Gela has her eyes shut to the start of this conversation, attention half on Cedric half on the edge of what she was dreaming about before she woke. The closer she tries to examine it the quicker it slips away, sand through the gaps between her fingers, and she shifts her body in disappointment, feels his hand in her hair. A sigh. "Mmm?"
Waiting, she couches her cheek against pillow and his skin. Outside of the blankets seems cold, a theory she confirms by skating a single leg to the edge of the bed and outside the boundary of warmth, toes instantly scrunching in dislike. Much better here.
Here. Gela, of course, selects the romantic option, eyes still shut.
"Why d'you ask? You're not anticipating an attack, are you?"
They speak Nevarran together in classes where they're supposed to, where deals have been made, but here, in this crowded little room and only the two of them in it, Gela speaks Trade. Soft, "I do."
"Your toes, maybe." An attack. Even buried under blankets, they're a force to reckon with. His own nudge at the ball of her foot in faint punctuation. Outside's cold, he oughta feed the fire. Cedric doesn't get up. "Good, I mean... 's good."
And it is. Something swells a little in his chest for the words. Just:
"I want that for you. I want you t'have that. And I worry sometimes, that being here. That 's hard on you."
She smothers a laugh into the pillow, delivers a half-hearted push to his shin with her foot and leaves it there, fitting it to the warmth of his skin. There is room here to ask him the same and not too long ago she would have, would not have let herself lie in a bed with anybody she liked without having said, but there is something about the Gallows and Riftwatch — Cedric — that makes her feel both safe and in turn, safer. Been a long time since she felt that way.
Slowly she turns her head to him. With soft sincerity, a small smile, "Thank you. I think I do. I didn't before I got here, but... it's different now."
Time has passed and things that should have happened have not. But she doesn't reassure him that it isn't hard to be here.
Propping herself onto an elbow leaves one arm free; Gela runs her hand over his hip. "You don't have to worry about me. I'm so much better now I'm here."
An exaggerated oof at the press of shin. Impossible to an feign: The prickle of skin behind her hand. Duller, here and there, across some old line of scar. Dull, and not gone.
(It's different now, she says, and doesn't say it's easy. The hard things wear her face, sometimes. Others walk in like strangers.)
Gela doesn't fight, waves pen before sword. And still, there's a notch in her ear to mark his own. There's the divot of flesh where full lips pull and part, the way they do when she's really pleased with herself. The pink press of tongue tip through teeth.
"Dunno if I ever stop worrying," He admits, and thinks how much cleverer this would be to drop. Better to thread an arm through that elbow and haul her in close again. He'd like that. Has some evidence by now that she likes it, too. Least when he finds the right spot. "Maybe 's just looking for problems."
For some way that it isn't better, being here. Gela's warm. Gela's happy. Selfish to puncture that, and maybe that's why he says it now. Just that it feels safe enough to.
"For some way 's not better, being here."
Better, and hard, and her skin is soft when he cages knuckle under palm.
"I know." She has noticed this about him — he looks to people he's thinking of and watches them, brings them into conversation, skirting around questions nobody wants to answer. He'll knead it slowly out of them once they relax a little instead and it's hard to do a thing like that, Gela should know. It makes you worry-prone. Once you know people enough you can notice when something's off. Intimacy is nice, has a price tag to match.
His brow is furrowed. She can see a line she'd put her thumb on if he didn't choose that moment to heap their hands together — his feel good, strong. Kind. Like he wouldn't press on a bruise unless he had to.
And yet he's missing half an ear; anchors himself the ground in armor; once left plates of food just outside her room.
"Tell me more?"
She could use the point of connection to pull him closer. She wants to. She could put her chin on his shoulder and skirt her knee up his hip and over it but that would cease, quickly, to be listening. And she wants to look at his eyes while he's talking anyway.
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Waiting, she couches her cheek against pillow and his skin. Outside of the blankets seems cold, a theory she confirms by skating a single leg to the edge of the bed and outside the boundary of warmth, toes instantly scrunching in dislike. Much better here.
Here. Gela, of course, selects the romantic option, eyes still shut.
"Why d'you ask? You're not anticipating an attack, are you?"
They speak Nevarran together in classes where they're supposed to, where deals have been made, but here, in this crowded little room and only the two of them in it, Gela speaks Trade. Soft, "I do."
no subject
And it is. Something swells a little in his chest for the words. Just:
"I want that for you. I want you t'have that. And I worry sometimes, that being here. That 's hard on you."
no subject
Slowly she turns her head to him. With soft sincerity, a small smile, "Thank you. I think I do. I didn't before I got here, but... it's different now."
Time has passed and things that should have happened have not. But she doesn't reassure him that it isn't hard to be here.
Propping herself onto an elbow leaves one arm free; Gela runs her hand over his hip. "You don't have to worry about me. I'm so much better now I'm here."
no subject
(It's different now, she says, and doesn't say it's easy. The hard things wear her face, sometimes. Others walk in like strangers.)
Gela doesn't fight, waves pen before sword. And still, there's a notch in her ear to mark his own. There's the divot of flesh where full lips pull and part, the way they do when she's really pleased with herself. The pink press of tongue tip through teeth.
"Dunno if I ever stop worrying," He admits, and thinks how much cleverer this would be to drop. Better to thread an arm through that elbow and haul her in close again. He'd like that. Has some evidence by now that she likes it, too. Least when he finds the right spot. "Maybe 's just looking for problems."
For some way that it isn't better, being here. Gela's warm. Gela's happy. Selfish to puncture that, and maybe that's why he says it now. Just that it feels safe enough to.
"For some way 's not better, being here."
Better, and hard, and her skin is soft when he cages knuckle under palm.
no subject
His brow is furrowed. She can see a line she'd put her thumb on if he didn't choose that moment to heap their hands together — his feel good, strong. Kind. Like he wouldn't press on a bruise unless he had to.
And yet he's missing half an ear; anchors himself the ground in armor; once left plates of food just outside her room.
"Tell me more?"
She could use the point of connection to pull him closer. She wants to. She could put her chin on his shoulder and skirt her knee up his hip and over it but that would cease, quickly, to be listening. And she wants to look at his eyes while he's talking anyway.