Heartthrob

It was a bitter sort of sweetness to hear that from Zofia, Esper James had to admit. All her life she'd been told she'd been 'one of the good ones', but that sort of thing could never be anything but a backhanded compliment, she figured. To receive that again, but for a whole new reason? For an entirely new purpose, from an entirely new sort of people? It set her heart to a black murmuring, a quiet little tremble which yearned to speak up, but which yet knew Zofi was doing her best. Maybe the other girl just wasn't good with words?

Zofia sniffled again, nose crinkling for a moment as she looked to the floor; she found new strength to speak as the silence between the two grew longer, raising her head to address the blonde directly. "Hey, E-EJ, I ah... I have something I w-wanna tell you. Only you, though. Can... Can you keep a secret? Between us, please? Please?"

The desperation which lined those words was the edge of a vorpal blade, cutting straight through EJ's jabberwocky heart. The quickly-assembled defenses she'd been forming were sent to ribbons almost immediately, and in their place, all the ghoul felt she could do is hear Zofia out. The blonde felt her face droop into an expression of pained compassion, brows furrowing and lips downturned; she reached out to put a hand on Zofia's knee, giving her a pat and a squeeze.

"Yeah, Zofi? Here, lemme... Lemme scooch closer. I know we've got some ears in the other room, so... Maybe let's just, ah... Here-..." She cut the rest of that sentence short as she used her stretched legs and free hands to push-pull along the tile, black-clad butt sliding against the hard surface below. She ended her traversal now just beside Zofia's legs, EJ's own split wide so that Zofi was squarely between them.

Zofi giggled sadly at the display, shaking her head and shutting her eyes for a moment so she might fully drink in the otherwise somewhat silly maneuver by her blonde confidante. The nun leaned in to match her new secret keeper, hunching down to be closer to Esper James's ears and to cut down on required volume. The two looked, by all accounts of stance, like a couple of high schoolers getting ready to talk gossip.

Esper James waited patiently for Zofia to begin. And waited... and waited... it was only once EJ turned her head to look up at Zofi, eyes quizzical, that Zofia realized that maybe she should actually start. The timid brunette gasped audibly, eyes widening for a split second as she realized her mistake. "Oh, fuck, sorry...! I- Ah, dang, let me... Let me go, then. Here."

A deep breath. A steeling of heart and flesh, of soul and mind. Preparation for a blow that may never truly fall. Zofi's chest raised as her lungs went taut - and then fell as breath was released in a single consecrated wind, holy air from holy lungs, freed now in makeshift confessional. "Esper James, I... I want to be... I-I..." A smacking of lips and tossing of tongue followed, words in hot pursuit though; the words did eventually reach their target, rolling from Zofia's mouth as hailstones from the mouth of God.

"I'm gonna leave this place. I'm... I'm not cut out for this life. When they said they'd m-make me a field researcher, I assumed there'd be a little more field time... but..." She swallowed back words of vitriol and guilt, the stone in the reluctant nun's throat causing her neck to bob gently. The admission continued without time for the initial revelation to sink in; no time for EJ to respond, not yet.

"...but I'm stuck in this lab almost every day. They haven't sent any other sort of 'researcher' to the convent, and so I'm stuck up inside constantly, living this life of monastic chastity and reverence when it's n-never... it's never what I wanted. I never wanted to come to Vitus. I never wanted to go for months without seeing the fucking sun, even through Vitus gloom. I... I want out. Forever."

This was a sentiment that struck Esper James like a brick loaded into a cannon, though at the same time, that brick's core was pillow stuffing. It was jarring to hear one of the nuns wanting to break free and give up on this life... but at the same time, Esper James could find little reason to think ill of the plan. Zofia wasn't wrong to want to break free of a life that oppressed and restricted her; she wasn't at fault for the actions of others, nor was she obligated to accept the hand she'd been dealt.

It was a grim reminder of Esthrielle and EJ's first few conversations, too - the way that other people played chess with individual lives, moving the nuns, and the second-living, and the populations of all nations as pawns on the board. They had each been assigned a role in life that was barely of their own choosing - to then condemn them to go through with it, day in and day out, and simply play their position dutifully? It sickened the heart and blighted the soul to consider.

