WHO: Sarge and Adelaide WHERE: Dog Park WHAT: Got a question for you, Sarge WHEN: Epically backdated to 10/7/18, the evening after this.
I've seen that porcelain shell your exoskeleton and I feel like we'd walk well together because in the end, we are friends and lovers if asked of me I would gobble them to bits the things that wall us off from where we belong what's wrong with you is good for what's wrong with me and I think maybe we should stick together because in the end, we are friends and lovers
Sarge is hanging out just outside of the circle of light cast by the fire, on the outskirts of the loud and raucous heart of the Park, leaning against the aluminum siding of an old travel trailer that is still warm from the sun. Usually he sits right by the fire with Rodeo, their chairs creaking with every movement, but he is not only avoiding one but two women. Lori is still out to kill him and Adelaide... Adelaide is too close whenever they are in Rodeo's trailer, even if they are at opposite ends of it. As if his thoughts had summoned her he sees her pop up just a few feet away, secretly relieved that it is her because he actually likes seeing her.
It's been quite a goddamn day. There's nothing quite like having a bag of heads thrown at you to light a fire under your ass, to point out the areas in your life where you're being a damn foot-dragging chicken. She's told herself she was giving him time, space. She's told herself there's all the time in the world now that she's living here at the Park. Faced with Kodiak and Ibsen, Adelaide quite abruptly came to realize there is by no means time to waste, even for the sake of Sarge's sensibilities.
Getting him alone is another story, so when she sees him leaned there at the edge of the firelight, she picks up her gumption and she's leaning there beside him before he knows it. She looks out at the fire, her hair redder even than usual in the glow, but it's clear he's got all of her attention. "You know, if you don't want to be found, this ain't the best hiding spot," she comments, mischief touching her expression as she finally glances at him sideways. It's been a grim day, a heavy day, but she doesn't need to carry that with her here.
Of course he heard about what happened, and Sarge is fairly certain that it makes matters worse. Just knowing his way around regular people can be tough enough, when those people happen to be Addie things are a little easier. Unless it's the adult version that he didn't mind kissing again at all. And now she had heads thrown at her and he feels so far out of his depth that a decompression chamber might be needed. Normally people would offer hugs or something, but he has never been good at comforting people so he just didn't.
Instead he keeps staring at the fire, but the way his body shifts ever so slightly towards Addie is a telltale sign for anyone caring to watch, which at this point is nobody. Drinks are being raised and toasts are made to honor their fallen brothers, but Sarge doesn't join them. He is quiet and busy thinking about things, or was until moments ago. "I'm all outta places to hide that ain't miles away," he mutters with a shrug.
"Well I won't complain about that," she says, eyes following Nate in the distance, then switching over to follow Cherry back the other way.
Maybe nobody outside of them is paying attention to how Sarge leans, but Adelaide herself certainly is, and just that little gravitation is noted. Very, very noted. It is just the encouragement she needs to nudge her off the edge.
"So, I been wondering," she begins, and with those words she turns her face to him finally, still leaning back against the trailer while she looks up steadily. "Do we only kiss when we're drunk or in mortal peril, or do I make an appointment somewhere?"
Luckily there is no shortage of people to keep his eyes on, of movements to follow along with glares from the relative darkness of their spot. Had he been sitting by the fire they would have been in the middle of a well-lit stage, so he is twice as glad for sticking to the shadows tonight.
Unfortunately Adelaide hits a raw nerve, which is apparent when Sarge almost swallows the toothpick he had been chewing on.
The following moments are filled with a tense silence, the occasional grumble that slips past as Sarge is pushing around words and maybe, just maybe, is contemplating how to best escape this situation. It seems to take hours, but is probably closer to two minutes, when he finally seems to have gathered his wits enough to let a response tumble over his lips, clearly not at all comfortable with this situation. "Didn't know you wanted... that... to happen again." Actually admitting that he has thought about this more than once, or even that he had been not at all opposed to their paths crossing again when drunk, will not happen in this lifetime, or the next, but he is fairly certain that not saying anything at all will not be accepted. And he doesn't exactly want her to leave, just maybe no talk about it. Which also won't happen.
