+ The Universe is under no obligation to make sense to You +

[vitaelamorte]

Who: EVERYONE!
Where: EVERYWHERE!
When: Saturday, May 19th - Wednesday, May 23rd.
Rating: PG-13, warn if you're gonna go higher!
Summary: A catch-all for the Kyln / Sierra Madre event!
The Story:

For the duration of this event, the entire mansion will be part space jail, part apocalyptic wasteland desert with an abandoned hotel/casino. On the third day an escape route not previously discovered in the Kyln appears and breakouts can be planned...

...Only for everyone to find themselves walking through a large glass prison toward the toxic gas filled wasteland of a desert, the Sierra Madre. Does the prison look better than the toxic cloud outside? If you're stuck in the prison after dark beyond day 3, you'll be forced into and locked in your cell for the night. But at least locked away, nothing from the outside can hurt you. If you try to brave the actual elements in the desert it might be a little hard to breathe. The air has pockets of toxic gas and even a few seconds of exposure could prove deadly. And watch out for the Ghost People.

Inside the abandoned hotel/casino you'll find shelter from the gas and ghosts, but beware the holograms that are 50/50 with their attitude. Prison beatings, a beating from the holograms, which one Would You Rather? And whatever you do, don't try on the collars lying around unless you like to explode. Literally.

[ This is a catch-all for all your prison/desert needs! Please mark your threads clearly in the subject line with your character's name and either a cell number or just a location if you didn't feel like randomizing it or you're making a top level for a public place (like the dining hall or wandering the hotel/casino). Here's the plot post if you need it!

Have fun! ]

Comments

[mucked]

[ give it a few days and peggy just might wrap her head around the deep-seated worry and horror bleeding through the edges of what rip says. much like the night of their first honest kiss, the simple existence of his concern for her isn't something she processes quickly or processes easily. there are reasons why he pauses where he does -- reasons why he quotes the guards directly -- and peggy won't let herself hear the things that go unvoiced.

sentimentality is a fresh and raw addition to their relationship and she would sooner see it quarantined to rip's quarters. confined to wednesday nights fading into thursday mornings. there should be no place for it in the here and now so peggy gives it no ground on which it might find purchase.

suddenly, his frustration and his ire and his disappointment are far far far more welcome. those she can parry and survive at half-strength or less. ]

Brutes. [ was any allied prison ever any better? she can't make that promise. but here she is, making another attempt to sit up. ] Hard to stomach that this is home.

[ a groan of pain; her fingers curl on a cell bar for support. she makes this second try now because he's got a whole cell to bound across if he wants to stop her once more. ]

Or at the very least a twisted piece of it.

[directed]

[Yes, funny how that concern keeps creeping up in him. It's almost as if Rip has somehow grown to care about Peggy during their time together, in a way that cannot be limited to their designated evenings--much the same way as those evenings have grown more frequent with the passing weeks, Thursdays and some Mondays and whenever the right chords are struck.

Not that that is a concern at present; Rip hears Peggy trying to get up before he sees her, lets his mouth drop open with a huff at the same time he raises his hands towards the heavens. Yes, why bother to stay on her back when she could sit up and possibly do herself more harm?

Bloody hell.]

A piece rather far removed from your corner of it. [Rip lets his hands fall back down by his sides; he's turned to face her better now, but notably doesn't move to help her. If she wants to strain herself so badly, then by all means; maybe she'll finally stay put if the pain turns too great.] Although such capacity for cruelty can exist in any time and place.

[He hasn't forgotten exactly which war Peggy fought in, after all. They are all of them horrible--but the depravity of that one twisted and vile beyond words.]

[mucked]

It's not the cruelty that surprises me.

[ because he's right -- hers had been a particularly brutal war. and in kneecapping what had remained of hydra's forces as the war came to a close, she'd opened herself up to witnessing all sorts of horrors. recorded on film, in files, in poorly dug graves. digging deeper, she knows there were atrocities on both sides. but now isn't the time to rehash old ground or to question her service.

nor is it the time to fling additional barbs at him as he mimes his frustration to the ceiling, to the unseen stars, to the space beyond this cell. not when she can feel a fresh sear of pain zigzag through her upper body simply because she's dared to engage her core. it's clumsy, it's miserable, and it's accompanied by a groan -- but she eventually sinks her spine against the cell wall.

her forehead shows a sheen of sweat simply from the effort. even so, peggy perseveres in her reply: ]

It's the -- whole notion of a space prison. The cameras in the doors. Bloody electrified batons. [ talking, swearing, bomb-building raccoons. ] The notion that any of it exists, and the fact that what's likely an entirely different galaxy counts for home.