Esper James squeezed Zofi's knee again, eyes ever more attentive, mind ever more focused. It wasn't yet time to reply, EJ thought; Zofi had more to say. This emotion had long been corked, and now that the bottle was open, Zofia's champagne trauma spilt free to the carpet below. The figurative carpet. The lab was tiled, EJ's squished ass reminded her.

Tears renewed their tenancy in Zofi's eyes, beading at the corners and trickling in twin rivers of bubbled-up feeling, but the nun didn't allow herself to collapse. Not here, not now, not yet. She continued then, seeing that EJ didn't have reprimand for her; it was, in its own way, bittersweet for the Polish girl to be allowed reprieve by the very sort of person she was supposed to hate. "Eugh... God, f-fuck, sorry, ah... Ahem... Ahem...!"

Zofia cleared her throat before continuing, feeling her lips curl into the sort of smile one only wears on the gallows. "I want to die, you know? Like... Every day I wake up, and my entire life is dictated to me! I do what I'm told, I listen to orders, I eat, sleep, piss when they tell me to! I-If there is a God up there, one who wants us to enjoy life in this world he's built for us, then this isn't the life he'd want from us!"

She swallowed again, her voice raising in volume for a moment before EJ gave her a pushing-down moment to remind her not to speak up too much. Zofi nodded, thankful for the guiding hand, and the absence of chastisement. "So...! I'm gonna escape. I'm gonna go out there, i-into Vitus... I'll join up with a resistance group, yeah? We work with them sometimes... the Revenants, yeah? Some girl, Kell... She comes here sometimes, speaks with the mother abbess. I'll find her, get a gun, get the closest thing to a normal life I can ever live... H-Haha, ha..." Zofia's eyes began to cloud as her focus on the material was replaced with a daydream.

Esper James was shocked for the second time tonight - though, just like the first time, the initial voltage was softened by rubber gloves and boots. Kell? The fucking Kell who had helped her and Purity, who had housed her, Purity, and Est, and who hadn't seemed to be the leader of any sort of fucking rebel group? The Kell who knew what to do when shit hit the fan, but didn't seem well-connected enough to be working with foreign groups to unseat Tsang? It was quite a bit for EJ to take in in such a short time; unluckily for her, Zofi kept going.

"Fucking sad, right? Pathetic? Some l-loser college student girl gets scooped up and shipped off to kill people in some foreign land... And once she's there, her best idea of a normal, perfect life is to f-fucking desert her post, become a revolutionary, and hopefully die in the line of duty having actually at least lived a little?" The question was rhetorical, but EJ felt the siren's song to answer Zofia.

Of course, whatever she would've said would have been the most patronizing slop she could formulate - all those talks with her company-assigned therapist had really tainted her ability to let people vent. Her first instinct was to say 'Oh, no, Zofi, you're not pathetic at all! Don't put yourself down!' or some other appeasing drivel, rather than address the core of the Polish girl’s actual problem.

Zofia fell into the deep pit then, her emotional turmoil reaching up to catch her and cradle her in its inky, dreadful arms. She did something somewhere between a cry and a laugh, sobbing and smirking and chuckling and weeping all at once. She didn't look at Esper James, thankfully; EJ wasn't sure she could have held strong, had Zofia looked her in the eye in that moment. They might have both shattered then and there, Prince Rupert's drops flicked about the tail by societal oppression.

Esper James scooched that much closer, opting for the nonverbal route of comfort. Zofia's legs pressed between EJ's own, then to her stomach, then chest, then finally her face - specifically, the ghoulette's cheek. This cheek was rested gently upon Zofi's knees, while the Vitus inhabitant's arms were thrown tenderly around the other woman's black-clad thighs in some approximation of a hug. It wasn't the best embrace, but it was more than enough.

