NOTHING CHANGES INSTANTANEOUSLY MILES RUSSELL x ADRIENNE SCAVO ∙ THE GAPS BETWEEN
Pleasant habits were hard to come by these days, and yet Miles had managed to land himself one. Sometimes, without any particular signs of when, she would show up. Unannounced, silently, with just a couple of knocks on the door and then there she was.
And now, again, she was standing in the middle of his quarters.
Quarters was really just a fancy word for a room with a sink and a bed, but it at least was a place he could go to and be relatively unbothered. The Commander and his wife were just a bellring away from summoning him to heed to their commands, but for whatever it was worth, Miles appreciated the quiet — even if silence nowadays wasn’t the same.
With just the two of them it was like the air stood still as much as they did; as if waiting for something horrible to come their way and tear everything back into its place.
He couldn’t understand, of course he couldn’t; the kind of silence it took to be able to stand anything about the situation she was in. Miles didn’t even know her name. And if he could at all avoid calling her by the patronym given to her by Gilead, he sure as hell did. Playing the pronoun game was an easy enough way to go around it, anyway.
There was more to her, that was the one thing he’d learned. Even when she was waiting on her knees for the Commander and his wife to grace their presence, her back was in such a straight line it was like she was too big for her own skin. She wasn’t quiet, she wasn’t complacent — she was anything but. She was just trying to survive in a world she didn’t want any part in.
And that had to be the most terrifying thing of all. How the tyranny could play itself out to be good for all, when even the slightest sights of who someone was, was chucked aside. When the rights of someone were equivalent to the capabilities of their bodies and the willingness to bend to the wills of people who had no right to decide any of it.
She wasn’t looking at him. She had her back turned, eyes scanning at the small bedroom he supposed he should’ve called a home. There was nothing else to go back to, anyway. She took a few steps to get to the sink and the mirror above it. Only high ranking men were allowed beards, so it was his semi-daily duty to get rid of any shadow that might’ve been present.
“If you’re an Eye, you’re pretty shit at your job.“
He wanted to laugh. Sometimes he wondered if he’d forgotten how.
The way he couldn’t find anything meaningful to say didn’t seem to bother her. She turned to him, her dark eyes looking damn near black as she settled her unwavering gaze on him. If she could see straight through his clothes and flesh and into his bones, he wouldn’t have been surprised.
No one had looked at him that intensely in years. And he found his stomach turning.
“You could’ve sold me out months ago.“ Something in the tone of her voice changed. The blatant hardness shifted to make room for something like a question. Why didn’t you end this? You could’ve ended all this.
“I know.” “And why didn’t you?” “I’m pretty shit at my job.”
She doesn’t smile, doesn’t even hint at it, but the hardness in the way she looks at him shifts, if only for a moment.
“Did you volunteer to this?”
She didn’t need to elaborate; just the way she said ‘this’ said all that was needed. He wanted to scoff, but all that he was able to do was ever-so-slightly shake his head and draw in a deep breath, the anger and frustration creeping to the space between his muscles and skin.
“No.”
She waited. Something told him she would keep waiting until she got an answer she’d be satisfied with.
“I was in the army. It was this or being a guard.”
The decision hadn’t been hard — he’d seen what the guards do. Driving people around, no matter how revolting, was a joyride compared to what he’d most likely had to do as a guard. People he’d served with were shooting innocent people Gilead found unworthy for one reason or another — he would rather die than pull a trigger without a reason.
“Soldier, huh? Bet you feel right at home, then.”
His confusion must’ve shone through.
“Isn’t this the sort of lodgings you’d be in; out there somewhere?” There’s a sense of macabre amusement there, somewhere in the space between them and the small dark room they’re standing in. He nods, the slight confusion turning into a slow, hesitant nod. “More or less.“
Her hand strokes the edge of the sink, fingernails idly scratching a chip on the surface of it. She’s still looking at him when she turns to go back to the door.
“For whatever it’s worth—” She pauses, something in her spine pulling her straight again as if bracing her for the world outside. She turns to look at him, that stare digging right through him again, as if searching for the same resolution that’s overflowing inside her. Just a moment before her foot is out the door, she lets the words flow out of her mouth like a relic of another time. “Keep being shitty at your job."