'. I know how you feel."​
 


Dovepaw blinked, a heat rising to his face. "I—of c-course I s-saved you—but th-that i-isn't true," he bit his tongue. "Th-They didn't just let H-Hyacinthbreath fall. They pushed her." He was not over it; he would not refuse to stay silent on it. "I w-would a-always save you. Y-You're still R-Ravenpaw, even if y-you are a l-liar." Dovepaw seethed, his claws flexing at nothing but soil. Not as a threat, but an expression of his tentativeness, how wound-up he was. The illusion that he had moved on at all from their initial fight had all but been directly dispelled.

"F-Fine. If it m-makes y-you quiet. And—a-and l-less w-weird," the still-apprentice scoffed, awkwardly going about eating the prey Ravenpaw had provided to him. "I h-hope you d-don't t-talk to all of y-your p-patients like this." Dovepaw said stiltedly, oblivious enough to completely miss the double entendre he had just walked into.

Soft, deliberately muted sounds of eating began to fill the medicine den.

​
 
Ravenpaw held a level gaze with Dovepaw. It was easy for Dovepaw to be so upset over Hyacinthbreath's exile. Ravenpaw did not feel such a strong connection to the silver she-cat. He had been annoyed since Smokethroat convince Cicadastar to let her in. He had been irate when WindClan attacked them on behalf of Hyacinthbreath defending their territory by murdering supposed trespasser—Ravenpaw still doubted any word that came out of Hyacinthbreath's mouth.

He did want to tell Dovepaw that Hyacinthbreath had put herself in that situation. Whatever she had done on that battle patrol, she had shown she had never truly left WindClan. That was a death sentence in almost every Clan but especially RiverClan. Ravenpaw understood that.

"She had the chance of a lifetime, Dovepaw. Nobody gets in here easy." Ravenpaw growled mutedly. He could not help but seethe over his father being yelled at for being polite while a WindClan traitor was permitted to live among them. "If she did not realize that, nothing could have helped her. You give up certain freedoms... to live here."

He felt some satisfaction over winning Dovepaw's choice to eat. He sat in silence for a while, ears twitched back in annoyance. "Of course not." He scoffed.

"I am a monogamist."

​
 


Dovepaw did not take the level gaze, the condescending tone, the way Ravenpaw found it permissible to growl at him after all this time. "Th-The whole system of it is r-ridiculous, and unfair," he seethed. "I'd e-expect you to be s-smart enough to recognize that, and n-not to whine about h-how your dad was o-'one of the good ones' and t-tell me how my mentor deserved to die." While the first instance of Ravenpaw speaking on Hyacinthbreath had not been received well by Dovepaw either, it had been a one-off remark. It was clear that, this time, he was thoroughly angry. "I g-guess I should e-expect less."

Silence passed through them again. Dovepaw took angry, snapping bites at the food he had been provided—upset that he had to go through with eating it. Though his stomach appreciated the sustenance, he told himself that he was mostly doing it to her Ravenpaw speak less.

His gaze flickered back up to Ravenpaw when he said he was a monogamist, and Dovepaw could only fix him with a tired look. "...C-Cool."

​
 
Ravenpaw held his gaze with Dovepaw as they fought and scrambled their way back to square one. "I have already made my stance clear." He repeated. "You play by the rules, be smart about it, or you get hurt." The fur along his spine rippled, threatening to puff out into something even larger, but as if the touch of some secret guardian, he calmed.

"And if you go too far, I will not be able to save you." He remembered dark skies and burning stars. He remembered the thrill of the puzzle of the universe, how their world worked, what governed it, and what was good and what was evil. He had been bolder then.

He listened to Dovepaw's loud crunching. It rattled between his ears, worming into his brain until he could not handle it. Tail twitching and puffed over his annoyance at Dovepaw's nonchalance to what Ravenpaw thought was a clever snide remark, he got up silently to his paws and let Dovepaw win. He curled up in his nest and closed his eyes, no longer willing to poke at him any longer.

If things had happened differently, I would have asked you to run away with me. I would have.

​
 


Dovepaw challenged him in return, his gaze faltering only for a moment. "S-So—y-your father d-deserved to be driven away? Th-That's the h-hill you w-want to die on?" Silence followed in between the two of them for a too-long pause. Though Ravenpaw seemed to particularly calm down, Dovepaw seemed as puffed up as ever before.

"W-Well, considering I h-have had to s-save you m-more, I'm not t-too worried," he lied, his eyes ferocious. "...Whatever." Dovepaw let out a small outburst, his anger palpable in the room.

