A small, but persistent voice at the back of Adelaide’s mind told her that it would be unwise to let him touch her, to allow him to lay his destructive hands upon a body that was already horridly fragile and have his way. The small voice banged its hands upon the insides of her skull, like veritable fists upon a glass pane, kicking and screaming and begging her to run like she always did, to listen to it instead of the strange tugging at the pit of her stomach that rang something like anticipation through the hollow of every bone, whole and broken and everything in between. It was this voice that had kept her alive for so long, that had earned her only one mug shot -- and not a mug shot, a death row file, and a scorch mark upon the electric chair. It was this scalding voice at the back of her mind ( which sounded eerily like her own mother, though her mother had been wholly useless in the act of running ) that had kept Lydia alive. But, then again, it was the strange, sympathetic whine at the pit of her stomach that had convinced her to stick with the young girl in the first place -- and it was this tug that curled her fingers tighter against Gale’s palm as she pressed his fingers flat against the crooked bruises littering her shoulder. The feeling of his hand upon her bare skin caught her breath at the back of her throat; such a feeling made the scolding between her ears come to a screeching halt.
Were demon’s hands meant to be so gentle?
“No one sees me,” Adelaide muttered, voice seeping through caught breath as her eyes darted downward, from stoic visage to weathered hands ( scars riddled upon his fingers like the contents of a coded book; begging to be deciphered, to be read, but foreboding all the same ) and with a sigh, “But you seem to.” She had known him for a grand total of five minutes -- the shortest and longest five minutes that ever had passed; she was lucky to be granted another five -- and yet it was clear that she’d been rendered entirely transparent beneath his gaze. In the face of such scrutiny, Adelaide was like to rail, to scream, to spit in Cain’s case, but she found her voice remaining small and harrowed despite his gentility. “And...” she paused, biting down on her bottom lip as a multitude of nebulous colors flashed across her cheeks -- for a moment she bit down hard enough to taste blood in order to hold her tongue -- before another measured breath, “I’m only extorting if it’s working. If it’s not, then I’m just... just talking.” Silver tongue turned lead and back again; bantering with Gale was like talking to an old friend and an austere prince all at once. For a moment, she took pause to try and determine into which era Gale fit, for his cadence was both modern and storied all at once; not to mention his hands -- there was just something about his hands that made her feel as if she did not deserve to be touched.
And she could find herself just talking to him for as long as she would be allowed. But for now, she would only allow herself a moment to run the pad of her thumb across a particularly noticeable scar across the side of his hand, wondering, speculating, wracking her mind for what must have happened to put such a mark upon such a hand. A holy hand, a divine hand -- she knew good and well that it was a hand made to be a tool of destruction, but such was a shrine on which she might be happy to be sacrificed upon.
( “if i profane with my unworthiest hand, this holy shrine...” Shakespeare himself would have wept upon Gale’s statuesque form, his voice made of steel and poetry )
Her hand dropped away as the knot at the base of her abdomen began to outweigh the voice at the back of her skull. Adelaide was not a moon-eyed swooner, felled by no more than a handsome face and a few bantering words ( though it was doubtless that Gale was so much more than that ), but a steel pillar in her own right, meant not to be swayed so that others could. If she were to be swayed in such a way by someone like Gale, what would she do to protect against others being so easily felled by a sideways smile? And why was she even considering such a thing? She was not here to make friends, to flirt like a schoolgirl with the bad boy from the other side of the tracks; this was a war, and not a social call. And yet nothing about it made sense, nothing about it was definable, understandable; nothing was black and white, and nothing could be explained in afterthought. When she and Lydia sat at the dinner table later that night, with coffee and tea and a haphazardly cooked meal, what was she to tell of this interaction? Would she tell Lydia of the foreign flutter in her stomach, or of the care he took as he skimmed his fingers across her purpled skin? Would she mention the scars on his fingers, or the uncertain cloud behind his eyes? Would she tell her that she hadn’t stopped thinking of him since? Adelaide wanted to rattle her own head, to shake her own shoulders and scream: why are you here -- why are you staying -- why do you like his fingers upon your shoulder?
She couldn’t help but match his scoff, unwilling to wither beneath his steely gaze, the cryptic head-shake and purse of the lips; no matter how hazy she found herself beneath the near magical wonder of his healing touch, she was still prideful, still proud to have a beating, human heart. And she would posture with just such an argument: “I’m human; I’m allowed to have shitty judgement,” she smirked, thinking vaguely of another demon who she’d met the day before, one brow quirked as she deigned to look up at him once more, “But there are a lot worse judgement calls to make, in the grand scheme of things. I may have had worse, and from humans no less, but I hardly think you’re a -- Jesus!” Her shoulder popped and a wave of nausea rolled through her; she whirled, twisted, free hand clamping down upon his wrist in a knee-jerk reflex, but the pop was followed immediately by sweet, cool relief. Relief which, subsequently, made her feel quite ashamed for holding onto his wrist so firmly. “O-oh,” Adelaide gulped, finding herself entirely unable to release his wrist for a damning moment, “That -- that helped. How did you know to do that?” Her fingers lingered upon his wrist ( as his lingered upon her shoulder; they must have looked an intertwined statue, a piece carved from marble as they stared at each other, daring the other to break first ) but then with a snap and a clearing of her throat ( and reddened cheeks, and another firm bite upon her lip ) she allowed him to tug her loose sleeve back up over her shoulder, eyes following his fingers as they straightened the fabric.
( and they were standing so close -- a step back was in order, but she could not find her feet )
She shifted her weight from one foot to the other as he spoke, wringing her fingers for they seemed to burn from having touched him for such a long time; once again, she felt as if she was not worthy, for she was a human damned to be isolated for the rest of her mortality. Adelaide listened to him speak as congregations listened to preachers, a strange smile quirking at the corners of her lips at the idea that he was an ally, that he was someone she could rely on. Once more, she thought back to what she would tell Lydia, what she would make of all this later, this interaction which danced between flirtation and surrealism; a theme which seemed to be the norm on this side of the fence. “I’ll have to hold you to that,” she raised one brow, grinning fully, strangely, “I do love skydiving. And as long as you’ll be there before I hit the ground... I think I can’t lose.” Again, she found herself transparent, candid, strangely like the old Adelaide who knew nothing of war and murder. The old Adelaide would have giggled and tossed her hair over her shoulder -- perhaps that was next upon the agenda. “I would offer up something of the same merit, but I’m afraid I don’t have much to give you -- unless you count the poor judgement and well-concealed soft spots. In which case, I might be willing to reconsider. I do owe you for, uh--” she gestured to her shoulder, smiling ruefully, “for this. Thank you, by the way. You didn’t have to.”
It had hardly occurred to her that the whippings had stopped, for she was far too entranced by the walking statue before her. The humans -- her humans -- had begun to mill about, for they were being pushed closer together in the center of the yard, to keep them from approaching Abel, as they surely wanted to. Her time here was coming to an end; it was a thought that made her feel much more apprehensive than it should. “Will I see you again tomorrow?” the words spilled, spluttered, from her lips before she could stop them; she could feel her cheeks reddening at the sound of them, for they were entirely unlike Adelaide. “Unless you’ve got some other skydiving humans to catch,” she raised one brow, recovering in practiced stride, smirking mask in place despite the keening within her chest.
Stay safe without me, Gale -- you’re not like the rest.