She watches him react and it is nothing unexpected. This right here is why she was taking her time, letting him shift it all around in his mind just like he does the answer to her question now.
But there is no time for taking time, not with the lives they lead now - or ever have, really. Adelaide has never really gone out of her way to make life happen, much of it spent riding through one storm or another on legs that seem made for it - but right now this carpe diem thing she seems to be doing feels pretty good.
And so by the time he formulates an answer, there's a very slight almost-smile touching her lips, and she lifts her brows. "Did I appear... unenthused?" she asks, and maybe she should take pity on him, but she just can't help it.
Anyone else would have enjoyed one of those withering glares before they got to watch him leave. But Addie is very much not anyone else, which also contributed to the fact that they kissed in the first place. Well, and then kissed again. And again. Sarge doesn't just kiss anyone and maybe he should tell her that but it sounds too much like a confession.
"How'd I know." It's a grumble, one of those very unenthused growls exclusively reserved for Hawkins siblings, because others just get snarled at. Or punched. It's his way if showing that he is not comfortable sharing anything about this subject, but that he also doesn't want her to think he's not answering her at all. That she could draw her own conclusions from this doesn't dawn on him, and maybe that is for the better. Finally his eyes can't help but wander back to her face and the relative darkness he sought out softens the intensity of his stare considerably. There is little he can do to mask it and so he would rather avoid altogether, which goes great with his general life strategies. "You're married." It seems as if this tidbit just dawned on him, but it has been festering in the cesspool of surpressed thoughts and emotions, shooting to the surface because there is no way to contain it any longer.
Adelaide's look is bland when he grumbles that first response, because clearly they both know, if overthinking isn't getting in the way, that the time they spent underneath the RoundUp that night was not something either one of them was indifferent to. Adelaide knows she is not mistaken in that, at the very least, even if one could wonder what they were supposed to do about it all after the fact. That they both liked it is not really up for debate. "Well. If you really didn't know, that was me being enthused," she says, a wry murmur at his side.
But then his gaze catches her, hard, and though the fire's shadows play over it, Adelaide knows the expression and it hits her. Her heart turns over, feels an uncomfortable stab when he says those two words, but though she winces, she doesn't break his gaze.
"That is a technicality. Rob is dead," she says, the words falling like fat drops of guilt-laden hope while she tilts her chin upwards and looks stubborn. If he isn't dead it's ten times worse, so she hopes he is. "And who am I supposed to ask for a divorce, anyway?" She presses her lips together, lets go of the stubborn in favor of just plain honesty. She knows he's going to wish them both dead in the ground for what she's going to say, but she didn't seek him out tonight to do this halfway. "I married him to stay alive. I kiss you because you're who I want to kiss. I don't kiss just anyone," she says, echoing his thoughts without knowing it.
There are a few sarcastic responses slowly dying somewhere at the back of his throat because Sarge doesn't want to be a jackass about this, no matter how much this is in his instincts. No matter how much he is trying to tell himself that they were both drunk, that what they did was nothing but the alcohol, they are both not like that. The only thing drinking has ever done was lower his inhibitions, make those walls crumble just enough to make him a little more sociable than usual. It certainly never made him do anything he didn't want to do. Things he wouldn't have done sober, sure. Things he would regret the next day, most definitely. But never anything he was absolutely opposed to. So all his internal arguing has been for nothing, because he knew all of this but didn't want to admit that, and it irks him.
And he wants to scoff at her marriage being a technicality , because in spite of their upbringing he does believe in the whole til death thing, but maybe that's just his own blasted loyalty issue. Or maybe he'd prefer it that way because he wouldn't have to face what he is facing now, talking about possibilities that involve anything but him staying the hell away from her as possible. He's fairly sure that somewhere inside him an avalanche has started to gain momentum and there is not a damn thing he can do about it.
