plurk meme } { kissy faces ii: more smooching

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sarah & shelby | incryptid | 575 words

[thirtysix]

There is one rule when it comes to Sarah Zellaby – don’t touch her skin.

It’s a standard rule for all cuckoos really – don’t allow skin-to-skin contact. With most cuckoos, it’s a means of self-preservation, but in terms of Sarah, it’s just a matter of personal safety. She can’t control what she takes, what she changes and what she leaves behind. If they aren’t careful, Sarah could scramble their brains just by sitting next to them. So when Sarah spends time with the Price clan, she wears her anti-telepathy charms, keeps her distance, and does her best not to interfere with whatever Sarah is doing. Her own bias about cuckoos notwithstanding, this promise isn’t an easy one to keep.

At least until they’re in the middle of a deep Indiana winter, the heat is out in the house because of some creature feature or another, and she and Sarah are alone, and doing their best to keep warm. Cuckoos are cold-blooded as a rule, so Shelby is the only one bringing any body heat here, but there is a fire in the fireplace and the clanking and cursing of Alex trying to fix the heater from below.

“You don’t have to stay.”

Sarah’s voice is small and timid, having gotten better at sentences in general but still not quite confident yet. But also, there’s an awareness to it, like she’s aware of the discomfort of being in close proximity to a cuckoo as a rule, and how she’d probably be rather helping Alex fix things then helping keep Sarah warm. For the most part, she isn’t really all that wrong. But at the same time, she’s not completely unsympathetic to the other girl’s situation. From what she understands, Sarah broke herself trying to save someone she loves – that’s not typical cuckoo behavior, which means that Sarah is not the typical cuckoo. Shelby’s doing the best to try and show her that she knows that, even if her body language doesn’t always agree.

She takes a deep breath, trying to focus on the flames in front of her.

“Yes I do, love. Wouldn’t do any good to let you freeze.”

“Sometimes being cold is better. Slows down the brain, makes things race not quite so fast.”

Shelby tips her head to the side, because she never considered that. It’s hard to think of things from a cold blooded perspective when you aren’t one. But still, an extra source of warmth can’t hurt. “If the brain gets too cold, you may lose things you’ll never get back.”

Sarah blinks at her, confused for a moment, before she inches a bit closer, and rests her head gently against Shelby’s clothed shoulder. It’s an unexpectedly gentle and comfortable gesture, and Shelby doesn’t know what to do with it at first. Still, she doesn’t pull away, just stays relaxed where she is, and in a brief moment of sentimentality that she will deny to Alex later she turns and presses a soft kiss to the other girl’s hat covered head.

“I like you.”

It’s a small gesture, but it means a lot in the grand scheme of things. There was probably a point in time where she wouldn’t have cared if a cuckoo liked her or not, but in a lot of ways, it’s funny how things can change.

“I like you too,” Shelby says softly, before closing her eyes and settling in to stay warm in front of the fire.