Prelude [Grey]

[Jesse Fforde]

[OOC: Predated to the 6th of June.]

--The following transcript was a live chat roleplay--

<Jesse Fforde> Think of the days off. Jesse's lounging and waiting for Grey. Naked, of course. He's sticking to the idea of undressing and leaving all his clothes by the door.

<Grey> That is so awesome. He may change his mind when he is summoned somewhere and ends up naked, though.

<Jesse Fforde> Maybe. He may also laugh. He has no shame.

<Grey> Grey, however is flustered under the hood of her newest conquest beating some pipes into submission.

<Jesse Fforde> Good point. Maybe Jesse should get dressed and go to work.

<Grey> The man does look delicious wielding a pen, whether drawing or inking. Grey did not want to get up. Their bed was far too comfortable tonight.

<Jesse Fforde> Well that decides it then. He's rolling off the couch and being a responsible adult, and heading to work.

<Grey> Yes. To get a paycheck! To... Do something constructive with it! Like... Uhm... But her more books!

<Jesse Fforde> He will buy her whatever she desires!

<Grey> I'm thinking she will finish early and wander around instead of hunting zombies and maybe see what he's up to.

<Jesse Fforde> He'll probably ask her if she wants one.

<Grey> Hmmm... She might ask him what he sees on her.

<Jesse Fforde> He'd probably design her a dove. Doesn't know why. Just because.

Sketch 1

or Sketch 2

or Sketch 3

Or some variation thereof.

<Grey> She likes the last two!
<Grey> And Grey would want to know why Jesse sees her with a dove. She'd crawl up into his lap and play with his fingers. Stroke his hands.

<Jesse Fforde> And he doesn't know. He calls her Little Dove, affectionately. He says he can't remember why, or where the term came from. But he likes doves. White ones. To Ancient Greeks and Romans they symbolised love and devotion.

He loves her, and is devoted to her. He likes it. It fits. And because it it was the sacred animal of Venus and Aphrodite - it symbolises peace. And he is at peace when he is with her. He'll go on a huge speel.

<Grey> And Grey is glad he shared that with her. She says that she didn't know why he liked it so for her name. She doesn't have anything pretty for him. And it makes her feel all the more special when he calls her that, I think.

<Jesse Fforde> He's just grinning, really.

<Grey> She just keeps touching him. Eyeing him up.

<Jesse Fforde> And he's glad that there aren't any customers in the shop, because it means he can touch her back. Because she's sitting on his lap while he's at the desk, all the sketches and designs spread out in front of him. Some of them commissions. Some of them just for fun.

<Grey> She certainly would be thankful too. Because this gives her time to see him in his element. She might have taken a self-led tour at the beginning of stepping into shop. And then she'd ask him about his designs. And what he likes most about being a tattoo artist. All while touching him.

<Jesse Fforde> He would explain to her all the designs; the Jessica Rabbit design that he's still kind of working on for Strix, who he hasn't seen since the first time. As well as a couple of the others - most of his are inspired by history and mythology. He's also got quite a few owls on the go, as well snakes and amphibians. He's on a kick. He'd probably also get very philosophical about art and tattooing in general; how the pain symbolises more than the image does, the tradition of it, the way certain cultures and religions use it, and how he thinks that art is a far better purveyor of emotion than words. All the while not really answering her question about what he likes most. He'll just get very enthusiastic about the whole thing.

<Grey> She'd smile. She would like everything that he said. Just watching him explain the tattoos and his art would most certainly be something that she enjoys doing. His happiness, his excitement about his work and his art makes her thankful that he seems to enjoy what he does. There is a deep breath, her hands coming up to stroke his neck. To tease against his cheeks and leaning in to kiss him. And even though he doesn't answer specifically, she would still smile at him. And kiss again. And ask him who Jessica Rabbit is.

[Grey (DELETED 5068)]

--The following transcript was a live chat roleplay--



<Jesse Fforde> He'd be a bit incredulous at first. And then would explain to her that Jessica Rabbit was a popular icon in the late 80s. Pin-up girl, kind of - busty, red hair. He'd explain the design is for Strix. Would explain Grey's connection to Strix through Altaire. For lack of a better word, Strix is like an estranged 'sibling' - who kind of looks like Jessica Rabbit herself. And he'd cup his palm against Grey's cheek, her jaw. Would tenderly return the kiss, opposite hand wrapped around her waist - probably adding charcoal to the grease stains.

