fandomhigh | Library; Wednesday [ 10/02 ]

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Library; Wednesday [ 10/02 ]

Adah limped into the library this Wednesday, October the Second, supposedly the Year of Their Lord Two Thousand Seven without the usual armful of books; it was a sad moment for her, really, as she instead had to clutch to a thermos of hot tea to aid in soothing her throat, which was inexplicably sore these past few days. She felt unbalanced without the books. And she let out a soft sigh when she saw the stack of books that needed to be put away on the desk, waiting for her, as though her usual stack was displaced, leaning tower of literature.

She dropped into the chair, looking at them idly, and decided that she'd just read them instead of putting them away.

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"It's been a bad week," he told her, rubbing a hand through his hair with his free hand. "If you trust me, trust that I'm telling the truth when I tell you that."

Another smile and he used his free hand, just one finger, to write invisible words on the top of her hand.

"Soft."

The curve of Adah's smile came with a light snort; he'd said that, or something similar to it, in the dream, and the wry response was just an effort to keep herself from shivering too much at the light tracing of the Eel's fingers sliding across her hand. Not that it mattered; he could probably feel the small tremble in her hand between his, and it took a moment before she could bring herself to find a word to respond with. She who was so good with words. Sdrow htiw doog os saw ohw ehs, and her mind was a complete blank except for endless little internal tremors and a single foreign word.

She lifted her fingers lightly and slowly, shakily, spelt out her own. Bangala, dragging out the last a with an excess of tail, and then going back to place the two dots of the umlaut above the first a, like eyes, like specks, like punctuation.

He felt the tremble and answered it with a small smile, something quiet and for her only, before turning his attention back to their joined hands, back to the word she was spelling against his skin.

He didn't know the word, picked up a letter here and there but enough to fill in the blanks for himself. He'd look it up later.

He covered her hand with his completely for a brief moment before leaning closer, ducking his head so his lips, mouth, were closer to her hand but not touching.

"There's something..." He trailed off, looking up at her through the lashes of his eyes.

There certainly was something, and Adah found that all she could really do was wait with bated breath, wide eyes. She felt at the edge of a precipice, seconds from a loss of balance. She wasn't quite sure if she could handle it...but she also didn't want to repeat what happened last time at a moment like this. She closed her eyes for a moment, repeated a mantra in her head that it was all right; there really wasn't a reason to lose it. She could control it, she could.

She'd hate herself if she couldn't. It was close; very close...

With one more look, one quick decision, he closed that final bit of distance and pressed his lips to the top of her hand.

"There's something here," he said, moving his lips against her hand softly. He could talk and she could hear but this way, she could feel too. A few more words, just to talk, to let her feel before he finally did press a lingering kiss to the top of her hand.

The mantra repeated in her head; control, control...started to switch up. control, lortnoc, lortnoc, ehtaerb, ehtaerb. She wasn't sure if it was working. On the one side, she was sitting sitting there, her hand was still in his hands, although it wasn't like it could do anywhere, anyway, but she hadn't lashed out out of panic for the confinement. Of course, her body was stiff, tense, she was having difficulty getting through a haze in her head and the rapidness of her breaths, which was hurting her chest. And she almost hated, hated that such a little thing was having such a harsh effect on her. Almost. Maybe she'd hate it more if she didn't, at the same time, love it as well. It wasn't fair; things like this didn't happen to her. She wasn't built, physically, mentally, to hand things like this and it had her letting out a small whimper as his lips graced her hand.

"...Lee."

Her elbow jerked, sharply, but only slightly as she fought to contain it; it pulled her hand out so that instead of hovering over the back, they were where her fingers were twitching nervously. The tenseness was killing her, but she was afraid of what would happen if she just let go. Lortnoc, Control. Without that, she had nothing.

He almost let go, let go and apologized and made a vow to never take his hands out of his pockets again.

He looked up at his name, fingers still curled around her hand, head still ducked.

"Tell me," is what he finally said.

[*fleeeees home* Back soon!]

Her forehead creased with worry, Adah's left shoulder crept up on her. Another tremor ran through her arm, to her wrist, her hand, her fingers, lightly opening and closing against his hand, half spasm, half nervousness. "I..." she started, flinched lightly. Such strong pulls of emotions both ways, shifting and undulating uncontrolably between needing this and needing this to never happen again.

"Tell...," she spoke so quietly that if they weren't in a library, there'd be no way she would have bean heard, "tell you what?"

"What you're thinking," he answered, ran a thumb over the top of her hand again. "Whatever you want."

There were so many things Adah could answer to that. So many things. That she was afraid, that she was barely clinging onto her control by a thread, she she both simultaneously wanted her hand back and wanted to leave it where it was. She wanted to write her answer instead of speaking it, but couldn't pick up a pencil with a dead right hand and she certainly wasn't going to choose a pencil over the Eel's hand. She was also thinking of just responding by pulling away, fortifying herself into a little cocoon on the chair, a message that would need no words. She considered just babbling nonsense in French like she was writing before. So many options. So when she acted on one of them without a conscious decision, her eyes were wide with protest, but the control was completely slipping away from her and she couldn't even grab at it because he had her good hand.

"Why...why are you doing this?" Her voice was quiet, slow, reluctant.

He didn't immediately answer, choosing instead to take his time, gather his thoughts while he looked down at their hands. Speaking without thinking only worked sometimes.

"Because your hands are soft," he finally said. "Because mine are warm. Because maybe I think I'm helping you fill an empty space just a little. We can talk and not talk but touching is something more. I wanted to. I want to."

It took a moment on Adah's end of things too, struggling still with all the little ticks that her body was trying to force on her before, drawing in a deep, careful breath, she tried to channel all that tension and energy into her head, a few short, jerky nods, and then a light, but still uncertain smile. Her hand tightened just a little bit around his.

It certainly answered her question. Clearly, the Eel was insane. But she decided she didn't really have many qualms about taking advantage of the insane if she got something out of it. She deserved something nice every once in a while. She was feeling tired again, though, incredibly so. Today had been...harsh. Pleasantly so, but pleasant surprises were exhausting...

"I should give you your hand back," he said after a few moment's of quiet, a few moment's of tracing a pattern on the back of her hand. "You might need it, huh?"

A slow red started to spread over her cheeks and Adah gave the Eel a small smile, shrugging her shoulder. Yeah, it was kind of important. She kind of used it for everything, after all. But she still didn't quite want him to let go. If they were just sitting here, with him holding it, and those little tracings had started to have a calming effect on her jilted, fried out nerves. She didn't exactly need to do anything with it to enjoy it. And she did enjoy it, once she got over herself.

"Or I could hang around," he added when he noticed the blush, smile and shrug. "And just do this for awhile."

With a smile of his own, he changed the pattern, finger still soft against the back of her hand though. He didn't have anywhere to be.

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