Dragons Games Chapter 11-3

Final 3000 words. Give or take some edits. Still need to type 'the end' and all that, but if their would be a credits scene, this would prelude it. I want to thank each of you again, this has been a long time in the making, though it's not QUITE the end as I'll be chalking up a bonus scene as I hinted at before. 

Just as she was entertaining the thought of pulling up to one of the huts, she spotted something. There, on the shores off the islet to her left, was a skiff, dragged up onto the shore so the tide wouldn’t wash it away. She gunned the engine, soon making out two paddles in the sand beside the derelict skiff, and there, sitting on the sand close by, a figure.

She turned off the engine with a click, its awful noise cutting off, replaced by the lulling sound of the waves as they slapped at the hull. Momentum cruised her up into the shallows, the dragoness hopping out when the seabed was knee-high. Her muscles bulged beneath her flexing scales as she lugged the boat the rest of the way, its nose digging into the sand as she parked it beside the other skiff.

She turned, and her heart jumped as she saw him. He was bunched in on himself, his hands tucked into his lap, his feet buried up to the ankles in the sand, eyes aimed straight ahead out at the empty sea.

Cassidy hadn’t been quiet nor discreet as she dismounted her boat, but he gave no reaction to her entrance, even as she walked up the sand and stopped a few feet away, he didn’t move, he didn’t say anything.

And neither did she. For a while the only noise was the backdrop of the waves as they rolled onto the shore to their right.

Fighting to keep her voice steady, she sighed and broke the silence. “Jim?”

He didn’t reply, his head shifting ever so slightly to the side. He was avoiding eye-contact.

“Jim?” she said again. Still nothing. She stepped over and sat down as close to him as she dared, her tail draping out on the sand behind her. “I brought your things. Here.”

She placed his bag between them, the zippers clinking as it tipped over from its upright position. This time he did move, his gaze falling on his bag. “Your spare clothes are in there,” she said when the silence became too much. “Thought you might need them. And…”

“How did you know I was here?”

“W-Well, you… you said you always come out here when you need to… think.”

“Good for you. Maybe my dad will pay you extra for your flawless memory. He send you out to find me?”

“N-No,” she said. “I wanted to find you, of my own volition.”

“Bullshit. You mean you NEEDED to find me,” he muttered. “Probably because he promised you a raise or something if you brought me back to him.

“It’s not like that. I-It’s not…”

“Isn’t it? You’ve been lying to me since day one, how can you expect me to believe anything that comes out of your mouth now?”

“… I don’t.”

“Then get the fuck away from me, be a good whore and go collect your fucking pay check, find someone else to sell yourself to.”

She deflated, her lower jaw quivering as his words echoed across the beach. It was only at this moment that she realised he had never cursed in her presence, and it stuck out to her, in no small part because he was directing it all at her.

“I-It wasn’t like that!” she said. “I never saw a single dollar, Jim! It all went to my parents, they got the money.”

“Which they spent on YOU!” Jim snapped. “I can’t believe you’re even trying to defend yourself. First dad, now you, I’m sick of listening to everyone’s excuses.”

“J-Jim, no, I-I’m not defending myself, I came here to apologise! I came here to tell you that this is all my fault, that you deserved to know, to tell you that… that I should have come down when you were playing, and…”

“You don’t get it!” Jim said, and she saw a wetness on his cheek, the moonlight reflecting off the tear as it streamed down. “You and dad both think this is something you can just explain away, but you can’t! Y-You just can’t…”

He snorted as he bowed his head, his chest hopping as he fought back the beginnings of a sob, Cassidy starting to shudder herself as she watched him begin to cry.

He blinked a few times, lifting his head and turning to face her, his voice straining to remain level as he continued. “You know something? I, I don’t care about any of that. I don’t care that you didn’t show up at the game, I don’t care that you waited all this time to tell me that- that disgusting truth…”

“Jim, I-”

“I don’t even care about if this… was your fault, your parents, or my father’s. All I care about,” he added, wiping at his eyes in futility. “is the fact a part of me knew on some level this was all too good to be true. You know how?”

“Please, Jim just-”

“Because of my ex. Her name was Lara, we met in high school.” A pause as he sniffed. “I thought she’d be the one for me since the day we met. We agreed we’d stick together, no matter what, and we did, for a while. Then just last year, she got an offer from some company on the other side of the state, and I told her I didn’t want her to go, that I couldn’t stand it. Know what she said?”

“She said she already accepted it. Didn’t even have the fucking guts to ask for my opinion before agreeing to the offer. She even tried hiding it from me, but I found out. We could have worked something out,” he sighed, his arms lowering. “If she’d just told me, though looking back that seems to be a regular problem for me, isn’t it?”

“I, I-”

“We started fighting more and more often after that, until she decided she couldn’t deal with me anymore. She came up to our house one night, and she said something I’d never forget, right there on the porch. You know what it was?”