A long, long spell of quiet followed in between them. After finishing his paltry meal, Dovepaw let out a huff and tried to fall asleep.

He failed, of course, and a sharp and persistent pain on his side was proof to that. "...M-My wounds opened again."

​
 
Of course his father did not deserve to be kicked away. They were not so unlike from each other, after all. What he said earlier had been a sliver of his thoughts—they were witnessing history. The warrior code was being made before their eyes. It was fair and right to have cross-clan relationships. Now it was outlawed. What was good and what was bad dictated by law would always change. But it existed, and thus one had to follow. Ravenpaw's eyes narrowed, a silent warning. If Dovepaw wished to take it as that, Ravenpaw would not stop him.

He had only a few moments of reprieve until Dovepaw piped up again.

"Already?" Ravenpaw asked incredulously. He raised his head and stared at Dovepaw. "I told you to quit wriggling."

​
 


Truly, Ravenpaw's capacity for hypocrisy never failed to surprise Dovepaw. Dovepaw thought he had laid out an irrefutable contradiction in belief and practice—something that would force Ravenpaw to at least, he didn't know, level with him? Or anything? Literally anything. And yet Ravenpaw refused to do anything more than make an accusative face at him.

Dovepaw immaturely refused to place any onus of responsibility onto himself in part because of this. Dovepaw was communicating, and Ravenpaw was being so frustrating that it made Dovepaw's mind melt.

"I d-didn't," Dovepaw hissed. A moment of further silence later, he let out a humph of discomfort. "I d-didn't m-mean to, a-anyway. Sorry."

​
 
"Wounds do not suddenly become undone with no effort." Ravenpaw snorted, rising to his paws once more to gather more cobwebs. Perhaps he had not placed them tight enough. In the back of his mind, he wondered if Dovepaw was clever enough to fake it in order to get him to talk again.

Ravenpaw approached Dovepaw's side and noticed the scent and sight of blood welling up in Dovepaw's light fur. With a heavy sigh, he sat down and undressed the wound. "Stay still... if you can." He murmured, ears flattening as he lowered his head to rasp his tongue across Dovepaw's flank in an attempt to slow and clot the bleeding. His herbs were precious and he would not waste more marigold if this happened to be a fluke.

​
 


He hissed out an unhappy sound at the meddling with his sutures. "M-Maybe y-you d-didn't do them perfectly," Dovepaw whined, his entire body obviously in pain as his wounds were undressed. Each tiny, imperceptible movement—things less than breaths—made him wince in a great inner pain. "I'm t-trying." Dovepaw let out a half-whimper, half-spit.

Time passing in between them, Dovepaw continued to attempt putting forward his best attempts at stillness—though he was not wholly succeeding. "G-God... ow," there was no pretense and even less ego; two things that seemed to dominate their interactions. Dovepaw was just in pain, and it was very clear none of it was an act, or put on.

He winced again.

​
 
"I do everything perfectly." Ravenpaw replied, though his voice lost most of the vitriol bite it had earlier. The words themselves were obviously made in a rhetorical fashion. He had made plenty mistakes, but he would not make a mistake on Dovepaw.

Once he finished licking Dovepaw's wounds, they were wrapped up again in cobweb. This time, he swept up a few burrs with his tail and slid them between his toes so he could stick them against Dovepaw's fur to hold the apparent slippery bandages still.

"You are done." He finally said, curling back to admire his handiwork. "If the thorns start pricking you uncomfortably, we may have to consider other options." Ravenpaw fell silent. There was nothing else for him to say. His hollow gaze bore into the side of Dovepaw's skull, and then flicked back down to his light tabby paws.

​
 


There is little on his face but sourness and discontent as Ravenpaw goes back to fussing with his wounds. "I-I am t-telling you r-right now th-that that is not true." He grumbles, lashing out at his companions debatably-earnest display of ego. The tenderness does not vanish, even as Ravenpaw tidies everything up and takes a step back. Casting a lazy glance up in his direction, Dovepaw looks exhausted more than he looks angry—which, at this point, was quite the feat when it came to being around Ravenpaw.

"Ow," he hissed immediately at the thorns, clearly not having his pain quelled. Perhaps a little, but redirected seemed to be more adequate for what Dovepaw was dealing with. He let out a pained sigh, his face trying its best to contort into something that did not reveal his pain. Though he had just snapped at Ravenpaw's ego, he was something of a hypocrite where it counted.

A beat of silence passed. "...Wh-What," he winced. "A-Are you looking at."

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