Alia regarded him intently. It wasn’t the fleeting glance of soone being polite; it was a deliberate look that suggested she was genuinely processing what had been said and weighing her belief in it.
"You’re easy to talk to," she said. It wasn’t a complint exactly. It was an observation about sothing she hadn’t expected to find.
"I’ve been told many tis about it," Rex said, and the corner of his mouth moved just enough to be readable.
She looked away first, but her gaze did not indicate a desire to end the conversation. It was similar to how people look away when sothing significant has happened and they need a mont before moving on to the next thing.
"It frightens sotis," she said. "Not him nor Apollo himself, but the scale of it."
She gestured vaguely with one hand—the gesture of soone trying to indicate sothing that doesn’t have a clear shape. "He’s going to do things I can’t follow him into..."
"He’s going to carry things I can’t help him carry. And I’ll be here, in this house, keeping notes under a door he may not always co back to."
"He’ll co back," Rex said.
"You can’t know that either."
"No," Rex said. "But I know he ca back this ti..."
"And I know why." He held her gaze with the ease of soone who had learned a long ti ago that looking away first costs more than it saves. "He ca back because this house is the one place where he’s still allowed to just be Apollo."
"Not the Apostle nor the reincarnator, but... just him." There was a pause. "And that doesn’t happen by accident. That’s you."
Rex starts getting sick each ti he says all of that, but he needs to do it for the love of the ga.
The silence that followed was comfortable, conveying a sense of ease. It indicated that sothing significant had been said and required no further explanation.
Alia regarded him with an expression that conveyed multiple emotions simultaneously. Gratitude was one of those emotions, but it was not the only one.
"You’re not what I expected," she said. "When Apollo ntioned you."
"What did he ntion?"
"That you were capable." A small pause. "He said it the way he says things he ans very seriously but doesn’t want to make too large."
Rex smiled at that. "That sounds like him."
"It does." She looked at him as people do when they’ve just reclassified soone—not from bad to excellent, but from one familiar type to a different and more intriguing one.
"What about you?" she asked. "Do you have soone who keeps your particular kind of weight from getting too large?"
The question was genuine, yet it carried an additional layer: the phenonon that occurs when a conversation has progressed far enough and with enough honesty that the distinction between re inquiry and genuine interest begins to fade.
Rex looked at her for a mont.
"Not currently," he replied. His voice conveyed a straightforward truth, lacking any embellishnt or attempt to sound more significant than it was.
Alia held his gaze a half-second longer than was strictly necessary.
"That seems like a waste," she said quietly.
It was a small thing to say. Yet, small remarks made in a specific tone, accompanied by a certain level of eye contact at a particular ti of day, carry more weight than they might appear.
Rex said nothing after that because he didn’t want to talk about it any further, so he picked up his cup. He smiled into it, and she noticed.
She looked out the window at the thickening sky, her expression reflecting soone who had just said sothing they hadn’t entirely intended to and was now contemplating how they felt about having said it.
The rain started not long after that.
The sound of it hitting the roof changed the room like heavy rain always does, and they both looked out the window at about the sa ti.
Alia said, "That’s not the usual night rain," as soone who had lived in this city long enough to know the difference between the different types of rain it got.
Rex said, "Looks like it... I can’t believe it’s the first for to see a rain this big in Aethelgard."
She stared out the window for a mont, then turned to Rex with the look of soone who had co to a conclusion based on the facts they had.
"These streets flood at the eastern corner when it rains like this," she said. "The drainage has needed work for three years but hasn’t gotten it."
Rex looked out the window.
"The guest room is on the upper floor," she said. "East side."
"There’s a washbasin and clean linens." She paused. "It would be impractical for you to leave tonight."
Rex stared at her.
"I appreciate that," he said.
[ALIA BRIGHTSOUL — DESIRE LEVEL: 58 → 63/100]
’Hell yeah, baby... we’re close after all of that cringy talk.’