“She told me that nobody would ever love me the way she did, and that if she’d known thing’s would turn out the way they did, she’d take it all back in a heartbeat. That’s what I care about,” he added, going on before giving her a chance to speak. “That she was right, and you are living proof of that, Cass. You get it, now? Do you have even the tiniest idea how… how worthless it makes me feel, when I realise every moment we’ve shared has been fake?”

“You’re not worthless, you- you’re not, I’m the one who’s worthless…”

“I don’t even know why I’m telling you this. Just Jim being dumb again, I suppose. Just go,” he stated, bowing his head, hiding behind his arms in a vain attempt to conceal himself from her. “I can’t… I just can’t do this anymore. Leave.”

She hunched down her head, and broke down on the spot, drops of her water works pattering on the sand by her tail, which was curled up over her ankles. She’d been looking forward to this day all year, it should have been amazing, but now it was all falling down on her, and she let it all out then and there, and she was alarmed when it just wouldn’t stop, even when she brought herself to accept this outcome.

It was his choice, and it was her fault he’d made it. There was no other way around it.

“O-Okay,” she said, shakily exhaling as she wiped her eyes with a claw. “Okay. You w-want me to go, I’ll go. You’ll never see me again, Jim, n-no matter what… what our parents say or want. J-Just know one thing Jim, it wasn’t fake, not to me. And I’ll n-never forget how s-special you made me feel, that night we spent out here. Okay?”

She scooted over, the natural body heat he radiated warming her scales as she reached over, brushing her claws through his blonde hair, her tail mirroring her arm movements as it coiled over his ankle. He didn’t move, even when she kissed him on the side of his temple.

“I may have broken your heart, but you still have mine,” she said, stroking his soft hair, one last time. “I love you, Jim. I… I really do.”

She pulled away, struggled to her feet with a sniffle. She looked down at him, her chops quivering when he still didn’t move, Cass silently begging him to do anything, say anything.

She sulked her way back to the boat, pushing it by the nose into the water. Her arms felt sapped of strength, though, and it took her much more effort to get it into the sea than it had before.

She hopped on, and turned the ignition, and right as she pulled the starting cord she thought she heard something, a voice. No, it was probably just her imagination running wild. She pulled the cord again.

“Wait!”

She turned, watching as Jim splashed his way into the shallows, putting one hand on the boat to steady himself. He looked up at her, and she looked back, and she saw exactly what he wanted to say.

She kicked up a wave as she leapt out of the boat, the water drenching the both of them as she rushed into Jim’s arms, his muscular biceps flexing over her shoulders as he clutched her to him. She circled him with her arms, too, and like that, they cried together, creating a feedback loop of emotional turmoil as their faces grew more wet as they embraced.

“I’m sorry,” he said, shaking his head against hers, their temples joined as they stayed locked like that.

“Y-You’re sorry?” she sobbed. “Why?”

“I c-called you a bitch. You’re not, Cass, you’re… you’re not.”

“Yes I am! I should have told you, I should have but I… I was too scared, scared that… that this, w-would happen. I was so stupid!”

“You’re not stupid, Cass,” he said, rubbing the small of her back. “Even with everything that- that’s happened tonight, I just… just can’t bring myself to fight the fact that, I love you too.”

“W-What? Th-That’s it? That’s all I had to say?”

“Yes! That’s exactly what I wanted to hear! All this time, I was waiting! Cause I-I thought you… you didn’t…”

She leaned harder into him, her horns brushing the sides of his face as he clutched her harder. “O-Of course I do, Jim, of course I do…”

The weight in her chest lifted, and Cass felt like she could breathe again after the longest night in her life. She wanted to stay like this forever, here in his arms she felt safe, loved, and more than a little foolish.

She didn’t know how long they stood there like that, together, with their legs submerged and their faces wet with tears and water, but she knew it was not long enough when he finally decided to disconnect, just a little, so that she could look into his eyes, as blue as the sea around them…

“W-What should we do now?” she asked.

“I… don’t know,” Jim said. “We should… head back first, then we’ll figure out something. Hang on, where’s your boat?”

“What?” She whipped her head round on her slender neck, going wide-eyed as the water near her was suspiciously empty of boats. The rumble of an engine drew her gaze up, and she looked on with a slack-jawed expression as she saw her motor boat drifting maybe thirty meters out from the shore. “Oh, shit me!” she half-laughed, half-cried.

“‘Shit you’?” he asked, his tears giving way to a grateful hysteria. Their bodies didn’t know whether to be sad or not, so an odd mix of both soon resulted.

“Shush, I don’t cuss like you or Kendra do. That sailor guy won’t be happy if I lose that boat.”