[ the fact that she and rip find their own origin points less than a century apart and hardly a whole london borough away, and yet by wonderland's logic she has more in common (both metaphysically and existentially) with the arse-end of the universe than she does with him. an epiphany like this one only serves to draw a stark line between them. they are each of them pieces of two very different puzzles.

and under another circumstance she might have told him so, might have made an attempt to articulate that disappointment, but she still hasn't forgiven him for not helping her in her quest to sit up straight. ]

[directed]

[Never mind that he's being stubborn about it; there's a part of Rip that wants to go to Peggy's side all the same, particularly as she heaves herself up with such effort as to make herself sweat for it. But Rip holds back. They've got a battle of wills going on, the two of them, and crumbling now would only prove Peggy right and victorious, and God only knows what she might attempt then.

So instead he listens. Arms now crossed over his chest, he shifts to lean against a far wall while Peggy details all the differences between home as she knows it and home as it must be, given that this event comes from the universe she's part of. He doesn't quite pick up on those bits she leaves out this time--how it's illustrated for her plain and clear the distance between them. Rather, he approaches her astonishment from a different angle:]

What each of us calls home is a rather vast thing, Peggy. [Once more he pushes off, standing straight only to cross back towards her while he talks.] Not only in distance but also in time. We are all of us singular specks in universes that expand beyond what any of us can imagine, and yet everyone and everything within each of those universes are connected regardless. We are made of the same atoms, countless in number and yet resonating at a singular frequency all the same.

[He grins to himself as he continues on; for all he's known and learned in his time, Rip still enjoys that sense of wonder he gets to think about it all. He's not one who believes in coincidence, in chance--but even to him, the grandness of the design remains impossible to understand.

And that is perhaps how it should always be.

For a moment, his own awe shines strongly enough to make him forget that he's meant to be cross; Rip perches himself on the edge of her bed, his hands open, moving as he continues.]

And when you consider it like that, it's almost a miracle that we're both here now. [In a rancid place, surrounded by vicious guards and foul smells. Still.] The chances you would have known of this aspect of your "home" are infinitesimally small, and more so for me. But we are both experiencing it now regardless. It should be utterly impossible, and yet it's happened all the same.

It's enough to make you think that maybe this Wonderland isn't so inappropriately named after all.

[mucked]

[ a different setting does strange things to one's perception. stripped down to its nuts and bolts, and injury aside, there isn't too much that's different about this situation than any of the many that have come before -- the two of them, talking together, in a small room. but circumstances layer themselves over this moment like so many pieces of muslin, of cheesecloth, of tarpaulin. blood and grime and sweat and horrid prison uniforms.

his exasperation. her pettiness. their shared sharp disdain for giving ground even when they're both acutely aware of how much they can accomplish when they work in tandem instead of at loggerheads.

but something else develops as rip speaks. some new level, woven beneath his words, and just the bleary sight of his grin (grinned to himself, and not to her, but that changes nothing) hits her like a kind of distraction. a pain-dampener, maybe. he mightn't have heard the unsaid frustration underneath her complaint but his little lecture, florid though it is, answers her in spades.

peggy laughs. or it would have been a laugh, but the unpleasant spike of sensation along her ribs turns it guttural and hard. he has a way of making quantum physics come off as terribly romantic, doesn't he? ]

Sounds a bit like your wedding speech, doesn't it?

[ after that last spell, her eyes are shut but her head is still turned towards him -- as though she still reserves the right to crack a peek and watch him if she wanted to. and if her mind was clearer she wouldn't have noted the connection aloud. but, with so much of her attention focused on sitting upright, she surely can't be held accountable for her unfiltered commentary. ]

[directed]

[Romance hadn't truly been his intention, though Rip cannot say it doesn't provide a pleasant enough side-effect. The sound of her laugh might be pained, aborted before it can quite bubble out, but he'll take it all the same. Far better that than the horrible sight of her body slumping over before, motionless and still, after the guards had their way with her.

