“Maybe not, but that doesn’t mean you don’t deserve someone fighting in your corner. Look, I’m not expecting anything, alright? I know you’ll probably never feel that way about me. I just wanted you to know that I’ll always have your back no matter what.”
She wiped her hands over her cheeks roughly, trying to stop the tears and failing. Emotions were not something she was good at. “I’d just end up hurting you. I’m not worth that.”
“Was worth a shot.” he conceded with a soft laugh.
Family members were always far harder to get around than mortals, or even non-humans who weren’t already familiar with him, but he enjoyed trying his luck anyway, even if he got shot down.
“You’re lucky you’re cute,” she teased.
Despite the large age gap, she knew she looked nearly the same age as him. It made it hard to remember sometimes just how old she really was. If she wasn’t a little afraid of his mother, she might have considered it more seriously, but she wasn’t about to tell him that.
“When have you ever known me to actually do what people think I should?” he pointed out, a weak smile barely touching his lips as it became apparent she wasn’t going to just flat out run away from him.
“And I’m a big, bloodsucking cat that lives in New Orleans despite hating the heat. We’re both kinda screwed up but that’s what works about us.”
“That’s not the same and you know it,” she argued softly, refusing to meet his gaze anymore. She was still trying to wrap her head around what the hell was happening.
“Because I’ve been wanting to do that since I was fourteen years old. Just never got the chance because you didn’t see me that way,” he admitted, chewing his lip pensively.
He doubted even now she’d change her mind, but he wasn’t hoping for a relationship. He just wanted her to see that there was at least one person in the world who thought of her in the way she deserved.
The timing wasn’t stellar on his end. Not that she would have handled it much better on a normal day, but still. Everything in her head was chaos and she didn’t know how to quiet it.
“You shouldn’t want me. I’m a broken disaster…”
The look on her face made him second-guess whether he’d made the right move or not, and now his own eyes were stinging a little with a swell of emotion, hoping that he hadn’t just gone and made the whole thing worse instead.
Shaking fingers touched her lips, the physical memory lingering longer than the kiss had. “W-why would you do that?” she choked out, confused and more than a little overwhelmed by everything.
There were too many reasons to list, and he was pretty sure she wouldn’t listen to them anyway even if he tried. Instead, he just let instinct take over, his other hand moving up to cup her face as he stared at her for a moment, taking in just how beautiful she was even when she couldn’t see it, then moving in to press a small, soft kiss to her lips, brief but tender and lingering just long enough that he hoped it would tell her just how much he really did care for her.
The kiss stopped her completely for a moment, her eyes going wide as she tried to process it. When it finally hit her that he had, in fact, kissed her, panic took over. Eva stumbled away from him as she shook her head, those damned tears finally spilling over.
“Don’t I? Do you have any idea what it’s like to watch someone you’ve cared about your whole life change literally overnight and then have to sit on the sidelines, helpless, while she pushes away the people who care about her so she can try to fill a hole with meaningless one night stands and destructive behaviour? All while not know who or what made that change happen until now? You’re damn right I’m fucking angry and I’m not going to sit back and let him hurt you again, intentionally or not.”
He didn’t know what else he could say to convince her, but he’d do anything to try to show her that he meant every word.
“Eva, please don’t go. I want you to stay.” he murmured pleadingly, brushing a strand of hair out of her face with his fingertips before gently trying to coax her to look at him.
“Please?”
“Just drop it, Gabe! I’ve been doing just fine and I don’t need anyone!” she yelled, trying to force back the sorrow with anger. Anger was easier to feel, cleaner somehow. It didn’t make her want to run nearly as much as the sadness.
Even still, Eva flinched when he touched her. It had been far too long since anyone outside of a one night stand had done so and even then, none of them had actually cared. To them, she was just a warm body and an easy fuck.
“Why?”
“No, I care because I want to, Eva. I care because you’re a smart, funny, amazing girl who deserves everything good in the world and this asshole has got you thinking you’re nothing when you’re anything but. I’m angry because he made you believe you’re worth so little that you cut yourself off from any chance at being proven otherwise. That’s why you throw yourself at guys you know you won’t get attached to because he hurt you so bad you can’t bear to even entertain the thought of being rejected again by someone you got invested in.”
He’d crossed the room as he spoke, closing the gap between them again enough that he could see the glassy threat of tears behind her defiant gaze.
“Why should you be the one who has to live with that when he was the asshole who couldn’t see just how fucking great you really are. It’s his loss, Evangeline, not yours. Don’t let him bury you with it.”
A small, pained sound escaped her and she lowered her gaze, unable to face him anymore. The look in his eyes was going to break her faster than anything right now and she just couldn’t handle that. Worse still was the fact that he was right about her. She did toss herself into meaningless flings just to keep from getting attached. It was why she and Grayson hooked up from time to time. It was why she went to shitty dive bars when she left home.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Because you’re important to me!”
It hadn’t really occurred to him earlier why it bothered him as much as it did that Rhodes was sniffing around. Even if it hadn’t been Eva he was following, Gabriel would have still thought he was a douchebag for stalking someone anyway, but when it came to Eva, it brought out a protective streak over her that he hadn’t felt in years.
“Because for some reason seeing you upset makes me wanna deck the guy that caused it, and I’ve seen you upset a lot over the years, so yeah, I kinda wanna go rip someones head off right now.”
“Why? Because our families are close? Because we’ve known each other for years? That doesn’t mean you have to care.”
She finally turned back around, lower lip trembling but her eyes filled with a steely resolve to not cry in front of him. She crossed her arms and stared him down, refusing to blink first.
“Because that totally solves anything.”
ofviolentdeath 