You shadows that in darkness dwell.

[kateohara.livejournal.com]

Sunday, mid-morning

I still feel tired and shaken by everything that happened on Thursday night. We helped to bring back a man's soul... But we watched a god die. And who knows where the demon that lived in the doctor has gone now. I hope back to hell, but I fear it was just unleashed on the world. I don't know. I hate thinking that thing we glimpsed in the cellar could be out and free... But I'm also very glad it can no longer pretend to be Dr Constantine.

I opened the store late on Friday and closed early. In between I heard about what happened on the Marks ranch. Eris dead, too, just hours before Lugh. That makes me think Lugh knew what was going to happen to him, and I don't know how to feel about that. Truthfully there are a lot of things I don't know how to process yet. Saturday I left Amanda to run the store, and I spent a lot of time in quiet prayer on my own. I thought a lot about the way Wanda screamed as she saw what happened to Lugh... And the way Lugh gave his life to help the doctor. It hurts my heart in different ways, to think of those things. I went out briefly, to leave a message for Glass at the tavern. I gave the barman a piece of paper that said You don't need to worry about Dr Constantine any more. I wondered if I should write more, but I left it at that in the end. She should know, but I can't write it down on a scrap of paper.

Today I feel more like myself, though still not in the mood to be with crowds of people. So I first go to the abbey and lay flowers on the altar in the light just after dawn, saying what I can to Nanshe for giving me strenght, and then I walk across town to church and say my thanks in front of the cross, and I check that Laurence is doing alright, and then I slip away before the congregation arrives. I go home and I bake a loaf out of the dough I had left to rise in a basin, and as it cools I change out of my Sunday best into slacks and a shirt, running my fingers through my hair to let the curls run loose. I put on a coat and take the bread, and carry it with me to see Tess, because however else I feel, I woke up this morning with a feeling like a pain beneath my ribs, and I realised it was because I missed her.

[Open to Tess]
[closed]

Comments

[tess-thiess.livejournal.com]

There's a crinkle 'a fabric as we shift, and Kate's fingers are still twinin' through my hair. Finally I pull back t'get a proper breath and she's lookin' half solemn and I grin at her. "I think I'm feelin' a fair bit better, now." Her hair's a bit mussed and it makes me laugh, seein' her like that when she's so together and collected in public. I feel like it's a part 'a her that she shows just t'me.

"I love you." It still sounds kind 'a strange, hearin' those words from my own mouth. So I grin and peck her on the cheek and sit up. "I think the tea's gone cold."

[kateohara.livejournal.com]

Tess sits up a bit and I let go of her reluctantly.

"I think I'm feelin' a fair bit better, now." She laughs and I laugh too, but then my breath catches as she says "I love you." I think of how Laurence said it and how it made me feel glad but sad all at once, and I don't feel that now. It feels like having a cool drink of water on a hot day.

"I think the tea's gone cold."

"I can make more," I say, sliding off the bed and putting the kettle back onto the stove. I sing under my breath.

As I walked out on a May morning, on a May morning so early,
I overtook a pretty fair maid just as the day was a-dawning.

I look back at Tess over my shoulder, taking in her flushed face and tousled hair and feeling heat bloom inside me.

"And I love you," I say, almost as quiet as I was singing, and I feel my cheeks go red. But the corners of my mouth turn up into a smile, and I unfasten the top button of my shirt, because this blush is making me hot.

[tess-thiess.livejournal.com]

"I can make more," she says, smilin' again, and she steps over t'put the kettle on, singin' quietly as she goes. I cross my legs and sit on the bed, watchin' her, smilin' at her song, and then gigglin' just a bit as I recognize it. "And I love you," she says then, lookin' back at me, and it makes my breath catch, her lookin' at me like that.

"It's Sunday sure 'nough, but I ain't too worried 'bout my Ma'," I say, hoppin' off the bed, and walkin' over t'where she's standin' at the stove. Her face it flushed and she's undone one 'a her shirt's buttons, and the sight brings a heat 'v its own t'me.

[kateohara.livejournal.com]

"It's Sunday sure 'nough, but I ain't too worried 'bout my Ma'," she says, and I laugh.

"Boys in my hometown used to sing that song. Sometimes they'd sit on the front porch of my parents' store and my ma would shoo them off, saying they had the manners of a cat," I say, and my smile softens at that memory. The kettle whistles so I take it off the heat. Tess looks a little flushed, and the colour suits her. I put a hand up to her cheek and find it warm. "Would your mother be shocked, about - this?" I ask softly, leaning in to kiss her. "I guess she would rather you were marrying a nice farm boy," I add. "Maybe she would have liked me as Robin Hood," I continue with a quick little smile, and I feel myself get warmer, remembering the night, or at least before it all went horrid.