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Paige wasn’t clueless.
Enthusiastic? Yes. Excitable? Clearly.
It was easy for her to get lost in her tangents. By now, she knew that well. It was a common occurrence for her to babble away, unaware that she lost the attention of whomever she was speaking to long ago.
Still, she worked with people for a living. Reading to people involved, in a way, reading people. She was socially savvy enough to understand that not everyone wanted to pick up what she was putting down. So, when Victor kept his replies to her interest clipped and cool, she decided to give him some space.
Oddly, he was making that exceedingly difficult.
How he managed to be that stealthy at 7 feet tall, she had no idea. But it had happened a few times now: Paige would be spending time alone, only to be startled by Victor’s inexplicable presence.
Perhaps it was only coincidence - there wasn’t too much to do in the downtime between rituals. The Hideout was accomodating, spacious enough to comfortably house all future participants. Despite this, overlap and mingling happened constantly. When the conversations became too animated for Paige’s liking, she opted instead to slip away from the group and into the comfort of the page. It was then, usually, that Victor approached her. This was one such occasion.
She’d found a great spot, this time. A roaring flame in a fireplace made for a great reading companion; she indulged in the sound as she read in her claimed armchair. So engrossed in her book, it took some time before she noticed Victor at all. The man said nothing to announce his presence. Instead, he loomed behind her, reading over her shoulder. All she could do when she finally noticed his lurking was sit to attention with a startled, “Oh!”
On the surface, it seemed like he had no reaction to her surprise. Surely she made up the amused gleam she saw pass his eyes. The same mismatched hues blinked down at her, his head tilted just slightly.
With a hand rested over her racing heart, Paige willed herself to relax. Recovering came easier with each occurrence - his first visit, she actually jumped. Now, she simply took a deep breath, straightening her slightly-askew glasses all the while. She made an attempt to look up at him from her seat, but the angle made her neck ache.
It was an awkward position to be in anyhow, with her legs tucked underneath her. After placing her bookmark, she somewhat ungracefully uncurled herself, leaving her book on the cushion she’d previously claimed. She finally gave him her full attention as she stood, sporting a warm smile. One that faltered slightly when she still had to crane her neck to see his face. What she felt wasn’t quite intimidation - was she blushing?
Oh, man. This was so unfair. It really was as if he had been conjured from her high school diary, all tall and mysterious and brooding. When she remembered that she had said the very same to his face, it was all she could do not to hide her face in her hands. And he was just so close to her! Oh, stupid handsome Victor with his stupid silky hair and his stupid pout and his stupid—
“Um.” She tried desperately to squash the train of thought. “Hi!”
“Hey.”
The soft glow of the fire highlighted the contours of his incongruous body, musculature evident despite his general condition. It intrigued her, his predicament. Paige genuinely meant it when she told him that she wanted to help him… but that didn’t stop her from admiring him as he was. Her eyes trailed the Y-shaped scar he sported on his torso. Before she could tell herself not to, she realized she had been staring. Ugh.
“Sorry about that.” She was looking at his face, now. “You scared me a little!”
“Join the club.”
His tone was so dry, she often couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. But that gleam of amusement wasn’t limited to his eyes, this time. She swore she saw his lips quirk into a wry smile, if only for a moment. The realization made her smile herself, feeling oddly triumphant.
Seconds passed. Normally, Paige found it easy to fill silences. With Victor’s attention on her, though, it was far more difficult. Luckily for her, he broke the silence for her.
“Is that any good?”
The words were accompanied by a nod to her discarded book. First, she simply blinked at him, wide eyes appearing even wider from behind her glasses. Then, she found her voice.
“Is it any—” She interrupted herself with a splutter, playfully affronted. For a moment, her nerves were forgotten. “Is it any good? That, Victor, is Le Morte d’Arthur!”
“...Right. So… Yes?”
Really, he should have known what his questioning would unleash. The excitement she held for the subject shone clear as day on her features. Once her words began, it seemed she physically couldn’t get them to stop. Effortlessly, she produced an impromptu lecture on courtly love, the hero’s journey, and 15th-century printing practices. She was weaving many threads - and might have even connected them all together, had she another two hours to wax poetic. Victor didn’t exactly give her the chance.
“Why don’t you just keep doing this?”
Paige’s words faltered at his interruption, her brows furrowed. Desperately, she was trying to figure out if she had said something wrong. He didn’t sound upset, she didn’t think that she’d said anything to offend him. Wordlessly, implored him to elaborate.
“Your readings. The books. The library’s the place for you, not here. You’ll get hurt.”
The words didn’t sound accusatory, exactly. Was he worried for her?