"Zofia, I... I don't think you're pathetic. You're making do with the world you've been forced into... Something I know I know pretty fucking well at this point, I'd figure. We've all got struggles, and while yours may be different, they aren't any lesser than anyone else's. I mean, fuck, I worked for thirty fucking years for the same people who put me - put all of the UNAC - into this shithole! Vitus only exists cause of these people, and I helped them! So... So I get it. I get being forced into a place in life that you don't really wanna be in, and..."

'...and your only options are to give in or break free' is what she would have capped that sentence with, if she had the strength of will to even put the words out. Sadly, she was too caught up in the sway of everything pouring out of herself and out of Zofia - enticed into silence by the relief and comfort of nonverbal nature. Sometimes, to choose not to speak said more than words ever could have.

They sat like that for a while. No one ever counted moments while crying, unless they were crying in the freezer during their shift; needless to say, this was pretty far from a supermarket freezer, and only Zofia was really 'working' in any sense. Esper James would have surprised herself if she hadn't been too immersed in the moment; realizing she wasn't crying, realizing that she hadn't been taken from her own stability by Zofia's own pain would have been a shock. She was too distracted to consider it, however. Oh well.

Eventually the nun finished her grieving, leaning down just a bit further into a shrimp position so she could return Esper James's embrace. She gave the ghoulette as great and big a hug as the angle allowed, squishing pale skin into black-clad knees; ebon-clothed arms swaddled golden hair and gentle unlife, returning comfort as best they could. This, too, lingered until there was a knock on the doorframe to the practical observation room.

Zofi broke up and way instantly, mechanized motion allowing her to return to a full, straight-backed sit without a moment's notice. Esper James wasn't nearly so controlled in her strength and reactions, and so she simply opted to remain there, caught in the act of hugging another woman about the thighs. Not like she was unfamiliar with that sort of thing, though the context may have changed.

Purity offered the two women a gentle smile, one that dripped with that same cotton-candy sugariness which she seemed to so often embody. She didn't speak; rather, she strode out towards the two with slow, measured steps, hips swaying subconsciously in a habit all too hard to break. When she met them, she remained silent - but she did drop down, knees bending and rear extended, to be somewhere between Zofia and EJ's respective heights.

Her big, beautiful eyes cast their focus up to Zofia, then down to Esper James. She saw the tears, the disheveled hair from restrained sobs... she could feel the tension in the room without even a hint of doubt. Words were, again, unnecessary. She put out an arm for either of them and gathered up the other women into a singular embrace, letting out a soft sound of contentedness and comfort as Zofia fell out of her straitlaced facade.

The blonde and brunette did anything but resist the pinkette's offer of touch and closeness. Before shutting her eyes to fully accept the gesture, EJ looked towards the door to the other room and saw Est, smiling sadly and holding close to the doorframe. She gave EJ a single nod and blew her a quick kiss; EJ smiled in response, expression soaked in stoic sadness, before letting her vision be null and sinking into the hug.

A few moments into the hug, Purity spoke up. Her words were a whisper, though they made Esper James tingle as the secretary's ears were graced by warm, loving breath. "Hey, you two... It had been quiet in here for a while, haha, so... Est and I wanted to check it out, make sure you two were okay. I can see that you're not. Don't... Don't say anything. No need to tell me why, or what's up, I just wanted to come squeeze you both. You're lovely women. I'm sorry you're having a rough time."

The hug was garnished by a quick squeeze, pressing EJ's face against Purity's chest and Zofia's head into the club darling's collarbone. Zofi began to cry again, her sobs more true and now free of anything close to a laugh or cackle; Purity offered soothing shushes and coos in response, turning her head to gentle layer smooches on Zofia's forehead.

"Oh, Zofi... We're here for you, whatever's going on. I promise. You've been so good to us since we first got here... You're really sweet, you know that? Such a sweet girl... and I don't think the other women are nice enough to you. I hope one of them wasn't mean to you..." More hot breath, more saccharine water for the others to drown in. Somehow, even after all these weeks without living in her own apartment, Purity still smelled like bubblegum candy and sweet pink and red fruits. Esper James could have dove headfirst into that aroma.

