fandomhigh | Library; Wednesday [ 10/17 ]

Knowing full well that there was a break this week and she didn't necessarily have to come in, Adah did, anyway, figuring she had nothing better to do and deciding that she might be a little more comfortable with people finding her again. She went about her usual rounds of shelving books and then unshelving more, and, as she wandered, she wondered. About pain, which wasn't as bad as she thought it would be today, probably because her hardworking left side was just grateful that the surface it stepped on was flat and not increasing up and up and up like the stairs from yesterday. About several things involving water, which she was still uncomfortable with because she didn't even know how to swim. About Africa, and how strange it was that when she thought of that word today, she thought also of the word 'home,' and she also thought about how people there understood the territorial, how they avoided people like her, things unusual, or strange, or useless. It would be different if, instead of a lacking right side, she was lacking legs, but could still balance a basket of manioc on her head.

On her way back to the desk, she placed a book on her head. She didn't even step forward before she realized it was a pointless endeavor.

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If Lee blushed for some unknown reason, he'd attribute it to a sudden increase in the temperature in the library. It took him a few moments to finish was he was doing before turning back around, both hands behind his back.

He pulled out one hand, laid it palm flat on the desk in front of her and showed her that he'd written The square root of 164 is 12 point 8 0 6 2 4 8 4 7 4 8 6 5 6 so on until infinity across the top. And then he waited a moment before turning his hand over and showing her the smiley face on his palm.

"So I won't forget again," he said quietly.

And now it was Adah's face that was distinctly pink, as her eyes went from studying the numbers across the back of the Eel's hand with amusement before it flipped over and she was encountered with another accursed smiley face, making her grin and blush more, the first thirteen decimal points of the square root of 164 repeating in her head, waltzing around with feelings of amusement, of embarrassment, of dull anger at his ability to make her feel all these spikes of adoration and pleasantness so damn easily. She looked at his hand a moment longer, before her eyes drifted up to his face to get a quick reading of his expression before the attention returned. She lifted her own hand, pressing two fingers against his palm, sliding them across slowly. To test the perminance of the ink, to see if it would smear. Certainly not simply to touch his hand and move her skin against his.

"And when you wash?" she asked, because she certainly wasn't moving her hand to do something like writing now. "And it comes off? or do you intend to have it tattooed on?"

"I could," he said thoughtfully, not all seriously, curling his thumb inward to brush against her fingers for a brief moment. "But, here, I've got this one too."

He pulled his other hand out, fist closed for the moment before opening it and turning it palm up. There was more writing on his other palm, a little sloppier because he'd written with his non writing hand.

It read: You've got a way with words, written or spoken. I don't think I'll ever tired of listening.

And that one was a little bit more personal but he'd wanted to say something like that for awhile.

Adah's eyes had been distinctly placed on her fingers poised over the Eel's palm, the slight shifting of his thumb, and her own thumb, moving lightly under her own fingers to brush lightly as well, when he announced the other message. She drew in a soft breath, with a small smile; what a novel concept, the use of two hands; she didn't even think of it, but she couldn't hold it against him, that was for sure, especially once he peeled away his fingers and she carefully worked through the terrible penmanship to process the meaning in the symbols of an alphabet.

The blush flared up again, her smile past the point of being controlled that she had to duck her head, jerk it slightly to get her hair to properly tumble down for a better curtain. Her quiet, drawling voice came out from behind that curtain a moment later, once she'd connected thoughts to words to tongue and lips to create their sound, "I do not speak as well as I write, and I don't write as well as I think," she admitted, "but that's true of most people, as nearly as I can tell."

She drew her hand away from his just so she could tuck the hair back from her face as she lifted her head again, brushing it behind her ear as she blinked at him with slightly clouded eyes. Her hand brushed back into the Eel, fingers lightly pushing to interlace with his. "It isn't fair, you know," she said. "How often I'm left having to speak to you for want of doing this." She nodded toward their hands.

"I like the way you speak and the way you write," he said, vocalizing the gist of his message. "I like to listen and I like to learn."

He looked down at their hands, smile on his face.

"You can blame me for that, for it not being fair" he said and squeezed her hand lightly, brushing a thumb across her skin for a moment while he watched her. "Blame for a lot things, I think. I don't mind. I think this might be a case where I keep making it not fair though."

Adah's eyebrow lifted for a moment, mimicking a brief smirk. Well, so long as she had permission now, she could stop feeling badly for continuing to do what she had been doing anyway. The smirk drifted, though, into a smile, and she started to lean, slump, toward her dead right side until she was resting her cheek against a low pile of books on the desk, an awkward angle but comfortable for her, where she could see their hands from a different angle and didn't have to worry about keeping upright while that warm, malaria-like feeling of contentment settled in over her. She could focus on the light movement of their fingers and on not trying to feel another leaning toward guilt for enjoying this so much and on trying to dispel doubt. Doubt lurking inside of her, as stubborn as her; it annoyed her a little. How many times would it have to be proven that none of this was as impossible as it seemed to think before it started to let off?

Lee watched her shift, change positions and when she settled, he offered a small, quiet smile before dropping his own head down, resting his chin on his forearm so they were almost at level heights again.

Another smile, another brush of his thumb but he remained quiet. He could talk without actually talking when he wanted to, after all.

Library; Wednesday [ 10/17 ]

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