The thought alone would have been enough to make Paige blush, had she not been reminded of why she sought the Patrons out in the first place. Her smile didn’t quite dissipate, but it did shrink as she sighed.
“I have to,” she explained. Her gaze fell, suddenly interested in the fireplace. She sounded tired. “You’re not the only one looking for answers.”
It hurt to think of Bryce; it only hurt more knowing how close she was, what she had to lose. If Victor wished to know more, he didn’t ask, so she remained silent. A silence that lasted longer than she realized, distracted as she was with the fire. When she finally gave him back her attention, she felt her heart in her throat. He was studying her face, now. The prospect made her palms itch.
“A-Although,” she forced out, affixing a purposefully bright tone. She needed to wrangle this conversation away from her traitorous heart, and back to reality. She leaned forward, almost conspiratorial, and gave him a quick poke on the chest. “That doesn’t mean that I’m not rooting for you, too.”
As expressionless as he appeared to be, Paige felt as she was getting better at interpreting him. It seemed to her that he was hopelessly lost. When he spoke, he said the words slowly, as if he was unsure if she had said what she meant to. “Only one of us can win.”
“And I’d be happy for you if it was you! Even if I was also sad that I lost.”
There was a tension between his brows; if she wasn’t so close, she probably wouldn’t have noticed it. It made her chest ache, the way he must have assumed that no one had his side.
“Victor,” she stressed, trying to interrupt his train of thought. Any awkwardness Paige felt faded as she saw him not as a crush, but as a friend in need of support. It was easy for her to grab his hand between her own, unbothered by the casual touch. She squeezed the purple appendage encouragingly. “Let’s both just promise to do our best. Okay?”
He seemed content with that. Either that, or he was distracted by the feeling of warm hands against his own clammy one. As she smiled up at him, she brushed over his knuckles with her thumb. Softly, so soft she could barely hear it, he inhaled sharply at the action. How many times had he been touched gently after awakening?
This time, Victor was the one who broke eye contact. But he did not remove his hand. After a beat, he broke the silence.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“Using my name.”
The smile Paige gave him morphed into a slightly confused one. As she tilted her head quizzically, her thick, ginger ponytail followed the movement. “Of course! What else would I call you?”
Zombie. Cadaver. Patches. Corpse Boy. Lumbering Pile of Mismatched Flesh.
“Nothing good.”
She just raised a brow, as if it had never occurred to her. Leaning in again, she squinted slightly, trying to catch his eyes in the dim light.
“You know… you don’t need to thank me for the bare minimum.”
If she didn’t know any better, she’d say the words made him look sheepish. Would he be blushing, if he had any blood?
“Well.”
It was the only word he gave her before clearing his throat. Already did it, so…
Another silence descended upon the two after the exchange, but not an unpleasant one. The fire’s light continued to cast harsh shadows across his gaunt, angular features, but Paige found his image all the more striking for it. Her gaze flitted across his face - did he know that the pupil of his brown eye was larger than of the blue? It was so easy to tell at this distance—
Suddenly, her proximity to the man hit her all at once.
Paige dropped his hand as quickly as she had grabbed it, her face suddenly scalding. A nervous laugh bubbled from her, despite herself. If her jump backwards hadn’t already communicated her flustered state, that embarrassed sound only solidified it. She raised her hands to her cheeks, as if she could physically push her nerves back in. Oh, god, she was making it worse, wasn’t she?
Victor simply watched as she succumbed to her own embarrassment. It was far more than a gleam of amusement, this time. If she hadn’t been floundering, Paige may have noticed a small smirk, worn just for her. But she was floundering, busy tugging nervously at a loose thread on her sleeve. Ignorant she would remain.
“Um!” Her voice was nearly a whole octave higher than when she spoke last. “Did you hear that?”
Victor didn’t, naturally. There was nothing to hear.
“I-I think that’s the professor calling for me!” Another nervous laugh. That poor thread twirled helplessly between her fingers. Paige became more confident in her lie as she spun it, though, her voice eventually returning to its normal timbre. Before she let herself forget, she snatched up her discarded book. “I’d better go see what he wants.”
“Okay.”
Victor’s head was tilted again, black hair falling loosely in front of his face as he regarded her. The small smile (perhaps at her expense, the one that made her stomach flip) hadn’t left.
He was humoring her. It made her ears glow pink. Before he could say anything else, she made her exit. Holding her novel close to her chest, she gave him a funny sort of half-nod, then promptly fled. She needed to return to solitude. Partially to hide what she was sure was her very flustered state, and partially to update that damned diary, if she could find it. Still, she couldn’t deny one simple fact.
It was a solitude that she privately hoped he would break again soon.