So in the end it doesn't matter at all. Whether she is, technically, still married. Whether or not he is done figuring out his own emotional landscape, which he pictures like the surface of the moon. With more craters. What happened happened. And for some unfathomable reason Addie doesn't hate him for it. Talks about liking. And Sarge feels completely helpless with that avalanche of feelings so he pulls out his last trump card, the biggest complication of all. "Your brother's gonna kill me.”
After the words leave her lips, Adelaide holds her breath.
It's not that she doubts him, doubts what she knows has been happening, slowly but surely, since the first time they saw each other again at the flea market. But the way that he responds right now, whatever his response is about to be, will color the way they go forward. What's happening feels inevitable to her, but she's very much aware that it can happen like a leap, or like a reluctant, nails-dragging crawl. She knows his stubborn mind, and whatever side he falls on now will make all the difference.
So when he uses the future tense in his ominous prediction, he might think of it as a trump card, but she starts to smile. Just slight, an irrepressible curve of the lips she doesn't quite smother. Gonna kill me, not Would kill me, not conditional, and that is something. She nods soberly, and because she has been itching for something since she came over here, she nudges his arm where they are aligned side-by-side, lets the back of her hand brush his in what could be accidental if it didn't send sparks. Hardly anything, but better than nothing. "He'll want to," she agrees. "You got the advantage of bein' somebody he might hesitate on, though," she says. "Which is more than most can say?”
It is too late to take his words back and find better ones, and when he sees her smile at him like that he panics. At least he thinks it is panic, but he's also grinning, just a little bit. Because for once he doesn't want to be this grave looking guy with the frown lines. This feeling is new and that is inherently scary and he looks at his dusty boots, with that grin somehow refusing to go away. He also doesn't shift away from her, as he probably should, and standing so close to her, his hand still against hers. That seems very daring and foolish and stupid and very much unlike the Sarge he thinks he knows. "Yeah, maybe you wanna remind him to hesitate." Because the fact that Rodeo knows him is precisely why he thinks this will go very badly. There are few things his best friend doesn't know about him and there is not a single redeeming quality about himself that will make this better in any way, shape or form. It will only make it worse, because a fella like him has no business with someone like Addie. And yet he can't bring himself to care, not even with hardly any liquor in his system. "He won't. He knows me. That's worse.”
He's standing there grinning at his boots and Adelaide doesn't know exactly how her life went from sterile walls and pennyloafers and a husband with too many recording devices and a foot fetish and uncertain loyalties to this - to open skies and snapping bonfires and big, familiar, grouchy people who feel like home and who make sense to her and who say six words and get across a thousand. She doesn't know how it happened, should probably feel far, far more guilty than she does, but she's more inclined to enjoy it.
The pull of gravity right now is decidedly sideways, and everywhere there is contact between them hums pleasantly. "You can use me as a human shield," she vows, as if she'll block more than a quarter of him, as if Rodeo won't be furious with her, too. But she doesn't have time to stay amused before he says the rest, and she immediately wrinkles up her nose, makes an impatient sound. "Don't be ridiculous," she chides, finally turning her body towards him, brows winging upwards, hand alighting on his wrist like she's small and wants to drag him along to where he will see sense. Her voice stays low, but insistent. "You know Jims thinks the world of you. You know it ain't about that. It wasn't about that when he got mad at the cave and it won't be about that now.”
It doesn’t happen very often that Sarge wants to be convinced that he is wrong, and the fact that it is happening now makes him dig in his heels while he fights the urge to flee as fast as he can. But he doesn't want to be all kinds of wrong for her and he doesn't want his best friend to hate him for it. Most of all... he doesn't want to have to choose between them. Because that is what this conundrum comes down to in his head, betraying his best friend by continuing this, or pushing Addie away by not continuing. And Sarge doesn't want to pick sides because he is sure it would kill him.
Yet it seems so much easier to make decisions when Addie is with him, even though he knows his brain has little to do with this process. "You know him. He ain't gonna like any of this." The toothpick travels from one corner of his mouth to the other just like he is rolling around thoughts in his head, his eyes darting around them, fixing on Sonny and a few other patches by the fire. This is an innocent enough scenario if nobody happens to listen in, but he feels uncomfortable nonetheless. "Feel like walkin'?"
