the air is thick with WHAT’S COMING and alek can feel it in the hollow of his bones. tattooed knuckles are white as they brace along the edge of the table, and he readies himself to be thrown into the mouth of the beast when out of nowhere, there is a voice. soft and direct, it cuts through tension like a hot knife and forces alek to look over his shoulder. never in his life has he seen eyes that blue. it’s because of this that his thinking falters to a sputtering halt. he blinks at the face of the blue eyed stranger, and knows that if he, himself, had any common fucking sense, he wouldn’t be where he is right now.
it’s in slow motion that it all happens ; the rising of the rest of the men at the table from their seats, the gritting of teeth and the growl of impending bloodshed. the devil on aleks shoulder screams to bleed and the angel, held together by duct tape and shoe strings, whispers something about LISTENING FOR ONCE.
and then, a miracle - HE ACTUALLY DOES.
a huff of hot breath pushed out from flared nose, a flick of his wrist ridding hands of slopped lunch. he moves through the jackson pollock on the floor and over to where blue eyes stands. “an wot m’i ‘sposed to eat then, mm?”
𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐈𝐒 𝐓𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐍 𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐈𝐏𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐍 𝐇𝐄 𝐑𝐈𝐒𝐄𝐒 𝐓𝐎 𝐇𝐄𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓. and more beautiful, though that realization lingers unacknowledged in the back of his mind, crowded out by thoughts of more import, currently. it hasn’t occurred to jasper that the stranger might STILL be itching for a fight when he’d made the split second decision to INTERVENE, hasn’t until the moment of silence that follows the question. he hadn’t properly thought through step two in this bid to avert chaos, definitely not in so far as what the newcomer is supposed to do for FOOD. “ they won’t give you more without a good reason. asking wouldn’t be SMART. ”
he is hyper aware of how long they’ve been standing in the center of a room that is watching, waiting for ACT TWO of the potential ramp up to violence, to see what happens next. it’s been seconds, but there is strange, supernatural nuance to how time passes in this place, and the amount of eyes on them makes jasper NERVOUS. voice is low enough to be heard only by the other when he relents, IMPATIENT with the guy’s unwillingness to be helped.
“ — i’ll give you an APPLE. but i’m going now. you should, too. ”