Room 512, Thursday Afternoon

[doesnotkneel]

Edward had barely cobbled together what had happened last week. The vast array of strange messages he had received yesterday had distracted him from that pursuit, however, and now it had largely fled his mind. Strange men came to Fandom, and did strange things, and that was apparently the way of the island.

So far, that made it a decent trade, at least for him.

Come Thursday afternoon, all concerns forgotten, he was back to his usual: sitting on his bed, practicing his reading while he chewed idly on a piece of bread he'd absconded with from the common room. His grasp of the letters was nearly so that he thought he could get a job on the island, which would greatly improve his fortunes. At the moment, though, it was all reading about naval battles and ships.

Not boats. Ships.

[[ door open, post open! ]]

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[doesnotkneel]

"You're a bit late if you want to mop up the sick," Edward volunteered.

Mostly because he wasn't sure how she could, in an I-don't-even-know-either sort of way, not an I'll-never-forgive-you one.

[seveninchmotto]

Isabelle wrinkled her nose at him some more. It was very expressive.

"I went to hell," she said. "Literally. Maybe that will make up for any missed sick-mopping duties?"

[doesnotkneel]

Edward frowned, cradling the bottle a bit closer.

"You'll want to explain that one in greater detail," he ventured.

[seveninchmotto]

This was her least favorite story, for the record. She found a new way of scrunching up her face before gingerly taking a seat on the edge of his bed.

"You remember Sebastian, right?" she asked, though she didn't actually wait for any kind of an answer. "Guy that killed my little brother? Guy who was killed. He came back." As these types sometimes did. "And he got himself an army of poisoned Shadowhunters, and he sought to strike us all down. There was a war. And me and some others ended up traveling to a hell dimension where he was hiding."

Because these things always somehow fell on a group of teenagers.

[doesnotkneel]

Edward blinked.

"...All right," he settled on.

[seveninchmotto]

"And now Sebastian's dead and so are his Endarkened," Isabelle added, simplifying things quite a bit because really, the details did nothing for anyone. "As well as many of our own. And we lost a friend of ours when one of the princes of hell demanded all his memories of us as payment for getting us back home."

She paused for a beat.

"Oh, and my parents are getting divorced." Something she had not even begun to process yet, fun fact. "None of this excuses my crappy behavior, of course."

[doesnotkneel]

There were people on this Earth who would have reassured her that it was understandable in the light of all that. Edward, with his still-healing pride, was not one of them.

"And showing up drunk to my dorm room works into this...?"

[seveninchmotto]

"Not well," she replied, with considerable honesty. "It was before most of this. But also during, really. My world's been in a constant state of disarray for... most of the last half a year, really. And I don't know what I was thinking when I came here. I'm not sure I was thinking at all. I know I was miserable, and that I wanted to be around a friend, but I've never had friends so I don't know how that works."

She looked at her hands.

"It's much easier to just be superficial and play with them instead."

[doesnotkneel]

Edward let out a sigh, and put the bag down on the floor beside his bed. He wasn't used to this kind of talk - wasn't used to any of it, honestly, down to Isabelle showing up at the time at all - so it was taking him some time to collect his thoughts, beyond the easily kneejerk motions of his pride.

"So I'm your friend now?" he asked.

He could've asked with significantly more sarcasm, but he found that he actually meant... whatever was behind that question.

[seveninchmotto]

Isabelle shrugged without looking up.

"That's the only explanation I have for all this guilt. Because trust me, I'm not used to feeling bad for doing something like that."

In her defence, the boys on the receiving end of similar treatment previously had generally not held her in too high a regard, either. So at least the mistreatment had gone both ways.

[doesnotkneel]

That level of appeal to his ego mollified Edward, at least. "Well, if your aim is to make me feel special, you're succeeding admirably," he said, quirking his mouth so she could see it was at least half of a joke.

An olive branch, perhaps.

[seveninchmotto]

Isabelle looked over, and she knew normally she would have gone in full force on some kind of a jokey reply.

But there was still something inside her, something worn down from the Edom trip, even now, and so what actually came out was, "You are special, Edward."

[doesnotkneel]

Well.

That was certainly nothing no one had ever said to Edward, bar the voices in his own head.

So congratulations, Isabelle: you had managed to render him briefly speechless. Even a cursory 'of course I am' didn't quite manage to make it out there.

[seveninchmotto]

"It's not that shocking," Isabelle told him after a moment, raising her eyebrows just a little. "You heard what I said about the guilt. It's not – I don't feel that for just anyone."

[doesnotkneel]

At this point in... well, everything... even Edward knew better than to interpret that as anything but friendly. He scratched the back of his head. "Sorry," he said. "You're right. I'm bloody special, I am."

[seveninchmotto]

And even though it was nothing but friendly, it still put him squarely in what was essentially only a two-person group of mundanes she cared about enough to consider the consequences of her actions.

With her, that was a lot.

"Yes, you are," she replied, and managed to inject some passing hint of amusement into her voice. Briefly. "And what I did was shitty."

[doesnotkneel]

"Yes, it was," Edward said. But now he was smirking a bit. "But 's all right. I mean, I got my rum back and then some."

[seveninchmotto]

"That doesn't make it all right." Not that she had any particular desire to publicly beat herself up about it for very long. That kind of thing just made her uncomfortable, and Isabelle Lightwood was not the type to willingly make herself uncomfortable for very long. "But the rum seems like a good start."

[doesnotkneel]

Edward let out a sigh.

"Bloody hell, woman," he said, "Are you going to make me forgive solemnly, now?"

[seveninchmotto]

"How else am I supposed to know when I can stop feeling bad about it?"

That was something closer to a joke. Go you, Isabelle.

[doesnotkneel]

"Nah, I reckon you should be feeling bad about it for the rest of your days," Edward declared, "But I will take the high road and call it settled."

[seveninchmotto]

Isabelle reached over and flicked him on the shoulder. It was more careful a gesture than it looked.

"Don't be a brat."

[doesnotkneel]

Edward didn't respond to it oddly, at least; he was feeling somewhat more comfortable around her again. "Just being earnest."

No, he was being a brat.

[seveninchmotto]

"It's indistinguishable from being a brat," Isabelle told him, in lieu of telling him how relieved she felt right now. Because no one needed to know that. "It really is."