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 Posted: Tue Jun 25, 2013 11:45 pm
"She is good, even if she doesn't' always act happy to see me. Or anyone really," Stormy added with with a little smile. "Cap'n used to scare me--I scare easy sometimes, especially with people--but it's not so bad now. I think." Sometimes it was a little hard to tell with the blunt hunter.
Mark was a little odd, but then again who wasn't? Boring people, obviously. Stormy hummed noncommittally as Gale shifted and used it as an excuse to cuddle a little closer just as the movie began, hesitating and then uncurling a hand from her lap to rest on the one he had on her knee. "'One such as yourself'?" she prompted curiously, giving Gale a sidelong glance. "You mean you've met someone like me before?"
She tried not to sound disappointed in the idea.
But at least Gale was for extending their time, which Stormy would happily aid in whatever manner she could, sick or not. "I can visit as many times as you want~" she offered with a smile and a sniffle. "The exercise between the dorms and the town'll be part of my training! Or maybe I could start up a morning walk . . . Zzzzzzzz no too early, sorry.
"Anywho." She glanced to the movie and found herself incapable of getting immersed into the beginning, nice music or not. "I did that a lot with music and tv. Just fill up the spaces of silence so that nothing can creep in, you know? A lot of bad things come with silence. Not that good things can't either, but it's in the silence you can hear things you'd rather not: like your heartbeat. I don't like feeling it because it reminds me of how fragile humans are, that we rely on just this one fist-sized thing pumping at a specific rhythm to keep us going . . ." Stormy rested her head against his shoulder, thinking. "Sometimes I don't even feel it at all though, and that's scarier."
< < Too many soft things for my understanding. > >
There was a question prompted from that, but she held her tongue for the moment because she wasn't sure if she really wanted to know the answer.
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Posted: Wed Jun 26, 2013 6:49 am
"Yes, well," said Gale, a little dryly. "She's the type of person who likes to get things done, and get them done well. I wasn't sure how I felt about her either, but she's turned out all right, and I respect her for what she does."
He turned his palm upwards, curling his fingers around her hand and squeezed gently, turning to give her a little, shy smile - a smile that quickly faded a little at the very faint note of disappointment in her voice. "I didn't mean..." Gale started, and then stopped.
"I just meant that I've, er, never really gotten a chance to spend time with...with a girl...like this," he said, feeling his face turn an embarrassing shade of red, in spite of the fact that they had been cuddling already. "This is..." He gave a small cough. On screen, Woody was jabbering about something or other, but Gale wasn't paying attention.
"You're my first...er, girl...friend...bloody hell I'm making this worse aren't I I'll just shut up and watch the movie now."He gave a small sigh that bordered on frustrated, contemplated for a moment, and then turned and quickly kissed Stormy's cheek.
"I'm not used to all of this yet," he said. "So I'm happy that there is someone else in this world that wants to spend their time with me just as much as I want to spend it with them."
His fingers squeezed hers again, lacing through them. "Any time you want some...not silence, you can always call me. I'll talk you to sleep," he joked.
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Posted: Wed Jun 26, 2013 10:56 am
Her cheeks tinged pink at the kiss, but pleasantly so. "You're not messing this up," she told him a little quickly. "Trust me, my ex wasn't half as sweet as you. If all you mess up on is how you phrase things, this'll be beautiful. Besides, I...uh. I might've been in something once, but that doesn't mean I know what to do either."
Frankly it was quite the opposite. Comparatively, Gale was simple and had no strings attached and straightforward, which were new things to her. Pure, even. That was why she feared messing things up...That if chaos and order met, something would he neutralized. All the thoughts in her mind pointed to just affection for now, and thus Stormy followed.
Squeezing his hand back, she nuzzled his shoulder and tried to find a perch there for her head. "Thank you...It used be bad, the silence, when I first got here. Thane kept me sane." Stormy giggled softly at the rhyme, the noise finishing with an equally soft cough. "Something popped up in my head when I mentioned the heart thing, though. Um...Have you ever felt like...something other than human?" she asked. "Like obviously you still are, but just...like little things changed that weren't there before?"
