Kali reached for her thermos, unscrewing it with a brief glance to see if Gabriel would take her suggestion. He made absolutely no movement, which wasn't always an indication he was ignoring the request, but he whined about it, which was. Something glib, as usual - but points to him, she almost bristled at the suggestion of Curry Express, but bitch cravings pushed it too far, and she came tumbling back into boredom.
Where was the unpredictability she expected? Ah, well.
"No," She deigned to answer after a moment, eyes still locked on her screen. She sipped at her drink - Masala Chai from West Bengal to be precise - and when Gabriel leaned against the nearby unoccupied desk, she looked away from her supposed work to scan him up and down. Eyes a flicker of knives and needles and broken glass; sharp and raking him down like a firm hand.
"True," She decided, settling her gaze at his mouth. Once Loki might have left some indication she'd been there - some evidence of her superior strength - a bite, or the shadow of one. This Gabriel was flawless, like she hadn't been trying to draw blood. The thought was distasteful, and she shifted back to her screen again listlessly, "Yes, that's him," She waved a hand, bracelets clicking like teeth, "Thank you," Kali's thank you fell like confetti; easy enough, but meaningless, just something papery to celebrate the social occasion.
Kali hadn't expected much from security, but she had expected less of Gabriel, and ignored the self-satisfying sound of Gabriel congratulating himself as he reappeared. If a creature could love themselves, Gabriel would be in close contest with Narcissus and probably think they were a more attractive flower at that. She snorted at the thought, and took another sip of her drink, feeling it burn at her mouth in that satisfying fashion.
-She twisted round, chair swiveling to face him. Looked up at him, dark eyes chips of onyx: cold and badly hewn. "Did you do that a lot?" She dug her fingernails into the thermos a bit too tight, scraping into the plastic. She released her grip somewhat, ruining the contained, "Skip ahead?"
Anger flickered - all but danced in her nerves - but it was too familiar, and unextraordinary. Where the unpredictability she favoured? Nothing here was new; Loki was manipulative, and she was a mouthful of scalding water. This was as familiar, and domestic as it was unimportant, and tired. Kali's anger faltered- and after another examining look at Gabriel, twisted into cooling pain. It reached her face, fled through her in a tight hold on the drink, puncturing it.
She swivelled her chair back as soon as she felt the pain reach her eyes, jerking away. She set the thermos on the desk, where it began slowly leaking from where she'd dug into it.
"The office next to the print room has a guy who deliberately abuses baristas for fun," Kali commented, waved a hand at Gabriel dismissively, "He also uses up all the printer tone."
Arguments crackled like sparks of electric, frayed tendons of white-hot fire ignited by the next stricken blow---- baited, seething, scourged in that forsaken visceral, stagnant loop; fluid expulsion of compressed tension, watching the cycle revolve from cheeky into another tumultuous, self-destructive spiral to further draw himself closer to the slow burn that seeped in and singed at his nerves, enraptured him into conflicted scathing; folly, rife, her appraisal taunted his every motive-
She beheld something of significance, filled a void previously occupied by absence, disrupted the silence left behind by a deaf Father; muted reverence kept him near, tethered his essence to her as if bound by an invisible chain; a twisted, contorted, ensnarement to which he belonged, settled in, losing the volition to fight what had become so routine, contrived into everyday normality. Bickering tied them together, ripped them apart, setting their paths onto a self-destructive spiral that seemed to fuel the tension building in the gaps of absence.
What many contrived as an unhealthy toxic relationship, attachment intensified almost as headily as the impetuous refute.
Golden irises cast into a sharp emphasis of deadpan, slicing away from the Goddess to absorb the blow dealt, perpetuated by anger and deeply boiling loathe for his behavior, assumed bitterness relaying to her track record to playing hard to get.
"Yeah," his tone chided with the sear of sarcasm, self-defensive to protect the sudden stab of emotion carving through his chest; proverbial daggers cutting into exposed flesh. "He likes t' get handsy with em', I know. I've been lurking on that asshole for days, but that ain't----" why I'm here. Not completely; a side trip to something far more interesting, Kali.
"You really think I would've let you get your hands on my blood, if I had?"
Hell no. Though he'd swapped out the fake angel blade, knowing Kali's temper and the general consensus was that angels were not openly accepted, love would not have stopped her from upholding her reputation against the betrayal.
"I wasn't stringing you along, if that's what you're implying."