Reagan & Luke | Friday Evening | Quarantine
She traced the spiral of his curls, pressed slick against his dewy brow, with rising concern. His eyes, normally bright and focused (even when the same could not be said of his attention) looked bleary and pained, and for a moment she forgot her own pride enough to be genuinely concerned. For him, for herself, for all of the others here... what in the world could have possibly caused all of this?
She shifted herself slowly and carefully to better face him, resting her cheek against her pillow and trying not to feel the way the cot mattress pressed into her hip. She glanced away from her examination of his face to eye the rock he extended, a sharp exhalation of breath the closest thing to a chuckle she could muster. She recognized it, of course. Back in their adolescence, she could recall him making a show of kissing the gleaming tiger's eye right before he was about to do something showy and foolish.
"You still have that."
It was not so much a question as an awed observation. She glanced back up at him, his faced lined with grimaces of discomfort and pain that she knew all too well. She shouldn't be surprised, really, that he still believed in lucky rocks, but didn't have the strength to be biting or realistic just then. Besides, she knew how much that silly thing meant to him... for him to offer it up was a sweet gesture, if not a naive one.
"No, you keep it. I don't think... my luck can get much worse." She pushed a snarl of hair from the corner of her chapped lips. "Thistledown," she noted absently. "That's a new one." His repertoire of nicknames for her was unmatched, truly. "How long have you been here?"