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Posted: Wed Jun 26, 2013 1:56 pm
He tried to not show how pleased he was by the fact that he was better than her ex, Gale turning his head a little as Stormy pressed her face against his shoulder. He laid his head atop hers, enjoying the way they seemed as though they fit together.
He blinked his eyes, slightly taken aback by her question. "...perhaps," said Gale thoughtfully, as onscreen Buzz was now brought into the picture. "You know, probably I have, at one point or another. Sometimes I feel as though I'm not quite as sane as I used to be, that I'm something else other than what I am, but it's a little difficult to describe."
Gale brushed his thumb against Stormy's. "Why? Do you?"
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Posted: Wed Jun 26, 2013 4:56 pm
"Mmm..." She smiled to herself as he laid his head atop hers, delaying her reply to enjoy that feeling. "Not so sane? 'We're all mad here~'" She could handle odd. Odd was better than nothing at all. "You said your partner is a Chinese dragon, right? He must give you all sorts of wisdom."
< < And I do not? > > Thane asked cooly. Her smile dimmed.
"We're all a little changed from the start," Stormy continued, watching Buzz galavant around Andy's other toys. "From birth we're a little something extra. It was explained to me that the trials before we got here were to weed out the strong from the week, and that our bodies had to think we were dying before we could accept a weapon. And I think they nestle in that extra part and make it non-extra--an actual trait."
She let her eyes fall a little closed. "I was always a little colder than most in body temperature, but I think my fingers and toes get colder faster now. Sometimes I think I'm working up a sweat when I'm not. Sometimes I don't think I feel my heart beat, even though I know I'm alive. Thane's undead, so I imagine that's probably why..." But her sentence lingered like an uneasy question.
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Posted: Wed Jun 26, 2013 6:41 pm
Gale gave a small snort that may or may not have been an attempt at concealing a laugh.
<< Excuse me. >>
You're excused.
"He gives me lots of grief," said Gale, as seriously as possible, while Jinhai made soft sounds of outrage in his head. "He's a big heaping load of - "
<< EXCUSE ME. >>
He was laughing for real now. "I'm just messing with him. Jinhai gives me a great deal of help, actually. We're very...what's the word for it? Symbiotic? I help him, he helps me, and it works out nicely."
Thinking of the trials made his smile fade a little. "Yeah, well..." said Gale quietly. "I'm still not certain how exactly I managed to pass those trials, they were...they were painful. Bloody."
He could see her eyes fluttering a little, Gale dropping his voice lower, trying to keep her in this state of perhaps falling asleep, his fingers curling around hers. "I'll keep you warm, then," he said softly, and readjusted the blanket so it covered her feet."
He turned her hand over, his fingers pressing into her inner wrist, feeling for the pulse that beat beneath her skin.
"You are alive," said Gale quietly. "And I can feel your heart beating for you."
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Posted: Wed Jun 26, 2013 7:05 pm
It was a little funny trying to fill in the spaces for Jinhai in the little pause between Gale's words, and she smiled a little again. "Good~ It'll be fun to meet him sometime."
She shifted as he moved the blanket, sniffling. The trials had been mostly a blur to her, and thus far the only ones she knew of from her batch were Dakota and Lucky. There was a woman still asleep, she thought, who still needed to get out at some point; unlike Gale, Stormy didn't have a name, or a face, or even real memories to attribute to her--and yet she understood the bittersweetness of waiting without hope. Bloody was...a good word for the trials, though, at any rate. "Didn't mean to bring those up," Stormy mumbled, trying to shake the memories off like so many flies. "But we passed for a reason, so...Just think 'bout that part only."
