[ It's always the after that gets you, that chases you through the nights. She knows. Angela's not one who's taken many, if any, lives, but she knows. She's had her fair share of failures and stopped hearts on the table she couldn't get pumping, not enough blood left in some people as their veins collapsed, organs left without anything to pump, put through the grinder and left on an impersonal sheet of stainless steel far from home. You couldn't save everyone and sometimes self-defense came at a high cost, but it still hurt all too well. Knew just how to seep into those cracks and stain the lacquer of your soul, refusing to budge.
It's pain, plain and simple. Not weakness, but the residual ache of your actions that never leaves your joints. Yeah, she knows it. To say that he's earned his scars, however, is not something she'd attribute to anyone. No one deserved to be in pain. She knows what they were really from; not his actions after but one specific event, one life-changing force that rippled the surface oh that lacquer, causing more fissures. So when her fingertips pass along those ripples and fissures, she's appreciative he's still here. That they healed as well as they could instead of splitting wider, consuming him whole. And that's how her touch slips from his neck, heel of her hand skimming his ear, slick with sweat. It's something she lets dry on her palms instead of wiping off on her pants.
Again, she won't bring attention to these things.
Ahab curls his fingers around a couple totes, Angela slinging the rest over her shoulder as she anchors to his side, and she smiles the short walk back to the stop, knuckles brushing along his own with as close as they are. She sets a slower pace than usual, ambling, until they're boarding— thankfully a thinner crowd leaving than arriving, but still crowded enough for a few people to linger between the seats along the sides to spread out. She takes his hand to draw him through behind her, murmuring a soft "excuse me" here and there, until she can guide him to a corner seat. He's slipped the remaining bags from her shoulder along the way and she only huffs good-natured annoyance with it, because she knows she won't be "seeing" them again.
With a little gesture, she motions for him to sit, fully intending to blockade off the corner to ensure he has some breathing room as subtly as possible. Usually the saying is "got your six", but in this case, it's his 12 o'clock; it's the most she can do to keep people from jostling closer until the doors are closing and everyone's settling in for the trip, and only then will she seat herself on his free side. One leg crossed over the opposite knee, pressing in against his leg and turning into him, shoulder settled against the cool glass window to face him and mind their surroundings.
He only had to endure ten, fifteen minutes at the most— the trip goes quickly. He doesn't have his cassette player on him, either— so instead of helping herself to it and nestling the earbuds in each of their ears, she continues the light stream of conversation whenever he drifts, how excited Eiger will be to see him, how they can walk down to the gazebo after he's showered so he can see the mushrooms and moss along the river, how she's carted some furs down to the hammock. And then it's time to get off just as quick, and she awaits everyone else emptying at the stop before rising and moving, reaching to hook a few fingers through his to keep him close until they've reached the winding dirt path stepping off the stone platform to lead into the first plots of farmland. Then it's up to him if he leaves tangled fingers together or not. ]
I always love the first steps off the line; you can smell the apples in the air, and it's so much cleaner, isn't it?
[ Angela hasn't even tried reaching for the bags; he isn't relinquishing a single one. ]
freshy holdin out on me all night, smh
It's pain, plain and simple. Not weakness, but the residual ache of your actions that never leaves your joints. Yeah, she knows it. To say that he's earned his scars, however, is not something she'd attribute to anyone. No one deserved to be in pain. She knows what they were really from; not his actions after but one specific event, one life-changing force that rippled the surface oh that lacquer, causing more fissures. So when her fingertips pass along those ripples and fissures, she's appreciative he's still here. That they healed as well as they could instead of splitting wider, consuming him whole. And that's how her touch slips from his neck, heel of her hand skimming his ear, slick with sweat. It's something she lets dry on her palms instead of wiping off on her pants.
Again, she won't bring attention to these things.
Ahab curls his fingers around a couple totes, Angela slinging the rest over her shoulder as she anchors to his side, and she smiles the short walk back to the stop, knuckles brushing along his own with as close as they are. She sets a slower pace than usual, ambling, until they're boarding— thankfully a thinner crowd leaving than arriving, but still crowded enough for a few people to linger between the seats along the sides to spread out. She takes his hand to draw him through behind her, murmuring a soft "excuse me" here and there, until she can guide him to a corner seat. He's slipped the remaining bags from her shoulder along the way and she only huffs good-natured annoyance with it, because she knows she won't be "seeing" them again.
With a little gesture, she motions for him to sit, fully intending to blockade off the corner to ensure he has some breathing room as subtly as possible. Usually the saying is "got your six", but in this case, it's his 12 o'clock; it's the most she can do to keep people from jostling closer until the doors are closing and everyone's settling in for the trip, and only then will she seat herself on his free side. One leg crossed over the opposite knee, pressing in against his leg and turning into him, shoulder settled against the cool glass window to face him and mind their surroundings.
He only had to endure ten, fifteen minutes at the most— the trip goes quickly. He doesn't have his cassette player on him, either— so instead of helping herself to it and nestling the earbuds in each of their ears, she continues the light stream of conversation whenever he drifts, how excited Eiger will be to see him, how they can walk down to the gazebo after he's showered so he can see the mushrooms and moss along the river, how she's carted some furs down to the hammock. And then it's time to get off just as quick, and she awaits everyone else emptying at the stop before rising and moving, reaching to hook a few fingers through his to keep him close until they've reached the winding dirt path stepping off the stone platform to lead into the first plots of farmland. Then it's up to him if he leaves tangled fingers together or not. ]
I always love the first steps off the line; you can smell the apples in the air, and it's so much cleaner, isn't it?
[ Angela hasn't even tried reaching for the bags; he isn't relinquishing a single one. ]