<Grey> She'd look at him a little confused. After all, she didn't have the typical childhood upbringing. And she'd look further at the drawing as if trying to see just why the woman is so gorgeous. And she will watch Jesse and then turn her cheek into his touch. And she will certainly lean into him and not mind his touch. She craves it. The attention. The smell of him. She will sink her lips against his and nip.

<Jesse Fforde> He'd murmur something about whether she's paying him back, now, for that time he took her on the floor of the garage.

<Grey> There would be a sly wink and a sigh. The lofty, dramatic kind that ended in a chuckle and a reference to the fact that she doesn't know what he is talking about. And she'd tell him that she wasn't wet at all right now.

<Jesse Fforde> He'd arch a brow and act all nonchalant, pretend like he doesn't care. Will reach around her to retrieve the pencil; start sketching a dove on the clean white page. Act all distracted and aloof.

<Grey> She'd reach up, brushing her fingers along his scalp and down his neck. Of course, she'd lean in close and kiss his cheek. She'd tell him that she loves him. And that if any other woman had her hands on him, she'd twist their tits off.

<Jesse Fforde> He'd chortle, lean his cheek closer to her, into the kiss. He'd abandon the sketch of the dove and would instead throw together, with hasty lines, an image of a woman with her tits twisted off. A bit gory, perhaps, with the ribs showing underneath; and a face full of comical horror. It was an interesting image to imagine. "Like this?"

<Grey> She'd reach over and point to the woman's chest. She'd tell him to add some more bloody tissue coming off of her ripped off tits. Or an implant that burst. And she'd grin, stroking her fingers up his forearm he was drawing with. And maybe suggest a few more ribs sticking out.

<Jesse Fforde> Jesse'd laugh and do as he was told; he was good at drawing by instruction. Would probably make a killing as a sketch artist, drawing likenesses for the police that witnesses had described. Of course he'd never do that. He'd ask her whether his penchant for violence and gore was rubbing off on her, or whether she'd always been that way.

<Grey> There would be a shrug as far as his question about the violence. She would look as if she were contemplating the answer. She knew he had an interest in the things that no longer breathe. She'd want her hair longer. Just a little. And a tattoo of a heart on the woman's hip. She'd ask him if he would be turned off if she had an anger problem.

<Jesse Fforde> He'd make the hair longer and would draw the heart. He'd wonder what she meant - wouldn't have thought that her anger was a problem, thus far. Thinks, instead, that any anger she has shown has been absolutely normal. He'd ask her what she meant - and would also ask what the significance of the hair and the heart was.

<Grey> If she did have a problem. Of she did end up screaming or yelling. Or if she would start throwing things. And she sort of frowned. Looking at the picture. She would look at the woman he drew and tap her tiny, oil stained nail to the woman. She'd tell him that this was the woman that told her boyfriend it was okay to have seconds. But, she never let that happen. That she left then. Her mom had that tattoo. And she would just kind of stare at the bloody picture.

<Jesse Fforde> He'd tell her that if she did start yelling and screaming and throwing things, than he probably would have done something to deserve it. And, if not, he knew how to calm her down. And, as he said it, he'd smirk and lean in to lick the line of her jaw. But underneath the smirk and the tease, there'd be concern. He'd put the pencil down and would wrap his arms tight around her, hugging her close. And would tell her that he thoroughly disliked his own mother, too - that there was no shame in it.

[Grey (DELETED 5068)]

A Day in the Lives of Jesse and Grey

The Expanded Version

She never told anyone what her mother had tried to do to her. Sure, her and those boyfriends had done a lot. Most of it was mental anguish. Sometimes they touched her - yanking a hand, shoving her into other rooms, or pinching her painfully to get her to move faster. Sometimes they kicked her. She had received a fair share of slaps across the face from her alcoholic maternal figure in her life. She had gotten a few pushes down the stairs and hair-yanking screams. Grey took an unneeded deep breath. It was hard. She never needed to tell anyone anything before about her life.

The questions were simple. ‘Where ya going?’ ‘Got family there ta see?’ ‘Yer pretteh young to be travelin’ all by yourself, no?’ Grey picked up some twang. She picked up a few different accents. She picked up how to lie. She picked up how to steal in order to eat. She picked up how to wash up like the hookers on the street corners in order to pass as tolerable. Sometimes she could sneak in a shower at a gym or airport.

