“You’re so weird.” There was nothing but fondness in her voice as she teased their odd taste preferences. It was dangerous, how much comfort Sloane took in her fingers intertwined with Simeon’s, their thumb brushing over the back of her hand. Only maybe it was more dangerous for them. Who would look after them if…–no. Sloane couldn’t afford to think like that.
But Simeon needed looking after, capable as they were. Concern worked its way across her features as Sloane studied them carefully. Acid reflux, they said, like that was a normal issue for them. Sloane knew better, and Simeon would know she did. And they seemed better for now, so there was no sense calling them on it when they were likely just sparing her feelings.
“How soft they’ve made you.”
She looked down at her pancakes and bit the inside of her cheek, hard. Act normal, act normal, act fucking normal, she told herself. Simeon had asked a question. “I can tell you what they asked.” Sloane went rigid, forcing her face still, forcing herself to take a long, slow breath, her fingers tightening around Simeon’s. “Um…yeah…” she mumbled at her pancakes, hopeful the vague answer was enough to ease any suspicion for now.
The change in topic was a welcome distraction; she looked up at them with a smile, hoping they wouldn’t notice the cracks. “Don’t know how you taste it with all that cream.” As if Sloane could talk, her own drink sweetened with two sugar packets though she had yet to take a sip. “That is so not a fair trade.” Her smile came easier now. “The pancakes are cold and you’re gonna think they’re way too sweet, but have at it.” Sloane pushed her plate toward them, taking advantage of the space cleared in front of her to move the newspaper, turning it around so it was facing Simeon.
“Anyways, I think I’ve found us some decent leads. There’s a university here, you know how the angles love an impressionable audience. And there’s some journalist coming to town? Or she might already be here. I didn’t check the date on the paper but I doubt this is a weekly publication.”
Simeon had a breath of relief wash over them when Sloane accepted the flimsy excuse for why they’d gotten sick — she probably knew better, but was just humouring them, but they weren’t going to call her out on it either. They just wanted to soothe some of her worries and, unfortunately sometimes that means that you have to lie sometimes.
They breathed out a laugh at her calling them weird. “Yeah, maybe a little bit,” they agreed.
But Simeon didn’t miss that Sloane glided over their question, didn’t miss that her fingers tightened in theirs. Something was wrong — but what was wrong? Simeon didn’t want to jump to conclusions ( they didn’t want to jump to the likely conclusions ) and so they ignored the signs. Maybe they were getting soft, but they also had never been anything else.
A laugh, bright and just that little bit too loud, popped out of Simeon at comment about how they take their coffee. “At least I don’t put sugar in mine,” they said, smile on their face, “I don’t know how you drink something hot and sweet.” Simeon grabbed their fork, popping it in their mouth to get the rest of the tabasco off of it before they got to sample Sloane’s pancakes. “Iced coffee can be sweet but not hot coffee, y’know?”
Simeon stabbed a few cut up pieces of pancake thoroughly drenched in syrup until their fork was loaded, and shoved them into their mouth as Sloane spoke. They made a face at the sickly sweet taste of the syrup on their tongue, but still chewed the soggy pieces and swallowed. “Universities are always a safe bet to investigate,” they agreed. “There’s probably a few nephilim fucking shit up there too — those things like the university scene too.” Simeon forked another piece of pancake. “I think it’s because those uni years for people are just wild.” Not that Simeon themself would know from experience, but they could make an educated guess just from having watched humans for years.
“These are disgusting, Sloane,” Simeon said with a smile, and took another bite of her pancakes, “I don’t know how you get these at each diner.”