@chronal-anomaly asked:
"I have something for you." Lena murmured, conspiratorially, though well aware of the detection of her words by blinking red eyes in all the corners of the room. Her bag has been search four times before entry, ensuring the the sanctity of punishment would maintained with her gift and that Cole wouldn't be allowed to escape with it's presentation.
Rooting around, Lena withdrew two small cupcakes, and a small package containing a thick blanket adorned with various western imagery. The woman at the saddlery promised it was handmade.
"The guards already cleared it, so they shouldn't give you too much trouble. Oh! And they said I couldn't bring candles and they were too small to decorate, but the cupcakes are from this bakery that the kids showed me. Very good crossiants, too." Lena tacked on, teeth flashing out in a grin. "Happy birthday, Cole."
The goods she carries make for a defiant punch of color in the midst of all the cold stone greys, her face a lively contrast to most the usual denizens that haunt this place. But this has always been the norm since he has met her, small bird carrying the whispers of the outside world on the tips of her wings, notions of life beyond this casket of a purgatory realm tucked in the slipstream of her footsteps.
"Hell, Birdy, you didn't have t'do this." It's a modest little birthday packed in these two cupcakes and the present that she brings, but it's still a birthday; one that he hadn't had any expectation to celebrate in the first place. The package glides a soft shushing noise across the cold steel table, cardboard greeting the pads of fingertip calluses. He lifts the lid gently open, a humored smile overtaking his surprise at all the Western iconography looking back at him.
A laugh burrows out of him, warm and rumbling, as he palms his hand over horseshoes and joshua trees decorating the foreground of a mesa. "Can take a man out of cattle work, but not the cowboy out of a man, huh?" Crow's feet eyes lift back up to her. "Thanks, Birdy."
Already, he is casually leaning forward as most their sessions have begun to start with. He cups the base of one of the cupcakes, nudging the other towards her with the back bulb of a knuckle and grins conversationally, "Tell me 'bout this bakery."
