c h a p t e r 1 5
quacking
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NATASHA'S POV

The air around us was thick with moisture and the scent of earth and dry grass lingered as an aftertaste, when I took deep breaths while running after Blaze.

It was already way to dark in the stable to make anything out and Blaze's frantic pacing across the stable ground only made it difficult to catch him.

"Stop it! Stop!...damn it stop Glazer" Blaze swatted my hands away in irritation but I still kept going at it.

I was not going to leave it easily. The fucker had been taunting me and biting me from past half an hour. Now that I had my eyes set at it I was not going to rest easy until I killed the blood sucker.

"Glazer!"

"Shhh....don't move...I got it" I hissed at him, eyeing the fat ass mosquito that was hovering above Blaze's head. Teasing me to catch it if I could and Blaze wasn't exactly making it easy, which was slowly pushing me towards my angry point.

He constantly kept jumping away from one place to another, repeatedly swatting my hands away.

Yet, with enough determination and strong will, I finally got the mosquito where I wanted it to be. Right in front of my eyes and sitting still on Blaze's neck. Sucking his blood too.

Before Blaze could move and let my blood sucker free again, I slapped his neck, squashing the mosquito on his neck.

My hand smacking on his neck, had resonated a loud sound, that echoed through the empty stable. Filling the silent air with a booming hiss.

Dumbstruck by my slap, Blaze just stood still as a statue in his place shooting me all sorts of angry glares. Paying no heed to him or his glares though, I busied myself with whipping my hands in a pile of hay.

After the sweet silence that lasted for about two seconds, Blaze let out a string of curses and started pacing back and forth. Literally stomping the ground in rage. 

He suddenly stopped, turned around and pointed an accusing finger at me, "I hate you!"

"Why? I am lovely." 

Running an agitated hand through his hair, he let out a dramatic sigh and looked up at the ceiling with blank eyes.

"Lord give me patience or an untraceable handgun"

"Like you would have the guts to pull a trigger" I scoffed.

"I would, if you push me enough" he crossed his hands, facing me.

"Nah! Not even then. Besides that blood sucker left big red swollen spots all over my left arm! It had to die!" I jabbed my left arm in his face, so he could see the evidences of the gruesome act that the mosquito committed by his own eyes.

Even though it was pitch black in the stables, thanks to the moon that kept hiding behind the blanket of gray clouds every few minutes. I could still feel him rolling his eyes at me before resuming his angry stomping session.

Crossing my hands, I stomped over to the bed of hays. Climbing up I took a comfortable seat and rested my head against the wall. From there I looked over at him. Moving under the ray of moonlight that now beamed through the narrow hollow windows situated on the opposite wall.

I thought he would argue more or at the very least pass some comments but he simply settled down with continuing to shoot me death glares in-between his stomping walk.

I leniently watched him pace back and forth for a couple of minutes. I watched his pace getting slower and the seed of uncalled anger leave his body, until he physically seemed calmed down. Eventually, he got tired enough and decided to come and take a seat besides me.

This whole journey had made me realise that we weren't calm or patient souls. Waiting things out was not our ideal way of life. Which is why we had been having momentary laps of sense and acting out of rage unexpectedly. Be it Blaze's sudden outburst on the road to Treswell where he had suddenly started screaming and kicking at a tree, almost to the point of hurting himself. Or the outburst I had after we entered Treswell.

Even though we had tried our best to cover our lost time on the creepers, by walking faster and trying on different shortcuts; we hadn't managed to reach Treswell before the dead of midnight, when the whole town looked deserted.

There weren't many homes or shops in this small town to begin with and everything that it did have was closed and blacked out.

Still, with the budding ray of optimism in our hearts, Blaze and I knocked on few doors. In desperate need for a warm bed to fall asleep in but unfortunately not a single home had responded to our knocks.

