So close.Hints of blue swirl with champagne - there is no red to be seen, only these pale things - yet they linger...they linger.If this feels like a parallel, that's because it is one, Jessica somewhere in the middle of the longest nine years of her life and still struggling to completely shut herself off in moments like these - a feat that she will never quite manage in this human form until she finds her moments of release. She forgets, perhaps, that the point of a Purpose is that it is something required of her, and if she ignores it for too long then it will overflow just like it always does. Jessica has at least some semblance of self-control, so she does not act on it, but that doesn't mean she isn't aware of it - the blue creeping in at the edges of her vision, one that she would all too hastily gulp down if there weren't fingers at her throat.That, too, brought far too many unexpected memories - most painful ones: Clients and their varied bruising glances, the learning of their control; Haruko's fingers and their light touch before the sinking of teeth; Dominick DeGreasy holding her up by her neck and waiting for the Dipped champagne to burn through the paint of her lips and drool along her skin, rubbing his thick finger along her paint to try and force her to swallow, to die because they wanted her dead, they always wanted her dead--It didn't matter how long it had been since then or how long it had been since she'd been part of anything like that, the memories remained and flooded back at even the simplest of touches. Even Roger, with all his care, knew better than to unexpectedly brush her neck with anything but his soft ears tucking around behind. Calm down. She is just fixing your necklace. She is not going to hurt you.But as the champagne fades, the blue waits and sings, tinged with a pink that had no place there - and still they linger.Jessica takes the greatest care not to flinch back, makes sure to stand as still as possible - odd that it is this causing such a reaction when no previous interaction has, not even the kiss, as confusing and welcoming as that was. She has never really understood the word friend enough to get over hating it and so can never really be friends with anyone - and even if she could, she wouldn't know enough to apply it accurately - so she presses her lips together and does not take a step back even afterwards because despite being uncomfortable she is somehow completely comfortable here - she was drawn for such close proximity. Every instinct in her screams to fidget - to cross one arm about her waist, to clasp her wrist, to brush the hair away that always falls in front of one eye no matter how much she has trained it to do otherwise - but she doesn't, still somehow frozen by that blue just out of reach. So---- It was a single, simple, innocuous act. It was meant that way, she is sure. Why does she make this so hard?"Thank you,' she whispers, and although she feels that she should say something else entirely, her colors confuse her and she does not know how else to speak.