aviary | OPEN | prompt three

[ It's in Priscilla's nature to pry, you can't distract a person from a game (a table) where you're tilting the odds in you favor without knowing that you've got to ask prying questions that make a person talk and talk. (She likes that he knows. It makes things easier. She doesn't have to say anything out loud if she doesn't want to.) She wants to pry about this but she won't. Instead she'll smile slightly and sigh. ] Never pegged you as the kind who'd have to. [ It's not a complete lie, but it's not a complete truth. Much like what she says next: ]

Last time I did I ended up with a black eye after a slap. [ If you're quiet, you must not have done a single bad thing. (Sometimes she forgets that others find it to mean you're guilty.) ] You always think you know what they want to hear until it's not the right thing.

The next time anyone lays a finger on you, you let me know, you hear? [ His voice is mild despite the implication (let me know so I can beat the tar out of the bastard), mild in the way that he almost always is. They get by just fine, always have, and when it comes down to it, there isn't a thing he'd change. Sure, there are times when he thinks she deserves more, deserves to get out, but he figures that if she'd wanted to leave him in the dust, she'd have done it long ago. ]

Never did take kindly to anyone tryin' to knock you around.

And make it so I have to use our money to bail you out of jail? No thank you, sweetie. [ Mild is good for Priscilla, it keeps her own temper in check and keeps her from doing stupid things (he's with me and if you don't watch it, I'll kill you and eat you). She's thought about running, when they first started and she didn't necessarily trust him as much as she does now. Nowadays, she's pretty sure this is what she was meant to do. She never did really like doing what other people thought she should do. Who knows what's good for her better than she does? ]

I know you don't, but sometimes people want to punch someone else and there ain't a damn thing you can do to stop it. [ She moves her hand up to his face and pats it lightly. ] I wouldn't take too kindly to someone ruining your face just because you wanted to hurt them.

[ Presley smiles and ducks his head, like a child who has just been chastised, raising his own hand to cover hers. ]

What, you don't think I could take a fella in a fight? [ he asks (though his tone of voice says okay, okay, fine, whatever the lady likes). ]

[ Priscilla's own smile grows a tiny bit before she laughs, not moving her hand. ]

Oh, I know you can. You could take any fella who dared try to fight you. But, they might get a lick or two in, and you don't want to make me cry by seeing you with a broken nose, do you? [ She asks, (her tone is petulant but with an almost teasing air come on, gambler, tell me you like making me happy.) ]

You know I don't, [ Presley tells her, mock resigned as he lets her hand go, leaning in to kiss her on the cheek. ] Sometimes I get to thinkin' I might be too much of a pushover, [ he adds, without much conviction. (One look from those baby blues and he's a goner, he knows it. And he doesn't much care to complain.) ]

Never hurts to make sure, [ she says back before her smile turns into a full grin once he kisses her cheek. ] Only with me, sweetie, and I think everyone'd forgive you for that. I'm hard to resist, [ she defends, scrunching up her nose slightly. (Her baby blues got her out of trouble before she met and now they just make him putty. Well insomuch as Presley is ever putty.) ]

Besides you're cute when you let me push you over. And it's not like I don't let you do it sometimes.

Okay, okay. [ He ducks his head as he laughs, a habit that has carried over from when they'd just begun working together. (He'd been afraid, for a while, that the partnership wouldn't last. Things that seem too good to be true don't tend to, not on the Strip, so he'd tried not to get attached. And hadn't that worked out.) ]

Never said I'd want things any other way, did I?

[ She just watches him laugh, not saying a single word before she maneuvers herself to where she can look at his face even though it's still ducked. (He had a good reason to be afraid, once upon a time she was a flighty woman who'd go from partner to partner. No one ever really fit correctly when it came to pulling this off, so she left them and didn't care. But then Presley came along and if you ask her now, she'll admit that she's attached to him enough to say that if she found him dead or hurt, she'd be a on a warpath.) ]

Never said it maybe, but a lot of men would say it's a crime letting me do what I do to you. Makes you even less of a man than most. [ She finds herself reaching for his hand to squeeze it. ] You really never want it any other way?

[ He squeezes her hand in return, the smile upon his face small, but nothing short of sincere. ] Never even considered it, [ he tells her, almost hapless in the way that he speaks. He'd never really expected anyone like her to wander into his life, never expected that he'd ever have any sort of constant. But she had, and it had been nothing if not for the better. ]

Just gotta hope some other guy doesn't come in and steal you away from me too soon.

[ That sincerity warms her heart more than she ever really will admit out loud. It's rare to meet anyone sincere on the Strip and even rarer still for her to enjoy their company. It's pleasant. ] It's not nice to tell a lie to your Lady Luck, Presley, [ she teases with no real malice. She knows that he's telling her the truth and that he really hasn't ever considered it. Priscilla would be lying if she said she ever imagined having someone like him in her life in the way he is, but there he was, a constant presence that some might call a guard, but she forever calls him a partner. ]

You worry too much that I'm gonna up an leave you and you'll become far too wrinkly before your time. If I wanted to leave you I would've done it a while ago. You're stuck with me and you're just going to have to deal with it.

OPEN | prompt three | PAIN

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