The lick of her jaw was what brought her back to the present. It is what brought her back to Jesse instead of the past. The pull of his arms had her leaning into him. Hatefully, she felt tears prickle her eyes. It was stupid, to cry over something she walked away from. She had a good mother once. Death changed that. Turning her face into his neck, she told herself she wouldn’t shed one god damned tear for the broken, disgusting woman her mother had become. “No, there’s no shame.”

But her mind kept replaying the same image. The same dream. The same want. To murder and scream and mutilate. The knife in her dreams was always clutched in her hand, full of blood and the background was in the same house she grew up in for almost fourteen miserable years.

[Jesse Fforde]

No shame, she agrees, but she does not elucidate upon the reasons why she should desire to see her mother in so much pain. And, though Grey agrees that there would be no shame, Jesse can almost feel, if he cannot see directly, that it is an issue that bothers Grey. Unlike him - who is able to forget his mother and talk about derisively with no hint of sadness or regret - she seems hesitant. Unforthcoming. He settles, leans back in his chair and stretches his legs out in front of him, so as to accommodate a more comfortable position, so that Grey can settle in a little more thoroughly.

“My mother was fine until my father died,” he starts. If he hopes that Grey might open up and tell him what it is that’s bothering her, perhaps she will be more inclined to do so if he, too, opens up about his past. He doesn’t open up to many people. He can count on one hand those that know the pertinent tragedies that litter his childhood; Micah and Velveteen. That’s about it. But he feels, here and now, after everything that they have been through, that Grey deserves to know. He feels no discomfort as he clears his throat and as the words trip over his tongue; his tone is soft, gruff, and uttered story with a cadence meant only for Grey’s ears.

“And then grief turned her into a careless drunk. Left my brother and I to our own devices and let Uncle Tommy into our home. Uncle Tommy was the cause for my brother’s death - he was my twin. I never did recover. It’s why I was mute for a decade. More. Anyway. Mum didn’t get much better. Didn’t get any better at all. I was left to fend for myself. I hated her then, and I hate her now,” he says with a shrug. Even after the incident that had led to the discovery of Micah as a legitimate cousin, Jesse felt no need to track his mother down or to try to make amends. One is forced to leave behind their human acquaintances when they join this life, anyway - there’s no point trying to mend bridges, now.

He’d reached up to smooth the hair on Grey’s head, as she buries her face in his neck. As he speaks, he stares into space; he doesn’t ask any questions. He doesn’t pry. Just waits to see if his story will be echoed; if Grey will tell her story in return.

[Grey (DELETED 5068)]

Her past was something that was painfully remembered. From the broken bones to the hurtful words and from the superior grades in school to the snarls of little children’s painful teasing, Grey had taken all of this inside herself. She had learned how to blend in and how to be no one. She had learned that it was easier to not give anyone her name or a fake name at that. She had existed painfully, escaping that home two years before she would have had a high school degree.

She could not risk the law enforcement’s knowledge of her any other way. She had stolen her birth certificate and her social security card, but that didn’t mean much these days. Then again, there had been two different names on them, so Grey was confused as to which one was supposed to be hers or if they were both hers. She knew, after all, all about aliases. With a lick of her lower lip, she felt her eyes burning as Jesse spoke to her. Her arms were drawn into his chest, gently squeezed between both of their bodies so that her hands weren’t too cold now.

“You must miss him terribly.” She murmured against his neck. Her cheek stayed to his shoulder, her eyes closing for long periods of time as she could relate to his very beginning of the long tail. After all, her mother had been the same way. A pleasant woman until death and depression hauled her into the alcoholic stupor. Without even realizing it, the wetness blinked from her eyes, trailing a path of least resistance to dampen Jesse’s shirt.

It wasn’t a common thing for Grey to cry. Oh, she cried when she was hurt - physically. That much was for sure. She had remembered the tears that had come with each physical injury in this cold place of Canada. But above all, Grey seemed to let more tears free for the mental anguish. For the understanding of the man that held her. For the beautiful loss of her humanity into immortality. Grey gathered a deep breath and continued to lean against him. Did he want to know? Should she tell him? He shared with her.

Was he expecting it? It was only right, to share with him… Wasn’t it?

