"Well, I’m glad I could give you something inspiring to work with," Kelly mutters as he takes a sip of coffee. "I take it this isn’t the sort of stuff you get asked for everyday."
Not for the first time since leaving the office earlier, Kelly thinks that this might all be a mistake. He’s not ready for this, for the commitment of putting all of this somewhere that it can be seen, for making it permanent. There’s a big difference between four little lines and the project he and Sariel are about to embark on.
Mostly he’s not prepared for what Sariel has to say. Her casual assessment that he “has a thing for Apadiel” hits him like a swift kick to the ribs, the steam from his coffee fluttering away into the room when he forces a laugh out after she says it.
He directs his attention away from her, pale eyes moving back towards the books in front of them. He hadn’t had a lot of concrete ideas, more abstract thoughts, just sort of looking for things he liked. That was what it was about, he’d figured, making art out of things he liked and then putting it on his skin. Kelly can’t help but wonder if it would’ve been possible for his mind to put together a collection of images that didn’t broadcast what it was he really wanted.
"Well, I had hoped that you’d be able to help me make some sense of this," he admits, scratching at the salt-and-pepper stubble on his jaw and glancing up at her again. "I don’t know what ideas I have that are good, and what’s just stupid, y’know? I mean, if you—"
He pulls one book closer, open to an image of a column covered in ivy, and sets a torn strip of sheet music alongside it on the page.
"If you give the column five stripes, like it’s been carved like that, and then with the ivy, you can have that as the notes. So it’s there, but not really."
His fingers move over the photograph as he talks, the paper deceptively smooth compared to the pillar under it. He turns the books again, so that the column is vertical as they’re looking at it.
"And wh—" He tilts his head to the side, caught mid-word as he thinks, tries to see what he wants in front of him so that he can attempt to describe it to Sariel. He points at the statue again, lifting up his own arm and turning it.
"What if it was framed by columns, would that work?"
He shrugs out of his jacket and lets it fall over the back of the chair. Then he unbuttons the cuff of his shirt, pushing the sleeve up out of the way to expose his forearm.
"Like if you had columns, like that, and then something else on the inside? Or is it better to have the statue on the inside?" He continues, turning his arm and brushing his fingers from the inside of his elbow to his wrist.
"And can you give her, y’know, wings with feathers instead? And if there’s roses then they don’t have to be big, and the text could be between the columns, above, so it’s a frame."
For a moment his embarrassment is lost in a burst of creativity and he catches himself almost rambling. He hasn’t given a lot of conscious thought to how the components could be put together, but now that she’s asked, he’s surprised at how easy it comes, and how clearly he can see it in his mind. In a way he’s relieved; he’s letting the pressure out in a slow, controlled stream.
But this is a step away from the situation, and he can talk about this without talking about that, and that’s what he thinks he might need right now, this outlet that lets him organize his scattered thoughts and emotions by solving a jigsaw puzzle and projecting it onto his skin.
He wants to be bothered by her excitement, or find it distasteful, the way her eyes light up when she looks over what he’s brought. But he can’t. Her enthusiasm is comforting. It makes him feel like he’s not as strange or desperate as he feels, looking at what he’s brought with him. It doesn’t frighten her or make her question him at all. She isn’t reluctant to help him, in fact quite the opposite.
He points to the apple lying at the statue’s feet. “And maybe that doesn’t have to be an apple, if that could work? Is that too small to make it one of these instead?”
Kelly flips through the other book, back to the pile of faceted jewels.
He sighs and leans back in his chair, waving a hand over the books and papers scattered over the table.
"Does any of this make sense?" He asks with an exasperated laugh.
He stills at her question about Apadiel, hands sliding down off the table top and meeting in his lap. He looks down at them, feeling for the first time a little guilty that he didn’t explain to her before, or ask her to come along.
"She knows I’m here," he fills in. He raises his head and meets Sariel’s dark eyes with a no-nonsense expression. "Which means she knows I’ve been here, and she didn’t try to stop me."
He lets the words speak for themselves. He knows, about their evening at the Ultra Luxe, about the Arc that she poisoned. It was his choice to come and see Sariel again after that. If Apadiel had had any doubt that Kelly was in safe hands in the warehouse, she wouldn’t have let him go. No matter what else might have transpired, Kelly still trusts the Prince to put his safety first.
It occurs to him that he is, in his way, a living, breathing show of trust between the two. She knows you won’t hurt me.
"But she doesn’t know what I want." He nods towards the books. "She hasn’t seen these, but she knows I’ve been looking at them. Why, you want to call and get her permission?"
Apadiel could know, he realizes. She might have every idea what he plans to do here today, and then over however many sessions it takes for Sariel to do the actual work. But if Apadiel hasn’t seen what Sariel picked up on after one meeting, then he’s honestly not sure how much she knows about what he’s been thinking lately, about anything.
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