shelley_winters | Resumption

Resumption

Shelley hums happily as she makes her way up the stairs. Her long skirt brushes the floor with a faint swishing noise as she walks in time to the tune. Can't get it out of her head. Someone was probably singing it - far from discouraging music, it seems, that strange curse-thing seems to have more people than ever whistling or humming. It's rather nice, she decides.

She opens the door still singing under her breath, dropping her bag on the table before turning to shut it behind her.

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A tilt of his head as he glanced back at her. His voice coldly curious.

"Should I take that as you mean to pack nothing?"

Her eyes go involuntarily to her desk, where a fresh white flower blooming independent of any water sits.

Looking away, she slides hopelessly down to the floor, suddenly feeling numb. A weak hand goes to cover her eyes.

"Nothing."

Ishamael's eyes follow hers to the flower. He can see the weaves of Keeping on it, and he finds that extremely peculiar.

"...Would you like to explain the nature of that particular flower?"

A pause.

"I can see the weaves on it, so I know it is more than an ordinary flower."

She tenses slightly. Joar's gift to her is still precious, even after this time.

"It stays fresh."

A withering look.

"I am aware of that, Lady Shelley. I can see the weaves."

A pause as his index finger caressed one of the snow white petals.

"My question is why do you have such an attachment to this flower? After all, it would be but the work of a moment for me to untie the weaves, and return this flower to the dust. Why should I not do so, especially if it is just an ordinary flower?"

"-Don't."

She looks up, and it hurts, the thought of losing that one memory.

"It's just - a friend gave it to me. I want to keep it."

Ishamael smiled coyly as he held his hand back from the flower.

"Will you bargain for the life of the flower?"

A pause as he studied the white blossom carefully.

"A small exchange. Just a little thing, after all the flower is only a little thing to me, though not so to you."

She stares at him from the floor. He's threatening a flower just to hurt her?

"I hate you."

She swallows.

"What kind of thing do you want?"

Ishamael put his hand over the flower. A bemused smile as he stared at the blossom.

"I want what you will offer, that is part of the enjoyment, you understand."

"You're enjoying this. That just figures."

She stares bitterly at the floor, but not before the flower gets another glance.

She knows what she can do. It's obvious enough, and humiliating to make him happy for weeks. But to have to say it...

"If you don't, I'll- I'll kiss you."

Ishamael snaps his hand back from the flower as if it were hot. He did not even go to the effort of concealing the smug grin on his face, a kind of self-absorbed amusement, like a fox who has gotten into the hen house.

"I accept your proposition, Lady Shelley."

A calm, graceful stride as the man in black walked over to where she was huddled down against the wall. Kneeling down across from her, he gave a beautiful smile.

"Whenever you are ready, my lady."

Shelley glares angrily at him, cheeks flushing brightly. If the time apart had let the memory of how she hates him dull, it is back more powerfully than ever before.

"Shut up."

As he watches her, she wishes the floor would very literally open and swallow her. There are tears of rage and humiliation in her eyes, and she blinks hard to get rid of them.

It takes a second or two before she can bring herself to lean forward, tilting her head to the side and press her lips tentatively and reluctantly to his.

His arms slid around her lightly as he kissed her in reply. Fingers tangling gently in her red hair.

A gentle, soft kiss. No insistence, no pressure. His heartbeat loud in his own ears. That oddly electric passion that comes from kissing someone who you care for.

He had waited a long time for this, and that made it all the sweeter. His body ached to draw more, draw more deeply, to inhale her breath,

(How much sweeter than he had imagined, the feeling of her.)

And never exhale again.

The silence is almost unbearably loud. He can probably feel her shaking and that just makes it worse. Her eyes are closed so she doesn't have to see how close he is, not that feeling alone is any better.

She measures the time in heartbeats rather than focus on- anything else. One. Two.

His hands in her hair make it hard, but she breaks the kiss as soon as she can, turning her face quickly away, blush still staining her cheeks as she tries hard not to breathe unevenly.

As she breaks off the kiss, Ishamael still kneeling in front of her pulls his arms from around her, untangling his hands from her hair resignedly.

His eyes are still closed as he savors the kiss. The feeling of her lips on his that lingers but for a moment. The feeling of her breath on his cheek. The feeling of her warmth in his arms, and his hands in her hair.

The feeling of her.

As the feelings fade, as they do, Ishamael glanced up at her. His eyes carefully studying the blush and the uneven breathing.

"Now... Was that really so bad?"

A small, coy smile.

"It couldn't have been if you are blushing like that."

The colour darkens further at that, and she looks up in fury to defend herself.

And feels even angrier that she should have to.

"I-it's called humiliation, you-"

She breaks off, clenching her teeth and reaching up to wipe away tears.

Smiling a little too brightly, his voice a little less sane, he raised an index finger. His head tilted at an odd angle as he glanced around conspiratorially, as an eerie light seemed to fill his eyes.

"Do not worry, Lady Shelley, I do not believe that anyone saw."

His voice was a soft coo, like comforting a child.

"That kiss can remain our little secret... Though, you shouldn't feel embarassed about enjoying a little kiss."

Her face contorts slightly in misery, and Shelley attempts to shove him violently away from her and crawl out from between him and the wall.

She can't take him being so close.

Ishamael ignores the push entirely. Slowly, he stands and watches her with his blue eyes.

"You should have just asked. I am amenable to your concerns and cares."

A twisted smile.

"After all, I would have accepted anything, but you wanted a kiss."

She shoots him a hateful look, getting up with difficulty considering her long skirt, and moving as far away from him as she can get.

"I could have asked, but I wanted to push you. No, I- wanted to keep something a friend gave me. You're the one who threatened to break it."

She carefully puts out a hand to pick up the flower, looking at it miserably. Rather than look at him.

A tilt of his head as he studied her and the flower. There was a fascination there that he could not quite plumb. She still had her secrets from him... All the more allure.

"...Did Asmodean give you that flower?"

It was the only logical conclusion.

"No."

He hadn't. Not really.

Shelley says nothing else, and doesn't look up. Let him wonder.

She was not quite lying, but he could not quite tell what she was meaning. No matter. The man was dead and gone. A minor affection for him was easily perceptible in her dreams

"Your grief is understandable. Those who betray Shaitan, as he did, die the final death."

A pause. She did not know fact from conjecture

"What a tragedy... You two will never meet again. Ever. He will not be reborn, the cycle has been broken."

Shelley says nothing else. Whatever else, she does not want Elan to realise who Zera Tehom had been.

She had feared that he was lost forever. Known, really, but hearing it hurts. No reaction. She will not give him that.

Instead she shrugs coldly, and gently replaces the flower on the desk.

Ishamael watches her with cold, clinical curiosity. His voice is colder, more insistent.

"If you have no other business to attend to, then let us go home, Lady Shelley."

A pause.

"Do not bother calling for someone. I am far more powerful than when we parted company. It would only end badly--for them."

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