But the commentary, born of her own distraction, earns Peggy a huffed out laugh from him as well. More self-depreciating to be sure, and Rip shakes his head when the accusation settles in. He cannot say she is wrong, and as Rip thinks back to that little speech given so long ago, he remembers believing it more true than his pragmatic nature might care to admit.

Then, and now both.]

Guilty as charged, I suppose. [He glances over. Peggy's got her eyes closed, and it provides Rip opportunity. She won't like it much; they're only afforded privacy while the cell remains empty, and the open door allows anyone to walk in at any moment without warning. Yet he leans forward all the same, takes advantage of the fact that she can't really escape, and plants a gentle kiss on the corner of her mouth opposite the cut left behind by the guard's blow.

Just a quick thing; there and gone in less than a beat.]

[mucked]

[ it had been a humdinger of a ceremony, hadn't it? and even now peggy remembers rip's appeal to miracles -- his homily on probabilities -- as a centrepiece pearl in an already touching day. enough so that, come the reception, she hadn't been able to stop herself from commenting on it. and in dredging the memory up she proves (for better or worse) that the speech has stayed with her, gumming up the back-gears in the corner of her memory ever since. as if some part of it echoes stronger than the rest then it must be the lingering implication that opportunities exist to be seized.

rip says something about guilt and peggy wants to laugh again -- say something about how a prison is the right place for it -- but the pain discourages her. just as well. in the silence that follows, rip seizes an opportunity of his own.

it's only a kiss. in and of itself, a kiss is nothing revolutionary between them. past kisses have run the gamut: sweet or rough or brief or lingering or, more recently, as a sudden earnest stand-in for saying goodbye, take care, i'll see you soon. there are wednesday nights where they kiss more than they talk. but, nearly without fail, those kisses are also kept penned and sheltered in private spaces. their relationship exists on two levels, the public and the personal, and rip defies that line of demarcation when he leans close and makes his move against her inattention.

peggy's protest isn't immediate. first, she flickers rapidly through a mixed bag of sincere reactions. a sharp inward breath -- followed by the pain such a breath costs her -- and genuine affection in how she leans in to meet him, reaching for the side of his arm. her grip, well-meant, passes itself off as an attempt to stay steady and upright and less like an instinct to keep him near her. ]

Oh, for Heaven's sake. [ it's such a little kiss! barely more than a peck. but, surrounded by all this chatter of miracles and impossibilities, the worst words are out of her mouth before she can stop herself: ] That's not helpful in the least.

[ moodily, peggy sinks back. but she manages to sharpen her gaze and keep it affixed on him -- as though keeping careful watch for any more muddied waters. inside her jumbled thoughts, she can't decide who she's more peeved with. him or herself. ]

[directed]

[He half-expects her to shove him away, injury or no. Certainly he's braced for it when Peggy's hand finds his arm, and all the more so knowing she'd likely need a bit of support for the effort. Yet her dismay is perhaps tempered by her shock, and that single sucked in breath that no doubt hurts her to the very bone. He might have said something—a quiet admonishment to take it easy--but Peggy beats him to it, recovering her wit enough to offer up a rather terrible reply to such tenderly given affection.

He'd be rather put out by it, if he didn't already know what it meant.

Fortunately, Rip has already seen Peggy's vulnerabilities when it comes to such concerns. He knows she grows cross when she feels discomforted by her own affection, pulls away when those emotions threaten to escape their tidy little boxes. She claims the kiss not helpful, but Rip would argue otherwise: he feels better for it, right up to and including the way she practically pouts once all is said and done.]

When I attempted to be helpful, you refused to listen to me. [Ah, and there it is. The I told you so, reworded but still said all the same.] But for better or for worse, you're rather stuck at the moment—which means that hopefully, you'll be forced to let yourself recover some.

[mucked]

[ ah. there it is, indeed. the back-talk feels about as familiar as the kiss does. despite the swirl of frustration and stubbornness between them, it's nothing new. it has its own charm -- if only because she knows how to weather it. she'll choose arguing with rip hunter over making small talk with plenty others because, in the end, she trusts him never to be careless with her.

and maybe she trusts herself, just enough, not to be too careless with him. a good jostle is only sporting; it's rare that they ever aim to hurt or humiliate, although heaven knows both of them are capable of it. ]

You're right. I'm stuck.