Adelaide, for her part, doesn't feel like whatever has gone on between them all this time is somehow some kind of betrayal, though she knows that Sarge will think of it that way. His ideas of morality have always been a good deal less bendy than hers. She likes that about him, likes that she's always been able to trust his instincts, to trust he will tell her the blunt truth as he sees it - maybe not in many words, but effectively enough.
She nods in answer to his question and they set out side by side, away from the fire and the seemingly millions of people there, through the maze of trailers and tents. A tipsy couple comes tumbling out of a trailer together and crosses their path, subdued with the news of the day but still wrapped up in each other, but then after their noise fades Adelaide and Sarge are relatively alone, and she stays comfortably close at his side.
"Course he's not gonna like it," Adelaide says, continuing the thought and looking up toward him as they walk. "If he hadn'ta gotten locked up I'd never have even been on a damn date," she says, with more fondness than bitterness to it. "But nobody's gonna convince me we did anything wrong. It hasn't been a secret, it's been a... work in progress," she decides, looking satisfied with that terminology.
Normally Sarge would have suggested that they go to his house, which he still thinks of as a glorified tool shed. And he would have been flustered, afraid to seem like he was implying anything, what with his bed being the only furniture one could sit on and all. But since Lori showed up like a revenge demon straight out of some messed up redneck folklore that is out of the question, even if he just saw her right by the fire, flirting with some Hounds. Sarge is vaguely aware that she expects him to be jealous in some way, which he isn't. Not because he is not the type for it, but because he doesn't care about her. Which he thinks he should feel at least a little guilty about. Maybe later.
When they are alone, relatively speaking, Sarge finds himself just a tad more fidgety, and he doesn't dare to check if he has sweaty palms. Which he probably has, and he grumbles at that thought. Life was considerably easier without emotions running amok inside his head and he feels strangely helpless about it all.
"'cause nobody woulda been worthy in his eyes," Sarge sort of mumbles, because that's exactly the problem. He is fucked up, that's no secret, and as such falls into the decidedly unworthy category. That Adelaide displays any interest in him is most likely due to some temporary insanity or marriage PTSD and he shouldn't take advantage of that. "He ain't gonna agree with your... evaluation," is grumbled around a cigarette he doesn't light because Lori always complained and of course he'd remember criticism.
Adelaide doesn't feel nervous, not exactly, though her pulse picks up the more they leave the firelight in the distance behind them. It isn't nerves, so much as a bright disbelief. Every other time this - this - what else to call it? - has been alluded to outside of their own two heads, it has happened in uniquely one-time, isolated, other-worldly places, closed off from outside eyes and segregated from mundane things like the sound of a shower running in somebody's trailer as they pass, the glow of a nightlight from a window, the sound of muted laughter in a kitchen. This right now feels like taking a scoop of something made up and pouring it, solid and tangible, into life.
It feels goddamn good.
She turns her head to examine his profile, trusting him enough to follow where he walks, and as she does it she brings her right arm across to pinch her left, a little tribute to her thirteen-year-old self who would never believe this. She'd describe the way she's feeling as helpless, too, but that would imply that she's even trying to help it, and that's just not so. There are three categories of people in Adelaide Hawkins' life: Like, Dislike, and Mine. Sarge has been in that last category literally forever, and so this - this - is really not so far a shift. Except that it is a shift, so completely and fundamentally, at the same time. It's a strange dichotomy, to know each other so completely and yet be nervous to reach out and touch - but these Montgomery people have always done things their own way.
She scoffs in that impatient way of hers, shakes her head. "Well he doesn't have to agree," she says, mulish, and then she lifts her shoulders. "It ain't about worthy or not worthy. God knows I'm a mess. It's about what works and what's good and this..." She takes a breath, lifts her eyes again, and her voice is soft, bordering on reverent, like saying it too loud will break a spell. "You grumble all you want, but this is good."
