Roleplay

"Thanks." Sean followed him as he headed back West, towards the agree location. Oliver still made Sean nervous, but he was sure he was just tired, and that in the morning he would feel silly for thinking such things. He just needed some sleep. He'd brew some tea from the flowers, and then sleep, and feel stupid in the morning, but then everything would be fine.

He hesitated again, but this time he was thinking about tea, not monsters. How would he brew the tea? His mother had always made it when he couldn't sleep as a child, but he'd never done it himself. Would it even work if the water was cold? He hoped so.

"Hm." Oliver followed behind, glancing back before staring straight ahead. Thank god. "Why do you need those anyway?" he asked, beginning to wonder what Sean was still doing here. Maybe he had nowhere else to go. But did that mean Oliver would have to make sure he wasn't misbehaving? All the time? It sounded nightmarish. "I hope you actually need them for something and you weren't lying." He spoke with suspicion; the nerves about the strangers seemed to be mutual.

"Oh, um, they're for sleep. My mother would use them to make tea when I was restless, so I'm going to do the same." Sean sat down under his sleeping tree and pulled out his canteen, pouring some water into the lid, which doubled as a small cup, and dropped the flowers in. "See, just let it sit awhile, and, uh, it becomes tea..." Hopefully.

Oliver had never considered drinking the flowers. Mostly because when he ate them they tasted like grass. Maybe this was a human thing. He was very curious regardless, watching the flowers bob around in the water. "Is this why you're walking around so late? You actually do want to sleep?"

"Of course I want to sleep. I need to sleep." Sean poked at the flowers. Normally tea would be changing colors by now, wouldn't it? He sighed and set his cup down, and began collecting small sticks off of the ground, hopefully to build a small fire with, though he doubted his ability to complete such a task.

"We all need to sleep. I just thought you were lying," Oliver shrugged, watching as Sean began to collect sticks. "Hm." He considered why Sean would need them but he supposed the flowers weren't working as he wanted them to. He picked up the cup, poking the flowers like Sean had and watching the colour change in the liquid silently.

Sean organized the sticks into a small pyramid. "Okay... Okay..." he muttered to himself as he worked. "Hey, don't touch that. I'm going to drink it, and I don't know where your hands have been." He snatched his cup back and checked on it. It had made a little progress towards becoming tea, but he was still fairly certain he was supposed to heat it. He set the cup on top of the sticks and stared at it, taking deep breaths, trying to prepare himself for the task at hand.

"They've not been anywhere dirtier than your hands," Oliver huffed slightly. "I was helping. It was making colours. I wasn't finished." He shrugged, though. If Sean didn't want his help then he wasn't going to give it. It took him a moment to figure out that the other was making a fire. A scowl appeared on his face. Fires attracted unwanted attention. "You can't do that."

Sean wasn't listening, he was focused intently on his task. "It's okay.... It's okay...." he muttered to himself repeatedly as he began rubbing two of the sticks together as best he could with shaking hands. He took a few more deep breaths to steady himself. "You're okay. You're just making tea." he told himself.

"No!" Oliver hissed angrily. "You can't make fire!" He picked the cup up, not wanting to spill the drink lest Sean would never sleep, breaking the small pyramid with his foot while trying to avoid Sean's hands. "You can make as much tea as you like, but no fire." He was still holding the cup, prodding the flower and watching it change the liquid's colour again. He was wasting magic but whatever made Sean become less intolerable was worth it.