[ oh but that can't be all, can it? it can't be nearly so easy. she may be tired and fresh off her injuries, but there's no chance peggy's about to let him win with so little protest. so much conversation has reopened the cut on the corner of her mouth. she tastes it before dabbing fingertips there. and it's clumsily, muttered around this attempt to tidy up fresh blood, that she lets the other shoe drop. ]

But there's no good reason why you should stay stuck too.

[directed]

[He frowns when he notices the fresh drops of red seeping out of her cut lip. Unfortunately there's not much clean about them, and while Peggy uses her fingertips, Rip gets up to try and examine the contents of the cell. Ideally he'll find something at least marginally less suspect; the last thing Peggy needs on top of her injuries is some manner of infection borne of a dirty rag.

He's consumed enough in the thought, and in examining a thin and worn bedsheet nearby, that Rip only half-listens to Peggy's admission. Still, it's enough to catch his attention; she wouldn't be admitting he was right about anything unless it was done with intent--and sure enough, hers comes out a moment later. But though she's entirely serious, Rip apparently finds it funny.

At least, that's the impression one might get from the way he scoffs.]

Don't be ridiculous. [There. An acceptable patch of sheet, and Rip gathers it up to try and tear away the bits of fabric he won't be needing.] I'm not leaving.

[mucked]

[ still, he fusses. but at least he's fussing somewhere outside her reach -- picking over an already well-combed cell. she knows why he's doing it. she knows what he's looking for, too. just as readily as she knows there's little profit in reminding him she's not made of fine china. she can take her lumps and dents and splinters without falling to pieces. but the more time passes the more she suspects his fussing might not be strictly for her benefit.

peggy shuts her eyes instead of rolling them. just briefly; just long enough offer up a scoff of her own. he invokes an accusation of ridiculousness and -- well, maybe she is being ridiculous. but for all the ways in which they are refreshingly different to one another, there are others in which they are lockstep. her ridiculousness could just as easily have been his ridiculousness if their current roles were reversed. ]

There is a way out. There must be. [ rocket said so, after all. ] And we were never trying to find it for only ourselves.

[ there is a responsibility she feels beyond herself. beyond her bruises and beyond her blood. she drags her teeth over the stinging split in her lip and sucks at the injury before spitting red on the textured metal floor. ]

Besides. Come curfew, if you're not back where they want you, you'll get hauled out.

[ and much as the earlier violence might be something rip wishes he could unsee, peggy has absolutely no desire to witness him being strong-armed back to his cell. ]

[directed]

[Perhaps if their roles were reversed, Rip would make the argument for Peggy’s escape—but that’s not how the situation has played out. So instead of dwelling on the recriminations, Rip deals with what currently is, which at the moment happens to be a sad attempt at a square torn out of fabric which he brings over to sop up those stray droplets of blood.

Or to allow her to; Rip already knows better than to think Peggy would lie cooperatively still while he addressed the cut. So instead he hands over the scrap, at the same time arching an eyebrow as she tries to appeal to services towards the greater good.]

While I’m sure there must be, there is equally damn good reason to see you taken care of. [She’ll hate the words but Rip speaks them anyway.] You’ve still got your recruits to see to after this mess is over—and I’ve got little doubt that those guards have a vendetta against you personally. There’s no guarantee that they’re going to be satisfied with the ends as they stand.

[And while Rip hadn’t been able to help during that first encounter, he’s not about to leave Peggy alone to have a second. By the time curfew came around, others would have returned to this cell. Though it hardly settles well to have to rely on them, at the very least, Peggy wouldn’t be left on her own.]

I can behave myself around the guards. You’d be better off conserving your strength. You aren’t going to change my mind.

[mucked]

[ his nearer movement means she cracks an eye back open. peggy looks at him again -- watches as he toes the line between telling her she needs taking care of and handing over the means by which she might do so herself. rip is navigating a dangerous terrain, one filled with landmines guarding the space between her patience and her pragmatism. he knows better than most (better than anyone these days) that it's a dangerous job leveraging the one against the other.

she snatches the scrap out of his hands. and, gathering one of the cloth's ragged edges into a ball, she dabs at the cut. there is no finesse to it's handled. the pressure certainly must sting, but peggy steels herself against any reactions. in her mind, he doesn't need any more reasons to shore up his decision to stay.

instead of tackling that decision head on and locking horns, she looks to eke in by the side door: ]

Can you? [ peggy pulls back the cloth just so she can see the blood staining the rag. yes, yes, it's doing its job. ] Behave yourself?