It amuses him how much this could have taken place when he was younger. Can't go to my place cause my mama's crazy. Can't go to yours cause... yours is too. Just that there are no mothers anymore, no drunk fathers, just a former fiancé and a brother who would most definitely kill him if he knew. Fun times. He snorts and shakes his head.
All around them people are going about their usual routines and it is not the first time Sarge wonders how they can go on if the things that are happening are everything but normal. Just that for once those things happening in his life are not bad, do not tear apart his insides. At least not much and not in an entirely unpleasant way. It is something he marvels at, quietly, as if he is some old scholar wandering through a new art exhibition. Maybe he could have had this when he was younger, if he had just known how to let anyone in, but Sarge doesn't think that that's how it works. Women are generally sorted into two categories, at least those of a certain interest - they fall in line with the bitches they have here, alright for a night, and then there are those that are too good for fellas like him. And even though Addie undoubtedly falls into the latter category she also is family. She doesn't have to wait until he lets her into the maze he built around the fortress protecting him, she is already there. While others would need to work on finding their way she has the advantage of already knowing him and being able to translate his unspoken words just as well as the spoken ones. And he just knows that if he would try to wall her off she would knock them right back down. Sarge discovers that he kind of likes that. Kind of a lot.
Just when he thinks he might know how to go about maybe taking her hand the tone of her voice changes, and Sarge finds that he has just about reached his serious talk limit for the day. "You gon' drive me fuckin' mad, woman," he mutters and swiftly grabs her hand to pull her into a narrow passageway between two campers that is just dark enough for him to pull her tightly against him and try their first bona fide sober, not in peril kiss.
And there he goes again, breaking through the dark all out of nowhere and startling her in the best way. This is what she's always known was in him, the humor and the light so well hidden but so close if you knew where to look - or were lucky enough to be one of the chosen few.
That statement from him draws a laugh, ringing warm while she is pulled, beyond willing, into the dim space. She doesn't have time to form a response, to tell him she fully intends to drive him mad if she gets the chance, before he kisses her grinning mouth. Adelaide goes on tiptoe, twines her arms around his neck and falls readily into the kiss. This time there is nothing tentative about it, just the dive straight in and the bright welling of giddy disbelief that then melts off into something with much more burn than shine. Her grin gets replaced with a murmur of pure pleasure that hums against his mouth - Adelaide has always been adept at taking more of things that please her, and as she melds against him top to toes it's obvious that applies here as well.
This isn't talking and, after his initial hesitation due to the newness and the perceived wrongness, Sarge finds it a lot easier to deal with. In all fairness, the way Adelaide responds has a lot to do with it and he can't help but wonder just how hard it will be to not kiss her after this. And how exactly to tell Rodeo, because coming clean will be a lot more difficult as time passes.
As it is he decides to let all that worrying go for a bit, also uncharacteristic, because it interferes with his enjoyment of the moment. Considering the fact that he didn't think he was anywhere near ready to even sit next to Addie this is easy enough and he leans against the side of yet another trailer, pulling her against him and leaning his forehead against hers to take a break. Because no matter how enjoyable this is, he still wants to take things slow and isn't quite sure just how long he can guarantee he'll agree with himself on this.
Affection is something that has been deeply lacking in Adelaide’s life, these past years. In Boston, before things went bad, there was Prince who was always very hands-on and possessive though they were only friends. But life with Rob never included those kinds of touches, a hand on her back as they walked, a brush of her hair in passing, an embrace just for the hell of it in the middle of the day. With Rob physical contact was practically penciled into his planner, and even then it was something else altogether. She grew up with affection from her brother, and it hasn’t really occurred to her until now that she’s been so isolated since. She drinks it in when Sarge holds her there, her face tipped up to his, noses brushing, fingertips tracing the back of his short hair, and she’s so pleased that she doesn’t even smile, she just looks up into his face while she memorizes how this feels.
