fandomhigh | Library [Sunday, December 2]

Adah wrinkled her nose at him, although the fact that he grinned while he said whatever it was he was saying left her grinning a little as well, making the gesture seem to be almost teasing for how much he talked. There was more repetition in it, too, of that you sound and, after the first few times, she watched for a hawk for it again, eyes on how his mouth moved whenever he formed it.

And then he stopped talking and she realized that's all of the sound she'd have for the moment. She still didn't know what it meant, but she was slowly building up towards it. She blinked before her head ducked slightly in concentration, eyes peeking out from her hair at him for reactions to judge how she was doing as she thought carefully about how he moved his mouth and slowly worked toward repeating them, slow, careful sounds finally slipping out, which took more more than she thought it would and it sounded shaky, barely there. "Y...you?"

Ha! She said it. She said a word. Or at least a sound. For all she knew, it could have been the most offensive sound or word in the human language, but she didn't care.

Lee hadn't been expecting a sound, let alone a word so when he got one, he stared for a moment before he broke into a slow grin and, for some inexplicable reason, he blushed.

"You," he repeated, slowly again, making sure to be looking at her while he said it. "You."

And he grinned again.

Well, that was an....interesting response. Adah blinked a few times as she worked to interpret what it meant. Surprise, obviously, which meant that she'd acted contrary to what he expected. There was a smile, though, which seemed like either a good sign of encouragement or a good sign of him making fun of her. But what really got Adah was the blush. How did that work in there? Was he embarrassed for having to go through something like this, a primitive, simplistic approach to learning...relearning...the most basic foundations of human function? Half a brain, but here she felt like a mongoloid, and reducing him to one so that she can understand.

But, ultimately, she decided, she didn't care. If it's what she needed to do to learn words again, it's what she would do. Just like she learned how to walk from watching and then just throwing herself out there. Throw her in a lake, she'll find a way to swim, dammit. And, well, if he was making fun of her with those grins, then...she'll just get him back for it later, when she overcame all this.

But he was looking at her pretty pointedly when he said it, so, as if to confirm, she pointed again to herself and repeated the word. As far as names went, it was pretty unimpressive, but, at the same time, from what she remembered, she would leave it past her parents to be so unimpressive.

"I still love hearing you speak," Lee said, still grinning and still talking. "To me, you are strong. To me, you are intelligent."

His smiled softened, gentled and he put his hand back up on the books, palm up. Very slowly, he wrote the word 'you' with his fingertip in the palm of his hand.

It was repeated a few times, this you word, as well as a few others, but Adah decided that it was probably best to take things one word at a time, especially as he started to do something different. She carefully watched how his finger moved, and then shifted her eyes toward him, with a coolly expectant expression, waiting for go-ahead to do the same.

Lee removed the hand that was writing on his palm and then nodded down at his open hand.

"Go for it," he said, smiling again.

Adah returned the nod before her attention went back to his hand, finger poised above it with her fingers lightly brushing up against her thumb. She felt nervous, which she felt was inexplicable, because what did she have to be nervous about? Fingers against palms were nothing for them, she knew that, she remembered that, at least, something they did all the time and much tamer than other things. But still...she wondered what sort of things he might think as she dragged her finger along her palm, if they would be good things, or judging things if she wasn't doing it right, or, again, making fun of her for having to do this and feeling so excited to do something as simple as writing a word. So she hesitated, and then, finally, drew in a breath and slowly started to mimic the movements he had done. Just as she was curling out the tail of the 'y,' Adah glanced over toward the Eel, waiting for a response before continuing on to the 'O', to the 'u,' signs of encouragement, signs that she was on the right track, signs of amusement, of jeering, of something else entirely, and found herself a little surprised at the fact that she seemed suddenly more concerned about what he thought than the fact that she was picking up on something she'd been spending all week trying to pick up on.

Lee leaned in a little closer until he was close to her, not touching, but close and she could see his eyes, see his expression.

And he smiled gently again, smiled at her and then smiled down at what she was doing. He tried to make it as warm as possible, something that could ease any concern she was having and encourage at the same time.

And, really, if she was getting distracted from the point at hand as they were, the Eel moving in closer certainly wasn't helping. Adah had to concentrate very hard on the smooth, slow circle of an 'o' against his palm to keep her thoughts from drifting, instead, toward the closeness, on her eyes on him, and the fact that she was feeling a bit like her breaths were getting caught it fluttered against her chest. His smile was distracting, too, pulling her attention down away from his eyes as the 'o' concluded. She lifted her hand just slightly as she tried to get past that smile to remember the scooping lines of the 'u,' and she took her time, slowly, carefully.

"That was nice," he said quietly, looking down at her hand and his hand and nodding. He wiggled his fingers a bit, brushing against hers lightly. "You can do that anytime," he said and meant it.

Grinning softly at the brush of his fingers, Adah moved her own fingers in kind. She didn't know what it was he said, with the exception of that one word, you, indicating her, but there was something in the way the Eel said it that just made a little tremble run down her good side. She glanced over toward him, drew in a brief breath at the observation and calculation of distance before, lightly closing her eyes, she leaned in a little, tilting her head to close the distance with a light kiss.

Call it gratitude, if a reason was needed, but Adah didn't feel it was.

Lee returned her kiss, just as light and just as gentle, smiling a little so she could feel it and brushing his lips lightly against hers.

Feeling the Eel smile made Adah smile lightly back, before another small kiss. She pulled back only enough to catch her breath with a bit of marveling over the fact that it would need to be caught, and to slowly drag her eyes open to look into his. Almost immediately, her smile broadened, happily, into almost a silent laugh. Definitely didn't need words for that, but it was rather nicer than she remembered it would be.

"Missed that smile," he said quietly, reaching up to lightly touch a finger to her cheek. "A lot. It's good to see you again. A lot."

Ah, Adah thought with a soft, crooked grin, closing her eyes again as she leaned into the light brush of his fingers. She saw how it was now. There was a certain repetition to the way he talked that made her feel like, given enough time spent with him, she might pick back up on the gaps of words lickity-split, but the catch was that she was going to left terribly distracted by other things, like this. Still. She had at least one word now. Excellent progress, really. She'd earned such a nice distraction.

He swept his fingers across her cheek, tucked some hair behind her ear and smiled again. Pretty hard not to smile right now.

"The end of weekends is my favorite time," he said quietly. "Sundays are good."

He really did talk a lot, but that was okay. He could talk all he wanted as long as he brushed back her hair like that and everything. She opened her eyes again so she could see him as she smiled at him.

"There's the smile again," he said, still quiet. "I've gotten used to it seeing it and I never get tired of it. It's good to see you again."

Library [Sunday, December 2]

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