If she had any thoughts of sleep, though, they quickly fled whenever she felt his fingers at the inside of her wrist. With a blink her face began to warm once more, surprised by how strangely tender the movement felt. "While I-I'm on that subject, um...Gale?" Stormy shifted her head just a bit under hers to see him better, her brows drawn closer together. "You're not allowed to pull stunts like you did with the horsemen, okay? No sacrificing yourself just 'cause you feel like it, or I'll go find your ghost and bind it to a runic watch so I can keep my eye on you all the time."
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Posted: Wed Jun 26, 2013 7:36 pm
He slid his fingers down her wrist, back to lace them with hers again, Gale turning his head a little to give Stormy a slightly curious look. Stormy had lifted her face off of his shoulder, and he opened his mouth to say something -
- and then promptly shut it again, his cheeks a little flushed. Gale pressed his lips together and then exhaled slowly, taking a deep breath as he tried to keep himself from saying anything to the contrary.
"...all right," he said quietly. "I promise. I won't do anything like that again."
There was an unspoken unless it's for you on the end of his sentence.
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Posted: Wed Jun 26, 2013 7:57 pm
She heard it. She assumed it, rather, and still gave Gale that little frown. Bix had revealed that it was a sort of guilty pleasure shared by many hunters to die for their friends or loved ones, and while she had refused to share in that instinct, Stormy knew that what Gale didn't say was about as loud as what he had. "I mean it," she emphasized. "If you do, I will be very upset. And don't think the runic watch is an idle threat, because I'll totally pay to get it, and I'll get a runic vacuum cleaner and suck your spirit right back in so I can dump you in it, and you'll be sorry."
But he had agreed, and for that she raised their entwined hands and lightly kissed his knuckles before settling them back down.
Tilting her head back onto his shoulder, Stormy turned to the movie and was hypnotized by the inside of Pizza Planet, her eyes falling half-closed again. "Promise me also that you'll smile more, even when I'm not around. It's a lovely view, you know."
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Posted: Wed Jun 26, 2013 8:03 pm
He almost said no, he couldn't promise her that, because it was an innate desire to want to protect her, to protect Bix and Marcus and Candace and everyone else that he cared about - and even people like Jake, like Otto, whom he was just starting to learn to like. And it was something he couldn't quite seem to get out of his system, no matter how hard he tried.
But then he felt Stormy's lips against his fingers and Gale felt his stomach flutter, his eyes flickering towards her and he couldn't quite stop the anxiety that made him want to just bury his face in a pillow somewhere because it had only been a short time, it had not even been a full day since they had started dating and he liked her, he liked her so much.
And maybe it was bad that he hadn't ever had a girlfriend before, because he didn't know what to feel or how much to feel it, how much was too much and how much was not enough.
Gale tilted his head against hers, fingers entwined together as he squeezed them gently. "Fine," he said, and there was a gentle note of amusement in his voice. "I'll smile more for you."
"And I promise."
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Posted: Wed Jun 26, 2013 8:17 pm
Exhaustion was coming over her like an avalanche, unstoppable and heavy. The blanket, the tea, what they'd talked about, how sick she was starting to feel, Gale--all of it colliding at once now that she had chosen to stand still rather than flit away. Her eyes fell closed all the way as he tilted his head to hers, trying to remember what that last promise she'd decided on was. Gale had to promise . . . he had to promise . . . what again . . . ? It was important, think, brain. But her mind was getting blurry and her throat was starting to really hurt; she'd probably be hoarse in the morning, if not worse.
Worth it.
Stormy was unaware of the pressure building inside her boyfriend, but she had caught a glimpse over the course of their conversation, and that had given her quite a little pause. It was better that only one of them suffered it at once, because she was an emotional bottler--Stormy would have exploded magnificently if she knew the full extent of Gale's affections in that moment.
As they say, ignorance is bliss. And bliss was what she felt as the memories of the day poured in a haze over her mind, and bliss was what she felt as she clutched Gale a little closer. Whatever mumbled out of Stormy's mouth was meant to say she was satisfied with his response, but her relaxed look hopefully said as much as well as she finally, finally, allowed herself to sleep.
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