nadia costa (treta) wrote in remains_rpg, |
“Gleaming. Does that mean you are happy for me?” she speaks wryly into the air, painfully aware of his proximity behind her. “We’re not…” He does not let-up. If anything, when she ends that thought fragment they bury deeper, the pads of his fingers moving against her scalp, each follicle patted as he moves along until they rake at her temples. Her neck is exposed, with strands of her hair caught between all ten of his fingers. It’s hard to describe what she and Antón are, and even more difficult with Nate’s hands on her. We are not fiancees, or anything, but that’s too close to a reminder that she doesn’t want, in either direction. “He is my only friend, the only piece of my past. It makes me feel as if that whole time wasn’t a dream, you know? That it really happened, that even my country really existed, for otherwise it’s so far away. I am so grateful and glad that he is still alive. I was… well, lonely.” If he didn’t have the men and women of Harlan here with him, what would that have felt like? Nate can remember what it was to be somewhere with no one, with nothing. For months he had travelled and much of the time he was with out any company at all except the books he read, the stories he ripped through under candle light and flickering, faltering flashlights. “I understand lonely.” It’s a promise, a consolation… Something that is more personal and intimate than the party or even his fingers lightly strumming the base of her hairline, tempted to move down her neck and knead her shoulders. They’ve tensed up. She’s too hyper-alert when it comes to him, too tempted to simply lean back into the touch and savour that closeness; so her muscles wind tighter instead. “Except,” the woman says carefully, “that you have Bunny now. Yes?” She hates herself for this, briefly. Nadia is mentally berating herself, an internal flurry of chastising in her own tongue: Esta é uma má idéia, uma idéia muito ruim. Why is she so very good at bad ideas? “I’ve always had Bunny,” he says it back, as carefully as she asked the question. It doesn’t snap him back into reality because he sees the situation different. It doesn’t thwart the attention he’s giving to the woman sitting in the chair in front of him. His fingers continue to strum, to play her as if he’s playing a beloved instrument. “Do you feel so lonely now?” “No,” Nadia says honestly. “Look around you. You have somehow managed to bring all of my friends in this city together in one place. I owe you, gato.” Her hand flutters up and catches his, then reluctantly leans forward on her seat, skirting away from the touch and interrupting the massage—though she hasn’t let go of Nate’s hand, not just yet. “And you managed all three words, though it took some months. Well-done,” Laird Quinn, “Nathaniel.” |