@tempteve / @kugel-bitch from xxx
As the phrase ' ripping a new one' hung in the air, it seemed Eve was poised to do just that.
Her sudden movement conveyed a readiness to confront all in the name of defending the sanctity of Eden. It was more than a place to her; it was her origin, her love, her loss — her entire being intertwined with its existence. Despite the pain it had caused, Eden remained the one constant in her tumultuous existence, a tether to a past she couldn't bear to relinquish. Yet, even as she clung to its memory, a whisper from within echoed:
" Jesus fucking Christ ! " Her reaction was immediate, instinctual, as she rushed to steady him, startled by the sudden outburst of pain. Was she exacerbating his agony without realizing it ? Or had her own inner turmoil clouded her perception ? In her moment of coming to his aid she failed to realise the positioning of her hand. Gaze drifts to see fingers almost intertwined over his scar. Hastily she pulls back.
“ J-just stay there. Don’t try and get up. ”
His bitterness, his frustration — it was all too familiar, a reflection of the turmoil that churned within her own self. Even as his anger flared, she couldn't help but understand where it came from. They had both been cast aside by the very place that was supposed to be their home, left to fend for themselves in a world that had turned its back on them.
But his words stung nonetheless.
“ Yeah, that’s kinda my thing, I’m afraid. ”
It was an acknowledgment of the rift that had formed between them, but she was starting to believe it to be true. The rose was gone, were thorns all that was left behind ? she had clung onto a version of the garden in her mind for so long that she began to lose herself in the process. Much like the state of Eden now, she too, had begun to wilt. Only she failed to recognize the damage already caused.
Eve runs a hand through tangled locks, letting out a heavy sigh.
“ I don’t want to start a fight, believe it or not. ”
While all of this is going down one bemused lieutenant has perched in the window through which she had departed from the apartment earlier that morning. Like watching two animals of different species just barely managing to coexist in a too small enclosure, it all looks...a little bit unnatural, the way that they engage with one another—so much more strained than she had imagined, for creatures who were, in very literal terms, cut from the same cloth...flesh...clay? Whatever. The chemistry which she assumed would be there simply is nowhere to be seen.
Adam's mounting upset eventually puts her on such an edge that she cannot idle by any longer, but Eve swooping in to provide her aid stops her short in slinking over to wrangle him back into the nest where she'd made it very clear he was supposed to stay put. A not very happy sounding noise reverberates in the space between her nose and her throat in direct response to the display. It's not that she is distrustful of Eve and her intentions but he is vulnerable right now and she cannot help but be a touch territorial in turn.
"Well...isn't this touching. I wasn't made aware that there would be a family reunion taking place today—I would've picked something up for you on the way, Eve."
Cocking a hip, she idly swirls the ice around in her matcha lemonade, wing unfurling in front of Adam to set itself up as a makeshift barrier between him and the first woman, out of concern for his comfort more than anything else. She knows all too well how he abhors to be exposed.
It was beyond a nuisance having her show up like this-...well, having her show up in the state she was in since it always seemed to end poorly for him in the past- seeing her pain and doing all that he could to smooth it down just so he'd be able to relax. Regardless of her current mood being directly tied to his actions in the first place, he'd been used to their own balancing act out of Eden that required one to lean in to the other during times when their shared structure of a symbiotic relationship threatened to collapse and take the other with them. She had always been a lot more...charged in the emotional sense as if most of what dripped out of a bleeding heart had been awarded to her along with his rib like some unseen contract that determined she'd give him every benefit of the doubt and find any excuse not to walk away from him so that the hollow frame of his own emotions that relied on a companion's stalwart nature wouldn't crumble so long as he stood by her as the support beam to her worries of the world crashing in all around them. While he did hate to see it when chicks messed their pretty faces up with tears, it was one of many deep and swallowed apple seeds that reminded him the physical pain in his side would act up following her tears like an old wound that grew sore with the promise of rain.
"I bet somebody thought this would be a cute way to keep souls together...and they can frankly fuck themselves over it." He was huffing, hardly noticing her scramble until the familiar sting of having her pressed in close to his flank to help steady him from his own hasty decisions caused Adam to cock his head to the side and linger in the strange sensation of a past lived out yet not fully shaken in the molt known as death. Her nearly brushing the leathery tear in his side didn't exactly help the spasms, but they were on steady decline as she stepped back and reminded him he was laid bare under her judgement. Figuring a wince was worth the sad stretch of an attempt at dressing himself with a few feathers fanned to hide from naval to knee, he shot her a weary look under the glow of his halo.
"Least you got some sense, y'know- for a chick. Considering I'd win. " He added with a teasing twitch of a smirk, his talons digging into the wall plaster that was well past patchy from he and Lute's booming band sessions that oft caused pieces of the ceiling to pop off. Speaking of...or rather, rumbling- the unmistakable reverberations of Lute's watchful hiss from the window caused the first man's shoulders to slump forward ever so slightly. Aw hell- how long had she been there for? Well, not that it mattered since he was stood up and in clear violation of her 'ground' rules.
With a sheepish shift, he issued his own set of deeper warbles in her direction as a pre-emptive apology he likely wouldn't make aloud and certainly not in front of Eve, though the hint of affection was clear in the nervous titter. "Hey, babe- uh...we've got company?" He's cut off for a moment when her wing cracks out to help shield the rest of his humanity's shame from view, the beat of the action helping knock his slow attempt at sliding back down undetected instantaneous, emitting a soft 'hup' as he's dropped back into the mess of her nesting venture.
"...the unexpected kind." He added once settled and nursing at the taro milk bubble tea with extra whipped cream on top that she'd brought him and added to the selection of nest snacks.