Live and Breathe: Derek and Marta
Stability was not necessarily Derek's strong suite, if she had to claim one for herself. But certain things remained, and certain things changed, and sometimes things were on a cycle, changing and then coming back to themselves, and she understood that well. Live and Breathe was much the same way, cyclical that the doors opened every morning, the machines turned on, air and light filling the space. And in the evening they went off, the doors were locked, and Derek went back to her home where the lights were never off.
Marta had been a new part in the cycle, unsure of her place, unsure of living, with the tang of bruised flesh and medicine on her skin. Derek didn't ask, she did't need to. Blood was a thing that lingered in her senses, placed there centuries ago when her people ruled the seas.
Now she was here, the air barely scented, with succulents and oxygen tanks. Her early morning customer was already on a stool, bent over her smart phone with the nasal cannula in, fingernails clicking against the screen of her phone. Derek had allowed her in already, knowing she liked to come before she headed off to school, but there was someone else she was waiting for.
Clad in white she sat, perched on the reception stool behind the desk that was, and would be, Marta's. As promised, she had not a cake but individual cupcakes in the small break room, meant for employees but usually it was only the two of them. Her fingers did not drum on the surface of the desk as he hard the car door slam, but she did glance up , mouth already faintly curved as she waited for the girl to get inside.
She wouldn't hug her, no, she wasn't the huggy type, but cupcakes? Little deserts that were one of the best things about this century? Those were doable.