He bares Alex's suspicious scorn without a ripple, trying to keep his eyes only on her face to make the muscles between his shoulder blades breathe. Repeats words, like stone blocks, building another wall. One far more important than the bricks he could still feel in his hands if he closed his eyes too long.
Proper. Respectable. Friendly. (Safe.)
She'd always been made of glass shards, even before the whole glass cabinet was shattered on the ground around them. The better to protect herself, even when she couldn't defend herself at all. He couldn't entirely forgive himself still that he hadn't puzzled that out before she'd shoved it into his overly judgemental hands. This girl who came into hell and carried his soul, inside herself, out again. She's not mad at him. Nor wary of him. She wouldn't be this close if she were.
(It's a balm of desperate relief. It's concerningly wrong—now.
He wants to hold on to it too tight. In both ways.)
Proper. Respectable. Friendly. (Safe.)
Except then, of course, she does another of the million things he can't entirely predict from so obvious telegraphing he usually could tell from others so quickly and steals his glass. Her fingers brushed his with careless disregard (that lances through his skin) as she took it as though she could, as though he would have no complaint. How right she was, yet he still steepled an eyebrow as though calling her on a further trespass, somehow higher in the estimation of honor's insult than bodily accosting his side.
Her lips touched just where his lips had been, and he swallowed reflexively along with her. Throat dry, but the burn just as present.
Darlington made himself lean back on the couch, head cocked slightly but attentive as she pieced it together, and there was the dismissive, judgemental disregard he'd expected. But it's not as acrid as it used to be either, how it was at the beginning. Her point isn't the complaint about their trespass of her existence and time or the idiocy of their reasons, with which Lethe was not born to weigh, only guard: it was about herself, how it left her.
Rare, quiet confessions. Even in the tones of a beleaguered complaint, rounded first with cursing. It makes the rest almost worst. This was what she brought to him; this was how he betrayed that trust before it even came to words. But it's such a simple thing to answer, to offer repentance and recompense to.
"Here. Give me your hand." It was a careful nuance with which he reached for the one not currently still holding his glass.
no subject
Proper. Respectable. Friendly. (Safe.)
She'd always been made of glass shards, even before the whole glass cabinet was shattered on the ground around them. The better to protect herself, even when she couldn't defend herself at all. He couldn't entirely forgive himself still that he hadn't puzzled that out before she'd shoved it into his overly judgemental hands. This girl who came into hell and carried his soul, inside herself, out again. She's not mad at him. Nor wary of him. She wouldn't be this close if she were.
(It's a balm of desperate relief.
It's concerningly wrong—now.
He wants to hold on to it too tight. In both ways.)
Proper. Respectable. Friendly. (Safe.)
Except then, of course, she does another of the million things he can't entirely predict from so obvious telegraphing he usually could tell from others so quickly and steals his glass. Her fingers brushed his with careless disregard (that lances through his skin) as she took it as though she could, as though he would have no complaint. How right she was, yet he still steepled an eyebrow as though calling her on a further trespass, somehow higher in the estimation of honor's insult than bodily accosting his side.
Her lips touched just where his lips had been,
and he swallowed reflexively along with her.
Throat dry, but the burn just as present.
Darlington made himself lean back on the couch, head cocked slightly but attentive as she pieced it together, and there was the dismissive, judgemental disregard he'd expected. But it's not as acrid as it used to be either, how it was at the beginning. Her point isn't the complaint about their trespass of her existence and time or the idiocy of their reasons, with which Lethe was not born to weigh, only guard: it was about herself, how it left her.
Rare, quiet confessions. Even in the tones of a beleaguered complaint, rounded first with cursing. It makes the rest almost worst. This was what she brought to him; this was how he betrayed that trust before it even came to words. But it's such a simple thing to answer, to offer repentance and recompense to.
"Here. Give me your hand." It was a careful nuance with which he reached for the one not currently still holding his glass.