After which, my patience had run off to some far away land with no reason. Resulting in me having a little pissy moment. Where I climbed the ancient bronze tree statue, located in the center of the main road and screamed, cursed and even threatened to burn the funking town down by morning.
Inevitably scarring off the few that might have been interested in helping us too.

Blaze had to literally throw me over his shoulder and carry me away, when my actions started getting out of hands. Meaning, when I started banging on random doors with a wooden stick I had found laying around; demanding the owner to open up or else I would break the door and then kill them all.

Fine I admit, maybe that was more than just a little pissy moment.

So yeah, we were both too close to completely losing our minds at any given moment.

After Blaze had calmed me down, we had walked the empty streets of Treswell helplessly for half an hour before we found an empty stable behind a cottage, further ahead in the town and decided to crash there for the night.

I would have loved to sleep on an actual bed but the stable wasn't a bad choice seeing our condition. Plus it was clean enough as it didn't have horses and even had tall piles of hay that served as a makeshift bed.

So it was fine, if not okay.

Blaze rubbed his hands over his stomach and grumbled besides me, "God I am hungry. Couldn't you pack something more than just few bars of chocolate?"

"Well at least I brought something. All you have are mints." I snapped at him, throwing some hay at him.

"Yeah well, you will thank me for the mints in morning" he sighed and leaned back, laying his head against the wooden wall too.

We had walked five or more hours non stop to a fucking ghost town, with nothing to help us along.

Besides those creepers who had tried to garb me, no other vehicle had ran past us. Leaving us with no choice but to walk all the way here.

What little water we had, we ran out of it too damn quick. The only food we had, were my five bars of snickers, which we shared equally.

I had never gone this long without food in my whole life. The pain of hunger kept shooting through my empty stomach after every few minutes and that pain was ugly. It made my insides turn and my eyes to water. It was also an foreign pain. Which is why I didn't knew how to subdue or deal with it.

Looking to my right, I caught Blaze rubbing his stomach yet again. After the car indecent the emotion of guilt kept hitting my heart more frequently. With every hour that passed us and the worst our conditions got, the guilt increased its clutches on me.

How could I not feel guilty for putting us into this mess. Since I knew I was solely responsible. Blaze was right in saying that were other ways; possible options that wouldn't have necessarily ended in such drastic results. Yet I had singlehandedly chosen the worst.

I was the reason we were forced to walk miles. I was the reason we were starving. I was reason we had to sleep in a cold old stable.
I was the reason for all of this.

If only, I could turn back time and my actions. 

He must have felt my stare because he suddenly turned his face and met my eyes.

I wonder what he saw in them. Did he see guilt and regret or did he see the glimpses of my irrational soul, that only brings bad omens.

However what I saw in his eyes was completely different. I could see gentle understanding in his eyes and it only threw me off.

Something had drastically shifted between us after that hug. I wasn't on my right mind at that time. I felt so disgusted by myself. I felt cheap and dirty. I even felt utterly lonely and helpless.

Though Blaze had complimented me and spoken at length about how brave I was and how cool it was that I took down two guys, twice my size all on my own. All I felt good and thankful about was him. If he hadn't been there to hold me up when I felt like sinking down, I doubt I would have managed to bounce back up to my normal self this quick.

Yes I had taken care of myself and the situation but beating those fuckers didn't exactly erase the vile feelings and fear from taking a grip over my body. 

Yet, it wasn't just a sense of gratitude that had a sudden weight on both of us but something entirely different. Something that I didn't quite understand yet. Or know where to place it. Some unspoken words, I felt had been exchange between us during that vulnerable time.

Words that my mind couldn't recall yet my heart couldn't forget.

Turning his gaze away from my face. He stared at the small window on the opposite wall, through which dark sky laghthered with cold wind clouds could be seen.

"I am never complaining about that awful porridge we are served as breakfast every Saturday, ever again" he mumbled in a soft voice.

"Oh god no. Don't talk about any kind of food...even bad ones right now." I pleaded rubbing a hand over my stomach.