For a long time, she was quiet. She didn’t know how to start the story. She didn’t know if he would want to hear about her past. Over and over again in her mind, it was a story no one should have to hear. But she opened her lips and the story came out, slow and cautious as if she were ready to stop at any time if it was too much. “My father died too. I was young. I can still remember his laugh and his smile. His eyes were so blue. He used to tell me stories. Pretty stories about love and how sometimes things happen for a reason. He said I happened for a reason. I used to be his princess, he called me. He worked hard. He was always gone a lot during the day. But I spent a lot of time with him in the garage after he helped me with the homework. And he said we always had to be quiet because mom did a lot. So we would go out to the garage where we could talk and laugh.”

She took a deep breath, and her fingers shifted to clench together between their chests. “But, he died. It was a heart attack they said. He had been really tired now that I look back. He worked hard. But, that’s when my mother changed. Where she became mean. She sold his stuff. Told me she would of sold me too if she wasn’t stuck with me. Something about money. A trust fund or something. Said all I was good for was the account he had set up for me. She started drinking more. Screamed a lot. Had some new boyfriends coming in and out of the house. I stayed in my room mostly. I would dream about a different life. A happy life. With cake for dessert. With my father. She broke my hand when I got some milk out of the fridge the first time I didn’t ask her if I could have some.”

She went quiet again. Her eyes closed now, as if she was replaying these scenes as she spoke. “There were some good people though. My teacher was nice. The sheriff was a good guy. He’d always come pick me up at school if I had a problem. Take me to the hospital to get checked out. It is bad when you are on a first name basis with the staff at the hospital. They saw me up until I was about a sophomore in high school. Kids should be worried about their hair and who they were taking to the dance, not worried who would try to come in their room at night. They were good people, the nurses and the doctors. My mother wasn’t.” She said finally, as if that was the end of her story.

[Jesse Fforde]

Grey’s story is far worse than Jesse’s. He wonders, as she speaks, how different his life might have been were he female, rather than male. How different it might have been had he been an only child, rather than having at least a few fatherless years with Jordan by his side. Maybe it would have been better without Jordan. Maybe his mother might have recovered her wits - but losing one son, only to have an identical son remaining to always remind her of what she’d lost? Perhaps that’s what drove her into the state from which she could never return.

Not that Jesse was aware of what he had lost. The night of Jordan’s death had caused psychological problems from which he had only just managed to escape. He had a vague recollection of his brother as he grew up but he failed to grieve as he should have. He became a problem child. Rather than become the ‘man of the house’ he had rebelled. He had instigated fights on the streets or at school. He rarely went to school, and when he did it was out of sheer boredom. Sure, they tried to have him tested, tried to have some shrink or three to figure out what was wrong with him. But he was never amenable to their wishes, and only straightened himself out once he’d fallen into the path of his profession.

None of this did he tell Grey, not just yet. He instead focuses on her story; on how it differs from his. On how it could have affected her, on how it seems to be affecting her now. It is obvious that she has wounds that have yet to heal. Deep, psychological wounds that her mind did not protect her from, but which she suffered through, each and every day.

“No. What’s the matter, Grey? Do you want to find her, to make amends…?” he asks. He doubts that she’ll want to make amends. The image that he’s just sketched, and the teasing - maybe rather than make amends, she would rather kill her mother in the most savage way possible. Jesse had done the same to his Uncle Tommy - weight had been lifted from his shoulders, a blight from his soul, as soon as he had achieved his goal. He had regained his voice, and closure.

“No one’s going to come into your room at night. No one but me. And if any other man ever touches you I’ll rip off his dick and make him eat it. If any other woman touches you, even, I’ll disembowel them,” he says. Grey has nothing to fear anymore, and Jesse wants only to see her hurt repaired.

[Grey (DELETED 5068)]

Her head began to hurt. The throb of remembering only brought her pain to the surface. She had gone through a lot, but in a way it was no more or no less than what Jesse had with the loss of his twin. He had also lost a father, too, and that caused Grey a grief of knowing that they had shared in the same pain. She continued to lean against him, still and quiet for a moment while he spoke.

Right now, if she had a heart, no doubt it would be beating all over the place. She hated talking about her mother. Hated talking about what she had done to her. The counselor at school said it would help. So, Grey had opened up about one particular incident and that had the woman in tears quicker than what it had caused Grey to even finish the tale. She never saw that counselor again. Apparently, the woman had chose to get a different job after that week of being seen by her.

