"ya know, ya gotta stop worrying so much." he teases, wide grin on scarred features as he playfully tugs on a lock of her hair. "i'm fine, came back in one piece - so don't frown." kyle's tone becomes soft, caressing the tender skin of her cheek. "you'll get worry lines at this rate..."
It was only meant to be a week, maybe two tops, that they would perform humanitarian services before they would go back home to their normal lives. That was what the GRE had briefed herself and Erron on before the three of them got dropped into a hot zone
And everything that could go wrong went wrong from the moment they touched the ground.
That should have been a telling sign for Rosie,
yet the stupid girl held hope.
That was almost 2 months ago, and now communication had become so scarce she was starting to believe the GRE had left them there to die like everyone else. Because Kyle was infected...and they would not leave without him.
She would not leave without him.. Not now, not ever.
Not even if he fully changed into an infected. It was that reckless undying loyalty that kept Erron chained with her in this hellhole they were trying to save.
Usually she was one to sleep in, but that morning a restless anxiety woke her up as kyle slipped off the bed from her arms. He threw on his clothes and his gear, and from the corner of her computer setup she watched him from the chair quietly sipping blackened coffee she had learned to tolerate with their scarce resources. She hadn't meant to give away her worries, but Kyle had an eye for detail when her forehead had a habit of wrinkling when she though too deeply. His sudden voice startled her out of her thoughts. She was quick to swivel in her chair and start up the system in an effort to hide the fact that she had been caught,
" Its not about the fact that you manage to make it back in one piece, its that fact that things seem to be getting worse out there with the gangs, the infected are the least of our worries at this rate..."
The gunfire, the supply shortage being raided by Rais and his people before any other survivor had a chance to take it. She was no runner, she was only the tech, and all that was good for was surveying and emergency escapes. Rais has been a variable that she and Erron had been left in the dark about in terms of what they were dealing with in the quarantine zone. She had high hopes before that dwindled in faded every day, and the optimism she had come in with was nearly all capoot. Fed up with her own helplessness, she'd been scheming how she could be more than just a useless set of eyes to this community. The thought drifted as she shot a bitter look to the charging drone she booted up with the rest of her system,
" The supplies are short, Antizen is practically liquid gold that people are dying for, what if we dont have enough for --, " you
Kyle Crane could move like a shadow and not make a single sound for a man his side, a talent he often displayed by sneaking up on her when she was deep in her world of tech. Her words fell short at the sensation of his hands combing through her unruly brown bed head, her anxiety temporarily quelled by a wave of chills that eased her tenses. Rosie couldnt help the soft sound of relief she made, the smallest tremble that rattled through her frame before she collapsed back in the chair and looked up at Kyle staring down from above. Their exchanges could often be entire silent, expressed solely through affectionate gazes and the tender touch of the hand. A touch starved creature she was, the feeling of his hands on her round cheek drew a tenderness from the tech and revived the hope she believed had gone flatline.
"you'll get worry lines at this rate..."
His voice alone makes her heart beat just a little louder in her chest, and stirs an impractical emotion at the core of her gut when he had to leave so soon. Rosie returns a wry smile in response,
"Worry lines are probably the last thing I have to worry about when there is an army of angry infected people that want to take a bite out of me..."
She sighs, but her hands reach up and curl around the palm cradling her cheek. In the back of her mind she muses at the fact his hand alone could probably cover her whole face... at the forefront of her mind, a more glaring issue demands itself to be voiced,
" I just feel.. so useless in here. Im tired of being useless.
All I do is keep watch, I get you out of situations... but im not really helping anyone but you. The tower people probably think im just some weird tech hermit that eats their supplies and hides behind a screen all day... They probably look at me and think I could feed at least a small platoon of guards for like a week."
Being as plump as she was, becoming a humanitarian didn't take away the self consciousness that came as people looked at her in disbelief that the GRE would send someone like her into a place like his with the expectation to survive. Thinking too long on it caused her expression to screw up bitterly and the girl to pull away from Kyle to return back to her lit up monitor. Rosie hunched forward, allowed her unbrushed hair to hide her face as she rubbed the stupid self conscious water from her eyes and punched her password in the system. The Drone at its station whirred to life with the startup program , Rosie stared pointedly at the screen in refusal of letting anyone see her pathetic tears,
" I have to be something more than eyes, Kyle... Im tired of being something that everyone has to save or look out for... I'm gonna start making adjustments to my tech to be something that people actually need to.."