As if on cue, the pain shot back up in my stomach, making me clutch at it and close my eyes momentarily.

"Fine then, what else do you want to talk about?" Blaze asked softly, his eyes shining like electricity under the dim moonlight.

We never really gave the other a chance of starting a normal conversation till now. So I didn't know if we even had anything we could talk about. 

After a brief pause I admitted, "I don't know."

He thought over my reply for few seconds before speaking again, "If your two-year-old self suddenly found themselves inhabiting your current body, what would your two-year-old self do first?"

Taken aback by his random question a bellowing laugh left my mouth, echoing through the stable.

"Wow!" I chuckled, "That was random."

"I am serious Glazer. I want to know"

Still laughing, I recalled something my mom had told me long back. A habit that the two year old me had.

"I would be quacking. Like a duck." I said with a smile.

Hearing this, Blaze sat up on his elbows, giving me a quizzical look.

"Explain" he said.

I laughed at his response again, then slid down further into the hay to get comfortable before I begin my tale. 

"My grandfather had taken me to a lake one evening in summer because I wanted to see ducks. When I was feeding them, one of the duck quacked and I imitated it's quack and that suddenly made all the ducks quack back at me. Which made me believe that I could speak duck..." I wasn't even done with the whole thing and Blaze was cracking up.

"So...I spent that whole year speaking only in quacks. My mom say's that I had different tones and styles of quacking for different needs and words. If I was hungry I would quack twice, if I was not hungry I would quack five times. So yeah, to answer your question I would be quacking." I couldn't help but break into a laugh too, especially after seeing his condition. My story had Blaze rolling in hay and wiping tears.

"Now your turn" I threw few more hay at him, shaking my head when he didn't stop laughing.

Couple minutes later he composed himself and told me that he would be running around pant-less as his two year old self hated wearing pants or well anything down there.

The two of us were so engrossed in laughter, due to Blaze's emphasis on the fact that his whole neighborhood had seen his little thing and that he had scared one of his neighbor's daughter-who was as old as him- so bad that they had to move to another town; that neither of us realized, that we were no longer alone in the stables.

In the almost pitch black darkness the silhouette of a giant figure standing by the stable doors, had me spooked enough to let out a startled scream.

Following this, my scream had done three things in the next seconds. First made Blaze catch the attention of the figure, second made him scream too and third; our combined scream had made the second figure by the left side of stable let out a startled scream too.

"Oh for God's sake!" the gravel voice of the giant figure by the door silenced our scream.

A second later, there was light in the stables, which provided a clear look at the chaotic scene before us. Turns out the two figures were an older couple. Who no doubt were the owners.

Blaze must have realized that too, since we both exchanged a worried look. Silently as if we had the power of telepathy, we even decided to run for our lives if danger flashed it's sign. All in the speck of few seconds that our eyes locked in.

The soft light came from the oil lamp that the old lady had been trying to light up when our screams spooked her. While the old man; when I took a closer look realized, had been trying to get the actual light bulbs of the stable to power back up.

With the light bulbs illuminating the stable further, we were finally able to see each others features clearly.

The old women gently placed the oil lamp back in it's position before walking towards us.

"What are you two kids doing in here?" she asked.

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Even though we weren't sure, Blaze decided to take a chance by explaining to them the reason for us being there.

We thought we would be in a lot of trouble or get kicked back out into the street but instead the sweet old couple immediately took us into their cottage, providing us with warm food and a bed to sleep in after hearing the whole story.

Mr. Moyar, the old man had even agreed to give us a ride to Delagrise, first thing in the morning.

I was so touched and thankful for their kindness and hospitality, that I had even gotten tearful for a moment.

Since they lived in a small cottage, they didn't really have big spaces or guestroom to spare but we were more than happy by what they offered.

The little attic room which was given to us hardly had any space to move around as most of it was occupied by a single bed.

