Sinners | ✔

Chapter 34 : Embroidered Emotions

Dekka

I used to play with matches under the stair well. No, I didn't set anything on fire, but just holding the ability to destroy in my hands chased the childish yearn for power away. I'd always wonder what it would be like to hold a match. So, I did it. Amongst that, I'd always wondered what it would be like to become a match. Thanks to Stoakly, I've finally done it.

...

The world materializes around my body in small bursts of colors and textures until the whole picture is complete.

It doesn't even take a second for me to notice that this isn't Fated lambs. I'm in Ace's room. Of course I'm in Ace's room. Sometimes I don't give my subconscious enough credit.

His back is facing me as his head is bent in concentration. What ever he's working on is taking his fullest level of concentration.
Random boots litter the floor around him like unintentionally placed sprinkles. Ace the shoe cleaner?

If I leave now, he won't ever notice that I was ever here. I'll have this solen memory of him being impossibly human.

Option one denies my feelings for him, but what's that sacrifice for in the end when he doesn't even get a goodbye. Leaving is selfish. So instead, I stay, but it isn't for me, it's for him.

Creeping closer, wrapping my arms around his neck, whipping my head around, my face meets his. The look that I find there is priceless.

His look of shock thaws faster than snow tracked in on the bottoms of boots. Replaced with a smile, his face looks softer than usual.

"What are you doing here, Dekka?"

"Uh..."
I really want to touch his face.

"I though you were interviewing Bo?"
Of course he'd use the kinder term. To him it wasn't a interrogation, but a friendly conversation. Yet, I must give Quinn some credit, surely it was a friendly interrogation.

"I finished."
Seriously, I choose now of all times to be nervous and in front of Ace of all people!

"That fast... What did you find out?"

"I'll tell you later." My fingers trace the seams of his t-shirt. From shoulder, to his collar and back again, and again. "The better question is what were you doing when I came in?"

Taking in a quick scan of the supplies in front of him, I hold back my laughter. Thick spools of what looks to be some sort of thread are lined up on front of him.

"It isn't funny. I was attempting to embroider everyone's name in their boots."

Taking a boot from only what I can assume is the done pile, my fingers graze over his handy work.

Quinn. The letter work is done in an impressively clear font fashioned to look like blood dripping off of the letters. Each row of crimson thread lines up perfectly together, row after row. Ace truly has his craft down to a science, almost as much as Stoakly can manufacture and mass produce my irritation. Just thinking of what he's done has me itching to tell Ace, itching to leave. I own him this moment before I march out into the unkown, it's only right.