#atalesdivide

"Oh, the keys even match the motif, how wonderful." This wasn't freaky at all. Nope. Taking the items, she shoved them in her backpack before shrugging. "What started it? Let's see, my parents are assholes and my brother abandoned me with them so I left a couple of years ago and I've been traveling around since. What's your story? Why a hotel in the middle of freaking nowhere?"

❛ &. ┊ Love never quite dies, regardless how often it breaks one’s heart; the way she curls up into herself in the other man’s lap reminds him of times gone by where she would do the same in his, and where it still meant something, anything at all. It feels distant now, her perfume in his lungs, his fingertips in her hair. He asks himself almost inevitably whether it took her as much time as with him to open up, to give him the permission to hold her in the most vulnerable situations. But regrets he the question as soon as he’s uttered it in his thoughts, clenches his jaw when Ezio’s eyes flutter open and catch him standing in the door frame, lost somewhere in his own memories. The way the late afternoon sun tickles his skin, has him glow as if he were not the devil incarnate. He couldn’t care less about the shape of his sleepy mouth, the drowsiness of his lashes -- he says to himself in the same breath as he promises a heated mind that he’s not jealous. That jealousy is absolutely inappropriate.

Thumb absentmindedly brushes over the ring he wears day in day out as he leaves the scene to enter the kitchen, eyes desperately skimming the furnishings for some sort of distraction. But it helps little; the sound of a soft thud as her dozing body is placed on the mattress instead and the terribly ear-deafening steps as Ezio approaches catch his attention in an instant. Gaze is cast over his suit-clad shoulder, eyes beyond expressive albeit he forced his voice to remain steady as he asks, “ Couldn’t sleep? ”

&. ┊ Here he’d believed he would have had the apartment to himself, hands placing atop the counter a bag of groceries before wrapping calloused fingertips around a bottle of water. And would his eyes not quite recognise the subtle mess as he spun, hands unbuttoning his shirt only to toss it moments after while feet carried him over to one of Moa’s bathrooms -- but just how stable could feet be when they stumbled backwards as another door opened, eyes catching a glimpse of bare skin long enough for the lawyer to finally realise he was not alone? “ ----------- Fuck -- ” Eyes were already torn off the silhouette, fingertips fumbling to pick his shirt off the ground and hasty in their efforts to put it back on. “ Is Moa -- ” the question, though, he didn’t even bother finishing as he looked past far too much uncovered flesh,  regretting almost not just having driven to his hotel room instead. But alas, some of his more comfortable clothes were still here where he’d first left them years ago.

"Hey with as much as you're gone? It's quite possible your idea of fun changed," Ray said as she stood up and grabbed her phone, turning on her flashlight app. "Guess we better find out, right?" Tucking the pink locks behind her ear, she started inching towards the door before looking at him and reaching out to grab his hand. "It'll be okay. If there is one I'll just vanquish it. We'll be fine."

❛ &. ┊ “ The seat was not vacant. ” Though is his complain not persuasive enough; fingertips halt typing away on his keyboard, wrap instead around his cup of coffee -- perhaps he ought have chosen a different time to enjoy a toothachingly sweet coffee at the local coffee shop, should have known just how full it would be around the time of day. But alas, even the old have to learn. He eyes quietly his counterpart, but briefly, then allows his gaze to drift back to the opened document. “ But by all means, as long as you let me finish my work. ”

"So are you coming in or not?" London said as she opened the gate to the cemetery, looking over her shoulder at the other. "Or have you chickened out?"

"You're quite the talker aren't you?" Mercy asked, staring at Arthur across the table, drink in hand. "Come on, tell me something about you that's going to make me interested, aside from your looks." Tilting his head, he hummed softly. "I can't just go on about my fabulous self all night - well I could but I don't want to seem like I'm the only interesting one here."

       ———  ( LATE NIGHTS  ; accepting !  )  *  @atalesdivide

THEY’RE  SITTING  ON  THE  RYDERS’  FRONT  PORCH,  shoulder  to  shoulder  and  a  blanket  carelessly  draped  over.  There’s  still  a  little  chill  in  the  Georgia  night  but  it’s  nothing  the  share  body  heat  of  being  pressed  together  close  can’t   fix.  The  question  catches  Gabe  off  guard,  comfortable  in  the  silence  but  it’s  not  exactly  a  question  he  knows  how  to  answer.  How  to  answer  without  feeling  stripped  bare  and  vulnerable.  ❝  Dunno  if  there  was  an  exact  moment.  Think  it  just  kinda  hit  me  one  day.  ❞  He  finds  himself  looking  at  the  ground  as  the  lie  spills  from  his  lips.