At first, I was thrilled by the idea of Blaze sleeping besides the window on the floor, but when I realized how cold the wood floors were I refused to let him sleep on the ground.

It took some time to convince him but after enough arguments on my part he gave in and we ended up sharing the bed.

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The bright ray of sunlight washing over my face, casting it's blinding and uncomfortable yellow tint over my eyelids woke me up.

Rapidly blinking away the sleep from my eyes, I lifted my head up and away from the path of the sunlight and focused on the face of the person, on whom's chest I had rested my head.

Blaze looked quite peaceful in his sleep.

His hair still had hay stuck in them and his neck was placed at an odd angle. He looked super adorable with his mouth slightly ajar and one leg dangling down the bed. Looking at him while he slept like this, for some unknown reason made me smile.

Not wanting to wake him up I slowly got up on my elbows and then carefully threaded my hands around his neck and placed it in a comfortable position. So he wouldn't wake up with a cramped neck.

When he didn't stir in his sleep, I thanked the God and then turned around to stretch my arms, while casting a lazy look around. The small room was basking in the golden hue of the morning sun that casts it's spell through the big windows.

I slowly padded my way towards the window to take a quick look at the trees and ground outside the house and then drew the curtains close so that Blaze could sleep peaceful without the sunlight hitting his face. 

After that, I made my way downstairs to the kitchen, from where the aromatic smell of delicious sweet breakfast was coming. Mrs. Moyar was busy cracking eggs when I walked up to her thanking her once again. She quickly waved it off and gave me the direction to the bathroom to freshen up.

So I quickly grabbed my towel and fresh set of cloths from my bag and headed for a nice bath.

♡

With my towel wrapped nicely around my body, I opened the door and came face to face with Blaze. I caught his still sleepy eyes go wide, right before I slammed the door in his face.

"I didn't see anything" he called out from other side.

Shaking my head and cursing I placed my ears against the bathroom door and listened to the door of the adjoined room being shut.

I still waited a minute before opening the bathroom door again. I first stuck my head out and took a peek, to make sure he wasn't lingering around. Once I was satisfied the course was clear, I swiftly got out of the bathroom and quickly changed into my clothes.

When ready, I opened the door and found him sitting on an old washing machine placed in the crook of a corner besides the storage room.

"It's all yours" gesturing towards the room and then I quickly dashed off, feeling my cheeks heat up in embarrassment.

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Before sending us off, Mrs. Moyar had packed us a box full of biscuits, cookies, a loaf of sweet bread and even pie for our ride to Delegres. And I have no shame in admitting that we ate it all before we reached our destination.

In between the three hour ride, though at some point Blaze and I starting feeling super awkward around each other. Especially when we would lean over each other during the hard turns since we were seating so close in Mr. Moyar's truck.

The silence between us grew uncomfortable and hostile by the hour. Even Mr Moyar had started feeling bothered by it.

I didn't know what had brought about this sudden change in us but as we neared Delagris we both had started pulling back. We didn't wanted to talk or share jokes. We didn't even wanted to acknowledge the other.

The person whose presence made me feel safe till yesterday, now only felt unsettling. It was as if we had been completely different people yesterday and today we are what we have always been.

The Blaze and Natasha that couldn't stand each other. And honestly, it gave birth to quite an unpleasant odd feeling in my stomach, that felt worst than guilt.

"What's all this?" Mr. Moyar's question snapped me back to reality. I cast a quick look out the window as Mr. Moyar slowed the car down.

Now this was even more unpleasant.

Blaze opened the gate and jumped out and I followed behind. The school ground was swarmed by police cars and cops with search dogs; along with other authorities. All of whom had posters in their hands. Posters with Blaze and mine face printed on it.

"Great just what we needed" Blaze commented kicking at dirt. 

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If your two-year-old self suddenly found themselves inhabiting your current body, what would your two-year-old self do first?

LOVE N