After a moment she presses her lips together, reddened from the kiss and his scruff. “See?” she says, words hardly more than a murmur since she’s close enough that he can feel them shaped. “Not trying to be presumptuous or anything, but that’s about as good as it gets. So, we probably shouldn’t waste it.”
A long, long time ago there were vague attempts made to be affectionate in his life, just barely enough for him to remember his mother before she turned crazy, but that is it. Everyone that has spent some time with him can work out that he never really learned any of this "feelings bullshit" as he likes to call it, and up until now he has always seen it as an advantage. It doesn't matter that Adelaide grew up in her own screwed up home, because he is only tallying up his own inadequacies.
But he doesn't squirm under her touch, and he considers that a great success, even if conscious effort is not involved. It feels too good to be uncomfortable and he tries to imprint every moment of it in his memory with an intensity that is all him, storing away this little moment of positivity in his life, even if - or rather because - it is far from little to him. "You have witchcraft in your lips," he all but chuckles, because of course he would remember a quote from Henry V. in this kind of situation.
Of all the people in the world to have a tendency toward Shakespeare, toward quoting Shakespeare especially, Sarge is the last one most would expect. But it makes sense to Adelaide that he would remember the words, choose them to say what he can't quite find the way to. It's not like quoting poetry so much as it is like using a skilled interpreter - it's just that the interpreter Sarge chooses happens to be The Bard. There’s no attempt to try and put a name to this, to assign rules, to make plans right now. Her goal, tonight, was to make plain that she hadn’t just kissed him on some whim, to assure herself he felt the same, and she’d say that’s a resounding mission accomplished. And so this interlude is a bonus, one she’ll gladly take.
His words make her smile, and it's easy to believe when that dimple shows up and mischief lights her eyes that there is some kind of spell there between them. She lifts one hand from the back of his neck, up to lightly brush fingertips across his brow, along his cheek, insatiably curious what his reaction will be to this other sort of affection, curious how such a familiar face feels under her touch. “Wonder if I got it in my fingers, too,” she muses.
In the seconds between him speaking and Addie's reaction Sarge regrets saying those words, as he usually does on those rare occasions when he reveals something about himself he is reluctant to share. Being exposed like this is new and strange and Sarge doesn't quite know what to make of it. Especially because he has spent all his life trying to avoid a situation like that and he still feels raw, as if whatever wounds are there never healed - because he won't let them.
But to his surprise Adelaide doesn't laugh at him, doesn't tell him what a damn fool he is for spouting off Shakespeare at her when he can't even say his own words. Her reaction is infinitely worse and so much better at the same time, and now he really does flinch. Sarge is at home in a world of violence, of fists and guns, not gentle hands brushing over his face. His eyes roll to the side as if they want to track her movement, expecting her to change her mind and slap him instead. That mindset is so deeply ingrained within him that he doesn't even know how to stop expecting the worst. Especially because he is so often right.
While his head is still busy thinking things the rest of him has made a decision, and his head tilts towards her hand ever so slightly. It is only then that he realizes that his arms might be a little too tight around her, as if he is afraid that she might slip away and disappear, so he loosens them just enough and decides to go for levity in an attempt to distract her from... him. "How come you get to say that 'n if a fella like me said it it's inappropriate?"
That Sarge has a past is no news to Adelaide, a past full with abuses both physical and psychological that have left their marks. She wasn’t there for all of it, but she was there enough to know, and he never had a big brother to stand between him and his father’s fists, or a baby sister to practice affection with. He had her and Jims, but his demons were never shared the same way hers and Jims’ were, and in the end she finds she admires him for being as whole as he is, considering. She isn’t alarmed when he flinches, she doesn’t startle, her eyes just hold, fingertips continuing till her palm rests flat against his chest.
Her brows lift up at his question, and she lets herself be taken with the levity. “Darlin, I’m pretty sure you officially - er. Officially-ish? -“ Her color rises just a little bit there, as she realizes she is only drawing more attention to that particular verbal blunder of subconscious presumption. She gives a wry look up at him from under her lashes, laughs low at herself and starts over, fingertips spreading thoughtfully against his shirt. “I’m pretty sure you get to say stuff like that without being inappropriate, once you’ve kissed on purpose a few times.”
