Luna. (floukru) wrote in the100, @ 2016-03-30 19:31:00 |
|
|||
Alexander Graham Bell was used to being in the background of the battle. He’d been working with the Brotherhood of Assassins for a few years back in his own world, and he knew very well that he was no fighter. He was a scientist, a tinkerer. The best help he could offer was from his workshop, keeping his friends well-supplied and the populace informed.
What he wasn’t used to was sitting and waiting just on the other side of the wall, and knowing that someone he cared deeply for was risking her life.
He was worried about Jacob and Miss Frye and Ezio, as well. He was concerned about his new friends in the toolmaking department. However those feelings weighed on him, however, they weren’t the reason he was anxiously rubbing his thumb across his fingernails as Mount Weather’s civilians waited, and it wasn’t Jacob that he immediately started looking for when the hatch was thrown open for their heroes to return.
“DELA!” He spotted her quickly, and right away he went running to her. For once, Aleck wasn’t worried about being polite or proper. He just wanted to reach Dela and see that she was all right.
Dela, on the other hand, was only accustomed to being right in the thick of a battle. This had tapered off a bit more recently, particularly when her clan had lost another healer and needed to protect their remaining one, but even still — Dela was a warrior, first and foremost. If there was a battle to be had, it would be difficult to find her anywhere else. She could do both, after all, and there was too often a need for quick attention on the battlefield.
She hadn’t necessarily been required to go out into the fray, but that hadn’t stopped her. She did take a pause at a point at the start to reflect on how strange it was to be in a battle defending Mount Weather. So many battles before had been against the mountain and the men within it, so this was a novelty. But there was more to it now — the mountain itself provided safety, but she was more concerned with defending those within it. She’d come to care a great deal about some of the Podkru and Skaikru. She had friends, a circle that grew closer in passing time. And, of course, she had Alexander, who she would fight tooth and nail to keep from danger.
Elea had fought with her, of course. Her age was a non-issue in Grounder culture, and Dela had given it no second thought. When the battle was over, she was amongst a latter group returning to the mountain, as she’d had a few wounded to tend to. It was only once her hands were free of injured warriors that she took steps of her own into the doorway.
She heard her name in an instant, like a bolt of sound, and looked up for the source of it. She smiled, her face covered as much in a mix of dirt and sweat and blood and whatever else as the rest of her, but moved to meet him. “I am okay,” she assured him, reaching for his hands as they approached each other. “All is well.”
Aleck took her hands, and promptly used them to pull her in and hug her tightly. He was grinning from ear to ear, but probably squishing a bit of air out of her lungs.
“I knew you would be,” he said, lying through his teeth. Hope and certainties were far removed, especially when one was watching a lady one was very fond of go out to fight minotaurs and orcs and a thousand other things that had no place in a rational reality. That was a whole different business than a person’s friends scrapping with street thugs.
Dela laughed as she was pulled swiftly into a hug, the tightness of his embrace making her laugh immediately shift to a breathier version of itself. She hugged him tightly back, breathing a sigh of relief at the knowledge that not only had she survived, but they’d managed to keep everyone else safe in the process. There had been deaths, and they would be mourned, but the battle had ended and they had been victorious.
“You are not a good liar, Alexander,” she responded, lifting her head from his shoulder and pulling back just a bit, though her arms stayed around him. “I will dirty your clothes this way. I am sure I make a sight.”
“You are beautiful as always,” he loyally declared. “And you can’t tell me that’s a lie, because you just finished telling me I’m bad at lying.”
Aleck really wasn’t lying that time. Dela wasn’t a usual sort of lovely at the moment, but she had come back alive, and that was always attractive. And really, as he looked her over and took a deep, comforting breath…
“...actually, covered with mud and the blood of your enemies is a good look for you,” he said, a rather different sort of grin crossing his face. “A very good look.” His Scottish accent came out more with the emphasis, rolling the R a bit.
Dela was about to counter him when he used her words against her, and so she laughed instead, bringing a hand to one of her cheeks and shaking her head a little. “You say very sweet things.”
She wasn’t one who feared battle, but she also was respectful enough of the danger not to be so careless about it. War was a serious matter, and she took it seriously. She understood the risks as well as the rewards, and she was very glad to have survived to fight another battle.
Dela opened her mouth to speak in response, but was actually just a little speechless briefly. That different grin and his words and his accent… well, she wasn’t immune to the appeals of any of those things, not that she’d have pretended otherwise. She grinned in response, her eyebrow lifting. “You try to make me blush now. Devious.”
“A bit,” he said, and his grin hadn’t faded in the least. “Since I’ve already been declared a terrible liar, I might as well admit that the combination of adrenaline, overwhelming gratitude at seeing you alive, your obvious skills as a warrior, and your immensely lovely person have my mind filled with ungentlemanly thoughts. It can’t be helped. I am merely a mortal man, not a saint.”
Not that he would push his ungentlemanly thoughts upon her, of course. Thoughts were one thing, actions quite another. She was still a lady, and they were still in public. There was nothing wrong with a bit of teasing, though.
Dela’s grin stayed perfectly in place as well. “I knew this would happen,” she said. “First, you stop wearing your neck cloth,” she gestured, unsure of the name for it at the top of her head, “then you go with vest unbuttoned. Now this. You are slipping into indecent, Alexander Graham Bell.” Her expression and the teasing tone and the way she kept their bodies close made it very clear that she was quite pleased with the development.
“I must wash all of this off of me before I go to medical to help with injuries,” she said, that teasing tone still staying. “You could help in this, I think. Always easier with an extra pair of hands, yes?”
He hadn’t expected that reaction - teasing in return, certainly, but clearly Dela was better at this game than he was. That, or she was perfectly serious. And if that was the case, then obviously he was going to take her up on it, because he couldn’t say no to an offer like that from her.
...which meant that of course he was the one blushing now, because all he could think of was Dela in the shower.
“If you need assistance, I could hardly deny you,” Aleck said, and despite the slight case of nerves his smile didn’t falter. “It’s only fair, really.”
Dela was perhaps more experienced in the game, if nothing else. But she was quite serious, even through her teasing. The battle had set her adrenaline high, and that hadn’t wavered yet. Triumph and victory were always excellent aphrodisiacs anyway, and his teasing words had done exactly their (perhaps not entirely intended) job of making Dela’s mind up. Fortunately, his response wasn’t a negative one.
She grinned again.
“This is a good answer,” she said. “And also very wise — I do not think you would want to kiss me yet, covered as I am in so much filth. You do not know what may be on my lips. Better to clean them first, and the rest of me as well.” She nodded, her hands sliding from around him to find his hands. “You come with me. My room is empty now.”
Aleck bowed, and cheerfully offered his arm. “Lead the way, miss.”