[ she stops looking directly at him. ]

[directed]

[It's a fairer question than most would realize. Peggy knows Rip's history better than most--including the lengths that he went to in order to have his vengeance on the man who murdered his family. Now he's been put into a position where he's faced something that scrapes against those scars; he cannot deny that the helplessness he felt echoed back to each of those times he'd gone back in history, seconds and minutes further, trying to afford himself one more chance to save them.

Peggy has been given a better fate, but it's not just pain that resonates under Rip's skin. It's anger too, and surely he does indeed wish to dole out a measure of revenge on those bastards.

But.

He takes in a deep breath; she need not look at him for Rip to feel the weight of her question all the same. Yet even in the pits of his despair there were boundaries Rip never crossed. The Spear of Destiny could have been pieced together once more--even so long after, on the ship he heard it's whispers of the life he could once again have. He could have recruited other heroes or even broken time all for the sake of those he loved.

He didn't. Rip clasps his hands together. Perhaps he doesn't see himself beholden to the responsibility Peggy attempted to appeal to, but there remains a sense of duty all the same.]

I will do what is necessary--and in the greater scheme, abiding the rules of this event qualifies as that. [The guards are constructs. Just as Miranda and Jonas had been, when Wonderland pulled it's torture from Rip's memories.] This will end. Until it does, we must choose our battles--and seeing that you do not come to greater harm is mine.

[mucked]

[ rip stakes a claim with his words. and, in effect, it's the same claim he's staked a half-dozen different ways ever since this tryst (more than a tryst, now) began. and although ordinarily peggy would watch another person with admiration when they took responsibility for anything and anyone outside their own skin, that admiration so very quickly tries up when the 'anyone' is her. so she wallows in it -- the contradiction of feelings as he says so much with so little. he calls her his battle, of all things, and she knows exactly what he means because she felt quite the same when he'd disappeared for a week.

which brings her around to a rather annoying conclusion: rip hunter is making a choice, and peggy knows better than to take away that right. that nobility of purpose -- even as being the object of that purpose chafes her. it doesn't mean she has to like his choice. she's not required to be nice to him simply because he's made his choice. it doesn't mean she has to believe it's a good choice, either, and she has her doubts whether sitting put and holding fast are indeed the rules of the event.

it's entirely possible, she thinks, that the lot of them are meant to escape. ]

I won't have you hovering. [ rather than say yes, than give her blessing, than relent -- she continues to argue. but there's a subtle (but recognizable) difference. her argument has transformed into something of a negotiation. ground rules and expectations, then, if he's so determined to be the stubborn one this time around. ] You do realize I was in more dire straits the day we met. Technically speaking.

[ a year ago. little more than, now. and maybe she shouldn't have invoked its existance like an anniversary. peggy's not sure the little flip in her stomach is entirely down to the injuries and the pain when she does. ]

[directed]

[There is indeed a line drawn in the metaphorical sand; though Peggy may rile against what it entails, Rip has chosen his place, his role, his purpose within this world. Escape no longer matters in his mind; though Rocket had indeed managed to do so during the incident as it had taken place, whether they do or not would not change that fundamental rule of Wonderland: all things end. Every event, given enough days. Every captive’s stay, given however long it takes.

They merely have to wait it out. To choose what they will do within that wait.

Ah, but it hardly matters that Peggy’s taken a beating when it comes to her stubbornness and spirit. Seems she’s no longer trying to push him out of the prison, and that’s well enough. Rip meant it when he said he wouldn’t be convinced to do anything but stay and aide her. Now they merely have to deal with the rest of it—terms that Peggy might demand he abide by, seemingly supported by a flawless logic: she’s seen worse.

But there are a number of reasons why they’ve maintained their comradery for so long—shared stubbornness being among them.]

Yes, but you’ll also recall I didn’t know you half so well then. [He hadn’t cared for her half so much as he does now, a year and however many days on. How much has changed in the time that has passed since she found him, also wounded, sulking in his room?

He would have never thought on that day that they would come to this. Certainly he hadn’t been looking for anyone to share his bed or his Wednesdays or his whiskey, and yet she’d come stumbling out of his closet all the same.

He thinks of his wedding speech—his faith in the miracle of how the forces of the multiverse can collide. And he wonders, looking at Peggy then, if she’ll ever let herself realize that for Rip, she herself stands as proof of that belief.]