“Who?” he asked, his confusion settling when she explained. “Oh him. Suppose we should go swim out and get it…”

“In a minute,” she said, bundling him in her arms again. She’d found someone who had given her life a whole different kind of meaning, and she wasn’t about to let him go, not after what she’d put him through. Her guilt would probably stick with her for the rest of her life, but for now, in this moment, she could be happy.

3

Cass used the knot the sailor had shown her to tie Jim’s boat to hers, towing the engine-less skiff along the water as they sailed back to the mainland. Jim held the boat to one side, hooking his hand beneath the lip so it wouldn’t stray or get caught in the engine, Cass keeping the speed extra slow so he wouldn’t hurt himself. It would take them longer to get back, but they weren’t in a rush.

“I should have told you sooner,” she said, speaking over the thrumming of the engine. “I wanted to, really, but I thought… I thought…”

“You don’t have to say anything,” Jim replied, his long hair flipping back in the gale.

“No, I do,” she continued. She pulled her coat tighter as she glanced back at him. “If you need time, space, I won’t blame you.”

“I know you wouldn’t,” he replied. He looked away, shoulders shrugging as he went on. “I had a long time to think things over back there. My whole life, I’ve been telling myself that I’m the best at everything, that I could win any game, get any girl. And all this,” he said, raising his arms as he gestured around them. “All this goes to show how wrong I was.”

“Jim-”

“Let me finish,” he said. She did. “Even during the finals, I was talking shit to my team for screwing up, I was so ready to gloat that I would win us the match. I could never keep girls interested in me for long. Hell, Lara got sick of me and I thought she was the one. And after what my father said, after what you said, I realise… I’m not the best, I’m not a chick magnet, and I’m definitely not good enough to do my own exams by myself, and maybe… maybe it’s about time I accepted that.”

“I think I’ll give up the whole Mythics wingman thing,” he continued, and Cassidy blinked at that, Jim chuckling at her reaction. “I know right? Whether Mr. Bahril kicks me out or not, I don’t think it’s for me. Maybe I’ll become a coach like him, try and be a notch or two less crazy, maybe. This whole thing with my dad and you still bugs me,” he added, Cass’s heart sinking. “but he did it for my sake, and I’m the one who put myself in that state in the first place, that's obvious now.”

“I’m… glad, for you,” she said, looking at him in an entirely new light. “I just wish it didn’t end up this way. Maybe there could have been a better outcome than all this, if I’d just done something sooner…”

“Don’t let it get to you,” he said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “I did, and I almost threw away everything, I even thought about…” He trailed off, a dark look on his face coming and going as his eyes flicked to the side. To the rope laying in the other boat. Cass didn’t pry him about it, she didn’t want to, and neither did he.

“Love you, Jim,” she said, smiling when he repeated it. She felt a warmness on her cheek, but it wasn’t a blush. She turned to see the yellow ball of the sun creeping its way over the horizon, basking its warmth over the tops of the tallest buildings in the city.

“Wow, morning already,” Jim noted. “Didn’t realise how long I was out here.”

“I love how it shines in the water like that,” she said, watching the water shimmer like gold as the sun gradually rose. It was just soft enough she didn’t have to avert her eyes from the glare.

“Hope your sailor buddy is fast asleep,” Jim said, looking out at the mainland as they slowly closed in. “Might be able to slink away without him noticing.”

“Oh no, not this time, we’re going to thank him,” she chided. “He’d love that, and besides, he said he only helped me out because he was a sucker for romance.”

“Fine,” he sighed, leaning back as he smirked at her. When he didn’t stop, she grinned, asked him what he was smiling about. “You’re saying love a lot, you notice that?”

Her guilt flared at that. She had noticed, she was doing it out of reflex now, since she’d learned that Jim had all but waited for her to say those words. She supressed anything else from it, there was no reason to let it get to her, as Jim put it.

“That’s because it feels nice to start a sentence like that,” she replied. “Like, I love the ukelele, or, I love the way your hair feels? Try it!”

“Ha, okay…” He looked around, his gaze eventually falling back on her. “I… love the way your thorns pinch me whenever we hug.”

“I know you do,” she said, the two sharing a chuckle.

The shore was less than twenty meters away, Cass killing the engine as she let the current take them the rest of the way. When the water wasn’t too deep, she hopped out, Jim joining her as they hauled the boats onto dry land. When she tied the skiffs back to the pier supports, he was once again staring at her from the side.

“What?” she asked, giggling even though she didn’t know what he was about to say.

“There’s nothing sexier to me than a girl tying a knot like that, gives me some ideas…”

“Oh yeah? Such as?” She pulled the hairy rope taught.

“Tell you later.”

When she was done, he pulled her into his embrace, the two sharing a kiss. Even though she had lied, and his father had lied, and the very beginning of their relationship had been a fabrication by the latter, their night had ended with a clear mind for the both of them, and maybe one day, they could put this bump in their road behind them for good.

They parted, turning to stare out at the sunrise together.