The devil may smile with an angel's face

[godofcologne]

After the conversation with Edward, Thomas stayed in his room and let his mind wander, let the Hunger guide his thoughts through a maze of possibilities. He tried to ignore how the exercise, even the planning, was a rush, how it made the blood rush through his veins. Between his fingers, he toyed with a business card, once in a while rereading the

Comments

[manicpixydream]

There was waiting and then there was boredom and the stretch in between was never too long for Alice, even if Pandora and Bianca were amazing. She was jittery as hell and she couldn't just stand still for Vlad. Besides she definitely needed to wash the rest of that blood off her hands, probably burn the t-shirt dress she was wearing just to make sure she never smelled that again. Eugh.

She hadn't forgotten about Thomas but she hadn't exactly stuck to his side either. They'd been shellacked together for like, weeks, and besides it was Thomas, it wasn't like he was going to take offense or something, but yeah, there was some guilt that he'd gone all face the music while she'd put it way the hell off after their meet and greet with Dru. So when she caught his scent before going into their room she had to kind of brae herself for a second, sort her brain out before her head got achier, and definitely, definitely focus on the calm and good instead of dumping him with whatever

[godofcologne]

When Alice walked in, the business card got tossed somewhere between his bed and the dresser. Thomas wasn't worried. The thing had a habit of showing back up. Besides, he'd memorized the number. He followed Alice into the bathroom, ignoring the stale sour smell and the stain on the dress that ended up on a pile against the far wall. "If I answered that now with a yes, I'm sure something will blow up in my face before the night's over to change my answer," he replied, sliding an arm around Alice's waist

[manicpixydream]

"I meant last night, I mean ok we technically spent half of it getting here but I kind of bailed before the fireworks, you know? Just needed to feel the wind in my hair before facing stuff down or whatever." Alice wasn't actually going after a layer of skin, but the blood was stubborn for sure. Thankfully it was mostly on her arms and hands and they were getting a good perfumey lather going.

And oh, she hadn't actually realized how bad the pain had gotten until Thomas started kissing her and it started getting better. So much better. Jasper was going to be on her ass about putting that off too long if she made a show of it, though. Probably even if she didn't, god knew what they were airing.

"Ok first off that sentence with Edward in it doesn't even make sense but I want a story anyway. And second I don't know where you were at when Vlad got all politely kidnapped but his demon escorts were like, begging me to teach them some manners and you know, they were stubborn students, but you're always welcome." She leaned into

[godofcologne]

Whatever had triggered that particular line of thought had a domino effect, reminding Thomas of other parts of his conversation with Edward. Still, he didn't speak until he had spent a few seconds nibbling at Alice's ear, smiling a little as she leaned into him.

"Three things," he said, pulling away so he could actually look at her in the mirror. "I'm pretty sure I was still dead to the world when that happened, sorry. Two, I'll tell you the story later. And three, you're the idiot. Empty night Alice, how are you supposed to help Edward if you keep pretending to do stuff that just gets him angrier at you?"

Thomas caught a glimpse of his own face in the mirror, actual anger starting to show in his eyes, and he stopped talking to force it away.

[godofcologne]

It wasn't until Alice moved, pulled him down for an uncharacteristically calm kiss that Thomas noticed how much strength flowed through his veins, how much lighter her presence was against his awareness. "Clearly I'm not doing my job if you're not remembering how good I am," he joked, letting his hands fall to Alice's waist and setting her back on her feet as if she couldn't reach it on her own. No wonder Harry liked to needle Murphy about being short. It was fun.

He moved back, out of smacking reach, as soon as she was on the floor. "And it's a deal. As long as there are no sexy nurse costumes involved. Well, not on me, at least."

[manicpixydream]

"That's fully unfair, you have fantastic legs in a skirt and you should show them off more often, yeah? At least that's what Vlad said, and before you get all kissing and telling it was totally within the realm of Truth or Dare rules, completely allowed." Alice stuck her tongue out at him for being all lifted around just because her feet didn't come anywhere near the floor, and grabbed another comfy t-shirt dress out of the box nearest the bathroom. Either she'd get to the stockings eventually or they were going to be like, awash in a sea of mess before they were there even two days.

"I'd say you're doing a pretty good job overall," she said over her shoulder, getting dressed again. "I'm just a scatterbrain right? Plus plenty to get distracted by in this house and that's not even counting people I'm trying to avoid." Setting her hair to rights, she quirked her head at him in the mirror. "That's all going like, ok and stuff, yeah? 'Cause there's me being here and then there's me being hereIt made perfect sense to share a room

[godofcologne]

"At least tell me you got dared to do something scandalous like run around outside naked chasing Pandora with a pillow?" Thomas asked hopefully, ignoring the face she made at him in favour of putting himself to rights.

He caught her look and shrugged nonchalantly, slipping past Alice and flopping back into his bed. "Aside from the inherent gag reflex of 'hey I'm sleeping with your sister'? It's going alright. Like I said, he came to apologize. To soften me up so he could ask for help." It was to his credit that he sounded about average on the Thomas Sarcasm Scale of Sincere to Edward.

[manicpixydream]

"Well ok not so much Truth or Dare as I Have Never, but same ballpark, yeah? Same blabbing rules apply, and it was totally scandalous, obviously. It was me." God, was Pandora like, everyone's standard for amazing or was she just that obvious? Probably both. Alice followed him out of the bathroom and flopped stomach-first on her own bed thank you very much, and listened to his answer. She thought she did a really excellent job hiding the twinge of hurt when she sorted out Edward was really talking to him, like, already, and not in yelly outside voices from the sounds of it.

"And you know, Dru? Everything's- ok?" She sidestepped the Edward thing neatly 'cause for the time being it was more important that she find out how things were going on that front, no matter what kind of glare he threw her, and for the record she thought, she was only asking one question. But he was in way better spirits than he had been a couple of days ago. She could get away with it.