[mucked]

[ he doesn't play ball. in fact, peggy could characterize his response as the conversational equivalent of letting the ball fly by -- untouched and without interception. she had made a demand (don't hover) and he'd ignored it in favour of quibbling details.

-- arguing semantics! ]

Bloody hell. [ yes, yes, she recalls. ] Lucky me. Had I been warned, then, about the high price of being known.

[ she trails off and lets him finish the grim and moody implication. and it's uncanny, really, but her grimace goes sharper. the swelling in her jaw, where the guard's boot had connected with her face, puts a sinister spin on the expression. blood mopped, she sits with the rag twisted and balled in her hands. she thinks about how quickly fabric, even scrunched together, loses momentum in the air. she thinks about how she wishes she had something better to throw at him -- him, standing there! him, with a look on his face so pensive that she finds herself gnawed away wondering what he's thinking about.

because she doesn't mean a word of what she says. because as insufferable as he's being, she wouldn't trade an ounce their familiarity. she likes knowing he wears slippers around his quarters. she likes knowing where he stashes his tea. she likes knowing his honest name, though she's got no designs to use it. and she likes knowing how to gauge when he finally (rarely) drifts off to sleep beside her on the nights she stays 'round his place.

she likes knowing how he carries a tune. as early as their second encounter, peggy had found herself transfixed -- captivated -- by the heartbreak in his performance.

so, no, she doesn't mean a word of what she says. and knows instead she ought to have something else: but we knew each other well enough. the affection might have taken time to grow, but the impression had been jarring from the start. and, in growing annoyed with that realization as it ebbs in on the tidal wave of more pain and ache and discomfort, she tosses the rag anyway.

it's a short and vicious throw that'll certainly hurt more than it hurts him. ]

[directed]

[Some might be put off by her scowl, or afraid of it, given the way her bruises and her cuts only seem to make it sharper. But Rip feels nothing of the sort, in the same way he knows her words are bark without bite. She's angry at the situation, at herself for stumbling into a mistake she might have avoided had she just listened to him--and naturally, and Rip for serving as her reminder of those consequences by insisting on taking care and hovering and all the other things he'll end up doing while they're each stuck there.

--Or, as she sees it, while she's stuck and he refuses to leave.

But just as her request had, her anger bypasses him completely. And her rag? Well, that doesn't even make it anywhere close, unfurling before it even reaches the halfway mark between them, fluttering down to the floor as Rip and Peggy both watch.]

...Well. I hope you feel better for that in some way. [Although he can't see how she would, with the effort it must have taken to throw and the absolutely dismal results. He takes a step, crouches down to retrieve the scrap stained with blood. Perhaps if he can find a bit of clean water, it can still be made use of. Supplies are hardly ample here; they have to act as needs must.]

But in news you might well appreciate, you'll be rid of me for at least a short time. They'll be serving dinner soon. [And perhaps it might be obvious to some, but this is Peggy whom he's speaking to now. Rip spells out his intentions.] Stay here and I'll bring you a tray.

[Rather than having her stubbornly attempt to walk to the line and endure standing in it for however long the so-called dinner service takes.]

[mucked]

[ dinner. as if it could be called anything of the sort. and perhaps rip and peggy were both accustomed, at different times in their life, to making do with whatever meals were on hand -- there's no reason not to pull a face at the prospect of eating what passes for food in the kyln. it's something else to inspire disappointment, right alongside her sorry state and her sorrier attempt at retaliation.

'stay here,' he says, and she wonders where he thinks she'll shuffle off to once she's left alone. truthfully, there's a part of her both raring and willing to get away from this prison-within-a-prison. anything's better, surely, that sitting in a cell all alone while someone else fetches her food. and of all the someones it could be...

if only jarvis was here! now, there's someone around whom she didn't mind being bloodied and injured. but the selfishness of such a thought strikes her a moment later. peggy sinks back, shoulders against the cell wall, and allows her posture to slump in a way that doesn't hurt more than it has to.

she doesn't apologize for the thrown rag. she doesn't gripe about dinner. she doesn't say anything. instead, her hand gestures through the air as if to brush him off -- go on, get -- before the arm tucks gingerly back against her body. and if her fingers worry at her lip now, well, then it's because she's thinking about the little kiss he'd stolen. brave and idiotic both. ]