eliasdeere·:
The eye roll was expected, hell, it was almost a guarantee when dealing with Kelly. Elias had, in all honesty, expected something worse. Kelly was forty years worth of high school cheerleader pushed into one body and to say that left her with certain personality defects was to put it politely. There was no sugar to her spice, nothing to cut through the burning in your heart and eyes when you spoke to her.
Thankfully, Elias had lots of practice dealing with Kelly, and the burn was hardly noticeable.
“No, I won’t say please,” Elias stated. There was no heat to the words, rather an undercurrent of steel, a quiet heaviness that spoke to determination and long-held anger. “I don’t think it would do much.” He blinked when she actually knelt down to free the root, an action done with far less protest than Elias had expected.
When he was free, Elias’ smiled, a fleeting flutter across his lips. “I am,” he quietly said. “Thank you, Kelly.” The smile was gone soon after, manners and kindness best reserved for someone less likely to tear through someone for showing them.
“Do you have someone to search with?” Elias couldn’t meet Kelly’s eyes when he asked, afraid of what he would see there. The unspoken question of ‘would you look with me’ hung heavy in the air between them, its presence noted and recognized but not remarked on.
Elias was absolutely right — it wouldn’t do much. If anything, the inclusion of manners in his speech to her would have made Kelly scoff, and take him for some sort of pushover. And she might have called him a handful of names in the time she’d known Elias, but pushover definitely wasn’t one of them.
As taken aback as she was by him thanking her, it didn’t even cross Kelly’s mind to say you’re welcome. Not even sarcastically. She just shrugged, and dropped his gaze. The genuine tone to his voice made her uncomfortable, and Kelly would have been far more at ease if they were just trading barbs with each other.
She couldn’t help but laugh. It was humourless, and dry, but a laugh nonetheless. Kelly was fairly certain that she was the last person on this planet that Elias would want to be searching with, and the fact that they were in this position was almost funny in a twisted way.
Kelly put a hand on her jutted out him, lips pursed as she gave Elias a once-over. It was pointless, and she didn’t even need to pretend to consider whether she was going to say yes — it wasn’t like she had anyone else to search with.
“No. I’ll come with… you’re using your own flashlight, though.” She said, any excuse to add in some petty snipe.
