Resist

23

I was caught off guard completely, having not seen nor heard Jack in the slightest before his hand fastened to my wrist and his lips crashed onto mine. My surprise froze me momentarily, his lips moving against my stone ones before my body took over and I was kissing him back instinctively. Jack's hands were pressing into the small of my back, holding us together. Mine went to the nape of his neck, pulling his head down to mine just the slightest bit more until we were in this perfect position, kissing with his head tilted down and mine up.

My brain took an embarrassingly long time to catch up to all the action, suddenly I was pulling us apart and a question was exploding from between my lips. "What was all that?" 

He didn't answer, his eyes just silently pleading with me for another kiss. My resolve broke easily. I brought my lips back to his. We divulged in another, Jack walking me back towards the wall, pressing me against it with his own body. 

My stomach tightened, a shiver passing through me and then Jack as well. The way we reacted to one another in times like this was amazing; we were in synchronization, like two pieces of one being. His dark wings fanned out, shielding us from the world beyond, even blocking the small amount of light from the murky window above.

It was only the sound of footsteps above that drew us from the embrace. I froze when I heard the shoe on the stairs, Jack following suit. We stood with his forehead pressed to mine, still sandwiching me against the wall.

Then Jack moved as another footstep sounded, deftly swinging into the shadows of the staircase and pulling me along beside him.

I turned to tell him to be quite, lifting a finger to my lips as I didn't want to make any noise myself. No one wanted to be caught in the middle of a situation like this, it was embarrassing for all parties involved. He was doing the same to me though, one long pointer finger pressed to his lips.

Feet came into view between the poles of the stair railing and then legs. When the person had reached the bottom step, we could see their face from our position in the shadows. Brody quickly walked to the door at the bottom of the stairwell and slipped through, heading down the hall of the first floor and on his way without a clue that we'd been embracing moments before he'd walked past.

As soon as the door clicked shut behind him, Jack began laughing. It wasn't any sort of simple laugh either, it burst from him unexpectedly, a boom of light hearted noise. His hand clapped over his mouth, shocked at himself, but he was still giggling beneath his hand, his shoulders shaking. A dimple I had never seen before popped into existence on his cheek.

"Why are you laughing?" I said, a giggle making its way into my own words as I watched him.

"I don't even know," he said, still finding humor in the situation.

Soon we were both laughing whole heartedly, the relief of not being seen in such a compromising manner washing over us as well as the thought of it being Brody who saw. The whole situation would have been terrible had it happened. Instead, it was funny and horribly so to our tired brains. Proper rest hadn't been our way in almost three days because of the raid.

Once we had calmed, I found myself simply staring at Jack. His eyes shone even in the dusky light of the stairwell, green irises twinkling. He was crouched slightly to fit into the alcove we were occupying, his hair slightly brushing the underneath of the higher set of stairs.

I surprised myself by breaking the silence of our mutual observing of the other. "We need to talk," I told him.

"But obviously not here," he added, motioning to the dust bunnies we currently shared the company of.

"The foyer?" I asked. It seemed the only place to go for us, our place that meant us.

He shook his head. “A Xave was spotted near here this morning, we can't risk going in the foyer right now. But there's an empty room down the hall from yours."