Grey had silently wished she could have a different mother time and time again after that incident. That was in the seventh grade. Three more years of hell she lived through before she packed a couple changes of clothes, a few personal items, and enough cash that she had stolen over the years when her mother or her plastered, Coke’d out boyfriends wouldn’t have known the difference. “If I never see her again, it will be too soon. I could have set that house on fire before I left, and they wouldn’t have noticed. But it would be the easy way out for her. She didn’t deserve easy. She deserved nothing. She especially didn’t deserve my father. Or me.”

Lifting her head from his shoulder now, it was obvious that Grey’s eyes were wet. But even in their wetness, she afforded him a soft smile. Her hands lifted to cup his face and she leaned in to kiss his lips. “Only you, Jesse. Only you. I’m sorry about your father and brother. You must miss them terribly.”

She leaned into him more, then. Wrapping her arms around his shoulders. That haphazard bun of hers flopped a bit, letting tendrils tease against her own neck while she squeezed her lover’s shoulders. A lot of the scars upon her flesh in her human life had been from her mother’s rage or her boyfriend’s unrelenting hand. She teased her lips against his earlobe. “She was an evil alcoholic. She taught me one thing though. That was how to survive.”

[Jesse Fforde]

Maybe she won’t tell him if she wants to see her mother dead. Maybe she thinks he’ll judge her. Hadn’t she already asked whether he would, if she were to start screaming and shouting and throwing things? Isn’t her shame about her anger the same thing as a shame for bottled violence? Jesse had grown up fascinated by dead things. Dead animals. Roadkill. He’d never gone so far as killing them himself, but those that were already dead. Those that he happened across that were already dying. He’d watch, as if he might be able to see their souls flee from them; as if he might be able to witness something profound.

Pain is something that fascinates him, too - the pain that he would inflict on himself, and the pain that he would inflict on others, via tattoos. Why do people crave that kind of pain? And of course he’d always had his daydreams - imagining killing people in the most gruesome of ways. People he didn’t like, or who had done him wrong. Never had he been able to indulge such fantasies until now - shedding one’s humanity and becoming a vampire meant rising above all the dictations and social obligations of human beings. The law could be broken, because it did not apply - the aim of the game was to not get caught.

“I do miss them. Jordan mainly,” Jesse says. It is the second time Grey had commented; had said that he must miss him. “I had him back, for a while. As a wraith. Or a ghost - I don’t know what, but he helped me. I found Uncle Tommy. I killed him. I took him to an abandoned warehouse and I tied him up. I flayed him. I cut off his balls. I made him scream, before I finally burned him, and the warehouse down with him. I never saw Jordan after that - and I got my voice back,” he says. He tells Grey this story because she already knows this about him - that he is violent, that he relishes in pain. He tells this particular story because he thinks it important for Grey to know that it’s possible to let go of one’s past not only emotionally, but physically, too. He clears his throat. He licks his lips. There’s a fire in his eyes as he seeks Grey’s gaze.

“What I’m trying to say is that she doesn’t have to survive anymore, Grey. If there’s something...if you think it’ll do you good to see her dead, then we can make that happen,” he says. It’s a drastic measure, he knows. Deep down, he realises that this isn’t something that can be made better. Grey’s past, the good and the bad, is what makes her who she is today. Without a mother like that, would Jesse have ever met Grey? Would she have picked her specific vocation? Would she be in this city, today?

[Grey (DELETED 5068)]

“I think that I don’t need to see her dead. I don’t need to kill her. I could have, that night I left. I could have killed them both once they were knocked out and laying there with track marks and pasty skin. Coated in dirt and sweat, with their white powdered noses and the empty alcohol bottles strewn around the living room. It was disgusting. She failed me.” And perhaps, that was what Grey was most upset about. That there was no maternal bone in the evil woman’s body. She was selfish. She only kept Grey for what she could get out of her, eventually. Her mother sold her soul by selling her body and Grey would have nothing to do with that.

Rage filled her eyes. Her vision clouded. She hurt. Mentally, Grey was a mess. She hid the disaster well from Jesse for a long time. However, when she spoke of her mother it was obvious all the open doors and the hatred that bubbled up inside the woman upon the tattoo artist’s lap. There was a lot that Grey did not know about Jesse’s life. As she sat there with him and shared their stories, Grey barely felt any better. What her mother did was reckless. It was pitiful and wrong. Granted, she was never locked up in a tiny crate or chained to her bed - everything that was still done after her father died and her mother fell of the wagon was still cruel. “Did it make you feel better? Did your anger unleashed upon your uncle make you feel less unhappy?”