"When it’s raining storms like this... I suppose you need to stay for the night." Alia smiled. "I don’t want you to catch a cold or anything. You seem like a busy person."
’Fuck yes, there it is...!’
"Thank you, and yeah... I think I would love to stay for the night."
...
She showed him the room as if she were soone who knew where everything was in the house. The guest room was just as she had described: it was located on the upper floor, on the east side, and featured a washbasin and clean linens.
The sound of rain hitting the window created a comforting atmosphere, making it feel like a safe refuge during a storm.
She ntioned that the room next to it belonged to Apollo, but the door was closed and was likely to remain that way.
She pointed out the kitchen, the reading room, and what she referred to as the bathroom, which contained a larger washbasin and a heated water vessel.
When she was done, she stood in the doorway of the guest room and looked at him with the look she always gave him when a conversation was ending but not completely over.
She said, "My room is at the end of the hall if you need anything."
Rex nodded.
"Have a good night’s sleep," she said, and left. "Hopefully we can talk again tomorrow."
Rex stood in the washroom of the guest room and looked in the mirror.
He had been standing there for about ten minutes, having finished washing up and putting on the clean clothes that Alia had left folded on the guest room chair. The mirror had been there the whole ti, and his reflection had been showing him the sa expression.
It was the look of soone who was looking ahead at the options and finding them all acceptable.
"Now’s the chance to be closer with Alia since her husband hasn’t co back..."
"Even if he does co back, I can just put him to sleep."
He listened to the rain, which hadn’t gotten any lighter and didn’t seem like it would. He listened to the house.
It sounded like a house that had been silent for so ti, now producing the subtle sounds of rain: the creaking of wood, the distinct noises of the roof, and the distant trickle of water in the eastern drainage.
There was no noise in the hallway outside the guest room.
Apollo’s room was quiet, which was in line with what Alia had said about how he was acting right now.
Since Alia closed her door, her room at the end of the hall had been quiet.
Rex looked in the mirror one last ti and smiled slowly and on purpose. It was the kind of smile that didn’t need an audience because the person making it had their own audience.
He stood in the doorway of the washroom, pressing his hand against his side, at the precise spot where soone with strong muscle mory would recognize the connection between the serratus anterior and the oblique muscles.
He breathed through it with the look of soone who was going through sothing that needed to be managed.
"I want to et up with her again and make an excuse to be with her..."
He went to the door of the guest room and opened it.
The hallway remained unchanged: quiet, shrouded in darkness, with the sound of rain falling outside. It was the kind of stillness that envelops a house where most residents are fast asleep.
Rex went to the end of the hall and then stood right in front of Alia’s room. He knocked three tis, just like Mara had done two nights before.
’Here goes nothing...’
There was a pause that was longer than what a person would normally do when they wake up from a light sleep. The pause was like that of soone who was awake and processing the information that there was a knock before responding.
When the door opened, Alia was on the other side.
It was clear that she had either been asleep or was very close to it. Her hair was down, and she was wearing a robe typically worn by people who are in their bedrooms and not expecting to answer the door.
But... Rex noticed she was sweating like a LOT. And her expression was the specific expression of soone who had not fully expected the knock and was now in the process of deciding how they felt about the fact that it had arrived.
"Rex? What’s wrong?" Alia asked while giving him a smile.
Rex stared at her for a mont.
"I can’t sleep," he said, putting his hand on his side again and looking like he was trying to deal with sothing. "My muscles are suddenly feeling all sore."
"I hope I don’t bother you..."
Alia stared at him. Then she looked at the hand on his side.
Thereafter, she looked at his face. "Muscle soreness, huh... with your build, I can see that you’re probably overworking yourself with so workouts."
"My husband isn’t right now, so I guess it’ll be okay for to give you a massage."
"You can’t give massages?"
"He easily gets jealous when I give a massage to a man, hahaha..."
"Anyway..."
"Co in," she said, stepping back from the door. "I’ll give you a good massage because I’m a real expert at it so that you can have so good sleep."
’Bingo...’
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