Pathos - A Duskwood Fanfiction

Chapter 21 - sexual content warning

"Who's riding shotgun?"

Lilly's voice floated behind her as she walked ahead of them towards her car, coming to a stop in front of the driver's side door and waiting for them to approach.

Jake was walking silently beside her, his footfall strangely quiet on the gravel driveway. It felt so intensely surreal to be there, walking next to the man that she had, on some of the more difficult nights over the past month and a half, found herself wondering if he even existed at all. It almost felt dissociative as she took in the experience of it, finding herself to be hyperaware of every single detail: the way that his shadow looked as it slithered in front of him over the driveway as they walked, how it felt to see that shadow next to her own, the way that the light from the Donfort's porch fell onto his jet black hair and made it shimmer.

As they approached Lilly's car, Jake looked over at her. She could feel his gaze lingering as they stopped, and when she turned to face him, he offered her a slight smile and wordlessly extended a hand to open the passenger side door. He held it open as he stood motionless, waiting for her to get in, and never once removing his gaze from her own.

"Please," he said quietly, and gestured with a tilt of his head towards the seat. "I insist."

He then held out a hand for her to take, indicating without saying so that he was offering his assistance to help her sit, and with her heart thudding wildly in her chest, she placed her hand in his.

The effect was immediate as their fingers touched and their palms met - the warmth of his skin a sudden shock after the biting cold of the night air that surrounded them. There was an easily detectable strength that resided in the hand that now held her own, a steady stillness that was gentle but firm. A rush of dizzying sensation flooded into her hand and up her arm as his fingers closed around hers, and she found that she did not want to move nor release his touch lest the tingling warmth of it fade.

Her fingers tightened around his as he stood silently before her, a movement not entirely intentional on her part, and she could do nothing other than remain rooted to the spot as the muscles in his fingers matched hers pace for pace, seemingly having been simply waiting for her to have done so first before allowing themselves to follow. She could not tear her eyes away from his face as he did this, a sudden intensity on his features that betrayed his outward composure and imparted the awareness that whatever it was that she might be feeling in this moment, he was feeling in tandem.

The deep Cimmerian blue of his irises was obscured by the darkness that surrounded them as he watched her silently, the desaturating effect of their colour loss lending him a curious aura of inscrutability and vulnerability both. With a careful, hesitant slowness, he began to caress the dorsum of her hand with his thumb as though in a trance, and that was when Lilly chose to speak.

"Well, if neither of you are gonna ride up front, then I suggest getting in the back," she said lightly. "It's cold as fuck out here." And with that, she opened her door and sat down in the driver's seat, pulling the door closed behind her with a decisive thud.

"What a wonderful idea," Jake murmured, and, still holding her hand, closed the front passenger door and opened the back. Internally issuing a prayer of thanks to whatever god might be listening for the cloaking effect of the darkness that would assuredly hide the evidence of her sudden blushing, she smiled helplessly at Jake in reply.

He kept his hold on her hand as she got into the car and slid over to make room for him to join her. As he settled down next to her, their hands disengaged as they both reached for their seatbelts. As Lilly hit the ignition, the engine coughed itself into life and she began to reverse down the driveway, glancing at the two of them as she looked over her shoulder to navigate.