The three held that hug for a little longer until Zofi finally trailed from outright bawling to sniffles and hiccups. She nodded her vague thanks to Purity, flashing those steely fangs in an awkward smile to show her appreciation; the smile was returned in kind, Purity's perfect pearly whites displayed confidently and with great outward empathy.

"Th-Thanks, Purity... Thanks both of you, a-actually. I've... I've been pretty lonely here, truth be told. None of the other girls really like me, and I mean... I can't blame them, I'm not exactly like they are, but... Phew. Th-Thanks. Here, it's dinner soon, yeah? I'll let you three go off and get ready... I think it's something good tonight, we found a new butchery in town that'll take our money. Should be something nice..." Zofi was speaking just to speak, it was obvious, but that was fine. Whatever helped her calm down, EJ thought.

Purity nodded, going to give Zofia one final kiss on the forehead before helping Esper James to stand. Once EJ was up, she was instantly dragged into a solo hug with her much taller lover - once again, face met breast, and Esper James breathed deep to get that perfumed aroma of her lover stained into every inch of her airways. Cotton candy... pink fruit, red berries... body oil and flesh and the tinge of blood-beneath-skin... and the soft undertone of diesel. Purity always was a bit diesel-y, too, for whatever reason.

Puri squished her girlfriend once before releasing her and turning towards Est and the door. "Alright, ladies - let's do what Zofi suggested, yeah? Dinner soon, and something really good, hopefully! I hope there's veggies this time, hahaha~!" Purity's lips formed a smile that no one else in the room could seem to even broach, much less replicate - soft full lips and immaculate ivory formed in an expression of knowing, honest joy. EJ couldn't even bring herself to smile with her teeth, though she did turn her head back to Zofi and give her some kind of grin before they walked away. Zofi returned it with false mirth, eyes crinkled from fake joy and genuine grief in equal measure.

Purity didn't let Esper James slip free of a guiding arm as they walked, and as they passed Esthrielle, the Italian went to flank the blonde and echo the gesture from the other side. The door was opened, passed, and then closed - and once they were in the hall, Purity spoke up. "Esper James... naughty, naughty, making that poor girl cry. Hahaha...~ No, but really, you ok babe? You both seemed really..." Purity trailed off for a moment as she considered how to word it - Esthrielle jumped in in her place.

"Shaken up? Torn apart? I mean, I know we've been going through it a lot recently, there's plenty to be all fucked up about, but like... We're here if you need to talk to anyone, you know?" It was Est's turn to offer EJ a one-armed squeeze, going to lean her head down to rest atop Esper James's as they walked. EJ's lower lip trembled as she considered what they were saying, before shaking her head.

"I'm good, loves. Just... Some heavy thoughts tonight, you know? I've, uh... I've been thinking, you know? Overthinking, probably, haha... Like always, but..." She took in a deep breath, then. It was her turn to steel herself; it was her turn to gird herself, to steel her fragile heart's defenses just in case of critical error. A complication would surely mean she'd be in for a long night, once they got back to their dorm.

Surely.

The trio turned down a hallway, heading towards the showers. They'd been here long enough now that Esper James had started to recognize a lot of the hallways, at least the ones they went down frequently; this one was a daily occurrence, after all, and so she remembered the little details that made it count. Besides, she could feel the humidity in the air - and, distantly, hear the cascade of water droplets against hard tile surfaces and bared, soft flesh. She decided to take the leap, then, to finish her thought.

"...I think we've gotta leave. Maybe not soon, but we've gotta. This life... it's a gilt cage. We can't be here forever, even if it's safe... it's no way to live. I miss the city." That sentiment may well have been a pallet of bricks slung through a thousand thousand shopfront windows, with the way Est's head jerked to look down at the blonde. Purity's own response wasn't nearly so volatile... but she certainly dampened her smile and straightened her back, pulling Esper James into her own body with more insistence. She spoke after a moment, voice solemn but weighty.

"I agree. The Knights have been... shockingly good to us, but we aren't made for this place. I'll text Kell after dinner, let her know."