Some day, maybe, Sarge will sit down and attempt to figure out whether Addie's knowledge of his past is a good thing or just plain scary. Because to him it just helps to highlight all the things he isn't and will most likely never be. And up until recently he didn't have a problem with that. Or, to be honest, didn't have any reason to think about any of it. Now he wants to be a better man, but he is also convinced that he can't, and it puts him into a strange place, one that is surprisingly hurtful.
Not that it matters right now, because not even his stubborn head can hang on to his dark clouds when Addie looks at him like that. Sarge freezes for a moment when she calls it "official", but the way her color changes twists his stomach in an interesting way and he forgets to frown. Instead he tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and lets his hand linger against her cheek for a few heartbeats, curiously examining the odd things happening inside him. "Now, just how often is a few times", he drawls, leaning down so his face is just a few inches away from hers. "Just wanna make sure I ain't below the acceptable limit."
Again she would swear they are magnetized, as his hand brushes and her cheek gravitates toward it so automatically, and her eyes close for half a moment like she’s savoring it. His drawl has her looking playful, a coy arch to her brows while that face - good lord, that face - comes in close. If ever a day comes that she doesn’t feel his nearness so acutely, she’ll be shocked. It doesn’t feel like the sort of thing that fades.
“Well,” she begins, sounding just a touch like her bossy younger self directing Prembus decor, except there is a whole new level here so that the familiarity is only an echo. “I’ve been under the impression that we’re talking separate encounters, not just kisses, so you’re gonna have to find me again,” she says, almost prim except for the way her eyes dance. There’s a beat, and then she lifts up on her toes, bringing her face to a whisper or two away from his. “But then, I could have it all wrong…”
A low rumble in his chest speaks more than he could with any words, and he only half realizes he is doing it. All this is new territory and Sarge is absolutely not prepared to tuck it all away as usual, it seems to spill over whenever he is not paying attention.
With their faces so close he is very sure that he can get used to this, once the pulling in his stomach subsides - and if he is honest, he doesn't really want it to. "I reckon we better play it safe..." But because the powers that be never seem to be in his favor he is interrupted just as their lips touch, because the sound of a wailing child is approaching, and along with it is someone calling for Addie. Sarge grumbles and takes a step back. "Looks like we oughta save this for another time."
Before Pickles' voice even starts to call out, Adelaide recognizes that wail. It's a funny thing, becoming a mother and becoming so irrevocably tuned into another human that their cry could be distinguished from a hundred other cries - or the half dozen cries of other children here. It's something that Adelaide never expected. She never had the childhood experience of waking up sick in the middle of the night, standing silent in the doorway to a mother's room and watching her wake via some mysterious mama-sense. Adelaide didn't know such things existed outside of devoted big brothers until she was the one waking.
She feels the loss of Sarge's arms as he moves away, and she keeps his gaze a bit longer. "Pencil me in for some time before Christmas, yeah?" she says, lingering just a few beats, though it's plenty clear enough that if she has to wait that long she'll be real disappointed. She calls back to Pickles, then, while they move out of the secluded little space and toward the light. The Patch finds them easily enough and Charlie in his footie pajamas has his arms out, little hands making grabby motions for her and crocodile tears staining his cheeks. "Muh," he blubbers when he sees her, and once he's in her arms he buries in, rubbing his face with his fist sleepily.
"Tried to get him to go back down, but he just kept on with that 'Muh' sound," Pickles says, whipcord arms now free to push back his dark hair.
"That's alright," she replies, as Charlie quiets. "Thanks for keepin' an eye out, honey. I'll bring him back." She looks back to Sarge, tilts her head, and if Pickles sees anything more than what's normal, or if he wonders what they were up to out here, he keeps it to himself. "G'night, darlin'," she says, with a warm and satisfied little smile that shows him she’s plenty happy with the state of things.