It was hard to imagine Jesse without a voice. After all, she had been there with him that evening when he finally broke the barriers and spoke to her. At first, she just thought he was a man that didn’t really care to speak. Some were quiet, introverted. Some of those that picked her up hitchhiking only ever spoke a few words to her. And she thought of Jesse that night, the cracked broken voice of his and the grimace he had upon his face. Her fingers ventured down, stroking along his neck as if remembering the stuck words and the gravel texture.

It did not even phase her when Jesse said he killed his uncle. It was obvious the man got what he had deserved. Karma. Faith. Retribution. It all fell under those categories of Jesse’s anger and actions. She soothed her fingers down over his shoulders then up again to his neck. Her eyes were focused upon his face, venturing down briefly to look at his neck and the bob of his Adam’s Apple as he spoke. “When she dies, I want her to rot. I want her to pay. I hope she is a miserable person, Jesse. I hope she never gets what she wants. I hope she is always trying to seek the next high. I want her to never be fulfilled. She is a worthless, disgusting person. I don’t need her dead to feel better. She’s never found me. And that for me, is enough, I think.”

Grey’s stomach twisted. She slowly let her hands slide down from his neck to his chest. Her face fell. While she looked at him, while she held his gaze, it was quite obvious that there was no longer a smile on her pouty pink lips. In fact, upon occasion as she spoke, there was a grimace that would slide over her features. If her father hadn’t died, would she ever have met Jesse? Would she know the man with a beautiful penchant for tattoos and death? Grey supposed that her father, like all parents, don’t live forever. He would have passed at one time or another. So, Grey continued to hold her lover’s gaze while she let her mind roam aimlessly now.

[Jesse Fforde]

Jesse’s chin tilts; even as he holds Grey’s gaze, he is remembering that night in the warehouse. This time, however, he is not remembering the actions - he is not remembering the way the skin peeled from the muscles, or the spurt of blood as he pulled, wrenched the tongue right out of his Uncle’s throat. Instead, he tries to remember what it was that he felt. He isn’t sure that it was happiness, per se. No one should ever be happy when killing someone who’s caused them pain. No, it’s not about happiness, because the pain still exists. It’s a relief, rather than happiness. A soothing balm on a wound that hasn’t been able to heal without it. He shakes his head as he shifts his position, just slightly, in the chair. His thumb finds the hem of her shirt, and runs a lazy circle against her bare skin.

“No. It didn’t make me less unhappy,” he says, slowly, gathering the words and the meaning behind his tongue, letting them roll from him slowly, a rumble of an earthquake that will shake the foundations and inevitably uncover the truth. “I enjoyed it only insomuch as it relieved a burden. Jordan… he made me see what had happened to me. Maybe it was… it was a pressure on my brain. There was a door that was locked in there, and Jordan helped me to break through. I lost my voice because… well, psychiatrists would call it selective mutism. Due to trauma. He killed my brother. Told me not to say a word. And I, young and malleable, was afraid. Terrified. To… kill my Uncle in the way that I did was to show him that I wasn’t afraid anymore,” Jesse says. His gaze has slipped, focusing on one of the images on the desk, though not really seeing it. His words were still slow, slipping from his tongue as if all this had only just occurred to him. But these were conclusions that he’d come to long ago, in those weeks following the incident when he was coming to terms with his own actions. And his newfound voice. And, of course, his first meeting with Grey.

“...more importantly, I suppose, I was proving to myself that I wasn’t afraid anymore. With that threat eradicated, I could… I could speak again,” he says with a shrug, turning his eyes back to Grey. Although she is good at hiding what it is she is truly feeling, he can see it there in her eyes. Can hear it in her voice; the depth of her emotion, as she talked about her mother. He considers her, truly. He compares her situation with his own. To slaughter her mother in the same way he had slaughtered his Uncle - what purpose would it serve? Maybe it would only break her. He shakes his head and leans forward, his lips pressing lightly against hers. A frown furrows his brow as he pulls back again.

“I will strive to be enough for you,” he says. He lifts a hand so that the pad of his thumb can brush over the pout of Grey’s lips, at which he stares. “And if she finds you, you can tell her that aren’t hers anymore,” he says, lifting his eyes to meet hers. Inquisitive. “Why does she want to find you?” he asks. If, as she says, her mother was so horrible, why should she care if her daughter is no longer there? One would hope that the disappearance might inspire some kind of loss, some spark of motherly love. He still asks the question, however, in case there’s some part of the story that Grey hasn’t yet told him.